The Leap

3-Preparations

November 15, 1971  

I stole a glance at my old childhood friend and gave her a reassuring smile. Sayuri smiled right back. Mr. Webb had been looking through the files for ten minutes. In the files was detailed my experience as a skydiver. After leaving the military my father had opened his own skydiving business. Mom was against letting me partake in the activity until I was fourteen. From the first jump I was hooked.

In high school I'd worked weekends and then summers for dad as we taught people the art of the trade. I'd made well over three thousand jumps. Day, night, land touchdown, water touchdown, from small planes and helicopters. None could doubt I had the experience.

The other half of the file went into Sayuri's skill set; make-up and special effects. She'd always loved it and went to school for it, graduated with high honors, and had worked on several films and TV shows under the direction of legendary make-up artists. However she'd found it hard to break out on her own for two reasons. Sometimes it was because she was an Asian American and other times it was because she was a woman.

I'd gotten into make-up effects after I married. It was about that time Sayuri was trying to start her own studio. I saw how much she needed help so I became her assistant and eventually a make-up artist in my own right, though Sayuri was leagues above me and always would be. We'd worked on small B-films but no one was willing to hire us for higher end projects, and while it was a living and had been critical to my survival since Brady left me, if we were to be recognized and wanted for more, we needed the cash to make it happen. He set the files down and lit another cigar.

"You really might get away with this." He studied us with a curious look in his eye. "You want to do it next week? You've clearly been thinking about this for some time. Why this particular plane? You could hijack a larger one and have a higher number of bargaining chips."

I found the picture and pointed to the rear of the 727 in the files. "The aft staircase. Once the pilots adhere to my demands it'll be an easy jump from there. If I jumped from the side door of a commercial jet it'd likely kill me. This jump I know I can survive."

He swirled his brandy slowly. "How though? You have the experience for the jump part yes, but where are you planning to jump and what happens after? How do you keep the cops off the trail? And my biggest question is why are you coming to me? If you really do get away with the money you'll have more than enough to do whatever you want without entering into an agreement with me." He drained his brandy and poured another while waiting for my answer.

"In Seattle, when I have everything, I'll release the passengers and all but one of the flight attendants and of course the cockpit crew. Once we're in the air I'll tell the flight attendant to join the cockpit and demand no one come back into the cabin until we reach the destination. Keeping the cops off my tail won't be a problem because I'm going to give them a false search zone. I'll jump up and down on the stairs soon after we leave Seattle and the pilots will feel the oscillation on the control yoke and mark the time. They'll assume I jumped then. The cops will be combing that area. Because of the configuration I'll demand the plane fly in we won't be able to make it to Mexico without an additional refueling; which I'll ask to happen in Reno, Nevada. The plane will be flying even lower and slower as it comes in for a landing and I'll jump then. It's also a much better plan to jump there into the barren desert rather than the Pacific Northwest that's covered in forests and rivers, which jumping into during the winter is even more dangerous."

Three puffs on the cigar. "Yes I can see that's a very detailed and well thought out plan as long as no one really comes back into the cabin to see if you did jump."

"It's a bit of risk I admit but I'm almost positive they won't. On the off chance they do I'll make a threat and send them back into the cockpit."

"The other half of my question?" he asked with a raised brow.

"Even if we get away with the money we won't be able to spend it. Every bill will be photographed and the serial numbers cataloged. If the bills popped up in circulation anywhere the FBI would be on it faster than you could blink. The two hundred thousand I get from the ransom will be swapped with you for different bills. You can keep the original money and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing how the hijacking worked and all the money to prove it."

Mr. Webb scratched his chin. "I would like that however it doesn't feel like enough on my end. I have a counter proposal. If you pull this off I'll give you four hundred thousand dollars on one condition. Once the statute of limitations for this crime runs out, I want to publicly reveal not only that I've had the money the entire time, know how it was accomplished, but also who the two of you are."

Sayuri and I looked at each other.

"Keep in mind," Mr. Webb continued, "even if I held a press conference one hour after the limitations are up you cannot be prosecuted for air piracy. Well," he said, "given that from the time the crime was committed to the second the statute of limitations runs out you never leave the country. There is a little known law that if a criminal leaves the country during the period when the crime is prosecutable, the clock freezes until they step foot back on the soil of the country the crime was committed in. If either of you leave the country for any reason I would have to know beforehand because if I reveal that information even seconds before I believe the clock runs out; I could be prosecuted as an accessory."

"What do you think, Sayuri?"

"If we say no you absolutely won't consider this for the lower amount?" she asked.

"No."

Sayuri turned toward me. "We can't do this without the bill exchange Jack, and we're running out of time. If this is the only way then I say yes. Besides think of how much more business we'll get once it's revealed."

"Right. We accept."

"Good. Now I have some additional concerns. How does your being a make-up artist play into this at all, Sayuri?"

"Do you have a restroom we can use for half an hour?"

"Through those doors."

Twenty minutes later we emerged from the bathroom; Sayuri with paint on her fingers and I utterly unrecognizable. I'd put on the ugly reddish-brown suit and tie we'd bought at an estate sale and would be using on the heist, the facial prosthetics painted to perfection, and to tip the scales even farther, I said hello to Mr. Webb with my altered voice. I'd always been good with impressions. I could mimic almost anything to perfection. It'd gained me a lot of favor in school and with my kids later on; though I hadn't pursued anything with this talent I'd never lost it.

"That's amazing." Mr. Webb got out of his chair and circled me. "If I passed you on the street I'd never suspect."

I took the cigar from his hand and puffed on it. "That's the idea Mr. Webb."