Excerpt: All Around the Mullberry Bush

Mei was returned to her seat, her original seat this time which was just fine with her because the pretty man that said everything was under control was now glaring at her. It totally wasn't her fault that damn lock was broken or not done or whatever. Just because they had the most incompetent hostage takers ever was so not her fault.

She sat down and pulled out her phone, thankful it was on flight mode. She could turn it to silent and then send off a text to Fargo letting him know hat was going on. He'd have to know anyway because he as going to have to get her out of this. Well, not the hostage situation, she was pretty sure she was screwed on that one, but where ever they were flying too next. Sebha or something like it.

Mei tried to be all calm as she looked around and then slid the phone out of her bag. She flicked it open, happy to see that it still had juice in the battery. Glancing up again, she hit the mute button, happy when it only vibrated in her hand and then flicked it to turn off flight mode. She knew she could be taking her life into her own hands, but really the gunmen had already taken her life into their hands so she could just take it back from them kthxbai!

One final glance upwards she quickly tapped out a text to Fargo, hoping that it would be intelligent enough and that she wouldn't have typed wrong words or something in it. She hit send and then had the phone ripped from her hand. “HEY!” she squeaked and when she looked up it was the pretty guy that had been sitting next to her. “what...” she trailed off not at all sure what was going on now. Had she totally lost her mind?

“thank you for the donation to our cause.”

“Our cause?” Mei asked, blinking and wondering if the entire plane except her was in on this hijack.

“Yes. To promote our cause in Darfur, we needed to take this plane. But we needed to make sure there was news coverage. You just provided that.”

Mei looked around and reminded herself at the last moment that they couldn't know she was a diplomat. “Um...right, yeah I totally did. Great, can I go now?”

“You want to leave a moving plane? Perhaps you have the power of angels behind you as you asked me before?”

Mei opened her mouth and then closed it. What could she say to that? That she was a crazy woman, ok, that actually probably would help but she wasn't crazy! Or she was pretty sure she wasn't completely crazy at least. It was easier not to be crazy than crazy. Or so she thought.

The man smiled, “I see you have some brains, this is good. Stay here and be quiet and I won't feel it necessary to make an example out of you. Bath Kol would be most displeased.”

Mei blinked and stared at the guy. He knew Bath Kol! Or did he?