Grandma Nink was one of the people I most loved and looked up to in the world. Grandma was a small, thin-boned, German woman. Her head was slightly bent from osteoporosis, but her eyes sparkled with life. She was lots of fun to be with. She was so calm and patient with me. That made a real difference. At home, I always felt jumpy and nervous, afraid of spilling milk or knocking things over. Mom always said I was accident prone.
When I was with Grandma, I didn’t get that jittery feeling. I settled down. I wasn’t afraid of making mistakes. I loved helping Grandma cook. She patiently showed me how to do things such as cut cucumbers with a big kitchen knife. And she didn’t hover over me while I learned. She showed me how to do one cucumber, then let me do the rest.
I was so sad when she died, two years ago, at the age of ninety-three. But when she died, I wasn’t worried. I knew she was going to a beautiful place.
Now, we were together again….
Grandma and I were pure spirits without bodies. She was a whiteness to me. I moved toward her. I felt the edge of our spirits softly merge, as if we were touching fingertips. The two of us gently floated through a long dark passage—like a tunnel—toward a shimmering bright light. I knew what was happening: I was leaving earth.
It feels so good being here, in the light, with Grandma. I was so sad when she died. Now I know she is okay. I want to go with her.
Being in the light was a tremendous feeling. I was wrapped in a blanket of perfect love, perfect joy, and perfect peace. I was surrounded and filled with perfect knowledge. I knew all things. When I was in my body earlier, I felt alone, afraid, sad, and mad. But when I left my body, all emotions and feelings attached to the world left.
This must be heaven.
I stopped.
I wanted to go further, but something held me back. I didn’t use words, but there was a clear “knowingness” about what I needed to do.
“I love you,” my spirit was saying, “but it’s not time to go yet.”
Grandma didn’t try to stop me or change my mind. She didn’t look sad or disappointed. Instead, her spirit just continued drifting toward the light. I quickly found myself back in my body.
I startled at the roar of the jet engines and felt the hardness of the tarmac pressing against my head. Why am I here? I thought. Then I remembered. I was in a hijacking and I was shot in the head. The dull, heavy feeling reminded me. If you’re shot in the head, I knew, either you don’t live or you don’t live normally. Either way, I thought, I’ll take it. The important thing is not to get shot again, like the Israeli woman was when she moved.
Stay calm. Don’t move. Play dead.
Though I felt weak and alone, I kept feeling something else—a flow of energy and a voice inside saying, Be still, you’re going to be okay, just be still.
When I was in my body, I was full of worry, fear, concern. When I left it, all that went away. I was no longer attached to a body that could feel that. I remembered the feeling of deep peace.
My left hand, still underneath my body, hurt after bearing my weight for so long. I was afraid to move it, afraid that the hijackers would see me. Eventually, I moved my hand and nobody saw it.
I continued to drift in and out of consciousness and sleep.
It must have been mid-afternoon when it started to rain again. I felt a sharp, throbbing pain in my head as a cold, unpleasant drizzle seeped into my bullet wound. The pain was so intense that I didn’t think I could stand to lie there without moving if it continued.
I started talking to God again. God, I need this rain to stop. It will be difficult to lie here, still, with the rain.
Almost instantly, the rain stopped.
This only happens in the movies! I thought. I fought hard not to smile or let the tears of joy flow from the knowledge that I was being protected.
At some point, I heard something coming toward me. It was faint at first, then grew louder. What’s that noise? It sounds like a truck. What is it?
I was really curious about the vehicle. Very gently, very carefully, I opened my eyes. All I could see were black shoes scurrying around me. I quickly shut my eyes again.
The color black was very significant to me. The hijackers were wearing black shoes, slacks, and masks over their faces.
Oh my God, it’s the hijackers! They’re going to kill me. Stay calm. Don’t move. Keep playing dead. It’s your only chance.
“Okay, pick that one up!” I heard a man yell, as if through a far-off megaphone.
Suddenly, two men lifted me up by the armpits and started dragging my body across the runway. I made sure my body was dead weight, so the hijackers would keep thinking I was dead. I didn’t dare open my eyes to see who they were or where we were going. My only chance was to keep playing dead and wait for the right moment to make a break. Little did I realize that I couldn’t walk, much less run, from my attackers. But it was my only chance.
Keep still. Keep still. Keep playing dead.
They dragged me about thirty feet, then stopped. “Let’s do this one right,” one of the men said. “One!—two!—three!”
The two men lifted me up and slammed me facedown on a metal bed. It had ridges on it and they were filled with water. I remember thinking, this is really rude laying me in all this water. They didn’t know I was alive. I just lay there trying not to breathe.
They lifted me up on the metal bed and shoved me inside a van. The doors closed and we started moving. I thought I was still with the hijackers.
What now? What do I do? Where are they taking me? How do I get out of here? Please, God, I need Your help.
I kept hearing, Be still. You’re going to be okay, but just be still.
I was lying facedown, with my bullet wound exposed. The man riding in back with me, on my right side, didn’t like looking at the gaping hole in my head. So he took my body and flipped me over.
When he did, I gasped for air.
“She’s alive! She’s alive!” he screamed.
Dear God, I thought, they know I’m alive. Now they’ll finish me off.
I waited for the final gunshot to end my life.
Nothing happened.
More screaming and yelling.
Terrified, I slowly opened my eyes. But I couldn’t see anything.
“Are you guys the good guys or the bad guys?” I softly cried.
“Honey, we’re the medics,” the young man said. “You’re going to be okay.”
The van was heading to the morgue. Now, I felt the vehicle spin quickly around as the driver made a beeline back to the airport control tower and a waiting ambulance.
I heard men talking but couldn’t see their faces.
My dark skin and bruises made it hard for the rescuers to identify me. “She’s Filipino,” one said.
“No, I’m American,” I said, hoarsely. “I’m Jackie Pflug.”
Near the control tower, I was briefly examined by a Dr. A. J. Psaila, an American trained surgeon and head of surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital in G’mangia, Malta. Medics rushed me to the emergency room at St. Luke’s.
I was so tired, but so relieved. My prayer was answered. I was going to live. I thanked God.
CHAPTER 4
ALIVE, BUT WHAT KIND OF LIFE?
SCOTT AND THE GIRLS’ VOLLEYBALL TEAM were still in Athens while I was being hijacked on Saturday night. They won the tournament that night, a few hours after I left for Cairo. Their victory celebration extended late into the night. Before going to bed, they planned to meet at the Acropolis at eight the next morning. From there, they’d board a tour bus to do some last-minute sightseeing before flying back to Cairo that afternoon.
Scott arrived at the rendezvous point early, about 7:45 A.M., to greet the tired girls as they straggled in. About half the team had arrived at the checkpoint when Tonya Smith, an eleventh grader at CAC, pulled up in a cab where Scott was waiting.
Tonya walked up to Scott and jokingly said, “Well, we don’t have to worry about getting hijacked. An EgyptAir plane was hijac
ked last night.”
Hijackings were so common in the Middle East that year that people often joked about the possibility of being in one.
“What!” Scott said, in stunned disbelief.
“EgyptAir was hijacked last night,” she repeated.
This time the incredible news sank in.
“Jackie was on EgyptAir!” he shouted.
Scott knew right away that it was my flight that had been hijacked. I’d changed my reservations so many times, but he’d remembered that I was on the last EgyptAir flight leaving Athens on Saturday night.
“I’m out of here,” Scott told Peter, the other CAC chaperone in Athens.
Scott hailed a cab to the EgyptAir office at the Athens airport. On the way to the airport, he listened to a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news report on the hijacking:
Late last evening at 9:37 P.M., EgyptAir Flight 648 was hijacked by members of a terrorist group calling themselves “The Egypt Revolution.” The hijackers’ original destination was said to be Libya, but the plane was low on fuel and was forced to land at Malta’s Luqa Airport.
The hijackers demanded fuel to be able to continue on to Libya. They threatened to begin executing passengers every fifteen minutes until their demands were met. Two Israeli women were shot and thrown from the plane. One apparently managed to survive.
An American, Patrick Baker, was also shot. His condition remains unknown. Two American women are also on board: Scarlett Rogencamp, of Oceanside, California, and Jackie Nink Pflug, of Pasadena, Texas. Negotiations for the release of the ninety-eight hostages continue….
When Scott arrived at the EgyptAir office, they were expecting him. He spent several frustrating hours at the EgyptAir counter, waiting for more news but learning nothing new. The only thing EgyptAir could verify was that I was on the flight. They didn’t know any details beyond that.
Scott hung out there for two or three hours, then got fed up and left. Before leaving, he heard news reports that I’d been shot in the face and had a broken nose. It was still very sketchy.
The early hours of the hijacking were hard on my family and friends back home. My parents learned of the hijacking from the Saturday night news.
My mom had a sinking feeling as she watched the images on her TV screen. I’d written a week earlier to tell them I’d be in Greece with Scott and the girls’ volleyball team that Thanksgiving weekend.
“Oh, my God, I think Jackie is on that plane!” she said.
During the first few hours of the crisis, information was incomplete. There was confusion about exactly what happened. From the early news accounts, they still didn’t know if I was, indeed, a passenger on the plane.
No one in my family knew exactly who to call for more information on the hijacking. Gloria called Channel 2 and said, “I think my sister is on that plane.”
“Where do your parents live?” the Channel 2 reporter asked, smelling a news story in the making.
“I can’t tell you that,” Gloria said.
A reporter from Channel 2 called back to say that I was on the plane. The reporter also contacted the U.S. State Department and, from then on, the State Department stayed in close contact with my family.
Barb Wilson called my friend Debbie Reno to ask if she was watching television. “You might want to turn on CNN,” Barb said. “They have something about Jackie on.”
“What?” Debbie said.
“The plane Jackie was on was hijacked,” Barb reported, “and she has been shot. They think she might be dead.”
When Debbie got off the phone, she called a prayer hot line at her church to pray for me.
Mom and Dad only got an hour’s sleep on Saturday night. A spokesperson from the State Department called every thirty minutes with updates on the hijacking.
The early news offered little comfort.
At about 2 A.M., the phone rang again. My dad answered.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” the State Department spokesperson said, “but your daughter is dead.”
“What does she look like?” Dad asked.
“She’s blonde,” he answered.
“No, she’s not,” he said, “Jackie is dark.”
On further checking, the State Department discovered it had confused me with Scarlett Rogencamp, who had light hair.
For my parents, the ordeal was far from over. The news kept changing so quickly. My parents went from hearing that I was dead, to hearing that I might have just broken my nose, to hearing that I was okay and on my way to the hospital.
Scott didn’t believe the early reports because, in his mind, the officials didn’t seem confident about the accuracy of their information. Someone at the airport offered Scott a ride to the American embassy. His goal was to somehow reach Malta and be near me while the drama unfolded. Scott knew that the American embassy was the place to go for help in a situation like this.
The embassy was already on top security alert. All vehicles entering the embassy compound were checked for bombs by security guards.
At first, it appeared that Scott couldn’t get to Malta. Embassy officials told him that Malta’s tiny airport would be closed until the hijacking was over. He might have to watch the drama unfold on television.
Embassy officials continued to pass on any information they had about the hijacking. The red tape, bureaucratic nonsense, and frustration were getting to Scott. He lost his cool and shouted at one embassy secretary. Soon after, things started to change. A down-to-earth, straight-shooting embassy official read the anguish on Scott’s face and calmly introduced himself.
“One way or another, we’ll get you to Malta,” he told Scott. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got the ambassador’s jet on standby.”
Though Edwin Beffel, a first secretary at the embassy, was powerless to speed up the time frame of when Scott could leave, Scott felt better now that he was finally dealing with someone who acted like a human being.
Scott continued to get reports on the Maltese government’s lack of progress in negotiating with the hijackers. Information about the fate of individual passengers, however, remained sketchy. Scott, and the rest of the world, couldn’t know what was going on inside the plane.
Scott spent Sunday afternoon restlessly pacing back and forth in a hotel room a couple of blocks from the American embassy, waiting, hoping, and praying that I’d be okay. He continued listening to a stream of news reports, including some reporting that I was dead.
Late that afternoon, Scott collapsed on the bed for a few hours of fitful sleep. Fearing the worst, he tossed and turned, and prayed for my life.
Suddenly, a loud crack of thunder—the loudest he’d ever heard—jolted him awake. He saw the brightest flash of lightning he’d ever seen.
Seconds later, the phone rang. It was Beffel. He had a report that I’d just been shot in the face and pushed out of the plane. That report seemed to jibe with what EgyptAir officials had told him earlier. Maybe they had gotten it right after all, Scott thought….
Beffel told him to head over to the embassy as fast as he could.
The loud crack of thunder and lightning coinciding with the call from Beffel seemed to confirm Scott’s worst fear: I was dead. Scott thought his role now would be to help with the process of identifying my body and bringing it home for burial.
Scott’s first thought was to call his parents in Hopkins, Minnesota. His mom and dad, June and Greg Pflug, were both on the line. They’d been watching the news on television and tried to support Scott.
“I just got a call from the embassy,” he said. “They told me Jackie has been shot in the face. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.”
“Oh my God,” June Pflug said. Then she started to cry.
Scott couldn’t talk long; he had to get to the embassy.
At the embassy, however, there wasn’t much more anyone could do. A few hours later, State Department officials were less clear about who was actually shot. It might have been one of the Israeli women or Sc
arlett Rogencamp.
Scott was miffed about the confusion. He was angry at the embassy personnel for planting in his mind the thought that I was dead.
Beffel was doing everything he could to get Scott to Malta. He was pushing hard to get a plane, but no one could land in Malta until the hijacking was over. There was also some bad weather.
There wasn’t much more Scott could do. He had to sit tight and wait. Scott was helped by a woman who was vice-consul at the American embassy. She was a real caretaker and sweetheart, encouraging and sympathizing, just like a mom would be. She also helped Scott find a place to stay on Sunday night while he anxiously waited for a flight to Malta. She introduced Scott to a gunnery sergeant employed at the embassy who generously opened his home to Scott.
Early on Sunday morning U.S. time, the phone rang again at my parents’ house in suburban Houston. My parents felt a mixture of dread and relief. Would this call inform them that I was dead or alive? My father answered. It was the State Department.
“Another woman was just shot, but we don’t know who it is,” the U.S. government official reported.
A few minutes later, the State Department called back to confirm that I was shot in the head and taken to St. Luke’s.
On Sunday afternoon there was a knock at their door. A reporter from Channel 26 stood at the door, asking to come in and shoot some footage of my family sitting down for Sunday dinner.
“No,” Mom said. “We’d like to be together just as a family. We’d like to say our prayers for Jackie in private.”
To her credit, the reporter understood and left.
My sister Gloria’s husband said a simple prayer. “Lord, we just pray that Jackie will come through the hijacking okay and that we can hear from her soon. Bring her back to us safe. Amen.”
Debbie and Barb came over to my parents’ house to help answer the telephone, field the reporters, and provide support.
Miles To Go Before I Sleep Page 6