Red Dagger: How standing all night outside a London Police Station some 43 years ago, where a Palestinian hijacker was being held, inspired my latest book, and my first novel

Some 43 years ago, I stood shivering all night with a scores of other journalists outside the Ealing Police Station in West London, where Palestinian hijacker, Leila Khaled, was being held, and it was then that the germ of an idea for “Red Dagger,” my 44th book, but my first novel, began.

I was, at the time, working as a reporter for the Middlesex County Times, a West London weekly newspaper, and my editor, Bert Munday, summoned me to his office and excitedly told me to “head over to the local police station”, where “a Palestinian hijacker is being held.”

We didn’t have many big stories that came our way, but this was a “huge one”, he told me. When I arrived and joined the many journalists there, I discovered that the lady concerned was Leila Khaled, a Palestinian hijacker, who was later called the “poster girl of Palestinian militancy”.

Khaled first came to public attention for her role in a 1969 hijacking and one of four simultaneous hijackings the following year as part of the Black September timeline. On August 29, 1969, she was part of a team that hijacked TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Athens, diverting the Boeing 707 to Damascus. Following this hijacking, and after the now famous picture of her (taken by Eddie Adams) holding an AK-47 rifle and wearing a kaffiyeh was widely published, she was said to have underwent six plastic surgeries on her nose and chin to conceal her identity and allow her to take part in a future hijacking, and because she did not want to wear the face of an icon.

On September 6, 1970, Khaled and Patrick Argüello, a Nicaraguan American, attempted the hijack of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York City as part of the Dawson's Field hijackings, a series of almost simultaneous hijackings carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The attack was foiled, when Israeli sky marshals killed Argüello before eventually overpowering Khaled.

Although she was carrying two hand grenades at the time, Khaled said she had received very strict instructions not to threaten passengers on the civilian flight. However, Argüello, the co-hijacker, shot a member of the flight crew, before he was killed.

The pilot diverted the aircraft to Heathrow airport in London, where Khaled was then delivered to the Ealing police station. After Khaled had been taken there, I spent that first night with the many other journalists, including veteran BBC newsman, John Simpson, wondering what had turned Khaled into a hijacker.

On October 1, 1970, the British government released her as part of a prisoner exchange. The next year, the PFLP abandoned the tactic of hijacking, although splinter movements continued to hijack airplanes.

After it was all over, I filed away the incident in my memory bank until many years later, a fellow journalist told me that he should write a novel based on my many experiences while visiting some of the world’s hotspots, and the idea for “Red Dagger” began to emerge.

Soon I was busily writing up the novel which features, you guessed it, a Palestinian terrorist who belongs to the fictional “Red Dagger” terror group from Gaza, a place I have visited several times, an Irish double agent, and a drunken American journalist who moves to London and spends too much time in a real pub called “The Stab in the Back,” something that I knew all about having spent many hours there during my tabloid days.

I also used as background, the time I was arrested and locked up in a cell in Lagos, Nigeria, also when I and a colleague were in a hotel in San Salvador, during the bloody El Salvador civil war, when a car bomb exploded in the parking lot and badly damaged the hotel. And finally, when my wife Norma and I were held up by terrorists in Bethlehem and were going to be shot by them. That was until a quick-thinking Arab taxi driver saved their lives by explaining we were visitors from the USA.

Although none of these experiences are used in the book as they occurred, they helped me to imagine many of the scenes included in “Red Dagger”. Also, my travels to Gaza were great background to writing up the many scenes there.

My first trip into Gaza came about when Brother Andrew, the Dutch-born co-author of the best-selling book, “God’s Smuggler”, invited me, along with a group of his friends, to celebrate his 70th birthday in Bethlehem, Hebron and then Gaza. I became intrigued with Gaza and later return with my wife to see the work of World Vision there.

I also based some of the action in “The Stab in the Back” pub just off Fleet Street, the then hub of British journalism. I knew all about this journalists’ pub as it was there that regained by Christian faith after being challenged by an Irish-Canadian called Ray Barnett, who told me that I should be doing more with my life that writing “silly stories for the tabloids”.

It was then that I walked out on my life on the British tabloids and went to Uganda to write “Uganda Holocaust” with Barnett, and met some of the most courageous people I had ever met.

Each one of the characters in “Red Dagger” finally finds redemption in their twisted lives, but not before much mayhem has been committed and the world had stood on the edge of complete disaster.

I am pleased to report that “Red Dagger” has already received praise from various celebrities who have read it.

They include veteran American entertainer, Pat Boone, who said, “Dan Wooding’s latest book, ‘Red Dagger’, is a gripping novel about terror, betrayal and redemption. Much of it is set in Gaza, but also features a Northern Ireland terrorist and an American journalist who, after moving to London, finds himself spending too much time in a bar called ‘The Stab in the Back’ with other drunken hacks. The conclusion of the book has a most dramatic twist that held my attention right to the very end. I enthusiastically endorse Red Dagger, which is written by one of the world’s most traveled journalists”.

Rock keyboard legend, Rick Wakeman, about whom I have recently re-released his biography called “Caped Crusader – Rick Wakeman in the 1970s” (www.amazon.com/CAPED-CRUSADER-Rick-Wakeman-1970s/dp/1908728302 ), with a foreword by Sir Elton John, said after reading the book, “Terrorism is a dangerous subject both in reality and in fiction. To bring Christianity in as a major part of the plot is potentially even more dangerous, but Dan Wooding portrays all his characters as both very real and very believable in this novel that literally sets off at a tremendous pace from the very first page. I found myself thinking very visually whilst reading it and that's the secret of any good novel.”

Finally, Dr. Ted Baehr, Founder and Publisher of Movieguide® and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission®, said, “A brilliant writer, Dan Wooding, who has authored over 40 books, has written a wonderful, compelling, evangelistic novel about Middle East terrorism. I highly recommend it.”

Already there has been some interest from several movie producers who are considering it being made into a major feature film.

To purchase a copy of “Red Dagger,” (Tanswell Books) go to: www.lulu.com/shop/dan-wooding/red-dagger/paperback/product-11050174.html;jsessionid=9B886E8DA3745ECD... It also is available at: www.amazon.com/Red-Dagger-Dan-Wooding/dp/0578056534

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 72, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Lake Forest with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for nearly 50 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) – www.assistnews.net -- and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network (www.kwve.com) in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live (www.hischannel.com), which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries.