The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking (23 page)

As Cleaver became more established in Algiers, more than a dozen Black Panthers came to join him—many of them, like Cleaver, on the run from American law enforcement, which was trying to destroy the party. There was Pete O’Neal, the founder of the party’s Kansas City chapter, who fled from a charge of transporting a gun
across state lines; Donald Cox, who held the title of Field Marshal and was suspected of participating in the murder of
a police informant; and Sekou Odinga, one of the so-called Panther 21, a group of party members facing conspiracy charges in New York.

The International Section also briefly played host to Timothy Leary, the Harvard psychiatrist turned LSD guru. After receiving a twenty-year sentence for marijuana possession in January 1970, Leary promptly broke out of prison with the assistance of the Weathermen. He wound up in Algiers, where Cleaver let him crash in El Biar; he hoped that embracing Leary would help create an alliance between the Black Panthers and white hippies. But then a friend of Leary’s showed up with a stereo packed full of LSD, a dangerous substance in a deeply traditional country like Algeria. “Leary would go out to the desert with his wife, they would drop acid and lie naked in the sun, and some goat herder would come along and tell the first cop he saw,” Cleaver later grumbled, adding that Leary also distributed the drug to numerous female university students. After a few months of such hijinks, Cleaver declared the professor persona non grata, forcing Leary to seek
refuge in Switzerland.

Looking to broaden the Panthers’ support, Cleaver traveled extensively throughout Asia as an honored guest of the continent’s Communist regimes. He toured North Vietnam, where Prime Minister Pham Van Dong toasted him with the words “In the West you are a black in the shadows, here you are a
black in the sun.” He spent time in Pyongyang with Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s “Great Leader,” whom he lauded for his “
genius command”; Cleaver would later write the foreword to
Juche
, an English-language
collection of Kim’s speeches.

Yet by the summer of 1972, the International Section was in sharp decline. With Cleaver’s
Soul on Ice
royalties frozen by the U.S. government,
^‡
the organization was badly strapped for cash. “We are debt-ridden,” Kathleen Cleaver told an American journalist. “Our telephone bill from February to April was $5,000 … We rent four houses and the rent is overdue. All the funds are eaten up for seven kids, eight families, clothing, hospital, doctor bills and food. You can
imagine what it costs.” To make ends meet, the International Section trafficked in fraudulent visas and stolen cars ferried
down from Marseilles.

Eldridge was also growing increasingly paranoid, a mood stoked by letters he was receiving that claimed that Huey P. Newton was trying to destroy the International Section. Cleaver did not realize that the letters, which alleged that Newton had called him “a murderer and a punk without genitals,” were clever FBI forgeries, designed to cause a rift in
the party’s leadership.

With his future in Algeria looking grim, Cleaver was greatly intrigued by the surprise phone call he received on the afternoon of June 3, 1972. It was from the office of President Boumédiène, who was out of the country at the time, attending a meeting in Senegal. A presidential aide requested that Cleaver rush to Boumédiène’s palace at once.

When Cleaver arrived with Donald Cox in tow, the aide revealed
the reason for his alarm: for the first time ever, a hijacked American airliner was on its way to Algiers. All the government knew was that there was at least one bomb on board, though perhaps several more. And the hijackers were carrying $500,000 in a canvas sack.

Cleaver’s eyes lit up at that last detail. The revolution could certainly make excellent use of
a half-million dollars.

F
LIGHT 364 WAS
now so close to Maison Blanche Airport that Holder could make out the beaches along the Mediterranean, still full of bathers soaking up the day’s last rays of sunshine. He became ecstatic at the prospect of stretching out in the sand and splashing in the surf. He knew the stars had steered him right by
guiding him to Algiers.

“See, this is a place where a man like me can be free,” he told the crew, a huge smile stretched across his face. “The only place
I can be free.”

Newell asked Holder if he might consider leaving the money on the plane so it could be returned to Western Airlines. If he did so, Newell said, the American authorities might let him live in peace. But Holder chuckled at the notion of relinquishing $500,000 without a fight.

“Sorry,” he told Newell. “Money’s not for me. It’s for the poor and needy people all around the world. And maybe if I live that long, I’ll buy myself
my own airline someday.”

The plane landed at Maison Blanche at 6:57 p.m. local time. As it rolled to a stop on runway 22, it was surrounded by at least a dozen military vehicles,
each crammed with soldiers. A black sedan pulled up to the boarding stairs that were positioned by the plane’s front door. Out stepped a trim man with beady eyes, wearing an extravagantly expensive suit. He walked to the foot of the stairs and waited, his
interpreter by his side.

In the plane’s cockpit, Holder was too excited to bid a proper farewell. “I left you something in the oven,” he told Luker. Then he flung
the canvas bag full of money over his right shoulder and walked
back into the cabin.

Holder found Cathy Kerkow in row 19, gazing out the window at the soldiers who had surrounded the plane. “You go out first, alone,” he said. “They won’t shoot at no woman.”

Kerkow turned away from the window and stared deep into Holder’s eyes. “Roger,” she said, “we walk out there together.” It was clear from her emphatic tone that she would
settle for nothing less.

As the couple approached the front door, Holder paused to remove his shoes and socks. He wanted the world to see him in bare feet, a flourish meant to make his emergence from the plane that much more dramatic.

Just
like a runaway slave
, he thought.

Halfway down the boarding stairs, Holder was met by the man in the finely tailored suit. The man’s interpreter translated his rapid-fire French: “Welcome to Algeria. My name is Salah. You are home now, brother. We are going to be friends. Very good friends.”

What choice do I have?
thought Holder as he followed Salah Hidjeb down the stairs toward the waiting black sedan. Before he and Kerkow entered the car, a soldier motioned for Holder to hand over the Samsonite briefcase that was still in his left hand. Holder did so gingerly, and the soldier made sure to avoid putting undue pressure
on the copper wire.

From the cockpit window, the Western crew watched the sedan drive off across the tarmac. They next heard the sound of two dozen feet clanging up the boarding stairs—Algerian soldiers coming to
search for additional bombs.

With Holder’s parting words in mind, Luker went back to the galley and looked inside the oven. He found fifty hundred-dollar bills—a tip for the
crew’s excellent service.

T
HROUGH HIS INTERPRETER
, Hidjeb continued to talk to Holder and Kerkow as the sedan glided toward the Maison Blanche terminal. He
expressed his regrets over the fact that President Boumédiène was not there to greet the hijackers in person, but he promised that such a meeting would be arranged upon His Excellency’s
return from Senegal. Hidjeb explained that he was a “representative of the police,” though this was quite an understatement: he was actually the director of the Renseignements Généraux, a branch of Algeria’s brutal secret police, as well as
Boumédiène’s favorite assassin.
^§

Inside the terminal, Hidjeb guided Holder and Kerkow to Air Algérie’s VIP lounge, where the somewhat dazed couple was offered glasses of orange juice and a platter of dates. Seeing that his guests were feeling comfortable, Hidjeb politely asked to take a look at the money—he wanted to make sure the entire $500,000 was there, just as the hijackers claimed.

Holder was reluctant to hand over the bag, but Hidjeb assured him that the money would be returned shortly. Holder acquiesced, and the ransom was whisked away by
one of Hidjeb’s aides.

Outside the VIP lounge, meanwhile, Cleaver and several other Black Panthers were on the verge of knocking down the locked doors—they wanted the money. Also champing at the bit was William Eagleton, the American diplomat charged with handling the affair. He was seething, telling anyone who would listen that the Pentagon was prepared to order a naval blockade of Algeria if the plane and the ransom weren’t returned at once.

Hidjeb finally agreed to let Cleaver and the Panthers enter the lounge. Eagleton was turned away.

Cleaver’s first reaction upon seeing the hijackers in the flesh was disappointment. He had expected a crew of four or five strapping Black Panthers, not a skinny brother in glasses and his
white hippie girlfriend.

The hijackers, by contrast, were awed to be in Cleaver’s presence.
Kerkow had long been fascinated by the Panther mystique, dating back to the symposium she had attended at the University of Oregon in 1970. Now here she was, face-to-face with the fugitive Minister of Information himself, having just pulled off one of the wildest capers in history. Whatever doubts she had felt back in New York now vanished, replaced by sheer giddiness.

When Holder looked at Cleaver, he saw the whole reason he had come to Algiers: to unite with a kindred spirit, a fellow threat to The System responsible for the war that had left him shattered. They were both dangerous, intelligent men; surely they were meant to become close allies in the struggle against all that was rotten in the world.

As the two men shook hands, Cleaver uttered his very first words to Holder: “So,
where’s the bread?”

Holder jerked back his hand, disheartened. So this was how the great Eldridge Cleaver saw him—not as a revolutionary equal but as a dollar sign. Their relationship was
off to a rocky start.

Loudly protesting the fact that he had yet to lay eyes on the half-million dollars, Cleaver was hustled out of the room—though not before slipping Holder
his phone number. In came a camera crew and several Algerian journalists, who upset Holder and Kerkow by sticking microphones in their faces. The reporters peppered the two hijackers with questions in broken English; the couple hid their faces in their hands, disoriented by the bright lights and the barrage of inquiries. “I got nothing to say,” Holder mumbled while looking down at his lap. “
Nothing at all.”

The camera crew next moved into an adjoining room, where the Algerian police showed off the bag of money and the black Samsonite briefcase, which was popped open to reveal its contents: an alarm clock, a dog-eared copy of Madame Blavatsky’s
The Secret Doctrine
, and an empty
disposable-razors box.

Holder and Kerkow had pulled off the longest-distance skyjacking in American history without a single real weapon.

|||

T
HE CAMERA CREW
’
S
last stop of the night was the Maison Blanche cafeteria, where the Western Airlines crew was filmed chowing down on a meal—their first
food since New York. The five men were all smiles, for they had been informed that their fears of imprisonment were unfounded: Air Algérie was under government orders to refuel the Boeing 720H and let it depart
the country at once. When reached in Senegal, President Boumédiène had decided not to risk a direct military confrontation with the United States; he preferred to fight his Western adversaries by funding proxies like the Vietcong and the Black Panthers.

As Newell and his crew ate their fill at the airport, Holder and Kerkow were riding through Algiers in the backseat of a government sedan. The driver was an English speaker named Mustafa, one of Hidjeb’s most trusted operatives. He introduced the toadlike man in the passenger seat as No Nuts, explaining that the nickname stemmed from an unfortunate incident during
the War of Independence.

Mustafa and No Nuts escorted the Americans to the Hotel Aletti, an Art Deco edifice overlooking the city’s harbor. As they strolled through the hotel’s casino, a murmur rippled across the baccarat tables—everyone knew of the hijacking. Several gamblers rose to applaud Holder and Kerkow, but the couple was too weary to appreciate the gesture. They had been traveling for well over thirty hours straight, under exceedingly
stressful circumstances.

As they split a bottle of red wine and a plate of charcuterie at the hotel’s dining room, Holder and Kerkow were informed that they would remain guests of the Algerian government for a few more days, as certain security checks were performed. Their money would be returned the following morning, after the necessary official paperwork had been completed.

Once they were tipsy and fed, Holder and Kerkow were taken
upstairs and ushered into a well-appointed room facing the Rue de Constantine; the hallway outside was lined with a dozen police guards. Mustafa and No Nuts bade them good night, and the exhausted couple collapsed onto the bed, still fully clothed—Holder with his bell bottoms and bare feet, Kerkow in her pink blouse and purple slacks. They wrapped their arms around each other as they drifted off to sleep, soothed by the sound of a warm breeze rustling the
room’s lace curtains.