Nora approached him. “Eph, you’re not authorized to open that—”

Eph unzipped it, removing a half-eaten Toblerone bar and a clear plastic bottle full of blue pills.

“What is it?” Nora asked.

“My guess is Viagra,” said Eph, returning the contents to the pouch and the pouch to the briefcase.

He paused next to a mother and young daughter traveling together. The young girl’s hand was still nestled inside her mother’s. Both appeared relaxed.

Eph said, “No panic, no nothing.”

Nora said, “Doesn’t make sense.”

Viruses require transmission, and transmission takes time. Passengers becoming sick or falling unconscious would have caused an uproar, no matter what the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign said. If this was a virus, it was unlike any pathogen Eph had ever encountered in his years as an epidemiologist with the CDC. All signs instead pointed to a lethal poisoning agent introduced into the sealed environment of the airplane cabin.

Eph said, “Jim, I want to retest for gas.”

Jim’s voice said, “They took air samples, measured in parts per million. There was nothing.”

“I know but…it’s as if these people were overcome by something without any warning whatsoever. Maybe the substance dissipated once that door opened. I want to test the carpeting and any other porous surfaces. We’ll test lung tissue once we get these people in post.”

“Okay, Eph—you got it.”

Eph moved quickly past the widely spaced, leather-appointed seats of first class to the closed cockpit door. The door was grated and framed in steel along each edge, with an overhead camera in the ceiling. He reached for the handle.

Jim’s voice in his suit hood said, “Eph, they’re telling me it works on a keypad lock, you won’t be able to get—”

The door pushed open under his gloved hand.

Eph stood very still at the open doorway. The lights from the taxiway shone through the tinted cockpit windshield, illuminating the flight deck. The system displays were all dark.

Jim said, “Eph, they’re saying to be very careful.”

“Tell them thanks for the expert technical advice,” said Eph before moving inside.

The system displays around the switches and throttles were all dark. One man wearing a pilot’s uniform sat slumped in a jump seat to Eph’s immediate right as he entered. Two more, the captain and his first officer, were seated in the twin chairs before the controls. The first officer’s hands lay curled and empty in his lap, his head drooped to the left with his hat still on. The captain’s left hand remained on a control lever, his right arm hanging off the armrest, knuckles brushing the carpeted floor. His head was forward, his hat resting in his lap.

Eph leaned over the control console between the two seats in order to push up the captain’s head. He checked the captain’s open eyes with his flashlight, the pupils fixed and dilated. He eased the man’s head back down gently onto his chest, and then stiffened.

He felt something. He sensed something. A presence.