TWA 1177
PARIS, FRANCE
A shot rang out.
The door was closed as the killer cleared holstered his gun. Few passengers were aware of the murder. Tony and Ziva were one of those few. But the pilots were not.
The first contact that they were allowed was when a stewardess was allowed into the cockpit to serve them drinks. She spoke into the Captain's ear, "They killed a passenger."
The Captain rubbed the area in between in his eyes in frustration. He was dumbfounded because he never heard the shot.
The passengers were growing more concerned about what was going on outside. There are signs that the GIGN were preparing for an armed assault on the aircraft. Things were going on inside the plane, sure, but anything that would come from the outside would upset them. That scared the passengers.
As French Interior Minister of the time, Brice Hortefeux, knew exactly how the GIGN operated. Part of his jurisdiction of being the Interior Minister was being executive of the GIGN, along with other duties. The GIGN was taking a considerable risk by ignoring the Prime Minister and Hortefeux's orders and by letting the plane stay on the ground, because they knew that although the GIGN were perfectly capable of ending the siege, it could be a day of blood bath.
The GIGN maintained their hard line. So the terrorists were about to raise the stacks...again. Another passenger must die.
TWA 1177
When they came for the second passenger, Ziva and Tony knew things were going wrong. This passenger was different. He was Vietnamese. It didn't matter. He was the real foreigner on the plane.
As with the first passenger, Mohamed asked the same thing to him. Calmly, the passenger got his stuff and followed him. He was not cowed by their terror, and that must've bothered them.
The Vietnamese diplomat believed that as an outsider, he was being released. As the door opened, the diplomat saw the police officer's body just as Mohamed put a hand on his shoulder and shot him in the head.
A shot rang out.
The stewardess went back to the cabin, coming a bottle of water and some glasses. She whispered, "It's not one now, it's two."
The captain frowned in sorrow.
The behavior of the killer in the group was becoming increasingly bizarre. When he would pass a particular steward, Christophe Mortin, he would take him by the neck and kissed him on the forehead. It was the Kiss of Death. He got enough courage to voice his fears.
"Can I say something? I, uh," he cleared his throat. "I want to ask you a favor. If you, uh...If-if you decide to kill me..." This made Mohamed smile. "...I-I want you to promise me...I-I don't wanna be killed by a bullet in the back, because..." he sighed, "when I die, I-I-I wanna be able to see your face."
"What are you afraid of?" Mohamed asked him.
"Well, uh, it's...it's impossible not to be afraid of what's going on in the plane."
"You don't need to worry. Because if I kill you, you will be a martyr." He put his hand on the steward's shoulder, gripping it like they were brothers in arms. "You will go straight to paradise." He patted his shoulder and walked away.
It didn't make the steward feel any better.
It was a stalemate. Neither side was giving way.
As night fell, Flight 1177 was pinned down by spotlights. The passengers had now been held hostage for seven hours. Initial panic has given way to tense calm. Only Ziva, Tony, the crew, and few other passengers knew that two passengers had been murdered.
The crew was working hard to diffuse the situation. The Captain was showing Ahmed how the plane worked. The rule of the crew under these conditions was to keep things calm, to earn trust, to keep things going, which was very important. At the start of a hostage taking, it was always violent. The crew had to buy time to calm people. To show what you're like. To find out who they are and so on. And then try gain their trust.
"Here, for instance, is the APU, and the auxillary power unit..."
Ahmed nodded and looked interested, which he was.
Although Ziva tried to hide her necklace, Ramzi noticed her Star of David.
On Lufthansa Flight 181, the lead hijacker, Zohair Youssif Akache, borrowed a pen from a women to write something. He noticed something on the cap. It looked like the Star of David, but was actually the Japanese cherry blossom. This enraged him. He asked her what the image was, trying to get her to admit she was Jewish. She realized this and told the truth saying she was not Jewish. Not believing her, he called her a liar and told the women she would be executed the next morning. She wasn't though.
Ziva knew about this and wanted to keep that hidden.
However, Ramzi only sighed and calmly put his hand on Ziva's shoulder, as if he was acting like a father-figure. He explained that although he was an Islamic extremist, he didn't hate Jews. He offered to save her. So that she wouldn't piss him off, she accepted. Ramzi sat down next to her and performed the procedure of converting to Islam.
"La Allah, la Allah," he said. He looked up, then down, putting his hands together in prayer, as did Ziva. She didn't have any disrespect of the believers of Islam, but if it would calm the terrorists down, then she didn't have any problem faking a conversion.
Negotiations secured the release of 63 women and children, but still, the Algerians wouldn't let the plane go.
NEXT MORNING
AROUND 2:00 AM
It was Christmas morning.
Early in the morning, the Captain toured the cabin for the first time. He found two of the hijackers asleep on the floor. There were two of them lying on the floor, between door One Left and door One Right.
Two of them are asleep, he thought. One's at the rear. There's only one in the cockpit. If an assault takes place now, maybe it won't be so bad.
But that was as far as it went. The Captain could not eliminate one of the sleeping hijackers without being shot by the other.
The GIGN had another trick up their sleeves. They had been able to identify the terrorist leader Ahmed Yousef, and bring his mother to the microphone to weaken her son's resolve.
COCKPIT
"The Police has surrounded the plane!" Ahmed's mother cried over the radio. "Think about your family! Think about your son!"
"Ma? Ma!" Ahmed yelled. "Ma, I love you but I love God more!"
"Don't kill yourself! You must live!"
Ahmed left the cockpit fuming. The GIGN's tactic backfired. It sent Ahmed into a boiling rage.
"They went and got my mother," Ahmed raged to Mohamed. "Can you imagine them? My mother! They went and dragged my mother over here! How many Americans are back there?"
"A few men and women," Mohamed answered.
"Go get a man!"
Mohamed went to do so.
"Who do they think they're playing at? What do they think they are doing?" Ahmed yelled at a passenger that listened to the whole thing. Grunting, Ahmed fumed back to the cockpit. He was furious. He had no intention of changing his mind. Even the love of his mother, even his mother, couldn't do anything.
Until now, the hijackers hadn't targeted any American citizens. But their time has come. Next to Tony and Ziva were two staff members of the American embassy are on board, a beautiful redhead female secretary and her husband, a chef. Mohamed escorted the man to the cockpit.
COCKPIT
Mohamed came in with the chef and put him to knees.
Ahmed spoke into the microphone. "Okay, now we will teach you how to play games with us. Are you listening to me?" Ahmed spoke to the chef. "You tell them that if they don't let this plane take off, we will kill every single passenger one by one. Tell them." He gave the chef his microphone and hit a switch that transmitted to both the passenger cabin and the tower.
Sweat pored down the chef's face. "My name is Jacen Morgan. I...w-work at the embassy. They're threatening to kill us, if you do nothing. Stop the executions. You gotta do something quickly. Quick as you can. Please, let the plane take off. Please, and I have a wife!"
Ahmed took back the microphone and hit the switch that only transmitted to the tower. "We care nothing for you. We are Soldiers of God. We'll kill him and throw him outside the door. You can come and pick him up."
Mohamed and Ahmed took Jacen out of the cockpit.
CABIN
"Get me a magazine," Mohamed told the fourth man. He went into his jacket and gave one to Mohamed. Jacen was terrified. He was looking at the flight attendant that witnessed Ahmed's rage about his mother, but he was terrified. Was he pleading with her to help him? Was he?
Mohamed loaded his gun. "You two," he said the two flight attendants that were in his presence. "Go to back to your places...Now!"
The flight attendants went to the back and Mohamed took Jacen to the door.
"No, it's not possible," the flight attendant that looked at Jacen thought. "It can't happen like this. It's not possible."
...
The shot rang out.
Most of the passengers heard it. The red-haired woman started sobbing.
The door opening light confirmed that the hijackers had carried out their threat.
The Captain grabbed the microphone in rage. "TWA 1177. You happy now? See what you get when you play tough?" he raged.
Security advisors in the tower witnessed the execution of that man. It was something that they would live through with great emotion in Paris, because they was patched in with the conversations between the plane and the control tower.
The executive French government can no longer stand by. Prime Minister Fillon got on the phone and threatened the GIGN. "I will hold you all responsible for what's happening, make it known to international opinion and have you executed. Let the Americans deal with the this. We had our glory in 1994, now it's their turn. It's their airline anyway."
His threat worked. The commanding officer of the GIGN at the airport caved in. Finally, after thirty-nine hours of terror, Flight 1177 could leave for America.
Just then, there it was. They could leave. In the plane, there was a joy you could not imagine. And really, the impression was that was it. They succeeded. They had all succeeded and were going to be safe. They were leaving Europe.
But their's a problem. All the time they've been on the ground, the Captain had kept the axillary power unit running. It's a small jet engine in the tail of the plane that keeps the power supply going. It uses about 40,000 tons of fuel a day. Now there wasn't enough to reach Washington DC.
"Navigation lights," the pilot said.
The co-pilot flipped a switch. "On."
"Air conditioning packs."
Flight 1177 prepared to take off. The crew were relieved to be going home. Both they and passengers believed that whatever the future held, it couldn't be as bad as what they were leaving behind. They didn't realize the horror that awaits them.
After two days of terror and the deaths of three passengers, the French authorities were allowing TWA Flight 1177 to leave for the United States. The hijackers say they're going to have a press conference there.
"Before takeoff checklist completed."
But before the plane took off, the Captain would seek an insurance from the hijack leader.
OUTSIDE COCKPIT DOOR
"What is it?" Ahmed asked. "What's wrong?"
"Look," the captain started. "You wanna get to DC to talk to the journalists. I'll take you there. But I want to know if you're gonna blow up the plane in between Paris and Queens."
"Why do you ask me if I'm gonna blow up the plane?" Ahmed asked.
"Because the responsibility for these passengers is on my shoulders."
"No. There is nothing to worry about for you or the passengers. We fly to Queens, like you say, refuel the tanks and then go to Washington. I give you my word."
"All right," The captain said as they both returned to the cockpit. He believed them that the plane would not be blown up between Europe and North America. He didn't know if they would've given them the same answer between Queens and Washington DC. When someone's got explosives, they're not for making a birthday cake.
Ahmed and Mohamed were strapped in their seats in the cockpit, smiling at each other. They were so excited. They were like kids at the Christmas tree, excited, happy. What's more, they succeeded.
QUEENS, NEW YORK, USA
THE NEXT MORNING
3:30 AM
The plane approached John F. Kennedy International Airport. The hijackers were unaware that NCIS agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs and the SWAT team had gone there ahead of them from Washington DC, and were planning a showdown.
Usually, you would arrive on ground that was held by the enemy. But here it was the enemy who would arrive on ground where you are in total control. That was a key element in the success of the operation.
"30 feet..." the pilot counted down. "...20 feet..."
As the plane landed, for the hijackers, it was the magic moment. They were landing in America. They will refuel and get provisions to take off again and go to Washington DC, because that was the objective.
The airport was very dark. There was lights of plane and the lights of the 'Follow-Me' car, which they followed but did not go to the terminal. The plane was deliberately being lead away to a remote corner of the airfield. Tension was very high, because the American government had received some alarming news.
While the plane was flying towards America, the American government received other information. According to which, the hijackers planned to use the plane to carry out an attack on Washington, far more worse than the September 11 attacks. They were planning to succeed where the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 failed, crash into the White House. The information was credible and they took it seriously. So the decision was made, that no matter what, the plane would not take off from Queens. No matter how high the price may be, the plane would not take off. They picked a very precise part for the plane to park, and then they just prayed for time.
The American tactics were now being dictated by Leroy Jethro Gibbs. His plan was to wear the hijackers down. While stalling is considered mandatory, the Americans would spin out negotiations as long as possible. They know that Yousef and his men must be tired. The hijacking had now gone on for two days.
TWA 1177
COCKPIT
"TWA 1177," the Captain spoke to the microphone. "We require immediate refueling."
"Twenty-Seven tons," Ahmed added.
"Twenty-Seven tons," The captain repeated.
The hijackers have learned that twenty-seven tons of fuel will fill the tanks, far more than the nine tons needed for the flight to Washington. It appeared to confirm the intelligence report. The plane was to be used as a firebomb.
"They say it's not possible," The captain told Ahmed. "Uh, because of the killings. Because of what happened in France. It's in all the papers. The workers that do the refueling are afraid. They won't come near the plane."
"Tell them we want to go now. We'll do a press conference in Washington." Ahmed whispered something to Mohamed.
"TWA 1177," The captain spoke. "They want to leave for Washington right away. They wish to hold a press conference in Washington..." The Captain listened to his ear piece as the tower responded. "They say why go to Washington when all the international press has come here to Queens. They're all here. Why do a press conference in Washington? There's no point. We can do it here on the plane."
Agent Gibbs has baited the hook. Would Ahmed bite?
TBC. Please review. Appreciate it.