Sky Marshal

So after years of dreaming about it, Robin and I found ourselves taking our Pacific tour. After retiring I'd done a little contract work and audited some classes at the local community college. I figured the class on conversational Japanese would come in handy if we ever did get to visit the country, which we were finally going to do.

We had planed on starting off in California, then cruising north to Alaska and from there traveling to Japan with a stop in Hawaii on the way back. However the travel agent found we could get much cheaper airfare from Hawaii to Japan if we visited our 50th state after leaving the 49th. Seems like there were quite a few available flights from Alaska to Hawaii, whatever that means!

Neither of us are beach people, though we did spend a little time by the surf. There are a lot of other attractions in Hawaii to see inland, far from the crowded cities near the shore. We did get to see the location where the original TV show "Hawaii 5-0" was filmed, got to do some horseback riding along some nature trails, and enjoyed some freshly picked pineapple.

Part of the tourist bit was to take the boat ride out to the Arizona Memorial site where the famous battleship was sunk during the attack on Perl Harbor. While we were there I noticed an elderly Japanese man with two young children with him, apparently giving them a bit of a history lesson. I tried not to stare at them, but I moved in close enough to overhear their conversation, and I was able to make out most of what they were saying.

A few days later we boarded a JAL flight leaving from Honolulu to Tokyo. I've heard that if you want to visit a foreign country you should try and make use of a airline based there, it's one way to get immersed in the culture before you even arrive. Well I wouldn't try that if I were visiting Russia as Aeroflot is one of the worst airlines in the world, but no worries with Japan.

As we took our seats on the wide body aircraft, I noticed the same gentleman I'd seen at the Arizona Memorial taking a seat with his two kids a few rows ahead of us. He obviously wasn't the only Japanese person on board the flight, which seemed to be about half American tourists and business persons, and half Japanese, about what I'd have expected.

There had been a bit of extra security in the airport around the JAL terminal, probably due to an attempted hijacking of one of their flights out of Seoul a few days earlier. I thought I spotted a Sky Marshal sitting up in the front of the aircraft, a middle aged Asian man in a plain uniform. At least the airline was taking the possible threat seriously.

Despite the extra vetting of the passengers during boarding we left the gate pretty much on time. There had been a small incident where two passengers got into a bit of a huff with one of the flight attendants. Something about their seat assignment, the airline seemed to have booked the same two seats to two different pairs of passengers, and the two men who raised the stink insisted that they be allowed to take the seats issued to them. Fortunately the flight wasn't fully booked and the two passengers already seated were willing to accept accommodations elsewhere in the plane.

The flight started out without incident, the air was clear without any turbulence and the captain was able to leave the seatbelt sign off. Up ahead of me I could see that the young boy sitting next to the old man was getting a bit restless. His head kept popping up and down above the top of the seat, I could see his uncombed auburn hair sticking out in two places at the back of his head every time he jumped up. Finally, his guardian ushered him from his seat to the isle where he ran towards the back holding onto a model airplane. The lad almost tripped as he ran by, his left red boot making contact with the edge of a passenger's attache case that was left sticking out into the isle. His sister seemed to be content at her seat either reading or listening to an iPod. The two of them returned to their seats ten minutes later with the boy clutching a few magazines a flight attendant had given him.

The hours went by, Robin and I managed to catch some sleep knowing that crossing the time zones would play havoc with our internal rhythms. I could see on the electronic flight map that we were approaching the Japanese main land and would soon start a turn toward our destination. Suddenly everything seemed to happen at once. The brown haired boy with the red boots once again got from his seat to head towards the back of the plane to talk with one of the flight attendants, just as he had been doing on and off during the entire duration of the flight. The two gentlemen who had raised the stink about their seats suddenly got up. One of them grabbed the boy as he ran past them, the other marched up to the front of the plane. He quickly faked a misstep falling to his right pulling a taser from his pocket and attacked the Sky Marshal with it, and coming up with the security officer's hand gun.

There was suddenly an obvious hijacking attempt going on. The Asian man in the front of the plane, who I was now sure was a Korean national, was demanding that the pilot divert us to Pyongyang, while his accomplice towards the back of the plane held a gun to the poor boy's head. The kid's guardian and his sister were now in the isle as well pleading with the terrorists to release him. Some of the passengers started to panic and for a few moments it looked like an end of the world situation.

What happened next is still playing in my head in slow motion. The man holding the boy hostage slowly marched him forward towards the front of the aircraft where his accomplice was waving his weapon about, repeating his demand that the pilot open the cockpit door. I saw the old man pull the girl child out of the isle and seemed to mouth something at the boy. Too bad I can't lip read Japanese!

I kept turning my head back and forth afraid of what was going to happen next. The boys brown eyes seemed to glow red faintly as his auburn hair darkened into a sleek black. He suddenly made his move, grabbing the gun that was pressed against his head out of his would be abductors hands so violently that the Korean screamed with pain as his hand had been broken. The boy dropped the weapon, now a mangled steel ball, to the floor. He sprinted down the length of the isle, trampling his attacker as he went, like a stampeding elephant. The Korean hijacker in the front of the plane turned about just in time to receive a knock out blow from the lad's fist as the boy leaped into the air at the last second with his right hand held out balled into a fist. The blow dislodged a half dozen teeth. The hijacker had been holding a gun which fired as it fell out of his hand during the boy's attack. I know we heard the weapon discharge, but nothing happened, no one was hit by the bullet and the aircraft's skin was not punctured.

By this time one of the flight attendants had helped to revive the Sky Marshal with smelling salts. He was a bit groggy, but quickly took charge. He was completely unaware of what had just happened. With some help from a few passengers, the two would be hijackers had been tied up and were now under guard.

As the excitement was a bit too much for me, I headed towards the back of the aircraft to use the head. There was the boy that had just subdued the two armed men smiling as if nothing had happened. He winked at me and held out his left hand, opening his fist to reveal a souvenir of the incident, the 32 caliber slug he had caught in mid air! He held a finger to his lips as if to tell me to keep it a secret.

The flight landed without any further incident, Robin and I found ourselves at the baggage claim conveyor belt along with everyone else who had been on the flight. Standing next to us was the old man and his two young charges. He smiled at me and said, "We didn't get to introduce our selves on the plane, but I guess we'll have a chance later when you get to Takarazuka City."

"I'll be waiting for you." The boy said with a laugh.

And you know something? Later on at 7-65, Mukogawa-cho Takarazuka, Hyogo, there he was.

This was another one of my 'Astro Day Dream' stories. I'll leave it to the reader to do a backwards lookup on that address and figure out where and what it is!