Skyjack: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper Read Online Free PDF Page A

drops it into the pit of her purse. She’ll look at the love note later. Or never.
    The jet moves faster along the runway. The fuselage shudders. Northwest 305 will be in the air any moment.
    “Miss?”
    Him again. Mr. Bourbon and Seven.
    “I think you better have a look at that note.”
    She reaches into her purse. She retrieves the envelope.
    The Northwest jet barrels down the runway. Seventy knots. Eighty knots.
    In the cabin behind the pilots, passengers cross themselves and close their eyes. Some grip the armrests bracing for liftoff, hoping the jet doesn’t explode.
    Flo opens the note. She can see the words are written on a thick piece of paper. The ink is black. The words look printed by a felt-tip pen. She can see the curls of the letters—neat, crisp. The words are pretty to look at. Is this man an artist? She looks into his eyes. She reads the words again.
MISS ,
I have a bomb here and I would like you to sit by me .

August 25,
2007 New York, New York
    His eyes are not dark and demonic. They are soft and compassionate. Sad. No, tragic. They are the eyes of a loner, a man on the lam from his own secrets.
    I have compiled my own dossier on Kenny Christiansen. I’ve spoken and written to his brother Lyle every day for the past month or so, and now I have my own collection of Christiansen family photos.
    Here Kenny is, maybe eight years old, curling up to a cat and gazing into its eyes and petting its fur. Here in black and white is the family farmhouse outside of Morris where Kenny and Lyle grew up, and around it there is snow and barren flatlands. Here, another black and white: Kenny in his Northwest Orient uniform, wearing a captain’s hat as if he is the pilot. His legs are short and his arms are long and dangle below his waist. Here is his passport photo. He wears a crew-knit sweater like a high school social studies teacher. And here, in color, is the front door of 18406 Old Sumner Buckley Highway. It’s a small house, slightly larger than a trailer. Its country door is painted blood red, and above it is an American eagle clutching a quiver of arrows in its talons. One panel in the front door is missing. In its place is a black, medieval-looking grate. That way, Kenny could see who was at his door without opening it. It’s creepy.
    I look at more photos. I look into his eyes again. They appear darker now. Did I miss something before? I must have, because behind the sadness, especially in his passport photo, I now see a quirk.

    Lyle told me about growing up on the farm outside of Morris. Kenny was second oldest. Lyle was youngest. Their pa was always frustrated with Kenny. He was not good at farmwork, at least not as good as theirolder brother Oliver. When they were boys, the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression hit. Grain prices collapsed.
    “Our folks were so busy,” Lyle wrote me. “Pa in the field and Ma, cooking, sewing, washing clothes. All of us kids did not get lots of hugs … I think it made us all a little bashful and made us long for the hugs.”
    To entertain them, their pa built toys. One invention he called the Perpetual Motion Machine. It ran on marbles. The weight of the marbles pushed the others through and kept the wheels of the machine spinning. Kenny spent hours in the attic marveling at how the machine worked. Kenny’s mind was like a puzzle, always hunting for the missing piece, always looking for the answer.
    As boys, they were also taught to be tough. At the county fair, one attraction was the strong-man competition. Last a round with a prizefighter, collect $100. Their pa took that challenge, stepped in the ring, and came home with five $20 bills.
    Kenny didn’t like to fight. His passion was theater. He was the lead in school plays. He and their sister Lyla developed their own acrobatic act and performed at the county fair. Kenny also tap-danced.
    “He could really snap those shoes around,” Lyle told me.
    Kenny received several scholarships for college, but had to