I twisted my body, using his own forward momentum to pull him past the pedestal.

The metal drawer clattered to the floor, gouging a deep scratch into the plastic casing of the center console.

Gerald crashed into the observer’s seat, his head bouncing off the padded headrest.

He groaned, but he was already scramblying to get back up, his hands reaching for the captain’s empty seat.

“Gerald, stop!” I screamed, wrapping my arm around his neck from behind in a sleeper hold.

“You will crash this plane! Look at the front windshield!”

He struggled violently, his elbows digging into my ribs, knocking the wind out of me again.

But he looked.

Through the glass, the endless grey of the Atlantic night was tilted at a terrifying thirty-degree angle.

The horizon line on the primary flight display was a diagonal slash of brown and blue.

“He’s the only one flying us,” I whispered into his ear, my arm still locked around his throat.

“If you touch him, we nose-dive into the ocean right now.”

Gerald froze, his body going rigid beneath my grip.