Chapter 4

I had to go back to work for at least a couple of weeks while my orders were being processed to allow me to transfer into the reserve unit back home. It didn’t take long for things to get exciting. Right at the two-week point, just a week before they were going to release me from duty, it got really, really exciting.

On a flight out of Andrews to LaGuardia with the Deputy Undersecretary of State for Policy, accompanied by two of her aides, as well as two Colonels attending a UN conference on land mines, and a Lieutenant Colonel from the Iraqi Air Force making a courier run to his consulate in New York, we had a bit of turmoil.

It seems that the Iraqi colonel really wasn’t one at all, but instead was a radical Iranian nutjob and had been waiting for the exact perfect time to do the Jihad thing. He had a gun in the courier bag, pulled it out, aimed it at the undersecretary, and yelled at us to turn the plane away from Mecca, we took that to mean West, then he hollered out the letters for an airport he wanted us to fly into. AirNav on my iPad indicated it was somewhere in western Pennsylvania.

I was in a bit of a pickle. He hadn’t yelled, ‘Allah Akbar’, or whatever yet, but still ... I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain by stopping this madness. I was newly made the head of a billion-dollar organization, had basically been given the world on a silver platter, up to and including a fairly new and fun aircraft, but more importantly, certainly more important than anything else, by a mile, was the fact that a beautiful girl had pledged to submit to my every whim and desire and love me until I was dead and buried.

Knowing the chances of leaving the current situation alive were between slim and shit unless we did something, and got it done quickly, I told my copilot, Lieutenant Brad Monroe, to turn the plane to the west in a severe bank, and at the same time to gradually take us down to six thousand feet and level out there at a heading of 270. I also told him not to answer any radio calls. None. He looked at me funny, but he did what he was told. As he started the turn, I went back by the action taking place in the cabin. Brad was either going to laugh his ass off or beat the crap out of me if we lived through this.

“Look, buddy, I’m the pilot. My second up there doesn’t know shit from Shinola, and I need to take a leak really, really, badly. I’m going to go back there and pee. I’m the only one on board that can land this plane. He damned sure can’t do it, and I’m going to do exactly as you ask, just as soon as I can, but right now, I really have to go.” I held my crotch and danced a little bit. The undersecretary was about to say something stupid, but I looked at her with a menacing look and she kept her mouth shut. One of her aides, a young nerdy looking fellow, probably pissed his pants. The other one, an attractive young woman, seemed to be the most composed. The two colonels were in the front seats by the cockpit and weren’t really able to do a whole lot. Neither of them was much, physically anyway, so I didn’t plan on counting on them. I kept wiggling and dancing like a second grader about to pee his pants.

The hijacker turned in his seat, pointing the gun at me, then waved me back to the head. I ran to make it look good, but my antics, wiggling and running, weren’t for show. They were really to keep anyone from feeling the movement of the aircraft as I didn’t know how long it would take Brad to get us down to where I wanted us. I could just barely feel the plane still losing altitude, then Brad brought it out of the turn making it all feel normal. I went ahead and peed, not really needing to, but who knows when an empty bladder will come in handy. Kind of like a home cooked meal or a night of mad passionate love with a beautiful woman. Never turn one down.

I thought for a second about what I was going to do, then, without many options, just went for it. I flushed the head, with the door open so he’d hear it, grabbed the cushion out of the rear left seat and threw it, frisbee style, up against the bulkhead behind Brad. Bad guy looked, thank God. When he did, I grabbed the hand with the gun in it, and holding it straight up, let him pull the trigger a few times while I drove my elbow into his nose a couple of times. I won, but my hand passed over the barrel at a really bad time. Just once, but that’s all it took. Ackkkk. I didn’t feel it very much, probably due to the adrenaline, but there was blood flying everywhere. There were three holes in the top of the aircraft, and one in my hand, but I don’t think he hit any important wires, or bones, and we were too low for it to cause decompression issues.

I got the gun away from him and yelled, “Brad, notify Andrews we have a neutralized firearm threat and are returning home. I need security and an ambulance. Make that two. Think you can get us home and on the ground OK? You’ve been telling me you can do that by yourself for weeks now.”

“Yes, sir, and, oh by the way ... Bite me, Captain.” We both laughed. I’d told him the story of Bethany biting me at the hamburger joint when I went home for the funeral. I heard his conversation with Air Traffic and then with Andrews. He was asking questions, and I was answering as best I could. Naturally, the colonels tried to take over, and the undersecretary voiced displeasure about not being in charge of the situation, but I told all three of them to keep their comments to themselves until they were off my airplane. Until then, I was in command, and they needed to understand that.

We were met by security forces and fire trucks as soon as we left the active runway and under escort directed to park our aircraft just below the tower on the tarmac. The base commander, the wing commander, my direct boss, which was our squadron commander, and two ambulances, not to mention anyone else near an airdrome radio that wasn’t in the bathroom at the time was there as well.

Security came on board as soon as Brad dropped the door. They secured Mohammed, or whatever his name was and restrained him in his seat. They told everyone else to stay seated, which made them even less popular than me. I was escorted off the plane to an ambulance, then they took Mohammed off, none too gently I might add, then the colonels, then a screeching, whining woman and a couple of puppies that knew which side of their bread had the butter, but were afraid to say anything. The young woman smiled and nodded at me when she walked by the ambulance where I was sitting. I thought I saw a glimmer of hope for the government in her smile. We’d see.

After a visit to the hospital, a quick phone call, with a promise to call her back later, just to let my newly found love know what happened in case she heard something on the news, and an eight hour debriefing by the Security Police, Force Protection, the CIA, the DIA, the NSA, the DHS, the FBI, and probably the PTA, I made it to my apartment, where I found solace in my girlfriend’s voice and a rocks glass of good Canadian whiskey. My call home to Bethany resulted in threatened travel my way, but I appeased her and headed that off. She would have been bored anyway, and just missed school. Whew, that was close! As for the drink, I had some Forty Creek Double Barrel left and decided to drown my hijacking memory in it. The worst part? It took eight hours to ask me why I did what took a hundred and twenty seconds, which included my successful attempt at an impromptu urination.

I found out the next day that I was impulsive, used poor judgment, and made the wrong decisions. In addition, I was irresponsible, a maverick, a loose cannon, immature, stupid, dangerous, careless, reckless, and a danger to myself and others. I was placed on administrative leave and told to stay in contact and not speak to anyone outside of Air Force channels, unless it was one of the many intelligence or law enforcement personnel I had already spoken to.

I knew I was a danger to myself. I had a hole in my hand. The rest of that upset me quite a bit. I called Bethany the next afternoon just to ask her what she thought of the whole situation.

“You’re on administrative leave?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not supposed to talk to anyone but the Air Force about this, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Come home. Tell them you are only four hours away and you need to be with your family. These are trying times.”

“I love you.”

“It’s about time.” Click. I laughed so hard I spilled part of my whiskey. I guess in addition to everything else, I was now an alcohol abuser. You aren’t supposed to spill that stuff. You’re supposed to sip it. I poured more.

Bethany’s suggestion worked. I was turned loose, told to keep my mouth shut, and that someone would be contacting me. Boy, did they. I left my parents’ address, as well as Liz and Sam’s with my commander, and took off for home. There wasn’t a soul in my squadron that wasn’t jealous when I told them how I was getting home. I didn’t have a choice. Bethany thought I should inform them I was only four hours from home, and I needed to explain that one. I did. They all knew why I went home two weeks prior. Now they knew what happened when I got there. It made a lot more sense why I was leaving when they found out the rest of the story.

Bethany picked me up at the airport. She had her own car, a nice one, actually. She had a sensible model Chevy of some sort, but nice. Since she had the keys to the house, and I had told her she was welcome to use them, that they needed to be driven once in a while, I wound up being picked up in my mother’s car, a big Mercedes SUV. She was smiling to beat the band as I taxied up to the operations center. Shutting down the aircraft as she walked over, miniskirt, tight tank top, high heels, and all, I realized that my life was going to be different from here on out. The reserves may not want the reckless maverick, but my Bethany would.