Chapter 6

Ralph showed up on schedule and spent almost eight hours going over in great detail all of the answers to our questions and the arrangements for the language school. That meant that we would spend the summer in Virginia near Washington, and the kids were thrilled because that would surely mean that they could visit all of the memorials and special attractions that abounded in Washington.

We were told the name of the company that we would be associated with, and the kids had never heard of it. Liz and I noted that it was one we had first heard of during the Kuwait affair some years earlier. They had a good reputation among the news media, but there was nothing else to be said publicly about them.

Anyway, the main point of the moment was that our new contacts were dead set on driving ISIL out of North America, and that coincided with our objective, so we were easily able to accept what they were doing for us. It might have to change later, but we were okay with it for now.

Ralph agreed that we could take Johnny with us to the Arabic class, etc., and he would be looked after when Liz could not be with him. We were told to take a small suitcase with us containing our personal effects—clothes would be provided on site. Specifically, we would be dressing as Middle Easterners would. Of course, we would dress as normal Americans going on a vacation while we were traveling from Phoenix.

Ralph gave me a set of first class plane tickets and a credit card for each one of us. We were scheduled to leave on Thursday of next week, so that was no problem. We were to take a cab to the airport and just act like regular people going to Washington. We could handle that. Ralph's people would keep an eye on our property while we were out of town, so we had nothing to worry about at home.

We fooled around and made-do while we waited for Thursday. Billy spent a lot of time with Grace, and Mary hung out at the mall with her group of friends. Both kids were torn with the necessity for leaving their familiar surroundings, but were also excited about "becoming spies." We had to put the lid on both of them a few times, but, as expected, Mary was the greater worry. It was her lack of maturity that had us concerned, but she managed to cope with the situation well enough.

At last. We went through security and boarded the plane. The luxury of first class travel was thrilling for all of us, and we enjoyed the first part of the flight. Dammit, the trouble started as we were about to cross the Mississippi River.

Suddenly, a man two seats ahead of us jumped up and waved a folding knife in our general direction. "Listen to me! We are from ISIL, and we are about to take over this plane. Those of you who are infidels will die and be lost forever, but those of you who are true followers of Allah will find peace and glory in the afterlife."

There were four ISIL people in the other part of the cabin with the rest of the passengers. They were all armed with knives. The oration back there was essentially the same as what we just heard. We didn't know the precise target the ISIL had for this plane, but it was obvious that they planned to crash it into something and create a situation similar to the 9/11 crash into the New York City Twin Towers. Well, depending on a lot of things, my family might survive such an event, but it was certain that nobody else aboard this plane would. It looked like we would have to act.

It also looked like we would have to act pretty soon. As it happened, Liz was sitting on the aisle and I was next to the window, so she was going to have to lead off the festivities. We discussed it quickly and Liz stood up and handed me Johnny, whom she had been holding in her lap.

Liz walked toward the man with the knife and demanded, "You should not try to frighten children this way. There is no telling what it will do to their psyches."

The man looked at Liz kind of stunned by her audacity, and she took that opportunity to knee him in the crotch as hard as she could manage. Well, she may not be as strong as me or Billy, but she was strong enough to lift the ISIL thug completely off the floor by the force of the blow into his balls with her knee. He fell to the floor, unconscious from the pain. Liz kicked him in the throat to crush his windpipe, and her action was effective. He was no longer a part of the equation.

Now that he was done for, we could look into what to do about the rest of the thugs. I quickly mapped out a plan with Mary and Billy. Mary dashed into the aisle and started to run toward the tail of the plane. She was yelling, "LET ME GO! I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!"

Billy ran after her as if he were trying to catch her. She managed to reach the toilet doors back at the tail of the cabin. One of the thugs was standing in the aisle there blocking easy access to the toilets. Mary never slowed down as she drove her head into the man's solar plexus. Air and blood spurted from his mouth as he fell, quite dead.

Billy halted next to the thug who was standing about halfway down the aisle and hit him as hard as he could manage in the solar plexus with his fist. Blood and air spurted from his mouth, too.

That was my cue to act. I swung a fist at the thug standing just to the left of the opening in the partition separating the two cabin classes. I caught him in the left side, and drove my fist as hard as possible into his torso just below his ribs. Under the circumstances, that was as good as a hit to the solar plexus, and he died on the spot.

That left only one thug, and he was standing to my right. I wanted some information from him, so I kicked him in his right shin and shattered the bone in his lower leg. He screamed in pain and fell to the floor. I grabbed the knife from his right hand and threw it to Billy. Then I grabbed his scrotum through his pants and began to squeeze.

The pressure on his balls elicited another scream from him. I backed off just a little and said, "Answer my questions, or I will crush your testicles before I rip them away from your body."

"In the name of Allah, I beg of you to stop squeezing me down there!"

"Okay, I may quit if you tell me what was your target."

"We were going to crash this plane into the nuclear reactor at the Savannah River plant in South Carolina. Please let me go."

"No way, you son of a bitch!" With that, I squeezed as hard as I could and jerked. I felt the thug's balls crush under the pressure, and blood spurted as I pulled his scrotum completely off. Actually, I tore his pants because I pulled so hard. Spontaneous applause broke out in the cabin when the passengers saw the blood spurt. I crushed the man's windpipe before I stood up.

"Where are the flight attendants?" Several passengers pointed to the food service cubbyhole. Billy looked in there and immediately vomited onto the floor.

"Dad, here they all are, and everyone of them has had her throat cut!"

I went back to the front of the first class cabin and used the telephone to call into the cockpit. "Gentlemen, please listen to me. We have just had a hijacking attempt, and all of the flight attendants are dead. Their murderers are also dead. Please land at the nearest appropriate airport so that we can get this mess cleaned up. This is not a hoax. Please send someone out here to assess the situation."

A voice on the other end of the line said, "Who the hell are you? Let me talk to the chief flight attendant."

"Didn't you hear what I just said. She can't talk to you, you fool. She is dead, murdered by ISIL goons."

A few seconds later, the small spy lens was put into use, and whoever it was saw a dead man lying on the floor leaking blood. "Okay, stand back. I am the copilot, and I will be right out."