Mission Compromised (16 page)

“Of course, Rachel. How are you? I remember—you were the only nurse in our class. And I see that you are still with TWA. Do you still enjoy the work?”

“Most of the time,” replied Rachel. “There are good days and bad days—you know how it is—but I've never had a day as bad as the ones you had over there in the Middle East. Where was it—Egypt?”

“Close,” said Inga, softly. “It was Lebanon. We sure could have used your nursing skills on that trip, Rachel.”

Inga Linstad was a virtual legend in the airline industry. She had been the senior flight attendant aboard TWA Flight 837 when it was hijacked out of Athens by Hizballah terrorists. The plane had been forced to land in Beirut, and for six days, the passengers and crew were subjected to terrible brutality. By the time the terrorists were granted safe passage off the plane and disappeared into the chaos of Lebanon, three American passengers and two crewmembers were dead and seven others aboard the aircraft had been wounded. The surviving passengers and crew credited Inga Linstad's calm demeanor, firmness, and courage with saving their lives.

Since then, though Inga was still officially on the TWA roster, she had been employed throughout the industry to train new pilots, flight
attendants, even airline executives on dealing with these types of crises. Her face was well known to almost everyone in the airline business. At TWA she was their heroine-in-residence.

The waiter came to the table to take Inga's order. Inga looked up at Rachel and asked, “Won't you join me for breakfast?”

The two women placed their orders and settled in to catch up on each other's lives.

“What brings you to Chicago, Inga?” asked Rachel.

“Oh, I had a briefing for United yesterday out at O'Hare. I'm headed out today for more of the same on the West Coast. They were nice enough to put me up here instead of across the street, where our crews normally stay, so I can avoid the crowds. I really don't much like all the attention, Rachel. I was just doing my duty. Yet everyone makes such a fuss about it.”

“But you're a real hero, Inga,” protested Rachel. “That's why everyone wants to hear what you have to say.”

Inga shrugged and tried to change the subject. “So, is TWA now putting up flight crews here at the Barclay Suites?” she asked innocently.

Rachel felt the warmth rising in her cheeks. She and Mitch were staying in this hotel for the same reason as Inga—but with different motives. Inga wanted to avoid being seen by her airline colleagues out of her inherent modesty. Rachel and Mitch were staying here to avoid the wagging tongues of their colleagues, out of Rachel's sense of guilt. No matter how much they tried to convince themselves otherwise, they both knew what they were doing was wrong.

Unable to fabricate a plausible lie fast enough, Rachel ignored the question and asked one of her own: “Tell me, Inga, I've seen the training video TWA did about the incident on 837, but it didn't really give
me a sense of what it was like when it happened. Weren't you terrified when the terrorists started killing people?”

“Yes, it was a terrible thing,” Inga replied softly. “Lori, the flight attendant who they killed first, was a very close friend. She and I had flown together since she came out of training, and we roomed together on every trip.” Inga paused, then continued even more softly than before, her voice just barely above a whisper. “I haven't told this to many people, Rachel, but Jerry, the First Officer, who they killed second, had asked me to marry him. We were going to see my parents when we got back to St. Louis so Jerry could ask my father for my hand. Sometimes I feel very sad because even though it's been eight years, I miss him so much.”

Rachel was shocked. “Oh … Inga, I'm sorry … I didn't know. Weren't all the killings on the first day? How were you ever able to do what you did after that? How could you even function or stay so calm? You even talked the terrorists out of killing more people.” Rachel's curiosity spilled out.

Inga shook her head and said, “It wasn't me. I don't know where the words came from. I am not a brave person. I don't know what possessed me to stand up to the ringleader and tell him to stop the shooting and torture. I do know that I prayed. And I know that God gave me the words to say … that's all I can tell you.”

Rachel felt awkward, and her questions seemed forced and stilted. She desperately needed to keep the conversation about Inga and not about her. Yet even as she clumsily asked questions, she was fascinated by Inga's story. She didn't want to cause her former classmate more pain, but she couldn't stop now. “In the training video that TWA put together, there is some newsreel footage showing one of the terrorists holding you against the bulkhead by the open door.
He has a gun underneath your chin. It looks like you're going to be the next one killed. It's clear in the video that he's saying something to you and that you say something back. But in the video, there is no sound. But a few moments later, he stands back and takes the gun away. And it wasn't much longer after that that the terrorists left the airplane. What was he saying to you, and what did you say back to him?”

Inga looked as though she was far away. “He was the ringleader. It was right after he had shot another American in the foot. I don't know what made me do it, but I got up from my seat and told him he couldn't do that anymore. That's when he grabbed me and pushed me up to the cabin door. He jammed that enormous gun hard under my chin and screamed that he was going to kill me. And I said, ‘I hope you will find forgiveness.' And then he said—this is the part you see in the video—‘Why aren't you afraid to die?' And all I said was, ‘I'm not afraid to die because I know where I'm going and I know why I'm going there.' That's when he backed up and let me go. And as you know, an hour or so later it was all over.”

Rachel was puzzled. “That's it? What made you say that, Inga? Where did he think you were going?”

Now it was Inga's turn to be puzzled. She looked at her classmate and said, “I said what came to mind, even with that gun jammed into my throat—it's the essential truth of Christianity. There is no need to be afraid of death if you know where you are going after you die. And all true Christians know where they are going—it's just that most of them don't know when. At that point, I was sure that I knew.” Inga said this last part with just the faintest hint of a smile.

Perhaps it was Inga's subtle smile, maybe it was the guilt Rachel was feeling from the night's activities with Mitch, but Rachel reacted with
some irritation. “Of course you're a Christian. I'm a Christian too. My parents are lifelong Methodists—so were my grandparents. We've always been Christians, but I'm not sure I know what difference that would make in a situation like yours, on that hijacked plane,” Rachel said, shaking her head.

“You know, Rachel, I used to think the same thing, but a year before the Beirut incident, a dear old lady was on one of my flights. She was on her way from California to bury her daughter who had been killed in New York in some senseless street shooting. This young girl had been a totally innocent bystander who got in the way of a bullet that killed her instantly.”

“How awful!” Rachel exclaimed. “I'll bet that poor mother was a basket case.”

“That's what I'd have thought,” Inga said, “but she wasn't. She had such composure and peace in spite of what had happened to her daughter. She told me, ‘I've had some time to get used to the idea. The police called to inform me about the shooting two days ago. Since then my husband and I have tried to make sense of it all.' I asked her where her husband was, and she told me that he had gone on ahead to make funeral arrangements.

“I couldn't get over her composure, and so I asked her about it. She told me that she was a Christian, like we thought we were, too, you know? But she explained that your faith has to be personal in order to be real. She said, ‘I trust God—even in this tragedy. I know that He has not abandoned us, and He has promised to give us peace and comfort.' Then, since we still had over an hour of flight time left, and I was caught up on my cabin duties, I sat down beside her. I thought I could console her. But she ended up consoling me.”

Rachel was intrigued. The waiter interrupted their conversation as
he brought Rachel's order along with Inga's breakfast. The two women thanked him in unison and began to eat.

Inga took a sip of her orange juice. “Anyway, this sweet little lady told me how, though she grieved for her murdered daughter, she didn't despair because she knew that her daughter was a true believer and follower of Jesus Christ, and she knew that her daughter was in heaven.”

“I've heard people talk like that,” Rachel said quietly, “but it's always kind of put me off, you know? I mean, it sounds kind of arrogant to me. Like there are different levels of religion and theirs is more real than mine. And how can anyone
know
that they are going to heaven?”

“I know what you're saying, Rachel. I was like that, too,” Inga replied, “but deep down I knew I didn't have anything like that inside me. I mean, the faith of that lady was real.
It really was personal.
I wished I had that kind of faith, and I told her so. Then she spent the next half hour telling me how I could have
real
faith in God. That made me wonder what would happen to me when I died, something I'd never really thought about. Have you ever really thought about what will happen to you when you die?”

Once again, Rachel could feel her cheeks beginning to flush. Suddenly the spacious dining room seemed too hot, too small. She had the horrible thought that Mitch might come bounding in and say something that would reveal their secret to Inga. Rachel interrupted her friend. “Uh … listen, Inga. Sorry—I just noticed the time … and I'm running late. I need to get my things and catch the shuttle to O'Hare. It was sure nice seeing you again. Let's try to stay in touch,” she said as she rose to pay the bill.

“What flight are you on today?” Inga asked.

“Chicago to San Diego, then back to Dulles. I'll get to sleep in my own bed tonight,” Rachel said with a smile that she didn't feel.
The words
my own bed tonight
seemed somehow out of place, embarrassing.

“The nine-fifty flight to San Diego?” Inga asked.

“Yeah … flight 1529.”

“I'm flying standby to San Diego on that flight. Unless it's completely booked, I'll see you aboard the flight. Maybe we can talk some more,” Inga said, excited at seeing her old friend and hoping they'd be able to spend some more time together.

Rachel smiled sheepishly and waved as she put her credit card back into her purse. “Great—I can't wait,” she said without much sincerity as she turned to leave.

 

CHAPTER SIX

Office of the Commander, Amn Al-Khass

________________________________________

Special Security Service Headquarters

Palestine Street, Baghdad, Iraq

Tuesday, 29 November 1994

2305 Hours, Local

 

H
ussein Kamil was unhappy, almost despondent. The first cousin and son-in-law of the country's Supreme Leader, The Defender of Islam, Secretary General of the Ba'ath Socialist Party, Head of State, and Commander of the Armed Forces surely had his benefits, but connection to all those titles also carried its liabilities. One of the benefits was that in exchange for marrying Saddam Hussein's only attractive daughter, Kamil got to be the Minister of Military Industrialization and commander of the
Amn Al-Khass
—the SSS, Iraq's Special Security Services and one of the world's most feared
organizations. But as far as Kamil was concerned, one of his most serious liabilities—and perhaps his greatest threat—was sitting opposite him right now: his brother-in-law, Saddam Hussein's second (though some said favorite) son, Qusay Hussein.

Although they were in his office, Kamil had diffidently escorted his brother-in-law to the seat at the head of the oval conference table where the second son of Iraq's Supreme Leader could feel in charge. Kamil gestured for Qusay to take the favored chair.

“My father is not pleased,” Qusay said sharply as he sat.

“What do you mean, he is not pleased?” queried Kamil, trying to control his nerves as he took a seat on the corner of the table nearest the dictator's son.
It is always like this
, he thought. The phone would ring late at night. A meeting—always a very late-night meeting—would be ordered. The caller would invariably be Qusay or his older brother, Uday, or it might be Saddam's personal secretary, Abd Hamid Mahmoud.

The meeting—no matter where it took place—would invariably start with a series of open-ended statements that sounded more like accusations. There was never a correct reply. The best that you could hope for was not to say something that could be used against you in the many paranoid purges that characterized the Supreme Leader's regime. Tonight's inquisition appeared to be no different.

“He is not happy with your efforts at identifying and dealing with traitors,” continued Qusay. “He is especially unhappy that Khidir Hamza has still not been found and eliminated. It has been too long! What are you doing about him?” On a hot August day four months earlier, Khidir Hamza, the number-two man in Iraq's supersecret nuclear weapons program, had walked out the door of his house in Baghdad's high-security palace compound and disappeared. Since he
was a walking repository of secrets and information of great value, especially for the West, tracking him down and killing him was Kamil's personal responsibility.