Hijacked by Dave Hirschman

Author:Dave Hirschman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

“An Unlikely Hero”

APRIL 7

5:02 P.M.

Susan Peterson was heating fish sticks in the oven and carrots and English peas were boiling on the stove for dinner when the telephone rang.

“Hello, this is Neil Lipe,” the resolute voice began. “Do you know who I am?”

It took her a second, but sure, Susan remembered Neil. He and Andy were hired the same day at FedEx. They went through flight-training classes together, learning how to become flight engineers on Boeing 727s. Neil and Andy were both native Mississippians, about the same age, and devout Christians.

“I’m not supposed to call you,” Neil said in a solemn tone. “I’m out at the FedEx hub, and there’s been a really unusual event. I don’t know if anyone has informed you about it yet. But you have to know that there was an attempted hijacking on Andy’s plane today—and everyone is safe on the ground in Memphis. That’s about all I know right now.”

Strangely, the news didn’t alarm Susan. She regarded it as almost comical.

“A hijacking? So did Andy knock the gun out of the bad guy’s hand and tie him up?” she quipped. To her, Andy seemed an unlikely hero. Besides, Susan thought, no FedEx officials had called. If anything serious had happened to Andy, surely the company would have notified her promptly. Maybe Neil had misunderstood and some crackpot had phoned in a bomb threat. Maybe Andy’s plane had returned to Memphis as a precaution. Heck, the plane couldn’t have gone far. It was scheduled to leave about 3:00 P.M., and now, two hours later, another pilot was telling her it already was back on the ground in Memphis.

“I appreciate the call, Neil, I really do,” Susan said. “I can’t wait for Andy to fill me in on the details. Is he being interviewed by the police now, or the FBI? Is he still at the airport?”

“I honestly don’t know where Andy is right now,” Neil answered. “But I want you to know he’s back on the ground in Memphis and the situation is under control. That’s about all I know for sure.”

He gave Susan the telephone number for the FedEx flight operations department and urged her to call and ask for a manager. “I’ll call you back if I can get any additional information about Andy,” he said. “Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

Susan thanked Neil for calling and said good-bye. As soon as she put the phone down, it rang again.

“Hi, Susan, this is John Wilcoxon,” said a neighbor and fellow FedEx employee. “I just heard about the hijacking on TV. Pretty wild. Is Andy around? I wonder if he knows anything about it.”

Susan chuckled.

“I imagine he does know something about it,” she replied playfully. “You know, Andy was on that flight. He was part of the crew!”

Susan was still treating news of the hijacking like a joke. The plane took off and then it landed. It was no big deal, and everyone was safe on the ground, right? But Wilcoxon went silent when Susan said Andy was on the plane.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.