cocaine

let me think through this a minute.

the bad guys were able to extort the other air marshal because they knew he was carrying cocaine in his briefcase. "we know what you have in your briefcase" they texted at the beginning of the flight.

so they somehow have to know that he is an air marshal, that he will be on THIS flight, and that he'll have cocaine on THIS flight. all of those are top secrets, it's hard to imagine someone could know all three. (all while buying their tickets for the flight days or weeks in advance so they are not "flagged" for an unusual ticket purchase one hour before the flight when investigated by the DHS/TSA, who gave the "all clean" determination).

and, they somehow have to get access to his dealer so that they can hide a bomb in his brick of cocaine before it is packaged and purchased. they couldn't insert it on the plane, because the whole point was that marshals can carry bombs past security.

and, they have to know that another specific air marshal will be on the same flight, since they need the alcoholic, unstable, IRA marshal as their fall guy.

it occurred to me that the second air marshal could have been in on the whole thing and knowingly brought the bomb for the cut of $150M. but then he would not have gotten the recent text "we know what you have in your briefcase." he could not have known the bomb was there before they texted him. and he was already carrying the cocaine at that point.

???