The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking (20 page)

T
HE MOOD IN
the cabin of Flight 701 was close to jubilant as the passengers awaited their release. The plane’s supply of liquor and champagne had run dry nearly an hour before, so tipsy passengers toasted each other with glasses of ice water. Strangers hugged and vowed to keep in touch, perhaps even arrange a reunion so they could all laugh about the ordeal they had just shared. Few paid attention to the flashing lights of the Boeing 720H that was slowly rolling toward them.

Donna Jones was urging passengers to keep the aisle clear when she glimpsed the 720H out of a right-side window. She watched it turn onto runway 19R and head straight for Flight 701, angled slightly to the left of the hijacked plane. A maintenance truck followed close behind, towing a set of boarding stairs.

Jones hurried down the aisle to find Cutcher, who was joking with a couple of boisterous passengers about their mutual sense of relief. Jones grabbed her by the shoulders and whispered in her ear: “It’s a lie. It’s all a lie.
It isn’t over.”

In the cockpit, Jerry Juergens watched the 720H come to a halt about two hundred feet away, its nose facing that of the 727. It was
time for him to make the announcement he’d been dreading ever since the stoned Holder had told him of the transfer plan.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have a transfer to another aircraft here,” Juergens said over the public address system. The passengers assumed this was good news; their Weathermen captors
were about to depart.

The front door of the 720H opened. Newell and his crew descended the boarding stairs and lined up along the tarmac with
hands atop their heads.

Holder didn’t like what he saw. The women were all wearing stewardess uniforms, but the men were in civilian clothes—jackets and ties. If this was an FBI trick, he warned Juergens, the consequences would be dire.

Juergens swore that the pilots were authentic. Then he broadcast Holder’s
orders to the cabin.

“Will the stewardesses please release the air stairs? Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to need everyone sitting on the right side to file out the rear of the plane and up into the other aircraft.
Walk fast.”

All laughter and chatter ceased at once. Passengers on the right side anxiously looked left, hoping to find empty seats to move to. But those seats were in short supply.

A few brave right-side passengers rose and moved toward the descending stairs in the rear. Cathy Kerkow was among them. She passed by Cutcher at the exit. “I’ll be praying for you,” the stewardess whispered. “God bless you.” Kerkow expressed her gratitude with
an appreciative smile.

The rest of the passengers on the right-hand side followed suit, save for a woman who was traveling with her infant son. She stayed put, praying that the hijacker wouldn’t make her join the others.

Up in the cockpit, Holder ordered Crawford to carry the ransom to the new plane. The flight engineer did as he was told; Holder walked a few paces behind, clutching the Samsonite briefcase to his stomach with one hand and carrying the black valise in the other. The two
men passed by Donna Jones, who was standing in the first-class galley. She glanced at an empty champagne bottle resting on the countertop.
Smash him in the head
, she thought.
Smash him in the head and this is all over
.

But the bomb—what about the bomb? Jones resisted the
urge to be a hero.

Toward the rear of the plane, Holder saw the woman and her infant son still sitting on the right-hand side, surrounded by a sea of empty seats. She looked deathly afraid, her arms wrapped tight around her fidgeting baby. The expressionless Holder didn’t break his stride as he followed Crawford down the air stairs
onto the tarmac.

Don’t look around
, thought Holder.
Just go
.

From the safety of their command post, the FBI agents used binoculars to watch the single-file procession from one plane to the other. They had been blindsided by the transfer; neither Juergens nor Newell had told them of their plans. The option of posting a sniper near runway 19R was no longer viable.

The furious agents called the nearest Coast Guard air station and requested that a jet be scrambled to tail the 720H after takeoff. Perhaps Newell would listen to the entreaties of
a fellow military pilot.

As the unlucky passengers marched toward the new plane, one woman fell out of line and dropped to her knees, struck by a sudden dizzy spell. “Go back, ma’am,” Holder told her as he and Crawford passed. Grateful for her unexpected reprieve, she stumbled
back to the 727.

Twenty-seven passengers made it on board the 720H. Dazed by their sudden reversal of fortune, they glumly selected their seats. Kerkow settled on 11A, right
over the left wing. She still had no idea why they had changed planes, nor why Angela Davis had failed to show, but she had to trust that Holder had the situation under control. They would be sunbathing in the Outback soon enough.

Holder asked Crawford to drop the money on a first-class seat, then nodded farewell—the flight engineer
was free to go. As soon as
Crawford stepped back aboard the first plane, Juergens made a weary announcement to the remaining passengers: “For all of you still here,
it’s over. It’s over.”

W
HEN
N
EWELL
, L
UKER
, and Thompson entered the cockpit of the 720H, Holder was waiting for them, standing just inside the door. He wasn’t what they had expected at all: the pilots had pictured a wild-eyed, scruffy type, not a clean-cut soldier in wire-rimmed glasses.

“There are no heroes here, are there?” Holder asked the pilots.

“What do you mean by that?” Newell retorted. Though he appreciated the delicacy of the situation, he was not one for verbal games.

“You’re not going to do anything drastic, are you?” Holder replied.

“No,” said Newell. “Are you?”

Holder grinned, as if energized by the brusque exchange. He shook hands with the three pilots, introducing himself as Richard, then settled into the cockpit’s jump seat. He was feeling quite pleased with himself—he had managed to keep Operation Sisyphus going despite numerous complications. He was clearly in harmony with
the universe’s majestic plan.

“Where do you want to go?” asked Newell as he pushed the 720H back from the rendezvous point on runway 19R.

“
I’ll let you know,” said Holder. He honestly hadn’t decided yet. Hanoi was still a possibility, of course—that would be the most obvious stage from which to air his grievances about the war. But Holder could not ignore the Angela Davis omen, which had him wondering whether North Vietnam might be a tragic mistake; he now had visions of enemy MiG-17s spraying the Western Airlines
jet with cannon fire. Holder once again flipped through his spiral-bound planning notebook to see if any of his alternate destinations struck him as auspicious.

At 9:21 p.m. the Boeing 720H zoomed down runway 19R and began to climb over San Francisco Bay. From that point forward, the
plane would be known to air traffic controllers and company dispatchers as Western Airlines Flight 364.

Newell prepared to bank left toward the Bay Bridge, in preparation for rounding the peninsula and heading west out over the Pacific—the first step in the marathon journey to North Vietnam. But he decided to check one last time with the hijacker regarding his desired itinerary.

“Where do you want to go?”

Holder knew it was time to make a decision. He felt the cosmically appropriate answer well up in his throat.

“
Algiers.”

T
HOUGH
B
ILL
N
EWELL
was a worldly man, his North African geography was rusty.
Algiers?
he thought.
Where in God’s name is Algiers?
It took him a moment to realize that he needed to head in the exact opposite direction from the one he had envisioned—not west toward Hanoi, but east toward
the capital of Algeria.

Newell was partly relieved by the hijacker’s decision: at least the United States wasn’t at war with Algeria, so there was little danger of getting blasted from the sky on approach. But he also knew that Algeria’s government was openly hostile to the West. The nation had broken off diplomatic relations with the United States in 1967, during the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Since then Algeria had become a prominent supporter of various revolutionary movements around the globe, including the Vietcong. Newell feared that such a virulently anti-American country would have no qualms about impounding his plane and imprisoning his crew.

But Newell’s most immediate concern was simply reaching Algeria, rather than figuring out a way to avoid incarceration once he got there. He suggested to Holder that they first fly to New York City, where the plane could refuel and the crew could take on a qualified navigator: because Western didn’t operate east of the Mississippi River,
the flight would need a navigator who was familiar with
transatlantic travel.

Holder gave his blessing to Newell’s plan, with the caveat that he would be extremely upset if the navigator turned out to be an FBI agent in disguise. He said that he would be forced to detonate his bomb if there was
any hint of deception.

After Dick Luker notified Western dispatch of Flight 364’s destination, Newell picked up the radio to ask a favor: “Can you call the wives of the crew members and reassure them that everything is fine, tell them not to worry?” The three volunteer pilots had neglected to phone home before boarding the Boeing 720H; their families were still
expecting them for supper.

A few minutes later Luker heard something unexpected in his headset: a transmission from a Coast Guard jet. The jet’s pilot stated that he was shadowing Flight 364 and wished to ask some pertinent questions. Could the Western crew determine whether there were multiple hijackers aboard? Had they seen any firearms? What course would they be taking?

Newell told Luker to ignore the Coast Guard inquisitor. He would not stand for
any further FBI meddling.

T
HE PASSENGERS WERE
greatly relieved to hear that their next stop would be New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. A rumor had been circulating that they were bound for Havana, spurred by a stewardess’s ill-advised joke that the meal service would feature “Cu-Ban” coffee instead of the typical Yuban. As they tucked into their lukewarm chicken dinners around 10:45 p.m., the passengers had renewed hope that their ordeal still might
end on American soil.

But Cathy Kerkow was bewildered by Flight 364’s flight plan. Holder had never mentioned the possibility of an eastbound journey. Now, in addition to failing to free Angela Davis, her boyfriend had them flying away from their agreed-upon destinations of North
Vietnam and Australia. Kerkow’s faith in Operation Sisyphus was beginning to waver.

Two seats away from Kerkow, in 11C, was a twenty-three-year-old man who had been traveling to Seattle to attend a hydroplane race. He couldn’t stop staring at her, his interest stoked by the fact that she clearly wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her pink blouse. As the stewardesses came around to fill champagne flutes, the man decided to make the best of a bad situation and try his romantic luck.

But his attempt to strike up a conversation didn’t get far, for Kerkow was in no mood to flirt. Though she had been relatively honest with her seatmate on the way to Seattle, she now thought it best to lie. She told the man her name was Marti and that she was a student at San Diego State University majoring in “recreation.” When the man asked what classes she had taken last semester, she merely shrugged. He got the hint.

After the conversation petered out, Kerkow excused herself and moved to the empty row of seats on the opposite side of the plane. She stared out the window, watching the wingtip lights flicker in the darkness,
until sleep overcame her.

L
IKE
T
OM
C
RAWFORD
before him, Dick Luker was a gregarious sort who figured it might be wise to befriend the hijacker. Once the plane was safely cruising at 33,000 feet, Luker spun his chair ninety degrees and turned to face Holder, who was counting the money in the canvas bag. The flight engineer advised Holder that he needed to retrieve a chart from beside the jump seat.

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Holder.

“I don’t want to do anything that might startle you.”

“Do anything you want. I trust that you won’t try anything that’ll jeopardize those people in the back.”

Noting that Holder spoke with a smile, Luker sensed an opening to get more personal: “So, you have any children?”

“Two girls. Twin girls. But their mom and I ain’t married anymore. The Weathermen have them. That’s why I’m doing this.”

The two men then spoke at length, with Holder telling many of the same lies that he had shared with his seatmate en route to Seattle: he claimed to have been a helicopter pilot in Vietnam who possessed an IQ of 141. But he also let slip some truths, such as the fact that he had spent time in a military prison, a demoralizing experience that he did not care to repeat. “I’ve got nothing to lose,” he said at one point, a remark that made Luker strongly suspect that the Weathermen were a fiction and that
Holder was acting alone.

Luker was surprised at how much he enjoyed chatting with Holder—he was impressed by the hijacker’s obvious intelligence and warmth. But as they bantered, he was also debating whether to violate Western policy and use force to end the hijacking. Midnight was fast approaching after a long and eventful day. If Holder dozed off, would Luker dare pry the Samsonite briefcase from the hijacker’s limp hand?

But Holder was in too much of a manic state to feel fatigued. He requested a cup of coffee with sugar, his first sustenance since lunch. He then asked Newell to have the first-class section cleared so he could
sit there all alone.

After the first-class passengers had been moved to less luxurious quarters in coach, Holder settled into seat 1B and lit another joint. As a momentary calm washed over his body, he contemplated the welcome that awaited in Algiers.