THE young hijacker, who fancied the name ‘Genius’, was becoming increasingly agitated. Periodically, he would march up to the cockpit and pound on the door, demanding the plane take off. It seemed as though he was already flying, out of this world.

“I said, ‘Genius, what is it you really want’?” recounted Rev Courtney Walters, a chaplain to the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the country’s national police, and lead negotiator with the hijacker.

“He said, ‘I want $8 trillion’,” Walters recalled. “Now, who in their right mind would be making a request for $8 trillion? And he was completely serious. All his conversations about money were about billions and trillions.”

Eight hours into the hijacking, it was clear a climax was near. Every minute that passed was another step into the unknown, like working against an hourglass that doesn’t indicate when the sand would run out. The young hijacker had to be taken down.

Against all odds, while anti-terrorist commandos created a distraction, a female flight attendant grabbed the .38 revolver, the gun that had been menacing one person after another all night – pointed at the pilot, held to the neck of another stewardess, fired into the loading ramp.

The commandos came out of nowhere and pounced.

The hijacking of CanJet Flight 918 last Sunday night in Montego Bay would unfold as a tale of pounding hearts and silent prayers, of practised procedures and on-the-fly action.

A flight attendant would negotiate the passengers’ release. Another would crawl out the cockpit window. A policeman would dress in a pilot’s uniform.

Through interviews with some of the key players involved, the Star can reveal for the first time some of the intricate and dramatic details involved in the takedown of the young man who wanted to be called ‘Genius,’ and the saving of a traumatised crew.

The suspect, 21-year-old Stephen Fray, was to be interrogated Saturday for the first time, according to Deputy Superintendent Michael Garrick, the lead investigator. Fray’s lawyer had requested a psychiatric examination first. He’s being held in the lockup at the Montego Bay constabulary station.

It’s believed the tall fellow, who comes from a prominent family and attended good schools and a community college, had recently experienced a relationship breakdown and financial issues. For him, it’s the beginning of a long, uncertain road.

The gunman had chosen a good time to commandeer a plane. It was the last flight Sunday. The airport was winding down, soon to close, at midnight.

“The suspect arrived at the airport on a pretty well-planned timetable,” said Jamaica’s Transport Minister Michael Henry. “He knew the flight was going to be boarded.”

Most passengers had cleared security and were boarding the CanJet flight, destination Cuba, then Halifax, where the airline is based. No one thought security was lax. One man even had his package of gum inspected. The mood in the cabin, with the tropical air lingering like a tonic, was relaxed, jovial.

The suspect showed up at the screening area, manned at that moment by two female guards. One told him to go through the metal detector. Instead, he cut to the side of it, then pulled back his shirt and showed them his gun. He pulled it out. Unarmed, they didn’t attempt to stop him. He started sprinting to the gate.

He was able to line up with the last few embarking passengers. A clot of them was jammed up in the aisle.

“I was talking to the stewardess,” said passenger Maurice Gallant, “And then she says, ‘What are you doing with that’? I just turned around and there was a gun in my face.”

The flight attendant, believed to be Heidi Tofflemire, ran to the cockpit. The captain, James Murphy, came out to investigate. Tofflemire and co-pilot Glenn Johnson stayed in the cockpit, now with the door closed, sealing it from the chaos on the other side.

Murphy had the gun pointed at his head and neck, he told investigators later. He wasn’t the only one. The revolver was also pointed at the head of Gary Knickle, a private security contractor for CanJet, passengers said. Knickle works for Air Kare security, an Ontario company, and flies to specific destinations such as Montego Bay, monitoring baggage for theft and drugs, a CanJet spokesperson explained.

Early in the hijacking, the gunman was threatening to kill people, investigators say. He kept banging on the cockpit door, demanding the plane refuel and fly him to the United States.

Some passengers were worried he had an accomplice. “We kept looking around to see who might be working with him,” said Donald Porter of West Bay, NS.

Passengers also saw the gunman repeatedly hold his gun to the head and neck of one flight attendant, believed to be Carolina Santizo Arriola, who lives in the Greater Toronto Area. Walters said Santizo Arriola was extremely effective with the hijacker.

“There was one stewardess in particular who was extremely calming,” said Walters, who debriefed four of the crew members after the hijacking.

“He spoke to her more than anyone else regardless of how high-flown he was. Whether he liked her personally, I don’t know. She was clearly a very calming person for him.”

Santizo Arriola is also believed to have played a role in reasoning with the hijacker to let the passengers go in exchange for money and valuables. When he agreed, one flight attendant began yelling for the passengers to move fast.

The passengers quickly got together, distributed cash to the children and others who didn’t have any, and began to file to the door. As one stewardess stood shaking and holding a bag, the assailant held his gun to the neck of another. Passengers, trying not to make eye contact, dropped their cash, sometimes hundreds of dollars, into the bag or at their feet.

“By that time, the stewardess was saying, ‘He doesn’t want your money anymore, keep your money’. But we threw it down anyway,” Porter said. He recalled the man seemed like he was high on drugs (“he kept sniffing and rubbing his nose”) and demanded Jack Daniels whiskey (he wasn’t given any).

On the ground, an operations command was being set up inside the terminal. The Jamaica Defence Force’s anti-terrorist squad and constabulary Deputy Commissioner Owen Ellington – who would take the role of “gold commander”, co-ordinating the whole operation – were flying in from Kingston.

“We were hoping he wouldn’t go berserk,” said Inspector Melvin Dennis, who commands the airport police station. “I was shocked and surprised and praying all the time for the safety of the persons aboard and hoping for a sensible resolution.”

While the freed passengers were taken to a secure area in the terminal, five crew members – Santizo Arriola, Tony Bettencourt, and Anu Goswami, all GTA residents, and Knickle and Nicole Rogers of Halifax – remained in the cabin, along with the two in the cockpit.

About two hours into the ordeal, the police decided to put an armed tactical officer into the cockpit.

Tofflemire was helped out the window, up to which a luggage conveyor vehicle had been elevated.

She was replaced by the officer who had donned a pilot’s shirt.

Dressing the part was a strategy to do everything possible not to signal their moves to the gunman.

“It was to give the impression that nobody had left the cockpit and that the pilots were still aboard, and the plane was still operable,” Ellington explained.

“If he learned the pilots had abandoned the plane, it might have led to frustration and he could have injured the crew members.”

He needed to believe that as long as he was compliant, it would still be possible to grant his wishes.

Co-pilot Glenn Johnson, of Montreal, worked with the negotiator.

When Walters wasn’t speaking with the suspect, Johnson was, with his guidance, Walters said.

Meanwhile, Capt Murphy had left, Porter said, because the frustrated gunman had demanded that he go. “The man didn’t want him there because he wasn’t doing what the man wanted.”

From other sources, it’s understood that investigators could hear the suspect over the plane’s intercom system and that they were communicating with him via the co-pilot’s headset on the cabin interphone.

The gunman was offered a cellphone, but he refused to open the main door to retrieve it, apparently thinking it was a trick, one investigator said.

Walters, a protestant minister, had been trained in hostage-negotiating skills but had never had to put them into practice. A modest yet confident man, he was at first reticent to speak to the Star, uncomfortable with the spotlight.

Playing such a central role was both exciting but also daunting, he said.

“Not having done anything like this, or even a simulation in a couple of years, it was a little taxing at first, when you had to find a response to his demands and ensure you were co-ordinating with the tactical team.

“It’s one thing to know or to be trained in the art (of negotiation),” he added. “It’s another to be in it.”

Ellington, who had also gone through simulations of such a crisis, had a moment of anxiety when he realised he couldn’t find his manual. The deputy commissioner had flown to the scene without it, but it all came back to him.

They were learning more and more about the hijacker, from family and friends, and even from his Facebook profile.

“We were pretty well informed about who he was,” Ellington said.

From what the young man was saying, investigators determined he wasn’t well – and prioritised not only the hostages’ safety, but also his. Why?

“Because he’s a human being,” Ellington said. “The discussions we had with friends and relatives and requests he was making indicated this was somebody who required not just law enforcement attention but other attention as well.”

The family members and his two best friends were brought in to talk with him, but they got nowhere, Inspector Dennis recounted.

Inside the cabin as the hours dragged on, Walters would periodically speak with the gunman, who was no longer talking about killing people. His demands just became more inconceivable. In addition to demanding billions and trillions, he said he wanted to fly to a country where that kind of cash was waiting for him, Ellington said.

Walters noted that he was also telling his hostages that once he collected all the money, he would be generous, that “he was going to set them up.”

He wasn’t giving up, though. And inside, he was becoming increasingly agitated. He kept banging on the cockpit door.

“Towards daybreak on Monday,” Ellington said, “we realised the option of pursuing a negotiated resolution was no longer viable.”

The next step was a tactical response. Johnson and the police officer were removed from the cockpit and replaced by anti-terrorist commandos.

Sometime later, the Canadian-trained soldiers also breached the cabin from another passenger door, though Ellington wouldn’t specify which one.

Then, a dramatic turn. During a moment of distraction on the part of the hijacker, one of the female flight attendants apparently grabbed the gun from his hands.

Deputy Superintendent Garrick, the lead investigator, said all the details must still be investigated, but “that has come to my attention.”

He would not specify which flight attendant accomplished this daring feat.

– REPRINTED WITH THE KIND PERMISSION OF THE TORONTO STAR.