Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (172 page)

"Listen, Peter, you're in line for that NATO command, everybody knows that. From there the sky is the limit, pat.

Right up there to the joint chiefs just as far as you want to go Peter said nothing, but glanced once more at the gold Rolex wristwatch. It was seventeen minutes past ten o'clock.

"Think, Peter. For God's sake, man. It's taken you twenty heart-breaking years of hard work to get where you are.

They would never forgive you, buddy. You'd better believe it.

They'll break you and your career. Don't do it, Peter.

Don't do it. You're too good to waste yourself. just stop and think for one minute."

"I'm thinking," said Peter quietly. "I haven't stopped thinking since-" he checked, always it comes back to this. If
I let them die then I am as guilty as that woman who pulls the trigger."

"Peter, you don't have to beat your head in. The decision is made by someone else." it would be easier to believe that, wouldn't it,"

Peter snapped, "but it won't save those people out there." Colin leaned across and placed a large hairy paw on Peter's upper arm. He squeezed slightly. "I know, but it eats me to see you have to throw it all away. In my book, you're one of the tops, buddy." It was the first time he had made any such declaration, and Peter was fleetingly moved by it.

"You can duck this one, Colin. It doesn't have to touch you or your career."

"I never was very hot at ducking." Colin dropped his hand away. "I think I'll go along for the ride,"

"I want you to record a protest, no sense us all getting ourselves fired," said Peter, as he switched on the recording equipment, both audio and video; now every word would be recorded.

"Colonel Noble," he said distinctly, "I am about to lead an immediate Delta assault on Flight 070. Please make the arrangements."

Colin turned to face the camera. "General Stride, I must formally protest at any order to initiate condition Delta without express approval from Atlas Command."

"Colonel Noble, your protest is noted,"
Peter told the camera gravely, and Colin Noble hit the censor button once again, cutting tapes and camera.

"Okay, that's enough crap for one day." He came nimbly to his feet. "Let's get out there and take the bastards." Ingrid sat at the flight engineer's desk, and held the microphone of the on-board loudspeaker system to her lips. There was a greyish tone beneath the sun-gilded skin; she frowned a little at the throbbing pulse of pain behind her eyes and the hand that held the microphone trembled slightly. She knew these were all symptoms of the drug hangover. She regretted now having increased the initial dosage beyond that recommended on the typed label of the tablet phial but she had needed that extra lift to be able to carry out the first executions. Now she and her officers were paying the price, but in another twenty minutes she would be able to issue another round of tablets.

This time she would stay exactly within the recommended dosage,
and she anticipated the rush of it through her blood, the heightened vision and energy, the tingling exhilaration of the drug. She even anticipated the thought of what lay ahead; to be able to wield absolute power, the power of death itself, was one of life's most worthwhile experiences.

Sartre and Bakunin and Most had discovered one of the great truths of life that the act of destruction, of total destruction, was a catharsis, a creation, a reawakening of the soul. She looked forward,
even through the staleness and ache of the drug let-down, she looked forward to the next executions.

"My friends-" she spoke into the microphone, we have not heard from the tyrant. His lack of concern for your lives is typical of the fascist imperialist. He does not concern himself with the safety of the people, though he sucks and bloats himself on the blood and sweat. outside the aircraft the night was black and close.

Thunderheads blotted out half the sky, and every few minutes lightning lit the clouds internally. Twice since sundown abrupt fierce downpours of torrential rain had hammered briefly against the Boeing hull, and now the airport lights glinted on the puddled tarmac.

We have to show the face of unrelenting courage and iron purpose to the tyrant. We cannot afford to show even a moment's hesitation.

We must now choose four more hostages. It will be done with the utmost impartiality and I want you all to realize that we are now all part of the revolution together, you can be proud of that-" Lightning exploded suddenly, much closer, a crackling greenish, iridescent flaming of the heavens that lit the field in merciless light, and then the flail of the thunder beat down upon the aircraft. The girl Karen exclaimed involuntarily and sprang nervously to her feet and crossed quickly to stand beside Ingrid. Her dark eyes were now heavily underscored by the dark kohl of fatigue and drug withdrawal; she trembled violently, and Ingrid caressed her absently the way she -might calm a frightened kitten as she went on speaking into the microphone.

We must all of us learn to welcome death, to welcome the opportunity to take our place and add our contribution, no matter how humble it might be, to man's great reawakening." Lightning burst in fierce splendour once again, but Ingrid went on talking into the microphone, the senseless words somehow hypnotic and lulling so that her captives sat in quietly lethargic rows, not speaking, unmoving,
seeming no longer capable of independent thought.

"I have drawn lots to choose the next martyrs of the revolution.

I will call out the seat numbers and my officers will come to fetch you. Please co-operate by moving quickly forward to the first-class galley." There was a pause, and then Ingrid's voice again. "Seat number 63B. Please stand up.) The scarred German in the red shirt and with the lank black hair hanging over his eyes had to force the thin,

middle-aged man to his feet, twisting his wrist up between his shoulder blades. The man's white shirt was crumpled and he wore elastic braces over his shoulders and oldfashioned narrow trousers.

"You can't let them," the man pleaded with his fellow passengers,
as Henri pushed him up the aisle. "You can't let them kill me,
please." And they looked down at their laps.

Nobody moved, nobody spoke.

"Seat number 43F." It was a handsome dark-haired woman in her middle thirties, and her face seemed to dissolve slowly as she read the number above her seat, and she covered her mouth with one hand to prevent herself crying out but from the seat exactly across the aisle from her a sprightly old gentleman with a magnificent mane of silver-grey hair rose swiftly to his feet and adjusted his tie.

"Would you care to change seats with me, madam?" he said softly in a clipped English accent, and strode down the aisle, on long, thin,
stork-like legs, contemptuously brushing past the blond moustached
Frenchman who came hurrying forward to escort him. Without a glance to either side, and with thin shoulders thrown back, he disappeared through the curtains into the forward galley.

The Boeing had a blind spot that extended back from the side windows of the flight deck at an angle of 20 to the tail, but the hijackers were so well equipped and seemed to have considered every eventuality in such detail that there was no reason to fear that they had worked out some arrangement to keep the blind spot under surveillance.

Peter and Colin discussed the possibility quietly as they stood in the angle of the main service hangar, and both of them carefully studied the soaring shape of the Boeing tailplane and the sagging underbelly of the fuselage for the glint of a mirror or some other device. They were directly behind the aircraft and there was a little over four hundred yards to cover, half of that through knee-high grass and the rest over tarmac.

The field was lit only by the blue periphery lights of the taxiway, and the glow of the airport buildings.

Peter had considered dousing all the airport lights, but discarded the idea as self-defeating. It would certainly alert the hijackers,

and would slow the crossing of the assault team.

"I can't see anything," Colin murmured.

"No," agreed Peter and they both handed their night glasses to a hovering NCO they wouldn't need them again. The assault team had stripped all equipment down to absolute essentials.

All that Peter carried was a lightweight eleven-ounce VHF
transceiver for "communicating with his men in the terminal building and in a quick-release holster on his right hip a Walther PK 38
automatic pistol.

Each member of the assault team carried the weapon of his own choice. Colin Noble favoured the Browning Hi-power .45 for its massive killing power and large fourteen-round magazine, while Peter liked the pinpoint accuracy and light recoil of the 9 men. parabellum Walther with which he could be certain of a snap head-shot at fifty metres.

One item was standard equipment for all members of the assault team. Every one of their weapons was loaded with Super Velex explosive bullets which trebled the knockdown power at impact, breaking up in the human body and thereby reducing the risk of over-penetration and with it the danger to innocents. Peter never let them forget they would nearly always be working with terrorist and victim closely involved.

Beside Peter, Colin Noble unclipped the thin gold chain from around his neck which held the tiny Star of David, twinkling gold on the black bush of his chest hair. He slipped the ornament into his pocket and buttoned down the flap.

"I say, old chap-" Colin Noble gave an atrocious imitation of a
Sandhurst accent shall we toddle along then?" 4 Peter glanced at the luminous dial of his Rolex. It was sixteen minutes to eleven o'clock.

The exact moment at which my career ends, he thought grimly, and raised his right arm with clenched fist, then pumped it up and down twice, the old cavalry signal to advance.

Swiftly the two men raced out ahead, absolutely silent on soft rubber soles, carrying their probes at high port to prevent them clattering against tarmac or against the metal parts of the aircraft,
dark hunchbacked figures under the burden of the gas cylinders they carried.

Peter gave them a slow count of five, and while he waited he felt the adrenalin charge his blood, every nerve and muscle of his body coming under tension, and he heard his own words to Kingston Parker echo in his ears like the prophecy of doom.

"There is no middle ground. The alternative is one hundred per cent casualties. We lose the aircraft, the passengers and all the Thor personnel aboard her." He thrust the thought aside, and repeated the signal to advance. In two neat files, bunched up close and well in hand,
the assault teams went out, at the run. Three men carrying each of the aluminium alloy scaling ladders, four with the sling-bags of stun grenades, others with the slap hammers to tear out the door locks, and each with his chosen weapon always a big calibre handgun for Peter

Stride would trust nobody with an automatic weapon in the crowded interior of a hijacked aircraft, and the minimum requirement for every member of the assault teams was marksmanship with a pistol that would enable him to pick a small moving target and hit it repeatedly and quickly without endangering innocents.

They ran in almost total silence; the loudest sound was Peter's breathing in his own ears, and he had time now for a moment's regret.

It was a gamble which he could never win, the best that could happen was the utter ruin of his life's work, but he steeled himself brutally and thrust aside the thought. He ran on into the night.

Just ahead of him now, silhouetted by the lights of the terminal building, the dark figures of the "stick" men were in position under the bulging silver belly; and lightning flared suddenly, so that the tall silver thunderheads rippled with intense white fire, and the field was starkly lit, the double column of black-clad figures standing out clearly against the paler grass. If they were observed, it would come now, and the crash of thunder made Peter's nerves jump, expecting detonation and flame of a dozen percussion grenades.

Then it was dark again, and the sponginess of wet grass beneath his feet gave way to flat hard tarmac. Then suddenly they were under the Boeing fuselage, like chickens under the protective belly of the hen, and the two columns split neatly into four separate groups and still in tight order every man dropped onto his left knee, and at the same moment, with the precision of repeated rehearsals, every member of the team lifted his gas mask to cover his nose and mouth.

Peter swept one quick glance back at them, and then depressed the transmit button on his transceiver. He would not speak a word from now until it was over; there was always a remote possibility that the hijackers were monitoring this frequency.

The click of the button was the signal to the members of his team in the terminal and almost immediately, there was a rising whistling howl of jet engines running up.

Even though the aircraft were parked up in the northern international departures area, they had been turned so the jet exhausts were pointed at the service area, and there were five intercontinental jet liners co-operating. The combined sound output of twenty big jet engines was deafening even at that range and Peter gave the open hand signal.

The "stick" man was waiting poised, and at the signal he reached up and placed the drill bit against the belly of the fuselage. Any sound of the compressed air spinning the drill was effectively drowned,

and there was only the slight jerk of the long probe as it went through the pressure hull.

Instantly the second "stick" man placed the tip of his probe into the tiny hole, and glanced at Peter. Again the open hand signal, and the gas was spurting into the hull. Peter was watching the sweep hand of his watch.

Two clicks on the transmit button, and the lights behind the row of shaded portholes blinked out simultaneously as the mains power was cut and the air-conditioning in the Boeing's cabins with it.

The howl of combined jet engines continued a few seconds longer and Peter signalled the ladder men forward.