Richard Vaux has done his share of dirty work, but nothing like this. His employer, Trans World Airlines wants him and a crew to sneak into Beirut, Lebanon, at the height of a civil war, to reclaim an airplane hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. TWA can’t say, for sure, whether the plane will fly, or whether it has been wired to explode in flight. And that’s assuming they aren’t attacked by one or more of the rival militias who pass the time shooting at each other across the tarmac, but only because there haven’t been any Americans to kidnap in awhile.
Order your Kindle or print copy today, and plan to attend Brad Kuhn’s book launch party at 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 13th at River of Grass.
From the Introduction:
“On June 14, 1985, terrorists associated with a newly-formed Shiite Muslim militia known as Hezbollah, or “Party of God,” hijacked TWA Flight 847, which was traveling from Athens to Rome with 139 passengers and eight crew members.
The terrorists first diverted the flight to Beirut, Lebanon, where they released several passengers in exchange for fuel, fruit and sandwiches. The plane departed the next day for Algiers, where more passengers were released before the plane returned to Beirut and one of the hijackers shot U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, and threw his body onto the tarmac.
Lebanese authorities, sympathetic to the hijackers’ demands for the release of more than 700 Palestinian POWs held in Israel, allowed the murderers to leave the plane, and replaced them in the middle of the night with a team of twelve proxy hijackers, with closer ties to the government.
The plane made another lap over the Mediterranean, flying again to Algiers, where it shed even more passengers, and then back to Beirut, where the remaining thirty-nine were removed and ferried away to secret locations.
Negotiations continued for another two weeks before the last of the hostages were flown to Germany on July 2nd. Shortly after the last hostage was released, Israel released the Palestinians.
For two months, the plane, a Boeing 727, sat on the apron, tattered and bloody, surrounded by militias shooting at each other across the airport. News coverage moved on to other events. Hezbollah moved on to other planes.
TWA officials bided their time, relying on contacts at Beirut-based Middle East Airlines to monitor hostilities and identify a relatively safe extraction window. On August 13th, they got the call.
That is where our story begins.”
