Read Online Skyjack: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper by Geoffrey Gray - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Geoffrey Gray
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year. Agents approach airport officials, security personnel, passengers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, parking lot attendees, rental car agents, gift shop employees, coffee shop employees, bartenders in the cocktail lounge, waiters and waitresses in the restaurants, and salesmen working in the insurance stands.
See anybody suspicious? About six foot one? Black hair?
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there was a gentleman that looked awfully suspicious,” Hal Williams says.
Williams is a gate clerk for Northwest. He noticed the gentlemen. He was odd, not like the others. He boarded Flight 305.
What was so odd about him?
He was dressed in black, all black, Williams tells the feds.
Anything else?
The man was a lone wolf, Williams says. Before the flight, other passengers on the 305 gathered by the terminal window. With the storm coming, they joked about how they would all have to run across the tarmac. Everybody would get drenched in the rain. The man in black was not part of the group. His attitude was different.
How different? How would he describe the attitude?
“Blah,” Williams says.
The agents have the passenger list for Flight 305. Recognize any names?
Williams looks at the list.
“No,” he says.
The feds hunt for more eyewitnesses. To get on the plane, the hijacker must have purchased a ticket. Who sold it to him?
Dennis Lysne was working the ticket desk that afternoon, agents learn.
Where is Lysne?
He’s left for the day, Northwest officials tell the feds.
In Portland, agents race to Lysne’s home. They find his wife. Where is Lysne?
The supermarket, she tells them. Doing some Thanksgiving shopping.
In the supermarket parking lot, Lysne loads up his car with groceries. He gets in the driver’s seat. His engine won’t start. He walks to a pay phone and calls his wife.
“Better hurry home,” she tells him. “The FBI wants to talk to you.”
At his house, Lysne is briefed. Flight 305 was hijacked. The man says he has a bomb. Does Lysne remember selling a ticket to anybody suspicious?
“Yes,” Lysne says. There was one suspicious passenger.
Does Lysne happen to remember the passenger’s name?
He does.
“Cooper. Dan Cooper.”
Cooper was the last passenger to buy a ticket for Flight 305.
What did Cooper look like?
He was wearing dark clothes. Had darkish skin. Olive in color.
Anything else?
Lysne remembers snippets of their conversation. The man asked, Can I get on your flight to Seattle? He asked, That’s a 727, isn’t it?
Does Lysne remember anything else?
The fare was $20. Cooper paid with cash.
Did Cooper display any nervous behavior or fidgeting?
He did not.
Did Lysne notice what Cooper was keeping his money in?
He did not.
Could he recognize Cooper again if he saw him?
Lysne isn’t sure.
It is raining. It is unclear how powerful the storm will be. On the ground in Seattle, homicide detective Owen McKenna gets a call from Seattle’s chief of detectives. McKenna is briefed on the hijacking. The chief wants McKenna to fetch the $200,000 ransom for the hijacker and bring it to SEA-TAC airport.
In his unmarked car, McKenna races to the Seattle First National Bank downtown. Two employees from the bank’s security department are waiting for him. They have a leather satchel. Inside is a canvas bag that contains $200,000, all in twenty-dollar bills.
The money is not coated with powders or rigged with exploding packs of dye. But the bills are marked. To prepare for a robbery, Seattle First National has set aside a cache of bills, and each serial number of each bill has been recorded on microfiche. They count out a hundred stacks of twenty-dollar bills, each stack worth $2,000. The load must weigh twenty pounds, maybe more.
McKenna drives the bank officials and the satchel to SEA-TAC. He thinks about the man with the bomb on the hijacked plane circling above them.
As a detective, McKenna has little respect for the airlines. One cold case haunts him. He found her body on a
See anybody suspicious? About six foot one? Black hair?
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there was a gentleman that looked awfully suspicious,” Hal Williams says.
Williams is a gate clerk for Northwest. He noticed the gentlemen. He was odd, not like the others. He boarded Flight 305.
What was so odd about him?
He was dressed in black, all black, Williams tells the feds.
Anything else?
The man was a lone wolf, Williams says. Before the flight, other passengers on the 305 gathered by the terminal window. With the storm coming, they joked about how they would all have to run across the tarmac. Everybody would get drenched in the rain. The man in black was not part of the group. His attitude was different.
How different? How would he describe the attitude?
“Blah,” Williams says.
The agents have the passenger list for Flight 305. Recognize any names?
Williams looks at the list.
“No,” he says.
The feds hunt for more eyewitnesses. To get on the plane, the hijacker must have purchased a ticket. Who sold it to him?
Dennis Lysne was working the ticket desk that afternoon, agents learn.
Where is Lysne?
He’s left for the day, Northwest officials tell the feds.
In Portland, agents race to Lysne’s home. They find his wife. Where is Lysne?
The supermarket, she tells them. Doing some Thanksgiving shopping.
In the supermarket parking lot, Lysne loads up his car with groceries. He gets in the driver’s seat. His engine won’t start. He walks to a pay phone and calls his wife.
“Better hurry home,” she tells him. “The FBI wants to talk to you.”
At his house, Lysne is briefed. Flight 305 was hijacked. The man says he has a bomb. Does Lysne remember selling a ticket to anybody suspicious?
“Yes,” Lysne says. There was one suspicious passenger.
Does Lysne happen to remember the passenger’s name?
He does.
“Cooper. Dan Cooper.”
Cooper was the last passenger to buy a ticket for Flight 305.
What did Cooper look like?
He was wearing dark clothes. Had darkish skin. Olive in color.
Anything else?
Lysne remembers snippets of their conversation. The man asked, Can I get on your flight to Seattle? He asked, That’s a 727, isn’t it?
Does Lysne remember anything else?
The fare was $20. Cooper paid with cash.
Did Cooper display any nervous behavior or fidgeting?
He did not.
Did Lysne notice what Cooper was keeping his money in?
He did not.
Could he recognize Cooper again if he saw him?
Lysne isn’t sure.
It is raining. It is unclear how powerful the storm will be. On the ground in Seattle, homicide detective Owen McKenna gets a call from Seattle’s chief of detectives. McKenna is briefed on the hijacking. The chief wants McKenna to fetch the $200,000 ransom for the hijacker and bring it to SEA-TAC airport.
In his unmarked car, McKenna races to the Seattle First National Bank downtown. Two employees from the bank’s security department are waiting for him. They have a leather satchel. Inside is a canvas bag that contains $200,000, all in twenty-dollar bills.
The money is not coated with powders or rigged with exploding packs of dye. But the bills are marked. To prepare for a robbery, Seattle First National has set aside a cache of bills, and each serial number of each bill has been recorded on microfiche. They count out a hundred stacks of twenty-dollar bills, each stack worth $2,000. The load must weigh twenty pounds, maybe more.
McKenna drives the bank officials and the satchel to SEA-TAC. He thinks about the man with the bomb on the hijacked plane circling above them.
As a detective, McKenna has little respect for the airlines. One cold case haunts him. He found her body on a
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