Without Honor Read Free

and properly locked the door, pulled out his weapon, and announced in clear English but with a Mexican accent that this plane was being taken over and would head immediately for Havana’s José Marti International Airport.
    In the retelling the crew on the flight deck were quite clear and concise. They were professionals, trained for such an eventuality, so that at no time did they attempt to do anything that would create any further danger. They treated the hijacker with the utmost respect and regard, they told investigators.
    Captain Vincent May (the only non-Mexican member of the crew) immediately radioed Miami Flight Control, advising them that they had been hijacked and were being diverted to Havana. No mention was made of a bomb, or of weapons, or of the number of hijackers on board. The Miami controller who took the call turned all his flights over to other controllers so that he was free to handle only this flight … standard operating procedure. His supervisor immediately telephoned Havana Air Traffic Control to advise them of the incoming hijacked flight,
and then in quick order he telephoned the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Miami, the Mexican Air Control Authority, the Aeromexico representatives at both airports, and finally Miami International Airport security.
    The subsequent events seemed to gather their own terrible momentum. At the very same moment that Lawrence Danielle marched up to the seventh floor to inform the DCI of the event, flight 451 rolled to a stop on the far side of the terminal at José Marti International Airport. Within seconds the plane was surrounded by a dozen military vehicles from which emerged more than a hundred soldiers and civil police officers, all armed, all at the ready.
    It was like a dream after that, Maria Gonzales, the first-class stew, told investigators. The forward hatch of the aircraft was opened, boarding stairs brought up, and she clearly remembered the thick, damp odors of the warm, tropical day, intermingled with the harsher odor of burnt jet fuel. The hijacker who had stationed himself in the aft galley hurried forward, the big automatic in his left hand raised so that everyone would be sure to see it and therefore try nothing silly. He was met in the first-class compartment by the hijacker who had issued the orders from the flight deck.
    There was a bit of confusion at this point. Maria Gonzales told investigators that the hijacker who had been aft pointed his gun at the two Americans—Senors Jules and Asher—and motioned for them to get to their feet, which they did without a fuss. Janice Asher, who had been hysterical all through the incident, nevertheless gave her version in which her husband had leaped up in an attempt to disarm the hijacker, who struck her husband in the head with the weapon. Asher had to be helped off the aircraft. Bernice Jules, on the other hand, told authorities
that the hijacker who had emerged from the flight deck had pointed his gun directly at her, right between her eyes from a distance of less than fifteen feet, and motioned for her husband to get to his feet, which he naturally did. She could not remember if Ted Asher had gotten up or not. Of course, he had to have, because he was shot down on the tarmac.
    From that point on, the consensus from the passengers and crew was that the two hijackers and the two Americans got off the plane, started away, and at some point one or all of them were seen making a dash for one of the civilian cars that had pulled up, followed by several seconds of intense gunfire in which all four were killed.
    It sounded like corn popping in another room, Marjory Dillard said. She did not actually see the shooting, but those passengers on the port side of the aircraft who were able to witness the terrifying event recoiled in horror. About that she was quite clear.
    Within the hour the bodies had been taken away in four ambulances, and the Cuban authorities came aboard to begin their