Apparently, someone knew about this arrangement, which is not exactly top secret.'
'But how did Haddad know that Khalil would be on that flight?'
'An obvious security breach within the Trans-Continental operation at De Gaulle. In other words, an employee at Trans-Continental in Paris, perhaps an Arab employee, of which there are many in Paris, tipped off Yusef Haddad. In fact, if you back it up further, Khalil defected in Paris and not in some other city because there was a security breach there. In fact,' he added, 'for security reasons, American air carriers have a policy that prohibits bringing your own medical oxygen on board. You have to put in a reservation for oxygen, and for a small fee it's delivered to you before you board. Obviously, someone thought about this potential security problem years ago. In this case, however, one of the airline employees swapped a canister of poison gas for one of the oxygen canisters.'
I commented, 'Both canisters looked the same to me. I guess one of them was marked.'
'In fact, the oxygen had a small zigzag scratch in the paint. The poison gas didn't.'
I pictured Yusef Haddad saying to himself, 'Let me see now… oxygen is scratched, poison gas is not… or was it the other way around…?'
Jim said to me, 'Something funny, Mr. Corey?'
I explained my silly thought, but only Nash laughed.
Jim referred to some notes, then said, 'Regarding the gas, we have a preliminary report on that. I'm not an expert, but they tell me that there are four major types of toxic gas-choking, blister, blood, and nerve. The gas used on Flight One-Seven-Five was undoubtedly a blood agent-probably an advanced or modified cyanide chloride compound. This type of gas is very volatile and dissipates quickly in the ambient air. According to our chemical experts, the passengers may have noticed something that smelled like bitter almonds or even peach pits, but unless they were familiar with cyanide, they would not be alarmed.'
Jim looked at us and saw he had everyone's attention, for a change. I've had the same experience in my class at John Jay. As soon as the students start to drift, I come up with something that has to do with murder or sex. Gets everyone's attention.
Jim was into the gas and continued, 'Here's what we think happened. Asad Khalil asked to use the lavatory. He was, of course, accompanied by Phil Hundry or Peter Gorman. Whoever accompanied him checked out the lavatory as they would do each time Khalil asked to use it. They wanted to be sure that no one was trying to pull a Michael Corleone-' He looked at us and said, unnecessarily, 'You know, where someone slips a gun into the rest room. So Phil or Peter check the trash… and perhaps they also checked behind the maintenance panel under the sink. In that space, someone could hide something. In fact, someone did. But what was hidden looked innocuous and would not seem to Phil or Peter as something that shouldn't be there. What was there was a small oxygen bottle and mask of the type that is in each galley on every aircraft in the world. This is therapeutic oxygen for passengers in distress. But it's never put under the sink in a lav. Yet, if you don't know airline procedures, you wouldn't be aware of that. So even if Phil or Peter saw the oxygen bottle, they wouldn't have thought anything of it.'
Again, Jim paused for effect and continued his narrative. He informed us, 'Someone, most probably a cleaning person or maintenance person at De Gaulle, put that oxygen canister under the sink in the dome lav before takeoff. When Phil or Peter let Khalil into the lav, they left him cuffed and told him not to lock the door. Standard procedure. When Khalil was in the lav, this was the signal for Haddad to release the gas in his second canister. At some point, people began to show signs of distress. But by the time anyone realized they were in trouble, it was too late. The autopilot is always engaged during the flight, so the aircraft flew on.'
Jim concluded, 'Khalil, who was breathing the oxygen from the airline canister under the sink, came out of the lav after he was certain everyone was unconscious or dead. At this point Khalil and Haddad had over two hours to tidy things up, including uncuffing Khalil, putting the Federal escort back in his seat, putting Haddad's medical oxygen in the coat closet, and so forth. Khalil knew that he needed a few critical minutes on the ground to effect his escape by donning a Trans-Continental luggage handlers' jumpsuit and mingling with the people who boarded the aircraft in the security area. That's why he wanted everything to appear as normal as possible for the Emergency Service personnel who would board the aircraft at the end of the runway. Khalil needed to be sure that the aircraft did not look like a crime scene, and that the aircraft was towed to the security enclosure where personnel other than Emergency Service would be allowed to board.'
Jim finished, then Jane took over again, then Jim, then Jane, and so on. It was pushing four o'clock, and I needed a break.
We were doing Q A now and Kate asked, 'How did Khalil and Haddad know that the 747 was pre-programmed to land at JFK?'
Jim answered, 'Trans-Continental has a company policy requiring pilots to program the computer for the entire flight before take-off, and that includes landing information. This is no secret. This has been reported in detail in any number of aviation magazines. Plus, there's the security breach at Trans-Continental at De Gaulle.'
He added, 'One thing that no one trusts a computer to do is engage the reverse thrusters because if the computer screws up and engages the reverse thrusters during flight, the engines or some other major parts of the airplane will rip off. Reverse thrusters have to be engaged manually, after landing, with as little automatic interface as possible. It's a safety feature, and it's maybe the only thing a human pilot still has to do, except say 'Welcome to New York,' or whatever, and taxi to the gate.' He added, jocularly, 'I guess the computers could do that, too. In any case, when that 747 landed at JFK without reverse thrusters, it was an indication that there was a problem.'
Koenig said, 'I didn't think runways were assigned until the flight was close to the airport.'
Jim replied, 'Correct, but the pilots generally know what runways are being used. The pre-programming is not meant to take the place of a pilot landing by hand and by radio instructions. It's just a procedural backup. The pilot I talked to tells me that it makes their onboard computer calculations more accurate en route.' He added, 'And as it turned out, Runway Four-Right-the pre-programmed runway-was still being used yesterday at Flight One- Seven-Five's arrival time.'
Amazing, I thought. Absolutely amazing. I need a computer like that for my car so I can sleep behind the wheel.
Jim continued, 'I'll tell you what else the perpetrators knew about. They knew the Emergency Service procedure at JFK. It's pretty much the same at all American airports. The procedures at JFK are more sophisticated than at a lot of airports, but this is not top secret stuff. Articles have been written about Guns and Hoses, and manuals are available. None of this is hard to come by. Only the hijack security area is not well known, but it's not top secret either.'
I think Jim and Jane needed a break from me, and when Jim finished, Jane said, 'Take a fifteen-minute break. Rest rooms and coffee bar at the end of the corridor.'
We all got up and left quickly, before they changed their minds.
Ted, Kate, Jack, and I chatted awhile, and I discovered that Jim and Jane were actually named Scott and Lisa. But to me, they would always be Jim and Jane. Everyone here was Jane and Jim, except Bob, Bill, and Jean. And they all wore blue, and they played squash in the basement, and jogged along the Potomac, and had houses in suburban Virginia, and went to church on Sundays, except when the turds hit the turbines, like today. The married ones had kids, and the kids were terrific, and they sold candy bars to raise money for soccer equipment, and so forth.
On one level, you had to like these people. I mean, they did represent the ideal, or at least the American ideal as they saw it. The agents were good at their jobs, they had a worldwide reputation for honesty, sobriety, loyalty, and intelligence. So what if most of them were lawyers? Jack Koenig, for instance, was a good guy who just happened to have the misfortune of being a lawyer. Kate, too, was all right for a lawyer. I liked her lipstick today. Sort of a pale, frosty pink.
Anyway, so maybe I was a little envious of family- and church-oriented people. Somewhere in the back of my mind was a house with a white picket fence, a loving wife, two kids and a dog, and a nine-to-five job where no one wanted to kill me.
I thought again of Beth Penrose out on Long Island. I thought of the weekend house she'd bought on the North Fork, near the sea and the vineyards. I wasn't feeling particularly well today, and the reasons why were too scary to contemplate.
