Free Skyjack by Geoffrey Gray

is located several miles north of SEA-TAC.
    “Oh my gosh,” Simmons says to her husband. “Either we’re on the wrong plane or we’re being hijacked.”
    One passenger gets out of his seat and marches toward the back. Tina gets up and intercepts him at row 14.
    “I’m bored,” he says. “You have any sports magazines to read back there?”
    She escorts him to the rear. She looks for a sports magazine. She can’t find any.
    “How about the
New Yorker
?” she says.
    In a nearby seat, passenger Labissoniere, the trucking lawyer, gets up to use the lavatory.
    When he comes out, another passenger is blocking the aisle. He’s a cowboy type, wearing a Stetson. He’s furious, demanding that Tina tell him more about this “mechanical difficulty.” Why do they have to burn fuel? When will they be on the ground? Does Tina know
anything
?
    Labissoniere notices the man in sunglasses sitting next to Tina. He seems amused by the cowboy’s antics. Then he gets annoyed whenthe man won’t stop. He tells Stetson Man to go back to his seat. The hijacker and Tina are alone again.
    “If that’s a sky marshal, I don’t want any more of that,” he says.
    “There aren’t any sky marshals on the 305 flight,” she says.
    He remembers something: his note. Flo has it. He wants it back.
    Tina picks up the phone and tells the captain. She eases back into her seat. She asks the hijacker if he wants anything to eat or drink.
    “No.”
    She asks him about the passengers. When can they get off?
    He goes over his instructions again. She needs to pay attention.
    First, the fuel truck; he wants it out at SEA-TAC and ready to pump gas when the plane lands.
    Second, the money; he wants the car carrying the ransom parked so he can see it from the windows at all times.
    Third, her; he wants Tina to get out of the plane and fetch the bag of money.
    She worries. The bag may be too heavy for her to carry.
    “You’ll manage,” he says.
    Once the money is on board, the passengers will be released. Then Tina will get the parachutes and meals. He also has Benzedrine pills in his pocket. He doesn’t want the crew to get sleepy.
    The jet banks another wide loop.
    Tina tries to chat him up.
    “So, where you from?” she says.
    He won’t tell her. He’s not that stupid.
    She wants to know his motive. Why hijack this plane?
    “Do you have a grudge against Northwest?” she says.
    He looks at the stewardess, the sunglasses shielding his eyes.
    “I don’t have a grudge against your airline, Miss,” he says. “I just have a grudge.”

December 7, 1942
Cove City, North Carolina
    Ever since he was born, the old folks in the tobacco town said there was something about Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. that was not right. He could not speak properly. The cord under his tongue was too taut, so doctors snipped it and left him with a lisp. As a boy he got picked on and was always in fights. One reason for the birth defects, townsfolk surmised, was that the boy’s parents were first cousins.
    The marriage was not stable. In town, it was an open secret that when Richard’s father, who went by the name Floyd, enlisted in the war, the boy’s mother, Myrtle, had an affair with her boss, Richard Edward Holland, who owned a local sawmill. When Richard’s father came home after two years in Belgium, Myrtle was pregnant. They eventually divorced, but there was tension in the house as they tried to raise two boys with different fathers.
    Floyd would spank the younger boy, Russell. Myrtle protested, thinking Floyd was punishing him for her affair.
    “That boy may not be your boy, Floyd McCoy, and you might not like him being around here! But he’s my boy, and from this day forward, you’ll never again lay a hand on my son,” Myrtle would say.
    Instead of beating Russell, Floyd beat Richard. He could beat his own son, couldn’t he?

    “During my formative years, it was still the in-thing to serve one’s country so at nineteen I followed my father’s footsteps