Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (168 page)

Peter grimly. "Here's the bad news I promised." The loop of video tape began to run on the central screen. It had clearly been shot from the observation post in the office overlooking the service area.

It was a full shot of the Boeing, the background flattened by the magnification of the lens and swimming and wavering with heat mirage rising from the tarmac of the main runway beyond the aircraft.

In the foreground were Peter's own naked back and shoulders as he strode out towards the aircraft. The lens had again flattened the action so that Peter appeared to be marking time on the same spot without advancing at all.

Suddenly the forward hatch of the Boeing changed shape as the door was slid aside, and the cameraman instantly zoomed in for the closer shot.

The two pilots and the air hostess in the doorway, the camera checked for a few frames and then zoomed closer.

The aperture of the lens adjusted swiftly, compensating for the gloom of the interior, and the shot was close and tight on the blonde girl's head for a heartbeat, then the head turned slightly and the lovely line of her lips moved as she spoke it seemed like three words before she turned back full face to the camera.

"Okay," Colin said. "Run it again with neutral balance on the sound." The entire loop reran, the cabin door opened, there were the three hostages, the fine golden head turned, and then the words "Let's slide," from Ingrid, but there was background hiss and clutter.

"Let's slide? "Peter asked.

"Run it again with the bass density filter on the sound, Colin ordered.

The same images on the screen, the golden head turning on the long neck.

"It's slide."" Peter could not quite catch it.

"Okay," Colin told the technician. "Now with full filter and resonance modulation." The repetitive images, the girl's head, the full lips parting, speaking to somebody out of sight in the body of the aircraft.

Very clearly, unmistakably, she said, "It's Stride." And Peter felt it jolt in his belly like a fist.

"She recognized you," said Colin. "No, hell, she was expecting you!" The two men stared at each other, Peter's handsome craggy features heavy with foreboding. Atlas had one of the highest security classifications. Only twenty men outside the close ranks of Atlas itself were privy to its secrets. One of those was the President of the United States another was the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Certainly only four or five men knew who commanded the Thor arm of
Atlas and yet there was no mistaking those words the girl had spoken.

"Run it again," Peter ordered brusquely.

And they waited tensely for those two words, and when they came they were in the clear tilt of that fresh young voice.

"It's Stride,"said Ingrid, and the screen went blank.

Peter massaged his closed eyelids with thumb and forefinger. He realized with mild surprise that he had not slept for nearly forty-eight hours, but it was not physical weariness that assailed him now but the suddenly overwhelming knowledge of treason and betrayal and of undreamed-of evil.

"Somebody has blown Atlas," said Colin softly. "This is going to be a living and breathing bastard. They'll be waiting for us at every turn of the track." Peter dropped his hand and opened his eyes. "I

must speak to Kingston Parker again," he said. And when Parker's image reappeared on the main screen he was clearly agitated and angry.

"You have interrupted the President."

"Doctor Parker-" Peter spoke quickly. Circumstances have altered. In my opinion the chances of a successful Delta strike have dropped. We have no better than an even chance."

"I see." Parker checked the anger. "That's important. I will inform the President." The lavatories were all blocked by this time, the bowls almost filled, and the stench permeated all the cabins despite the air-conditioning.

Under the strict rationing of food and water most of the passengers were suffering from the lethargy of hunger, and the children were petulant and weepy.

The terrible strain was beginning to show on the hijackers themselves. They were standing a virtual non-stop watch, four hours of broken rest followed by four of ceaseless vigil and activity. The red cotton shirts were rumpled and sweat-stained at the armpits, the sweat of nervous and physical strain, eyes bloodshot and tempers uncertain.

just before nightfall, the dark-haired girl, Karen, had lost her temper with an elderly passenger who had been slow to respond to her command to return to his seat after using the toilet. She had worked herself up into an hysterical shrieking rage, and repeatedly struck the old man in the face with the short barrel of her shot pistol, laying his cheek open to the bone. Only Ingrid had been able to calm her,

leading her away to the curtained tourist galley where she pampered and hugged her.

"It will be all right, Liebchen." She stroked her hair. "Only a little longer now. You have been so strong. In a few more hours we will all take the pills. Not long now." And within minutes Karen had controlled the violent trembling of her hands, and although she was pale, she was able to take her position at the rear of the tourist cabin again.

Only Ingrid's strength seemed without limits. During the night she passed slowly down the aisles, pausing to talk quietly with a sleepless passenger, comforting them with the promise of imminent release.

"Tomorrow morning we will have an answer to our demands, and all the women and children will be free. it's going to be all right, you just wait and see." A little after midnight the little roly-poly doctor sought her out in the cockpit.

"The navigator is very ill," he told her. "Unless we get him to a hospital immediately we will lose him." Ingrid went back and knelt beside the flight engineer.

His skin was dry and burning hot and his breathing rasped and sawed.

"It's renal failure," said the doctor, hovering over them.

"Breakdown of the kidneys from delayed shock. We cannot treat him here. He must be taken to hospital." Ingrid took the semi-conscious flight engineer's uninjured hand. "I'm sorry, but that's impossible."

She went on holding his hand for another minute.

"Don't you feel anything?" the doctor demanded of her bitterly.

"I feel pity for, him as I do for all mankind," she answered quietly. "But he is only one. Out there are millions." The towering flat-topped mountain was lit by floodlights. It was high holiday season and the fairest cape in all the world was showing her beauty to the tens of thousands of tourists and holiday makers.

On the penthouse deck of the tall building, named for a political mediocrity as are so many buildings and public works in South Africa,
the cabinet and its special advisers had been in session for most of the night.

At the head of the long table brooded the heavily built figure of the Prime Minister, bulldog-headed, powerful and unmovable as one of the granite kopjes of the African veld.

He dominated the large panelled room, although he had hardly spoken, except to encourage the others with a nod or a few gruff words.

At the far end of the long table sat the two ambassadors, shoulder to shoulder, to emphasize their solidarity. At short intervals the telephones in front of them would ring, and they would listen to the latest reports from their embassies or instructions from the heads of their governments.

On the Prime Minister's right hand sat the handsome moustached

Minister of Foreign Affairs, a man with enormous charisma and a reputation for moderation and common sense but now he was grim and hard faced.

"Your own governments have both pioneered the policy of non-negotiation, of total resistance to the demands of terrorists why now do you insist that we take the soft line?"

"We do not insist, minister, we have merely pointed out the enormous public interest that this affair is generating in both the United

Kingdom and in my own country." Kelly Constable was a Slim, handsome man, intelligent and persuasive, a democratic appointee of the new

American administration. "It is in your government's interest even more than ours to see this through to a satisfactory conclusion. We merely suggest that some accommodation to the demands might bring that about."

"The Atlas Commander on the spot has assessed the chances of a successful counter-strike as low as fifty-fifty.

My government considers that risk unacceptable." Sir William
Davies was a career diplomat approaching retirement age, a grey, severe man with gold-rimmed spectacles, his voice high pitched and querulous.

"My men think we can do better than that ourselves, said the
Minister of Defence, also bespectacled, but he spoke in the thick blunt accent of the Afrikaaner.

"Atlas is probably the best equipped and most highly trained anti-terrorist group in the world, Kelly Constable said, and the Prime
Minister interrupted harshly.

"At this stage, gentlemen, let us confine ourselves to finding a peaceful solution."."

"I agree, Prime Minister. "Sir William nodded briskly.

"However, I think I should point out that most of the demands made by the terrorists are directly in line with the representations made by the government of the United States-"

"Sir, are you expressing sympathy with these demands?" the Prime Minister asked heavily, but without visible emotion.

"I am merely pointing out that the demands will find sympathy in my country, and that my government will find it easier to exercise its veto on the extreme motion of the General Assembly on Monday if some concessions are made in other directions."

"Is that a threat, sir?" the
Prime Minister asked, a small humourless smile hardly softening the question.

"No, Prime Minister, it's common sense. If that U.N.
motion was carried and implemented, it would mean the economic ruin of this country. It would be plunged into anarchy and political chaos, a ripe fruit for luther Soviet encroachment. My government does not desire that however, nor does it wish to endanger the lives of four hundred of its citizens." Kelly Constable smiled. "We have to find a way out of our mutual predicament, I'm afraid."

"My Minister of Defence has suggested a way out."

"Prime Minister, if your military attack the aircraft without the prior agreement of both the British and American heads of state, then the veto will be withheld in the Security Council and regretfully we will allow the majority proposal to prevail."

"Even if the attack is successful?"

"Even if the attack is successful. We insist that military decisions are made by Atlas only," Constable told him solemnly; and then, more cheerfully, "Let us examine the minimum concessions that your government would be prepared to make. The longer we can keep open the lines of communication with the terrorists, the better our chances of a peaceful solution. Can we offer to fulfill even one small item on the list of demands?" "Ingrid supervised the serving of breakfast personally.

Each passenger was allowed one slice of bread and one biscuit with a cup of heavily sweetened coffee. Hunger had lowered the general resistance of the passengers, they were apathetic and listless once they had gobbled their meagre meal.

Ingrid went amongst them again, passing out cigarettes from the duty-free store. Talking gently to the children, stopping to sympathize with a mother smiling and calm.

Already the passengers were calling her "the nice one".

When Ingrid reached the firstclass galley she called her companions to her one at a time, and they each ate a full breakfast of eggs and buttered toast and kippers. She wanted them as strong and alert as the arduous ordeal would allow.

She could not begin to use the stimulants until midday.

The use of drugs could only be continued for seventy-two hours with the desired effects. After that the subject would become unpredictable in his actions and decisions. Ratification of the sanctions vote by the Security Council of the United Nations would take place at noon New York time on the following Monday that was seven p.m. local time on Monday night.

Ingrid had to keep all her officers alert and active until then,
she dared not use the stimulants too early and risk physical disintegration before the decisive hour, and yet she realized that lack of sleep and tension were corroding even her physical reserves; she was jumpy and nervous, and when she examined her face in the mirror of the stinking firstclass toilets, she saw how inflamed her eyes were, and for the first time noticed the tiny lines of ageing at the corners of her mouth and eyes. This angered her unreasonably. She hated the thought of growing old, and she could smell her own unwashed body even in the overpowering stench from the lavatory.

The German, Kurt, was slumped in the pilot's seat, his pistol in his lap, snoring softly, his red shirt unbuttoned to the waist and his muscular hairy chest rising and falling with each breath. He was unshaven and the lank, black hair fell over his eyes. She could smell his sweat, and somehow that excited her, and she studied him carefully.

There was an air of cruelty and brutality about him, the machismo of the revolutionary, which always attracted her strongly, had perhaps been the original reason for her radical leanings so many years ago.

Suddenly she wanted him very badly.

However, when she woke him with a hand down the front of his thin linen slacks, he was bleary-eyed and foul breathed, not even her skilful kneading could arouse him, and in a minute she turned away with an exclamation of disgust.

As a displacement activity, she picked up the microphone, switched on the loudspeakers of the passenger cabins. She knew she was acting irrationally, but she began to speak.

"Now listen to me, everybody, I have something very important to tell you." Suddenly she was angry with them.

They were of the class that had devised and instituted the manifestly unjust and sick society against which she was in total rebellion. They were the fat, complacent bourgeoisie.

They were like her father and she hated them as she hated her father. As she began to speak she realized that they would not even understand the language she was using, the language of the new political order, and her anger and frustration against them and their society mounted. She did not realize she was raving, until suddenly she heard as from afar the shriek of outrage in her own voice, like the death wail of a mortally wounded animal and she stopped abruptly.