Blood Rules (11 page)

“One hundred feet above ground,” Ross called. “Fifty … forty… thirty…”

Morgan’s right hand descended to the throttles. A sudden vision of his wife sitting in a deck chair on the lawn of their house in Weybridge flashed through his mind and was gone.

“… twenty …
fifteen.”

Morgan shut down the throttles. Flare out, nose up, angle her into the crosswind … nudge the stick forward to get the nose wheel down, then back a touch

The main wheels scraped the surface. Morgan squeezed the yoke forward, half a second, less, then back again. He felt the gear take the plane’s weight.

All hell broke loose.

It sounded like the end of the world: a hundred machine guns opening up at once, raking the underside of his hull. Gravel! Abort! Too late, too late, get her down,
just get her down in one bloody piece!

He yanked the throttles through the gate, into reverse thrust. The surface wasn’t flat at all, it was ridged every which way, and it was covered with loose stones. He could hear the screams in the cabin behind him but it meant nothing, because he was hauling on the throttles with all his might, the plane was shaking and shuddering itself apart, seams would be bursting soon, there’d be stones in the engines, explosion,
Christ, don’t think about that….

The spoilers came up, killing the lift on the wings. He got the nose down somehow; God knew how, Morgan didn’t. He was still traveling at one hundred and thirty miles an hour. Ahead of him he could see nothing at all, just whiteness. The plane was juddering so much that Morgan thought his brains must shake out of his skull. He braked. Nothing. Again: this time, some drag communicated itself through the soles of his feet, but the banging went on like the worst artillery barrage in the world; he could feel drumming come up through his shoes, into his legs, his torso, his neck …
tire burst!
The plane lurched to one side; the left wing went down. He tried the rudder, tried too hard, overcompensated, somehow got her out of the deadly slew.

One hundred miles an hour. Ninety. It was like being in a metal foundry, or a super-sophisticated studio where the engineers were determined to demonstrate every noise in the canon: tiny taps, shells exploding, panel beating, bang,
bang,
bang
! Eighty miles an hour.

More rudder, keep that ruddy wing tip
up!

Sixty miles an hour.

The starboard engine went out with a snap and a whine, and Morgan jabbed down on the rudder with his left foot. He braked again.

He could hear himself think.

Forty miles an hour. He reached for the nose-wheel rudder and it responded. “Flaps in.”

Ross watched a fish-white hand stretch out to the switches, only later realizing that it was his own.

Slowly, slowly, the inhuman, unbearable noise died away. The plane lurched around to the left, sank a little, and settled into a deathlike silence.

Morgan had finished with engines. He switched them off. As he did so, he allowed himself to acknowledge, for the first time, that they were down. They were alive.

He became aware of a strange noise. For a long time he couldn’t identify it. Then it came to him. Clapping. The rear cabin was racked with thunderous applause, in which tears and laughter mingled.

Ross was saying something incoherent, had grabbed both his hands between his own, and was shaking him as if he wanted to tear them off. When another hand descended onto Morgan’s shoulder, he turned, startled, to see that the woman terrorist had risen to stand behind him. He stared and stared, unable to comprehend what he saw. Her face was wet with tears.

“yes,” she said, and as she spoke the word she shook her head, squeezing his shoulder. “Yes, you are a pilot.”

Selim lifted the handset from its bracket by the first class galley, the one Leila had used to initiate the hijack.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “you have landed in South Yemen, where you will be held as hostages for the release of certain Iranian war heroes now in prison in Iraq. We have no wish to hurt any of you, and we will not do so unless one of two things happens. First, if our demands are rejected; second, if you try to escape. If either event
should
happen, then things will change.” He paused for emphasis. “Things will definitely change.”

Like all the other passengers, Colin listened as if his life depended on catching every word. After Selim had finished his announcement, the cabin was quiet. No one moved or spoke. The euphoria generated by their safe landing had dissipated. Colin heard someone being sick a few rows behind him. Apart from that, the silence that descended on the cabin with the final click of the intercom stayed perfect.

“My God, my God,” he heard a soft voice say beside him, and he turned, quickly, aware of another person whose need outweighed his own. He was sitting next to a boy about the same age as Robbie. His face was distemper-white, splashed with ugly, unformed splotches of crimson. His hands lay in his lap, twisting something back and forth. They were shaking. Every so often they would jump in spasm.

There was an empty seat between the two of them. Colin raised the armrest and slid along to sit next to the boy. He laid a hand on his forearm. “It’s going to be all right,” he said firmly. “Hold on.”

“Can’t… can’t.”

Colin gripped the forearm more tightly. “You can make it.”

“I’m diabetic,” the teenager muttered. “I’d only got one shot left.”

Colin looked at the object in Tim’s hand, saw it was a small bag made of clear plastic and that the ampoule inside had smashed.

“It broke,” Tim said. “In the crash, it broke.”

“You.”

Something hard nudged at Colin’s shoulder. Not a blow, not aggressive, just a hard tap. He swung around to find that one of the hijackers had come to stand in the aisle opposite his seat. The muzzle of his submachine gun rested a few inches from Colin’s face.

“Don’t change seats again.”

Colin looked into the man’s eyes. They were intelligent. To judge from the lines around them, they were capable of expressing humor. He was wearing an expensive gray pinstripe suit, his hair was neatly combed, and he did not look the least bit like a killer. This man might have been the ambassador to one of the gulf states. But for the gun.

Colin swallowed. “No. I won’t.” He cursed himself for capitulating so readily and so early on in the crisis, but being able to speak at all represented some small victory.

The man slowly walked away down the aisle. Colin closed his eyes. He wanted to think, without distraction.

He should never have boarded this flight with Robbie.
Never!
Celestine had warned him, but he’d chosen to put his son at risk regardless. Don’t think about that, he told himself, it’s futile. Think about the future.

Someone, soon, would come to rescue the passengers. He must be ready for that. He must prepare. Because he was going to get out of this alive and in one piece. Robbie too.

The only thing standing between him and survival was conscience.

He might have to kill in order to survive. Or to save his son. Most of these passengers wouldn’t see it that way. They’d think they could do whatever was necessary to escape, but when the time came they wouldn’t be able to shrug off the decent, basic humanity their parents had instilled in them.

Colin had already committed the features of one hijacker to memory. When the moment came, there must be no mistakes. Kill or be killed. He could do whatever was necessary, to save Robbie. He knew that.

He’d done it before.

C
ELESTINE
Hanif lay on her back with her legs raised at an angle of 45 degrees and wondered who had masterminded the transformation of Gravetye Manor into a hotel.

“… ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine …”

She would have painted the ceiling a different color. But the four-poster bed was exquisite.

“… one hundred and twelve, one hundred and thirteen …”

You got to be quite an expert on ceilings if you were seventy-six and determined to keep fit. If you were twenty-six and attractive you knew your ceilings too (and your four-posters, come to think of it), but that was different.

“… one hundred and forty-five, one hundred and forty-six…”

Her cheeks were puffed out and red, everything ached, the arthritis she refused to acknowledge was hell-bent on revenge. The heart, also, was not wonderful. Nevertheless, she expected obedience from her lean old body, and her lean old body complained but complied.

Celestine let her legs crash to the carpet with a bump. You were supposed to lower them in ladylike fashion, but
“Merde!”
she cried.

She had flown in from New York a few hours ago, arriving earlier than scheduled but still too late to make a surprise call on Robbie and Colin before they left Oxford. No matter; she would catch up with them in Melbourne, as originally planned. Flying did not worry her: seven hours from the East Coast, another twenty-five to look forward to; it was all in the game. But she relished this break in her favorite manor-house hotel, and a good workout was just what the doctor ordered.

Hearing a knock on the outer door she got up. This took time, certainly more time than it had taken when she was in her twenties and used to inconvenient postcoital knocks on doors, but things were less urgent now, the consequences of not springing into the nearest wardrobe less severe. As she passed out of the bedroom she caught sight of her reflection and was not displeased: the hair somewhat disorganized, perhaps, and the turkey neck, well… but pink leotards continued to do interesting things for Celestine, those thighs still shot all the way up to
la derrière;
oh, how she longed to be
taller….

“Come in, my dear.” She stood to one side with an eighteenth-century court gesture of welcome that was still going on when Marjorie put the tray down on a table by the mullioned window, with its view of that wonderful garden. Celestine was very fond of Marjorie, one of her surrogate granddaughters. She had honorary families all over the world, but here in England she only had Marjorie. For some reason the country was like that—one hotel, one restaurant, one friend, one “granddaughter.”

Marjorie was an under-manageress, and she knew what Celestine liked. She liked honey, wheat-meal toast, and ginger spice cake served with Earl Grey at four o’clock. Celestine expected to see two of everything on the tray, because she required Marjorie to stay, eat a good tea, and, above all, chat. The hotel could spare Marjorie for this purpose. Hotels frequently did things for Celestine and then had to spend hours with the auditors trying to think why on earth they’d done them. She’d devoted an entire career to suborning other people; she could have made a modest success of some little sideline, like a division of General Motors or one of the lesser Soviet republics perhaps, but had preferred to have fun instead.

“Pour,” she commanded. “I’m drier than a menopausal kangaroo’s pussy.”

Marjorie spilled tea. “Oh,
please
don’t start,” she begged, suppressing a giggle.

“But it’s in my phrase book!” Celestine protested. “If it’s good enough for the Government Tourist Office"— she rapped on the sideboard—"it’s good enough for me. I adore to speak Australian. It’s so—” she paused, searching for the right word—
“gentile.”

Celestine disappeared into the bedroom, to emerge a moment later carrying her perfume sprayer. It was made of cut glass and trailed a long tube connected to a rubber ball. Tube and ball were clad in silk, with the bulb additionally boasting a gold tassel. The reservoir contained Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass. None of her intimate circle could believe this. They would press her to admit that the wonderful breath of fresh air which heralded her entrances was inspired by Calèche, or Chanel No. 5, or this, or that; but to Celestine these were just ridiculously overpriced scents. Blue Grass was a personality all by itself, a lover to whom she had stayed faithful for years.

“Have a squirt,” she suggested matily, before proceeding to go at Marjorie as if she were a hapless fly and the spray contained Flit.

“I love that perfume,” Marjorie said. “Your signature. You spray Blue Grass on our curtains, don’t you.”

“Of course,” Celestine said, with a broad wink. “It’s my way of checking how often you dry-clean them. And of reminding you that it’s
my
room. Anyway, what’s happening in your world? That delectable Austrian chef you were seeing?”

“Went to visit his mother in Innsbruck and hasn’t been heard of since.”

“What a fool. But then mothers… ah, well.”

Marjorie shrugged. “Life goes on. I got a rise, the government upped taxes; that’s it, really. Quiet, you could say. Everyone’s on about the hijack, right now.”

Celestine spread butter on a slice of toast, topping it off with a rich drizzle of honey. “Hijack?”

“It’s just been on the telly, the Bahrain hijack. Some Arabs pinched a TriStar today and downed it in South Yemen.”

Celestine hurriedly put down her toast. “Bahrain … where was this plane going?” “Malaysia. K.L.”

She mentioned the airline and Celestine jumped up. “My God, what flight number? NQ oh-three-three—was it NQ oh-three-three?”

“I can check for you. Why, Mrs. Hanif, you look ill, can I get you—”

“Just tell me one thing.” Celestine’s voice was hoarse. “Were there any casualties?”

“They don’t know, but the plane landed safely.”

Celestine dropped into her chair. “When did this happen?”

“Just an hour ago. I’ll put the radio on; there should be a news bulletin any minute.”

“Yes. Do that, will you?”

Her breaths came in fast, short gasps. She was fond of Colin, but Robbie she adored. If anything had happened to her great-grandson …

While Celestine waited for the news to begin she smoked a menthol cigarette. She allowed herself five a day at specific times, and this one did not fit into her schedule, but since some instinct warned her that she would be smoking a lot from now on, that did not worry her.

“I warned him,” she said unexpectedly. “I told him not to advertise it.” “

Sorry?”

“My grandson-in-law, Colin. I told him there was too much publicity about his trip to Australia. Lecturers going away to teach aren’t news. Yet I read about him going, twice. I warned him. I—”

The time signal put a stop to her recriminations. The BBC led with the hijack. Details of the flight were given, along with a rough breakdown of the passengers by nationality. The pilot was congratulated on a remarkable feat of flying. No one knew who the hijackers were, although they had asked for an Iranian television crew to be sent by helicopter to monitor the hijack and this, coupled with a demand for the release of some Iranian prisoners of war, was taken as a clue to the identity of the perpetrators. There were no reports of any injuries, let alone fatalities. At home, the prime minister said in the Commons today—

Celestine switched off the set and turned to Marjorie. “I have to make a call,” she said in a clipped, businesslike fashion. “You stay there, dear, I may need your help in a moment.”

She picked up the phone and dialed a very long number from memory. The other party answered at once. “Feisal. Mother.” She spoke in Arabic. A pause. The pause alone told her much. “How wonderful to hear your voice, Mother.” “This hijack.”

Pause number two, even more informative than the first. “So you’ve heard.”

“Who’s responsible?”

“Oh … who ever knows these days, Mother?”

“Who?”

“Hezbollah.” The voice at the other end had turned sulky. “Who the devil cares?”

Hezbollah, the Party of God, acting on behalf of Iran … Abu Nidal? No.

“It’s her,” she snapped.
“Leila.”

For a long moment the line echoed with hollow resonance, a little like the sea heard from the depths of a cave. Then came a series of clicks … and the hum of disconnection.

Celestine slammed down the phone, lifted her shoulders until they were almost touching her earlobes, and allowed them to fall again.

“I must go,” she said. “My grandson-in-law and his son were on that flight. Marjorie, be a dear; get me on a plane to Larnaca. I’m not fussy which airline, as long as it leaves today.”

“I’ll fix it. And Mrs. Hanif, I’m so very sorry.”

“So am I, dear, so am I.”

Sorry I was born: the words echoed in her mind as Marjorie closed the outer door to the suite. Sorry I spawned this hell breed. No, don’t think about any of that. Pack. Do it quickly, do it
now.

As Celestine folded her clothes she worked out the odds. Everything depended on Colin, that good man. Robbie wouldn’t understand, but Colin would. He was vulnerable. He was defenseless.

The phone rang. “BA to Larnaca,” Marjorie said. “Eight-fifty, gets in at three-ten tomorrow morning, local time. It’s the best I could do.”

“It’s the best. Marjorie, one more thing: phone Qantas and cancel tomorrow’s reservation for Melbourne.”

As Celestine locked the last case she would have given all she owned, not excepting her life, cheerfully, thoughtlessly, in exchange for the comfortable knowledge that Colin still had the gun she’d given him.

It was all of ten years ago, in June of 1974, that she’d handed her gun over to Colin.

After lunch the weather turned cool with a belligerent breath of wind off the Mediterranean threatening rain in a sulky, unpredictable kind of way. Celestine walked up and down the garden of Kharif, her house at Yarze, incessantly smoking menthol cigarettes, in that era not yet self-rationed, and wondering if the man would bring her great-grandson to see her.

The porticoed villa was a magnificent example of its kind: an old Levantine house, with lead tracery windows and narrow stone columns adorning its balconies. Ever since she’d been exiled to the hills by a son not prepared to set aside part of each day to receive her salutary advice, it had felt empty. Not lonely—Celestine did not know what it meant to be lonely—but it cried out for parties, as in the good old days: skiing on Mount Sannin in the morning, followed by a bouillabaisse lunch at Lucullus on the Avenue des Français, with a sparkling sea visible through the restaurant’s great glass windows framed by palm fronds, then swimming at the Hamman Normandie until it was time to change for the Casino Liban, or listening to Farouz in some nightclub off Hamra … that was Beirut. The real dream, as she liked to call it:
le vrai rêve.
Then the house had been alive, humming like a well-oiled, much-loved machine, a Rolls-Royce engine perhaps, twenty-four hours a day. Now, it slumbered. It needed shrill young voices raised in play to rouse it again.

Celestine paused to finger a small orange, almost ripe on the bough, then decided against picking it. This used to be such a naughty house, once. Young girls would come for the weekend and go away again minus a vital part of their childhood. Adulteries flowered alongside the garden’s purple anchusas, altering lives forever; young people discovered surprising truths about their sexual preferences; people fell in love. She tapped the orange, suddenly whacked it with her fist, smiled not altogether happily. Yes, those days were gone.

A peculiarity of this house was its acoustics. Sometimes the noise of a car by the quarry would arise without warning, sounding very close, only to fade away to silence. This happened now. Celestine raised her head. The Citroën’s distinctive rattle: Azizza must be almost home.

Celestine entered the house, pausing on her way through the study to put out her cigarette in a sturdy confection of Arabian brass, already stuffed with half a day’s intake. She opened the front door in time to see a sky-blue Citroën Dyane ease to a halt in the driveway and stall, violently, when Azizza forgot to let out the clutch. Behind it came a green Fiat compact. For a moment Celestine was aware of nothing except the smell of warm petrol and the sound of metal as it yawned and stretched. Then the Fiat’s offside rear door opened. Oddly enough, no one appeared. Instead, the door closed again. Seconds afterward, a small figure appeared around the back of the car. Seeing Celestine, it stopped. Then, evidently reassured, it started forward again. Celestine heard other doors opening and slamming, was conscious of two adults, but ignored them. Very slowly she lowered herself into a crouch.

A boy, dressed in white shorts with a black belt and gold buckle and a faded red T-shirt. His sandy hair, sun-bleached but still streaked with darker shades, was cropped short on top and left long at the back, in wisps that overrode his collar; absurdly, her first thought on seeing her great-grandson was that this style must be making him hot, how careless of Leila….

“Hello,” she said softly. “Hello, Robbie.”

He came up to her, a fearful frown sullying his face, and raised a clenched fist to his brow. He used his knuckles to wipe beads of sweat away, revealing a plump little arm not yet filled with muscle, its white-and-red skin flecked with tiny spots. His face was rounded like the arm, as if that, too, required a filling; the sun evidently troubled him, for his eyes were two chips narrowed against its light. What scarlet lips he has, she said wonderingly to herself. What perfect little hands….

“’Lo.” He unclenched the fist but not the frown. Then, as if the information processed via invisible antenna proved satisfactory, he held out his hand to be shaken. It felt warm, a little moist, and it was tiny, so tiny, he was only four years old, but something about the spontaneous gesture breathed trust into Celestine like a bubble of oxygen.

“Are you my great-grandmother?” he inquired, in a pleasantly musical voice, low-pitched, much lower than she’d expected.