By the Rivers of Babylon (15 page)

“I can’t believe those sons-of-bitches really pulled this off.”

“Jacob . . . I heard someone saying that this Rish knows you. He threatened—”

“I should have shot the son-of-a-bitch when I had him.”

“Did he say, on the radio, that he was going—”

“Don’t listen to rumors. There will be a lot of those in the days ahead.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Remember when you asked me . . . if I would come out to your place . . .”

Hausner laughed. “Don’t start saying things you’ll be sorry for when we’re back in Tel Aviv. I might hold you to it.”

She smiled. “I never really understood you. I’ve always admired you . . . but you frighten people.”

“I don’t want any deathbed confessions. We are not quite ready for that yet.”

“All right.”

They spoke about other things. Dinner came, but neither of them could eat.

Abdel Majid Jabari spoke to Ibrahim Ali Arif, the other Arab delegate on board. He spoke in a rapid, soft, susurrant Arabic. “This is a tragedy beyond measure.”

Arif ate rapidly as he spoke. “I feel very awkward at this
moment. I feel like Daniel in the lions’ den.”

Jabari watched as the portly man stuffed food into his mouth. “Don’t always think of your own discomfort, my friend. This tragedy transcends that.” He lit a cigarette. “I feel worse for the Jews who staked their reputations and careers on Arab goodwill.”

“I still feel personally uncomfortable. And I don’t believe in blood guilt. Uncomfortable, yes—guilty, no. Guilt is a Jewish emotion.” He looked at Jabari’s untouched tray. “Do you mind?” He placed it over his own tray.

Jabari sipped his arak. “Anyway, the lions’ den is out
there
,” he pointed in the direction of the Lear. “These are our countrymen in here. You must be able to look them in the eye—without discomfort. Have no doubts that we will share their fate.”

Arif laughed between bites. “We should be so lucky, my friend. Even if
they
are eventually released, you know very well that
we
are marked for special attention. This is the lions’ den and that is the lions’ den. We are men who have no country, no people, no haven. We are doomed men. I think I could eat another meal. Steward!”

The Lear turned northward and the Concorde followed. They left Saudi Arabia and flew into Iraq. The sun was low on the horizon and there were long purple shadows over the land. Becker began to become more worried. “Flight time?”

“Half an hour,” answered Kahn.

One of the things that had always fascinated Becker about the Middle East was the absence of any real dusk. One minute it was light, and the next it was dark. Landing on something other than an airfield in the daylight was bad; landing at night could be a disaster. “What’s going to run out first, Peter?”

Kahn knew what he meant. He already had a chart book open. “Sun sets officially at 6:16 around here. End-of-evening nautical twilight is five minutes later. It is now 6:01. We have twenty minutes of usable light and twenty-nine minutes of fuel. Approximately.”

Becker could see the moon above the darkening horizon in front of him. A few stars showed in the dark edge of night. To the north, out his left windshield, Polaris was rising. Below, the shadows became longer and changed from purple to black. The desert was incredibly beautiful, thought Becker.

Hess called out to him. “Look.”

Becker looked out the front windshield. In the distance, the ground sloped downward and he could make out a strip of lush green land. A river wound its way through clusters of date palms. Beyond the river, which was almost below him now, he could see another large meandering river. The Tigris and Euphrates. Beyond the Tigris, the mountains of Iran rose up over a thousand meters. His altimeter showed that the land had dropped from 180 meters above sea level to nearly sea level. They were indicating nearly 300 meters above the ground now and the Lear made no move to descend to its previous 150 meters.

“This has to be the end of the line,” said Hess.

Becker looked down at the land between the rivers. Mesopotamia. The Fertile Crescent. Cradle of civilization. After the expanse of stark brown desert, it was a relief to see it. He wondered if they might fly north to Baghdad. Subconsciously, he was looking for the vapor trail of Laskov’s missile. He put out his cigarette and turned to Hess. “I’ll take it from here.”

The Lear began a wide left-hand circle and Becker followed. The Lear started to lose altitude and Becker knew they weren’t going on to Baghdad.

Hess hit the seat-belt and smoking-light signals. He took the PA microphone. “We are making a landing approach. Please remain seated. No smoking.”

“Tell them, thank you for flying El Al,” said Becker.

“Not funny,” said Kahn.

“Fuel?” said Becker.

“Technically empty,” said Kahn.

“Never mind the technical.” After all the computers and electronics there was still that other thing that fliers called by many names.

Kahn hesitated. “Maybe 2,000 kilograms.”

Becker nodded. That was less than five minutes’ flight time under good conditions. He could make a perfect landing in five minutes if they began soon. In a bad landing or an aborted landing that necessitated a turn-around, he wouldn’t make it. He waited to hear the awful sound of silence as the engines flamed out one by one.

The Lear pulled out of the turn at a 90-degree angle to his circle and began heading due north on a straight descending flight path.

In the distance, Becker could see a straight road running north and south. “I think that’s our landing field. He rolled out of his turn and fell in behind the Lear.

Hess extended the landing gear and put down the initial approach flaps. “I’ve seen better.”

The sun was almost gone and the road was barely visible. On both sides of the road, Becker could make out low scrub bushes and uneven terrain. They began their final approach.

Dobkin and Hausner burst into the cabin. Dobkin shouted something to him.

Becker was angry. “Go back to your seats! I’m trying to land this damned thing.”

They made no move to leave. “We’ve taken a vote,” said Hausner.

“This is not the Knesset. Be quiet!”

Below, four pair of headlights came on, strung out on either side of the road and partially illuminating it. Someone was waving a high-powered light at what Becker assumed to be the intended threshold of the approach. The Lear flew over the threshold and Becker could see its flaps go down. Becker shook his head to clear the fatigue. He scanned his instruments. They were blurry. He looked up, out the windshield. The lights below bothered his eyes. He knew he could become quickly disoriented in this kind of situation. Pilots had been known to try to land upside down on the Milky Way when they were fatigued, and transferred their eyes from their instruments to visual contact. They could mistake the stars for landing beacons and rivers for runways. He rubbed his eyes.

Hausner stepped behind Becker. “The vote was unanimous. Otherwise we wouldn’t consider it.”

Becker eased off on the throttle and called to Hess for full flaps. He held the wheel in one hand and the throttles in the other. He tried to line the nose up between the headlights. He kept his eyes on the Lear’s navigation lights. “What vote? What the hell are you talking about? I’m making a final approach on the most fucked-up runway I’ve ever landed at. What do you want?”

Hausner spoke quickly. “The bomb is no good on the ground. Becker! The most it will do is mangle the tail.”

“Go on.” Becker could see the Lear touch down and bounce. The Concorde passed over the threshold and Becker pulled off more power. The big aircraft began to settle to earth.

“We’ve voted to fight on the ground,” said Hausner. “My men have some weapons. Can you put us down somewhere else?” Hausner was almost shouting.

Becker could feel the cushion of air forming below the big delta wings. He shouted back. “Why didn’t you ask me two minutes ago? Trucks and men flashed by on both sides under the delta wings. The road was bad and the aircraft bounced dangerously. About two kilometers ahead, at the point where his rollout should end, was another group of vehicles with their headlights on.

To his left front was a high, gently rising hill that he knew must overlook the Euphrates. Hausner screamed something at him. Becker made a quick decision before he had time to think about it rationally. He pushed the throttles forward and the huge aircraft rose again. He pushed heavily against the control wheel and rudder pedals. The Concorde yawed to the left toward the Lear.

The Lear had taxied off the left side of the road and rested among the groups of vehicles that Becker had seen at the end of his intended rollout. Ahmed Rish watched from where he was standing on the wing of his Lear. At first, he thought that the Concorde had bounced badly and was skidding off the road. Then he noticed the position of the rudder and flaps. He dove into the Lear, shut off the jamming device, and screamed into the radio. “STOP! STOP!” He reached for the radio detonator, as the Concorde came hurtling directly at him, only a few meters from the ground.

The Concorde was doing 180 knots and its landing gear barely cleared the earth. The delta wing provided more of a cushion of air than a conventional straight wing could. Becker aimed at the rising terrain to his left. The low-volume squeal on the radio stopped, and he could hear Rish’s voice screaming at him. In fact, he saw the Lear less than fifty meters in front of him, directly in his path. For a wild moment, Becker considered ramming the Lear, but he realized that killing Rish wouldn’t save them and hitting the Lear might kill them all at that speed. He had to clear Rish’s aircraft.

There was no possibility of using the throttle or afterburners now. If he did, the Concorde would rise, and when the tail went, they would all die. Or if the afterburners used the last of the fuel and the engines flamed out, they would die. He had to keep the aircraft down, but not so low that they would hit the Lear or any
other ground obstruction. Becker held his breath as the Concorde shot over the Lear. The landing gear missed the Lear and the Concorde sailed on. Now the ruins of a wall rose up in front of him. He took a chance and pulled back gradually on the wheel. The nose lifted slightly. As he streaked over the wall, he felt the rear bumper wheel hit it. The Concorde shuddered. Becker pulled back on the wheel again, and the nose came up to meet the rising hill. He would have liked to vault over the river, but he knew he had about two seconds before Rish pushed the button.

The Lear bounced wildly against its tie-downs as the Concorde shot over. Swirling debris pummeled the small aircraft and the men and vehicles around it. A huge dust cloud rose up and blinded everyone on the ground. Rish fumbled for the radio detonator, found it, and felt for the buttons.

Becker snapped back the throttles. Rish was still screaming on the radio. The main landing gear touched the side of the hill as the Concorde’s nose flared upward. Becker reversed the thrust of the engines. The rear bumper wheel hit and bounced. The nose fell and the nose landing gear hit the ground. The aircraft bounced violently, throwing the men standing behind Becker to the floor. The computerized wheel-braking system alternately applied and released pressure on the wheel brakes. Most of the tires blew out. Then the tail exploded.

Becker shut down all four engines. Hess pulled the fire-extinguishing lever. Kahn shut down all the systems. The Concorde rolled wildly up the incline, sucking debris into its engines with a sickening sound. The engines spooled down, and the only sound left was that of the remaining tires bumping over the rocky slope.

Becker felt the rudder pedals go slack even before he heard the explosion. He knew there were still fuel fumes in the number eleven tank, and he tried to imagine how bad the damage might be. He wondered if the bulkhead had held. A secondary explosion of a full fuel tank would completely destroy the aircraft. Without the tail and rudder, the aircraft was completely uncontrollable, even on the ground.

Suddenly, the front landing gear collapsed and everyone on the flight deck pitched forward violently. The nose plowed a deep furrow into the ground as the aircraft continued its rollout. Debris turned up by the nose cone began striking the windshield,
causing spider-web cracks. Becker instinctively hit a hydraulic switch and the outer protective visor began rising into place over the windshield. He crouched down in his seat and looked up and out of the downward-sloped cockpit. A ruined structure loomed up a hundred yards ahead. Becker braced for the crash. Something flew up and punctured the windshield before the outer visor was fully raised in place. The glass slivers flew into the cockpit and slashed Becker’s hand and face. He shouted, “Hold on!” The Concorde slowed, then came to a quiet halt some meters from the structure.

Becker looked up. “Everyone all right?” He looked to his right. Moses Hess lay slumped over the control column, blood pouring from his head. There was a huge hole in the windshield directly in front of him.

Becker shouted behind him. “If you’re going to make a fight of it, get the hell out of the airplane!”

Peter Kahn got up and shouted into the cabin. “Evacuate! Flight attendants! Emergency evacuation!”

Yaakov Leiber had unfastened his seat belt even before the aircraft came to a halt. He ran to the forward port door, rotated the handle, and threw the door open. The opening door activated the pressure bottles and inflated the emergency chute tucked under the doorsill. Hausner’s six men were the first ones out. The other two stewards were leading the passengers down the aisle toward the chute. The stewardesses opened the two emergency doors next to the seats over the wings. They led the passengers out onto the wings and down to the leading edge of the big deltas. People began jumping off the wings and sliding down the chutes.

Hausner picked himself up from the flight deck and half-ran, half-crawled to the starboard door on the flight deck. He opened it and jumped down before the chute inflated. He was barely on the ground before he started shouting orders to his men. “Down the slope! Move! The bastards will be coming up from the road! Over there! Get out a hundred meters!”