Miles To Go Before I Sleep (18 page)

I'd been so nervous before giving the speech, but I was excited by people's reactions. They gave me a standing ovation when I was through. It felt great. Afterwards, some people came up to tell me how much it meant to them.

I flew from Hobby Airport back to Dallas-Fort Worth in a first-class seat. Barb Wilson's mom was a travel agent in El Paso, and she had upgraded my ticket from coach to first class.

My friend Suki Fitzgerald was waiting to meet me in Dallas. Suki had trained me as an educational diagnostician in Baytown, and we discovered that we had a lot in common and became good friends. She and her husband had moved to Dallas shortly before I went overseas. I loved the opportunity to catch up with her.

Suki came on board to make sure I got settled safely into my seat for the flight to Minneapolis. I was in for an unpleasant surprise. I'd been bumped from my first-class seat.

“Do you know who this is?” Suki demanded of the flight attendant at the ticket gate. “This is Jackie Pflug; she's the one who was just hijacked a little while ago. She needs special attention.”

I smiled. I also got my first-class seat back.

“You take good care of her,” Suki advised the flight attendant.

I was really nervous and jittery about being back on board an airplane again. I was shaking and feeling kind of out of it.

A man sitting next to me could tell something was wrong. I told him about being in the hijacking, and he nodded sympathetically.

Early in my recovery, I was reluctant to say much about the hijacking or discuss the details with strangers. When Scott and I went to parties or other social gatherings, people often asked me what it was like. And people often told me what they would have done if they were in my situation: “Well, if I was on the plane, I would have done this, or I would have done that.”

I remember doubting myself and thinking,
Gosh, maybe they're right. If I had done that, what would have happened? Maybe I could have saved some children's lives.

After a while, I didn't want to hear it anymore. I decided to say it was “scary,” then change the subject. Or else I'd say, “It's easy for you to say that when you're on safe ground.”

There was another reason why I stopped talking about the hijacking. I didn't trust people's motives in asking me about my experience. Were they just out for a good time? I didn't feel like opening my life up to someone drinking a can of beer, distractedly looking off in the distance.

I wasn't interested in telling the story to people who asked, “What's it like to be on a plane that was hijacked?” To me, it seemed as insensitive as approaching a rape victim and eagerly asking, “What's it like to be raped?” I didn't want to be that vulnerable; I didn't want to have to keep reliving the experience with anyone who asked.

I was very hurt by the hijacking. I am a very trusting person by nature, and it hurt to realize that someone could actually kill me without batting an eye. That knowledge does something to you; it changes you. I had to feel very safe before I felt comfortable sharing my story or being that open with someone.

Yet I could understand people's curiosity. I wanted to talk about the experience, but not in a sensational way. I was interested in talking about all the lessons I was learning from the experience.

The hesitation I felt about sharing my story also extended to the national news media. Right after the hijacking, I was swamped with interview requests by producers of
Good Morning America
,
Today
, and other talk and news shows. You name it and they called. I turned them all down. I didn't feel like I had anything to say. I hardly knew what a toothbrush was; what was I going to tell millions of people on national television?

Besides, I was suspicious of the media's motives. Yet Scott and I took down the names of everyone who called, and we kept the list in a drawer.

A few months later when I finally did start talking to people in the media and giving some interviews, Scott didn't understand it. I felt that sharing my story was a necessary part of my healing process. This later became a source of conflict.

The hijacking and its aftermath was going to severely test our relationship. Scott and I really didn't know each other that well. When we'd met, we both had that twinkle in the eye and the unbounded optimism of youth—and the belief that, with love, anything is possible.

I hadn't dated much in high school—my first date was the senior prom—so I was still amazed that a handsome man saw me as attractive too.

Scott was the first boyfriend whom I knew I'd be afraid to leave. In the past, I'd always been the one to call it quits. It was something I didn't like about myself. I always wondered,
Why is this? Everyone else can stay in a relationship; am I so different?
I wanted to get married and have children.

When Scott and I started getting more serious, I thought,
Wow, this is great!
I was already thirty years old and I thought,
I
better grab him, because this may be my only chance to get married.
I did want to have a family and it seemed like the right time to start.

There were many things that attracted me to Scott. We quickly found out that we had a lot in common. We had the same beliefs and wanted the same things out of life. We had the same thoughts about God, life, and our purpose.

I liked that Scott was aggressive and spoke his mind. On the other hand, I often found him intimidating. I was afraid of his reaction when
I
spoke
my
mind. Sometimes, it seemed that my opinions and feelings were less acceptable than his.

At the end of the 1984–85 school year, our teaching contracts in Norway were up. We'd dated about seven months and were now facing a big decision: get married or go our separate ways.

We decided to get married. We both wanted to continue teaching overseas, so we attended a job fair in London for teachers, similar to one I'd attended a year earlier. We both got jobs in Cairo, teaching at the Cairo American School. Scott would be coaching and teaching physical education, while I would be working with learning disabled students in grades four through six.

That summer, Scott and I flew back to the states to spend some time with our families. During that time, I flew to Minneapolis to meet Scott's parents and relatives. In early August, Scott flew to Houston to meet my family and friends for the first time. On August 10, 1985, Scott and I exchanged wedding vows at Trinity Episcopal Church in Baytown. Two days after the wedding, we were on a thirty-six-hour flight from Houston to Cairo.

In Cairo, the bubble began bursting on my fantasies of married life. Scott and I had known each other a whole year, yet we only seemed to communicate on a superficial level. I tried to push away my doubts, hoping things would improve as we settled into our new jobs and apartment. I kept thinking,
it will change. It will be okay; we'll learn to communicate.

I had no idea what marriage was about. I had this fairy-tale image in my head that we'd have children and everything would be fine and dandy. I knew what I liked and what I didn't, but I really wasn't mature enough to make a solid decision on marriage. I loved Scott and I thought that was all that really mattered—that we could work through anything if we love each other.

Besides, lots of newlyweds second-guess themselves or their partners. I decided to focus on the positive.

Now here we were, a year later, and our real problems were just beginning.

In mid-January 1986, I got a phone call from Cindy Carter, an FBI agent based in Washington, D.C. Carter explained that she was in charge of coordinating the FBI's investigation of the hijacking. In that capacity, she supervised the gathering and analysis of evidence, interviewed witnesses, and followed up on leads throughout the world.

Because Americans were on board the hijacked plane, the FBI was involved in the case right from the start. Agents were on the ground in Malta even as the Egyptian commandos prepared to storm the plane. After the disastrous rescue attempt, the bureau's “Disaster Squad”—a specially trained response team of investigators and technicians—combed the wreckage for evidence that could later be used in court or to help Maltese and Egyptain authorities identify bodies.

At the time of Cindy's call, prosecutors in Malta and the United States were both preparing separate cases against the one surviving hijacker, Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq. The FBI was working with Maltese authorities to gather its own evidence in case Malta could not—or would not—prosecute the hijacker. If Malta chose not to prosecute for any reason, the U.S. government would attempt to have Rezaq handed over to the United States for prosecution. Carter asked if I'd be willing to testify in Malta and at a trial in the United States, if one were held. I said yes.

The FBI was rigorously preparing its own case against Rezaq. They had evidence that he took charge of the hijacking after one of his comrades was killed in the midair gun battle. They investigated and documented the evidence in preparing for an indictment.

The FBI had a good relationship with Maltese officials on the case. Maltese technical experts flew to the FBI lab in Washington, D.C.—probably the finest crime lab in the world—to examine evidence. FBI forensic experts conducted ballistics tests on the spent cartridges found in the aircraft, helped with autopsies, and looked for more fingerprints.

Carter asked if I would fly to Washington in mid-April 1986, to testify before a special grand jury convened to handle terrorist attacks against American citizens living or traveling abroad. Congress had passed a special “hostage taking” statute allowing the Justice Department to prosecute terrorists who attacked Americans traveling on board foreign planes and ships. Previously, only American passengers traveling on American carriers were protected under U.S. law.

This grand jury, first convened in October 1985, was the same one that indicted three terrorists for killing Leon Klinghoffer, a passenger on the
Achille Lauro.

Carter explained a little about what would happen in the event of a trial in Washington, D.C., and why my testimony was important. “This really is a case of identity—that's what the whole trial will be about,” she said. “They will say, ‘Yes, the defendant was there, but he's not the one who pulled the trigger.' That's probably what it will come down to.”

I was an eyewitness to everything that happened. Having the testimony of a victim was important to the prosecutors, and it would appeal to the jury.

I was scared about going on another airplane to testify. Hijackings and terrorist attacks continued to be common occurrences.

I had planned to testify at the hijacker's trial for murder and attempted murder in Malta. As the March 1986 trial date approached, however, I was having second thoughts. I was still deathly afraid of the hijackers, whether they were dead or in jail. Months after the ordeal, I was still afraid that someone would gun me down in the street. I hated being at large gatherings. When I went, I was like a small child. I was afraid of everyone. I trusted no one. I was continually plagued by insomnia and a recurring nightmare. This made it hard to get the rest my mind and body craved so desperately.