The lights went out through cabin, and the window shades were drawn down to block out the lingering light of dusk as the plane sped west across the Atlantic. The video tape sputtered along in it's player, then began to track into the opening credits of the movie. Most of the cabin overhead lights were off. A few insomniac movie haters would read, their overhead light a lonely beacon in the dark; the air marshals would be reading, prowling the aisles restlessly, watching the movie or listening to music. It was the sleepy time on board Flight 107; the rhythm of the flight, the passengers and the crew, fell into the easy drone of the middle of their passage, far above the whispering waters below them. It was the middle of the night, the witching hour, although the watches on board the aircraft didn't reflect that. Fourteen Casio sports watches with built in dual timers began to beep sharply.
It was the countdown.
Ahmad Ajai's crew of hijackers began to make ready. They were able to ride the rush of adrenaline, shake off the cloud of tension, of sweaty clothes and running armpits from over three hours of sitting, smiling, and waiting. Their hands shook when they checked their knives, pressed their hands against their weapons, as they stood up and went into the lavatory to make sure, one last time, that the pistols were loaded, the pins straightened in the hand grenades, the blasting caps separate from the explosive blocks, that they were ready.
***
In Business, Dyer Shaw was already asleep. He made no pretense of being involved in the job. As far as he was concerned, his career was over with the Marshals. He had nothing to lose. Across the aisle from him, a man studied the pulse in the hollow of Dyer's neck.
Ray Rydell struggled to stay awake. His head bobbed and he thought about getting out of his seat and walking around to get some air. The combination of fatigue, a heavy meal, and the dark was deadly; he could barely keep his eyes open. He unsnapped his seat belt and stretched his arms up in his seat.
Stacy Bagley flipped savagely through the pages of yet another magazine. She was too wired to relax, jittery from too much coffee and the cumulative tension of this trip. The seat beside her was empty, fortunately; she had a place to park her growing stack of magazines.
HD reclined in his First Class seat, his earphones plugged firmly in, the comforting tunes of Willie Nelson in his ears, his eyes closed as he drummed his fingers on the armchair. Next to him, the man who claimed to be a pilot for Royal Saudi stared openly at him. The pilot's watch beeped once again, as did the man behind him. The pilot unsnapped his seat belt.
In the coach section, a woman prowled up and down the aisle, an aircraft schematic folded into a tiny square in her fist, looking for the seats the air marshals were in.
Upstairs in Business, Donald Gene and Charlene were chatting. Charley was tense. The way some of the passengers looked at him gave him a strange feeling. Restless, he'd gotten up several times; there was little room to walk upstairs. Joan picked up on Charley's tension. She kept looking at the passengers, who kept staring at her. It was very strange.
***
The terrorist pilot got up out of his seat. HD didn't stir. The pilot brushed past Karen, who looked up, then back down at her book. He paused at the base of the stairs, caught the eye of the man sitting behind Harold, nodded, and started up the stairs.
In the dark, a man slipped into the seat behind Dyer Shaw. He cupped a hand over Dyer's mouth and stabbed an ice-pick into the base of his skull. He twisted the ice-pick, destroying the medulla oblongata and killing Dyer in a heartbeat.
Ray Rydell stood in the rear of his section beside the curtained galley. A hijacker grabbed his right hand. Ray went to pull away, and another man stabbed into his throat from the side, ripping forward, cutting both carotids, the jugular and severing the trachea. Ray blinked and fell through the curtains into the galley, where a flight attendant was propped over the drainage, the flow from her cut throat filling the sink.
Shirleen Walker was thinking about her baby son when the woman behind her stabbed down, missing her subclavian artery and gouging down her breast. Shirleen screamed, clutched at her breast with one hand, and lashed out with her other. The woman terrorist cursed, dropped her knife and pulled her Makarov, put the gun to Shirleen's head and pulled the trigger twice.
The passengers began to scream when they saw the flash and heard the sharp double bang.
Stacy Bagley jumped in her seat at the sound of the gunshots. She whirled to the left up out of her seat, when her face ran into a pistol. The smiling Lebanese man stared her right in the eye and said, "Just do me?"
Jon turned quickly and caught the downward arcing plastic knife in the muscle of his left arm. He rose up out of his seat, kicking out at the man slashing at him. Butch rose up and put his Sig to the terrorist's head and pulled the trigger and put the hijacker's brains on the bulkhead. He turned and saw two other men rushing him, their handguns extended.
The man behind HD looped a coil of wire around his neck and yanked him up in the seat. His partner pressed a gun to HD's neck and pulled the trigger. The shooter turned to face the rest of the first class cabin and said, "No one move. No one move at all."
Karen watched HD die and her bladder cut loose. Her hands came up with the rest of the passengers.
***
The pilot came up the stairs and entered the lavatory beside the cockpit. Charley tensed, and Don stood up as though stretching. Don moved forward and one of the men behind him stood up and came forward as well. Joan leaned forward in her seat, and so she missed the woman across the aisle from her drawing her knife. Charley looked over his shoulder, back at Joan. The man next to him clutched Charley's gun hand. Charley turned back in surprise and wrenched his hand free, back knuckling the terrorist in the face and rocking him backwards. The man across the aisle from Charley lunged at him. Charley caught him by the top of his head and his chin and arced his hands powerfully in a counter-clockwise motion, as though he were spinning the wheel of a car, and broke the man's neck. Charley spun up out of his seat, following the motion and drew his weapon. He put three tightly bunched holes on the nose of the man who had tried to grab his hand.
Joan looked and saw the knife coming at her face. She deflected it into her chest, where the blade dug, without cutting, into her body armor. "Knife!" she shouted, slamming the heel of her palm into the other woman's elbow. Joan followed up with a fist into the woman's face, rocking the terrorist back into her seat. Joan punched the woman twice more, drew her pistol and shot the woman in the head. The terrorist convulsed and went limp. Joan automatically cleared the pistol of blow back before she was snatched by the back of her blouse by the other woman terrorist, who'd been sitting behind Don. Joan spun and emptied her pistol into the woman.
Don turned when he heard Joan and saw the Makarov coming up in his neighbor's hand. Don snatched the gun hand in a crocodile grip, wrenching the gun forward and then back, breaking off the terrorist's trigger finger and leaving it dangling. Don pressed the pistol into the man's chest and fired until the weapon jammed on blown back flesh. The lavatory door swung open behind him and the terrorist pilot stepped out and fired his Makarov into Don's back. The bullets seared like a hot poker punching into him. Don dropped the Makarov and drew his Sig, turning as he did, noting with one part of his brain how he was slowing down. He saw the flash of the Makarov and felt more punches in his chest, but he found his front sight and pinned it to the chest of the man shooting at him, below the gun, not at the gun, he reminded himself, and pulled the trigger till the slide locked back. He saw the man fall and saw two holes in the cockpit door, before he looked down at himself and thought, "I'm shot full of fucking holes. I guess it's time for me to fall down now." He fell to his knees and then onto his face, like a man prostrating himself for prayer.
***
Captain Reins jumped in his seat when he heard the gunshots just outside the door. He had just enough time, a few heartbeats while the battle went down, to say, "What the fuck was that?" before two Winchester Silvertips punched through the thi
n plastic laminate of the cockpit door and buried themselves in his side. He screamed and thrashed against the straps holding him in place, his arms striking out at the control yoke and the auto pilot. His co-pilot looked up as the horizon began to tilt in front of his eyes.
The screams began individually, and then joined into an unholy chorus in the packed coach section, as the plane began to tilt.
***
Stacy looked at the gun in her face and raised her hands. When the man smiled, she snatched the gun and pressed it into his chest. She couldn't get the barrel into his chest, so she slammed the top of her head onto the bridge of his nose, twice, then pinned the gun against him where he couldn't point it at her and slammed her knee repeatedly into his groin.
"C'mon, think you're bad! I'm gonna kill your shit fuck ass, motherfucker!" Stacy screamed, punctuating her words with powerhouse drives of her knee into the man's groin. He was pinned against the seat and couldn't move. His grip loosened on the pistol. Stacy shoved it into his crotch and pulled the trigger. When he screamed and dropped to the floor, she drew her Sig and executed him. "Do me, motherfucker? I do you, bitch!" she snarled. She tucked the Makarov in her blouse top, took a two handed grip on her pistol and charged forward into the galley. The terrorist holding the flight attendants at gun point jumped as Stacy rushed through the curtains, her Sig blazing, the brass clattering to the floor around her as she closed to contact range with the man, emptying her pistol in an arc starting at his chest and ending in his face. She dropped the magazine and speed loaded another, grabbed the dead man by his hair and flung him to the floor.
"Better get down on the floor, girls, because I am motherfucking pissed!" Stacy shouted. "Everybody get down! Get down! Police! I'm a police officer! Get down!"
***
Steve Paulson stood as calmly as if he were at the barricade on the range. He was wedged in behind the lavatory, ignoring the bullets smacking inches away from his face. He found his front sight, acquired his sight picture, pressed his trigger, and moved onto the next sight picture, putting a round each into the two terrorists firing wildly at him, then returning to put another round into each one, until they fell out of his sight picture. He pulled the partially expended magazine out and replaced it with a full one, tucking the partially expended magazine into a front pocket where he wouldn't get it confused with the remaining full one. He stepped quickly through the galley, where the flight attendants cowered on the floor, to the other aisle, where Butch and Jon struggled in the aisle.
***
Butch rushed the two terrorists, punching his Sig into one 's chest and grabbing the other's hand. He got a shot off into the terrorist's chest and his Sig jammed. The wounded man stumbled against him, and Butch struggled to hold the other man's gun hand. Butch felt a hand on his shoulder and then a Sig appeared inches from his eyes. He felt the blast of the gun-shot flash on his face and in his eyes. He reeled back, blinking, and brought his hands to his face. "I can't see," he shouted. He felt himself pulled backward. He fell and was dragged the last few feet to the center galley.
"Is he hit? Is he hit?" Steve Paulson said.
"No, no, I'm blind, I can't see," Butch said.
"Fuck, fuck fuck!" Jon shouted.
***
Co-Pilot Walker Hilton grabbed the yoke, stabilized the plane, and turned to the flight engineer. "Find out what the fuck is going on!"
"We're getting hijacked, you fucking idiot!" the terrified flight engineer shouted.
The captain screamed, "I've been shot, oh Jesus, I've been shot, somebody help me!"
Hilton grabbed the yoke firmly. He reached out and hit the radio transponder and switched the frequency to 7600. He put the plane into a nose-dive descent and hit the landing gear switch simultaneously.
***
WASHINGTON, DC:
Hunched over his console in the Washington DC En-Route Traffic Control Center, a controller watched the sudden drop in altitude of Flight 107 and the transponder beacon blinking 7600.
"Oh shit," the controller said, as he thumbed through his procedures manual. "Jerry!" he called to his supervisor. "We got a hijacking alert!"
"Verify," the supervisor said, rolling his chair to the console.
"Flight 107, this is Washington Center, confirm 7600, over," the controller said tersely into his mouthpiece.
First Officer Hilton's cracked voice came back. "Confirm, confirm, Washington Center, confirm 7600, Air Marshals on board, the pilot has been shot, we are descending to 10,000 feet priority."
Within minutes, a Flash priority message went out to key locations: the FAA Command Center, the Special Operations Command, the FBI and the other members of the intelligence community, including the CIA Counter-Terrorism unit, the White House and the Secretary of Transportation.
In the FAA Command Center, Megan Reilly said, quietly and formally, to Simon Dinkey, "We have a hijacking alert on-board a FAM flight."
***
FRANKFURT, GERMANY:
"I don't understand what I'm doing here," Mary Franken said nervously. She looked at her boss, the station manager, George Baumgarner, several big and very tough looking guys, including the two who'd picked her up at her apartment, and the guy from the El Al station, the funny one, Eli Cohen.
"Mary, do you know this man?" George asked, drawing her forward and letting her see Abraham Rosenbaum sitting in a chair in the next room. She drew back.
"Uhh, no, I don't think so, I mean maybe, wasn't he a passenger?"
"Yeah," John Bolen said. "He was the guy I asked you about. You remember me, don't you, Mary?"
"Yes, I remember," Mary said. She was badly frightened now. What was this about?
"Tony, George, I have to speak to you," the assistant station manager, Susan Brown, called from the doorway. "Right now."
"What's wrong?" Tony, the station manager said.
"We have a hijacking alert from 107," Susan said. "The pilot's been shot."
"Goddamn!" George whirled around and came back into the office. "Mary, the flight this guy was supposed to be on has just squawked 7600 and is descending to 10,000 feet. The pilot has been shot. We believe this guy has something to do with it and we want to know everything you know about him, right now! There are people dying and you may be involved!"
"But he's an Israeli!" Mary protested. "Emmanuel told me so! They both work for the Mossad!"
"What?" Eli Cohen said, as everyone looked at him.
***
FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA:
In the facility known as "the Ranch" in the community, the Delta Force Intelligence Center has instantaneous communications with all key elements of the US government, including the FAA. The watch officer pulled off the curled computer print-out and turned to the NCO working with him.
"Let B Squadron know. We have a hijacking of a US air carrier in international airspace. The aircraft has air marshals on board," he said. "This is real world, not a drill."
Within minutes, the intelligence unit pulled up schematics of the aircraft in question, the flight plan, passenger manifests, and a breakdown of the air marshal team on-board.
"They got Donald Gene Nelson and Charley Dey on that team," Master Sergeant Jim "Moonbuzzard" O'Dell said. "Whatever the fuck is going on, it's gonna be bloody. Those are some serious shooters."
***
DELTA FLIGHT #107, FRANKFURT TO DULLES:
Total pandemonium reigned in the main cabin of the 747. Passengers screamed, children wept in terror, the flight attendants shouted for everyone to stay in their seats. Contradictory commands came from different parts of the aircraft. In First Class and the front of Business, the terrorists held the cabin and the base of the stairs from behind good cover. The hijackers shouted for everyone to stay down. Wedged into the galley at the rear of Business with two terrified flight attendants, Stacy Bagley fell silent when she heard the voices from the front. In the aircraft's rearmost galley, with the whole passenger load in front of them, two terrorists pistol whipped a man to h
is knees and shouted for the passengers to stay in their seats and raise their hands. In the galley one seating section in front of those terrorists, Steve, Butch and Jon looked at each other.
***
Upstairs, outside the cockpit door, the two real passengers were face down, cowering on the floor between their seats. Don Nelson tried to push himself up, muttering in a weak and liquid voice, "C'mon, SEAL, move your fucking ass, c'mon, SEAL..."
Joan speedcuffed the two passengers with plastic flex cuffs, then limped forward to Don. Charley had his back wedged against the cockpit door, covering the stairwell.
"Get the first aid kit!" Joan shouted at Charlene, who was balled up in the corner of the galley. Charlene scrambled to her feet, her eyes streaming, and pulled the first aid kit down from the galley wall and handed it to Joan.
"Hey, Joanie," Don said, his words slurred.
"Don't talk, Don. Don't move," Joan said, tucking her pistol into her holster and ripping open the first aid kit. She tore open his shirt, and saw the holes in his chest, turned him on his side and saw only the entrance wounds from the first shots fired into his back.
"You got great tits, you know, Joanie?" Don croaked. "Too bad we never got to go swimming," he rambled. His face got sad. "Don't go, Joan," he said, almost-mockingly. "Don't go. Just hold me, Joan..."
Joan ripped open the pressure dressings and started to stuff them into his wounds when she felt him slip away.
"NO, goddammit, Don!" she said. She started on his chest with compressions for CPR. "Charley, help me!" she said.
"He's gone, Joan," Charley Dey said in a cold voice. "He's gone."
Joan reached out and closed the SEAL's eyes. She took his pistol and pulled the spare ammo off his belt. She reloaded her pistol and stood up.
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