***
FRANKFURT, GERMANY:
"I think we have met someplace before. What do you think?" Eli Cohen asked Ahmad Ajai. "Don't we seem familiar to one another?"
"I don't believe so," Ahmad Ajai said.
"I think I may have fucked your mother," Eli said.
Gunther the BND man stepped forward hastily and said, "Traveling on a false passport is an offense in the Republic of Germany, sir. You would be advised to cooperate with us."
"There has been a mistake, as I have said so many times before," Ajai said.
"Do we have anything back yet?" John said sharply.
Cohen looked at him and smiled.
"Nothing yet," George said.
***
ON BOARD DELTA FLIGHT #107, FRANKFURT TO DULLES:
The seat belt sign was off. Over the intercom the captain informed the passengers that while it was safe to move about the cabin, it was recommended that they remain in their seats with their seatbelts fastened. There was the collective relaxation that comes on a plane after take-off and then the usual rush for the lavatories. Some people rummaged in their carry-on bags, some tended to crying children. Others slid their hands under their seats, into the slot where the life vest was stored, and felt for a flat package hidden behind the life vest. Others moved quickly, rudely so, to the lavatories, where they locked the door, knelt and removed the trash bin, and took out the package concealed there. Those passengers would only occupy the lavatory long enough to inventory the contents of their packages: a Makarov 9mm pistol, three magazines with 8 rounds each, a bundle of plastic flexicuffs, a Soviet fragmentation grenade. Those weapons were carefully concealed about their persons. The grenades were cautiously buried in a carry on bag, a toilet kit, or a purse.
The terrorists who'd received a bottle of Johnny Walker from Ahmad Ajai made their way, one at a time, to a lavatory where they opened the presentation carton, took out the bottle, and unscrewed the false bottom. Carefully packed inside were wire, blasting caps, and small cubes of plastic explosive. The bottles themselves were full of a dense liquid explosive, whose amber color was hidden by the glass. Picatinny Liquid Explosive, originally developed by the US Army Ordnance Corps at the Picatinny Arsenal for use in bangalore torpedoes to clear mine fields, made an excellent booster charge for high explosives. Combined with a kicker charge of Semtex or some other high order explosive, the Picatinny Liquid Explosive made a massive explosion. The North Korean Special Forces had trained the bombers of HizbAllah on that particular combination, which worked well on aircraft. The kicker charge could be hidden inside of a small radio, with a detonator and a small charge of plastic explosive, the radio inside of a carry-on next to a sealed bottle of what appeared to be liquor, but was actually liquid explosive. Such a combination had taken a Korean Air Liner 767 completely apart in mid-air between Tokyo and Seoul, in a bombing operation carefully orchestrated by the NKSF. With appropriate wiring through the aircraft electrical system into the call buttons at each seat that activated a switch in the galleys, explosives could be wired in train throughout the aircraft and be detonated by pushing a call button. The charges were deadly devices designed to kill the hostage rescue teams that would have to come through the doors in any rescue attempt.
Ahmad Ajai had planned for that contingency as well.
The armed hijackers returned to their seats. They took advantage of the opportunity to locate the known and suspected air marshals in each of the sectors. There were some passengers that might pose difficulties: soldiers, young athletic men, panicked mothers. The techniques for dealing with them were simple and familiar to all of the HizbAllah team: immediate, ruthless violence to cow and terrify them. Move the passengers into a position where they can be controlled, like cattle in a pen, and select some for random slaughter to maintain the terror.
There was no shortage of bodies. They had over 300.
***
"I wish these people would just stay in their seats," Kirsten muttered as she loaded her meal cart.
"Never happen, Kirsten," the other flight attendant said.
To a flight attendant, the perfect passenger was one that stayed in his seat, never complained, never pushed the call button, never said a word, and thanked the flight crew when they filed obediently off the plane. They were hustling to get the dinner meal service out, which took about forty minutes to get everyone served. Then they could start the movie, shut down the lights, and enjoy a little peace and quiet until it was time to wake the passengers up for breakfast.
"What's the movie?" the other flight attendant asked.
"I'm putting in Airplane," Kirsten said. "Let them suffer through that."
"Oh, Jesus, Kirsten," the other said in disgust.
Kirsten laughed nastily. "If Kirsten has to suffer, everybody suffers."
***
In their fourteen weeks of training, air marshals are taught the psychology of hijackers and what was known of past hijacking operations, all with the intention of enabling them to determine when an attack was most likely to occur. Like most tactical training, this method relies on detailed case studies of what has gone before to determine what might come about next. The problem with relying on a study of past operations is that it isn't always the best way to teach creative problem solving. The formula goes something like this: In the past x happened, and in hindsight, y is the best counter, and in the instances where y was applied, z was the outcome. For instance, most hijackers acted shortly after take off. The reason for this was that the hijackers were young and inexperienced men under the influence of adrenaline and often drugs, who had neither the training nor the self-discipline to wait longer. They were taking smaller, single aisle planes with a limited fuel supply on relatively short routes, so the earlier they took the plane, the more fuel they had for maneuvering and flight time. So historically the most dangerous time was during and immediately after take-off.
That changed when a Syrian doctor and a HizbAllah interrogator took four months with Bucknell Leigh. In the Kuwaiti hijacking, the hijackers waited till after the meal was served before they moved; instead of standing up and announcing themselves, as the marshals were trained to believe and were trained to deal with, they moved quietly and calmly into positions of control and only announced themselves when they were already holding the critical points of the aircraft. The violence began when the air marshals were assassinated in their seats and the hijackers killed several hostages, among them a child, to demonstrate their control and to cow the passengers into compliance.
There are many advantages to waiting, as any master of the ambush will tell you. The longer the time in which nothing happens, the less the mind of the target is willing to accept that something is going to happen. Add a meal, darkness and the cumulative fatigue of flying -- especially pronounced in this team of air marshals, as the desired outcome of a carefully planned and brilliantly executed deception plan -- and the advantages are heavily weighted on the side of the attacker.
Gamal Ayoush reminded himself of this over and over. Despite his long training and practice, and the mild sedative he'd taken upon boarding, he still sweated and his heart pounded with adrenaline. He forced his mind into the rhythmic, calming ritual of prayer, his breath falling into a measured cadence with the litany from the Koran he recited silently. He stood for a walk, his partially eaten meal pushed aside. He squeezed by the flight attendant without a word, pressing close to the seats to avoid brushing the pistol buried in the front of his jockey shorts against the woman. He took deep breaths as he walked to the rear of the business section and looked out over the sea of faces in the back of the 747. It truly was impressive just how many people were packed into this plane, seats eight across in the center, three or four on either side of the aisle, stretching back almost the length of a soccer field. He picked out faces: two of his team members, staring back at him; a young mother, breast-feeding; two young soldiers, one in a cowboy hat, playing cards on a seat back meal tray set down between them; a f
at old woman in a black dress talking with her bone thin husband. Ayoush looked away; this was hard for him. Despite their long training for this mission, it was difficult to maintain the composure and the distance necessary to do what needed to be done here. He must not fail, though. Even now Ahmad Ajai may be tortured, forced to tell what he knew of the operation, and if that information went to the pilot, they would have to launch prematurely. Timing was critical. They wanted to be close to that point on the pilot's course where he had just enough fuel to turn back or to go forward before they launched. He checked his plastic CASIO watch. Soon, he thought. Soon.
***
Steve Paulson stayed switched on. The flight attendants gave him a wide berth. His intensity frightened them. He sat squarely in his seat, his feet planted on the floor, back straight, his head making a metronome like sweep of his zone, watching the passengers who came down the aisle towards him, turning in anticipation as people came up from behind him. He made his patrol at thirty minute intervals, sometimes more often, depending on how stiff he got from sitting. As a senior marshal, he could have protested being seated in the back of coach, but he didn't mind -- this was where the action was. Most hijackings originated in the coach section, close to a lavatory, which provided the privacy necessary to prepare weapons or to recover them. Butch wasn't quite as content. This trip had taken a lot out of him. He was wedged in beside a family with three kids on his left. Across the aisle an enormously fat man took up both of the seats, and was constantly up and down, back and forth to the lavatory. I'm too old for this shit should be the motto for this trip, Butch thought ruefully. He twisted in his seat and tried to get some blood back into his legs. He looked at young Jon, who was having a hard time staying awake: his head was bobbing and jerking like a punch drunk fighter's.
Three rows in front of Jon, a man sat twisted sideways in his seat. The seat next to him was vacant, which let him stretch his legs out and prop his back against the bulkhead. The hijacker studied the three air marshals carefully, calculating the necessary angles of fire to engage them from where he sat in support of his partner on the other side of the aircraft.
"Chicken or beef?" the flight attendant asked, as she locked the wheels on her meal cart.
"Nothing for me, thank you," the terrorist said politely. He prided himself on his English; he'd studied engineering in the United States during the Seventies, one of the wave of intelligence officers and military personnel the Iranian government had sent over to train in the best schools in America.
"Got any chicken left?" Jon said. The prospect of food woke him up.
"Sure do," the flight attendant said, handing him a tray. She thought he was cute, even though he was very young. The marshals were getting younger and younger and that made her nervous. She had a friend who'd been a flight attendant on the TWA 847 hijacking. The stories her friend told her about that made her grateful for the marshals on board. At the same time she was skeptical about some of these young kids. That girl up in first class, for instance -- she was younger than some of the flight attendants she'd trained in the last year, and most of those girls didn't have sense enough to come in out of the rain, much less deal with a hijacking. But they have to start someplace, she thought. They couldn't all be like Don Nelson.
***
The cute little southern flight attendant, Charlene, was working the upstairs Business Section by herself, and Donald Gene loved every minute of it.
"Now, lil darling, are we gonna have us some down home southern style cooking up here? I'm hoping to have me some potatoes and some of that red eye gravy from you, you hear?" he said, in a broad parody of a southern accent.
"Don't you go making fun of me," Charlene scolded him. "I won't stand for it. I heard all about you!"
One of the passengers laughed. "You must fly a lot," he said to Don.
"Oh, too damn much," Don said. "I keep telling the company to keep me home, but I go through too many secretaries unless I'm out in the field."
"What sort of business are you in?"
"Insurance," Don said. "I specialize in life expectancies."
The man shifted forward, interested. "Really?"
"Oh, yeah," Don said easily, to Charley's amusement. "Risk assessment, lifestyle analysis, all that. It's really boring, actually, but I get to fly around, interview people. I do a lot of stuff with expatriate Americans."
"That makes sense."
"Yourself?"
"Oh, just a vacation. I was stationed over here in the seventies and made some friends in Heidelburg. I got a good fare, so I decided to visit."
Don nodded as Charlene set a meal down in front of him.
"Every bite! And not a word out of you!" Charlene said, enjoying her role.
"Yes, ma'am," Donald said. He took a bite out of the steaming chicken and rolled his eyes. "Just like my momma used to make!"
Charley smiled gratefully when Charlene set his plate down. He unsnapped his seat belt, and cut into the chicken. The passenger next to him, silent for the first hour, finally spoke to say "Thank you," to the flight attendant. Charley smiled and nodded to the man, and continued to eat his meal. The man seemed tense, but Charley often got that from men seated close to him; they were often intimidated. Charley had his antenna up, but he was blunted by fatigue. Behind him, Joan noticed how the two passengers seated in front of her would often look at each other, but not say anything. They watched Charley, though. Sometimes passengers would ask a marshal if they were an air marshal; the standard response was "I don't know what you're talking about." Armed and dangerous people gave off a certain vibe and marshals weren't the only people to notice that. Joan had learned to look for it herself. She was tired to the point of second-guessing herself, though; after six weeks of sensing something and having it turn out to be nothing, she'd gotten to the point where she doubted her instincts.
One of the two passengers she was watching got up and went forward into the lavatory. He came out a while later and reseated himself next to the woman passenger. When he sat down, the man looked over his shoulder at Joan, then turned away and slouched down in his seat. He rummaged around in the back seat flap, pulled out a magazine, fumbled with something and handed the magazine to the woman next to him. She too looked over at Joan, and then away.
Charley felt the strange tension as well. He caught the man beside him staring. He lifted his meal tray up, stood up, then lowered the tray back down. He went forward to the lavatory and stepped inside. Everything looked to be in order; this lavatory, like the others, had been the subject of a redundant security search by the ground crew and a spot check by the marshals when they boarded. Charley ran the water as though he were washing his hands, then stepped back out. He stood and stretched, and took the time to look each passenger in the eye before he returned to his seat. There was something...it might be that these passengers had made him and Don as marshals, or maybe it was just Charley giving off hostile vibes. It bothered him that he wasn't more concerned about it. That sense had been growing in him this whole mission, his lack of concern about the job. It was time to hang this stuff up and find something else to do. Training had suited him just fine. Maybe he could go back to that, or if the bureaucrats like Dinkey stood in his way, just quit and put in for a job down at FLETC teaching firearms or defensive tactics. Charley yawned. "How about a little more coffee, Charlene?" he asked.
"You sleepy already?" Charlene said.
"Yep," Charley said. "I sure am."
***
"When do you think I might speak to the captain?" the polite 747 pilot from Royal Saudi asked Kirsten.
"I spoke to him, sir, and he says that he's sorry, but because of security he can't let you come up into the cockpit. He said he'll come down here to visit with you during the movie, or just after. Is that all right?" Kirsten smiled her professional smile at him.
"Please tell him I understand, of course. Later will be fine. Thank you for asking."
"You're welcome."
Kirsten went back i
nto the galley and joined her partner. "That is the most polite pilot I have ever met."
"Must not be a pilot, then," her partner joked.
"Yeah, that must be it," Kirsten cracked. "He just stole the ID, right?"
***
FRANKFURT, GERMANY:
Eli Cohen drew John Bolen to one side. "We have a problem. We have three governments competing here: the Germans, the Israeli, and the US. I think we need to straighten things out to go faster."
It had already been 2 1/2 hours, and the record search went on with no results.
"What are you proposing?" John said.
"I am proposing that the Germans turn him over to us for prosecution for falsifying an Israeli passport."
"They're not going to go for that. It happened on German soil."
"According to his flight itineraries and his documentation -- which we know is bogus -- he is in transit from Israel. I can declare the whole thing a mistake and have him shipped back to Tel Aviv to have it straightened out. Once we have him in our custody, you and I, we understand how to expedite things. I have a feeling about this one. He is way too disciplined." Eli Cohen had the hunter's look, a hungry viciousness that warmed John Bolen's heart.
"Sounds good to me," he said. "Let's do it."
Cohen turned and went to Gunther. "Gunther, it seems we may have a misunderstanding here."
While Cohen was talking to Gunther, John asked George, "Has anybody found that Mary Franken yet?"
"It seems she's left the airport, and is on her way home."
"I'm sending the boys to bring her in."
"Tell them to ask her to come in, not to bag and tag her, okay, John?" George pleaded. "Jesus, you're king of the cowboys. What has Jed got to say about all this? "
"He's on his way."
***
DELTA FLIGHT #107, FRANKFURT TO DULLES:
The flight attendants picked up the last of the meal trays, and prowled the aisles, coffee decanters in each hand, refilling cups, chatting to families, smiling at children. In each seating section a flight attendant fumbled with the movie screen and lowered it into place, making sure it was properly fastened. With luck, 95% of the passengers would be in their seats, either watching the movie or sleeping.
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