Free The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking by Brendan I. Koerner Page B

an hour-long AM radio show that could be heard in several American states. He used the platform to broadcast subversive messages, including calls for black soldiers to desert the Army and stage an organized coup d’état.
    c Halaby would later serve as Pan Am’s CEO from 1969 to 1972. His eldest daughter, Lisa, grew up to become the last wife of King Hussein of Jordan.
    d The Austins’ stay in Cuba was brief. In April 1971 Tyrone was killed by police while attempting to rob a Manhattan bank. Linda remained at large until 1988, when she was located in Albany living under the name Haziine Eytina; she had married a lawyer, raised five children, and become a preschool teacher since her skyjacking days.
    e Years later Minichiello would briefly own a Roman pizzeria called Hijacking. He now lives in Afragola, Naples, where he kindly receives visitors who still regard him as a folk hero.

4
SWEET BLACK ANGEL
    C ONVINCED THAT FATE had brought Cathy Kerkow back into his life as part of some grand design, Roger Holder quickly became a fixture at her shared apartment in El Cajon. He would often drive her to and from her job at the Spring Valley massage parlor, then spend the nights regaling her with gory tales from Vietnam and lessons on astrology. Sometimes they would head to Ocean Beach to stroll amid the head shops plastered with antiwar graffiti, or catch dollar matinees at the Strand movie houseon Newport Avenue. No matter where they went in San Diego, the young couple always attracted stares: even in the city’s most open-minded precincts, interracial romance still carried awhiff of the taboo.
    As they strolled through a Point Loma park one evening, Holder and Kerkow were accosted by a group of white men who vulgarly advised Cathy to date someone paler. Holder responded with a challenge to fight, which caused the men to slink away. When Holder turned to check on Kerkow, he saw that she was digging in her purse for something. A moment later she pulled out a black-handled switchblade.
    “I wanted them to see it,” she sighed, clearly disappointed that she had missed her chance to scare the punks. She had been carrying around the weapon for weeks, hoping to have the chance to show Holder that she was more than just some fun-lovinggirl from Coos Bay.
    Kerkow’s obvious infatuation with Holder baffled her friend and roommate Beth Newhouse, who had always disliked thereedy Vietnam vet. She confronted him regarding his occasional use of the name Linton Charles White, which was how he had introduced himself to her when they were neighbors the year before. Holder explained that he had adopted the alias because he was an Army deserter trying to avoid a court-martial. He further claimed that he had fled from Vietnam to swinging London, where he had mingled with artists, musicians, and aristocrats who appreciated his nuanced opposition to the war. Newhouse correctly dismissed this tale as pure fantasy meant to impress girls with hippie leanings. She suspected that Holder was acon man at heart.
    Newhouse’s boyfriend, a moody rocker name Lee Davis, had an even lower opinion of Holder. He was unsettled by the way Holder’s eyes flitted around the room during routine conversation, as if he were scanning for eavesdroppers. And Davis was struck by the fact that Holder didn’t seem to have a single black friend, nor any apparent desire to socialize with members of his own race. Like the Oakland youths who had teased Holder a decade earlier, Davis slaggedHolder as an Oreo.
    In early March 1972, Holder decided to skip his court date for the bad checks that he had written as Linton Charles White. He planned to evade the resulting arrest warrant by shedding his alias once and for all, a maneuver that would require a final reckoning with the Army. Once that situation was resolved, he would be free to forge a remarkable new life with Kerkow, just as fate intended.
    To scrap his false identity, Holder destroyed his fraudulent driver’s license,