(2 of 2)
After landing at Larnaca, Melling pulled up to the terminal and shut off his engines. Suddenly he noticed a strange plane taxiing by. It was a C-130E with Egyptian markings. What if the hijackers saw the plane and panicked? Melling quickly distracted them. Motioning behind him toward the cabin, he shouted loudly, "What was that noise?" The two Palestinians glanced back as the Egyptian plane slid by. "It looks like trouble," whispered Melling to Cox.
The trouble soon came as the Palestinians were conducting doorway negotiations with a Cypriot intermediary. The Egyptian commando Jeep suddenly rolled across the tarmac, guns blazing. The cockpit was a storm of flying glass. Puffs of insulation fell like hail.
"Who are they?" asked the startled Mohammed.
"Egyptians!" yelled Melling.
Mohammed: "Hand me the grenades!"
Melling: "No! Just keep down and put your guns away!" To Cox: "If they come up the steps, mate, we've had it." Melling reached up and grabbed a fire ax to have something in his hand.
The firing finally stopped. The cockpit radio had been smashed so Melling grabbed a bullhorn and climbed down to the tarmac. "What is going on?" he demanded. "Who is in control? Identify yourself!"
A Cypriot bomb squad expert came forward; Melling took him back to the cockpit. Mohammed and Hussein stood there warily, pistols cocked, hand grenades unpinned.
"This is a security man," said Melling. "Give him your guns and grenades and let's finish this." Their hands were trembling; Melling reached out and disarmed the pair. As they were led away, he remembered that Mohammed had kept a second gun in the back of his waistband. Melling called the group back and retrieved it.
"I knew that you'd make it," his wife told him cheerily on the phone. "Hurry on home." He did. As he removed his coat, something fell to the floor. It was a spent bullet.