MY LIFE AS AN AIR COP

摘要

Arms locked out in front of me, I sweep my .357 semiautomatic pistol back and forth across the panicked passengers. My heart is thumping wildly, my breathing too rapid. Fighting the tunnel vision that comes from fear, I try to remember to scan the plane for threats. Just seconds earlier, I had heard the first bloodcurdling yell-"They're stabbing people back here!" My partner had gone to the back to take on the attackers, and I had drawn my gun, rushing to the front of the first-class cabin and shouting "Police! Police! Police!" I whirled and faced the passengers, with my back to the cockpit door that I am to protect with my life. In these close quarters, I feel confident about only one thing: my Sig Sauer 229 handgun and its hollow-point bullets designed to mushroom inside the human body. I can't see my partner. I can't hear him either; stress can impair hearing as well. I am only a few feet from horrified people yelling their lungs out, but it is as if I were deaf. I also feel that my eyes are bulging with the same terror I see in the passengers' faces.