By the Rivers of Babylon

by Nelson DeMille

  In the passenger cabin of 02, everyone knew by now that something was wrong. Yaakov Leiber leaned over an empty seat and watched the plane carrying his wife disappear off the starboard side. Then he saw it reappear again out of the cloud.

  One of the six Arabs in the Lear shouted to Ahmed Rish. Rish watched as the Concorde streaked off. He grabbed the radio detonator from the seat. There were two red buttons. Without looking, he put his finger on the one marked 02 and began to press, then realized his mistake. He slid his finger onto the button marked 01.

  Concorde 01 sailed upward. The number eleven fuel tank automatically began to fill with kerosene as the computer determined that the center of gravity should be more aft for the speed and angle at which the aircraft was moving. In the passenger cabin, the large digital Machmeter read MACH 0.97 and the seat belt lights came on. The passengers looked concerned when the G forces pushed them into their seats as the aircraft banked. The Machmeter read MACH 0.98, then MACH 0.99.

  Ahmed Rish pressed the button. A radio signal, keyed only to the receiver on El Al 01, flashed across the sky.

  The radio detonator barely received the signal at eleven kilometers. The receiver transformed the weak signal into an impulse that closed the switch and allowed the current from the tail navigation lights to flow down the wire into the detonator embedded in the plastic explosive.

  The Machmeter read MACH 1.00 and the Concorde broke through the sound barrier. The tail tank, with 4,000 liters of fuel in it, exploded and blew out the pressure bulkhead. A tongue of flame shot into the passenger cabin as the Machmeter flashed MACH 1.10. The oxygen masks dropped from their overhead compartments as the cabin lost pressure.

  Asher Avidar knew he had lost his gamble even before he heard the explosion. The controls suddenly went loose in his hands and the lights on the flight console began blinking on one by one. The door between the cabin and the cockpit blew open and the crew could hear screams behind them. Hirsch turned around and looked down the length of the aircraft. He saw daylight. All he could say was, “Oh, God!” Behind him, Matti Yadin lay on the floor, bleeding from where the door had hit him in the face. Avidar turned to Zevi Hirsch. He screamed above the sounds of rushing air. “It’s better this way! You can’t give in to these bastards!” Hirsch stared at him.

  Becker watched as his sister ship fought to maintain control. With a cool detachment, he realized from the billowing orange flames that the bomb was on the number eleven trim tank—a place that was inaccessible from the cabin. He assumed that the bomb itself was a small device—the bigger danger was the exploding fuel. He spoke softly to Peter Kahn. “Override the computer and pump number eleven dry.” He turned to Hess. “Get on the PA and tell the passengers to move toward the front of the cabin.” He wondered if the pressure bulkhead would contain the blast. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

  Becker stared out of the windshield, mesmerized by the sight. Hausner, Dobkin, Burg, Richardson, and McClure crowded behind the flight seats riveted to the same scene.

  El Al 01 began its incredibly beautiful dance of death. The delta wing aircraft yawed and rolled like a graceful glider. Becker knew what Avidar was going through as he pulled and pushed at levers, throttles, switches, and buttons. But it was a losing battle.

  Concorde 02 closed in on its dying sister. Becker called for field glasses and watched. A small propeller dropped out of the belly of the fiery bird and Becker knew that at least the computer was still functioning. Like the damaged brain of a big animal, it realized that it was in danger, but unlike the brain of a human, it didn’t comprehend that the wound was mortal, and it continued to struggle to stay alive. The computer had sensed the electrical and hydraulic failures, so the propeller—really a windmill—was released to turn an electric generator and hydraulic pump. The French had called this feature très pratique, but the British called it desperate. Becker knew that, in this case, the new power source would only make the problem worse. Broken electrical wires would come alive and hydraulic fluid would squirt from open pipes. Damaged nerve endings and severed arteries. But the mechanical heart still beat and the mechanical brain still functioned. Becker was sickened by the picture in his field glasses. He put the glasses down and rubbed his eyes and temples.

  In the dying Concorde, Avidar and Hirsch were reacting out of pure instinct—responding to each new crisis—because there was nothing else to do in the pilots’ seats of a doomed aircraft. Leo Sharett sat calmly in front of his flight engineer’s console, performing his job of systems management long after there were any systems left to manage. His instrument lights began to blink off one by one. The Concorde began to tumble tail over nose, like a silver leaf in a gentle wind. Then, mercifully, it disintegrated in a flash.

  Becker could hear the anguished cries coming from the cabin behind him. Above all the voices, he could hear little Yaakov Leiber screaming for his wife.

  Becker could see some debris floating toward them, and he made a violent maneuver to avoid it. The five men standing on the flight deck fell to the floor. In the cabin, passengers were thrown from their seats. Peter Kahn belatedly put the seat belt sign on and spoke into the PA microphone. “Everyone stay seated. Everything is going to be all right.” He quickly explained the situation.

  Everyone got up from the floor of the flight deck. Hausner looked at Dobkin and Burg. They turned away from him.

  The Lear jet came back on the radio. It was Rish’s voice again. It sounded high-pitched and near hysteria. “They forced me to do that!” he screamed. “Now, you listen to me! You will follow me and do exactly as I say, or you will share their fate!”

  Hausner grabbed the microphone from the console. “Rish, you bastard! This is Jacob Hausner. You goddamned murderer. When we get down, I’m going to kill you, you son-of-a-bitch!” He began a long string of peculiarly Middle Eastern invectives in Arabic.

  Rish’s voice came back over the speaker after Hausner finished. Rish was clearly fighting for self-control. He spoke slowly. “Mr. Hausner, when we get down, the first thing I am going to do is kill you.”

  Hausner began another tirade in Arabic, but Becker grabbed the microphone from him. He switched to the alternate tactical frequency to call Laskov, but all be could hear was a high-pitched, whining sound.

  Rish’s voice came over the company frequency, barely audible above the radio interference. “You are no longer able to communicate with your escort or with me. Just follow.” The high-pitched whine became louder.

  Becker turned down the volume on all the radios. “He jammed us. Probably has a broad band transmitter on board.” He looked around the flight deck. “I think he holds all the cards.” He looked at Burg, who was the senior man present.

  Burg nodded. He looked very pale. Everyone did. The image of El Al Concorde 01 hurtling nose over tail had made them literally sick. Burg nodded again. “Let me go and speak to the Foreign Minister and the passengers. They should all know what is happening.” His voice was choked. “Excuse me.” He walked out of the cockpit.

  Tom Richardson cleared his throat. “Maybe we should just let the pilots fly now.”

  Dobkin nodded. “Yes. We must speak to each of the passengers and tell them what we expect of them when we land. We must start organizing a psychological defense against the pressures of being held hostage. That is very important.”

  “Yes,” said Hausner. “Good thinking. I imagine it’s going to be a long captivity. At least for you.”

  Richardson spoke up. “Don’t worry about that, Mr. Hausner. That son-of-a-bitch was just trying to scare you.”

  McClure spoke for the first time since he’d announced his preference for Pan Am. “Don’t be an ass, Richardson. That man just murdered fifty people. If he said he was going to kill Hausner, he’ll kill him.”

  “Thanks,” said Hausner.

  “Got to tell it like it is,” said McClure. He produced another wooden match from his inexhaustible supply and put it between his lips.

  The Concorde foll
owed the Lear southward. Hausner stayed on the flight deck while the others went back into the passenger cabin. He couldn’t face anyone just then. He felt totally responsible, although in fact it was Talman’s word of caution and Laskov’s minute of indecision that had put the situation beyond saving. It was Laskov’s mellowing with age, his sharp military instincts blunted by the promise of peace. It was the anxious voices from the Hawkeye assuring Laskov that the Lear was only a group of businessmen. It was bad French security at the assembly plants. And it was everything else that had happened over the past several thousand years, all coming together under those cloudless skies, thousands of feet above the Mediterranean. But Hausner dismissed these thoughts. He was wishing that he had switched planes with Matti Yadin.

  8

  General Talman sat in his chair in the middle of the Operations Room at The Citadel. He avoided the eyes of his staff and the technicians around him. They had all seen Concorde 01 disintegrate on the radar screen.

  Talman could still see the Lear and Concorde 02. They were approaching the Sinai coast. As long as the E-2D picture remained clear, he could track them. But, eventually, he knew the Lear would force the Concorde to fly at treetop level, and they might be lost in the ground clutter over the land.

  * * *

  Teddy Laskov’s flight officer, Danny Lavon, watching on his radar, came to the same conclusion. “They’re losing altitude fast, General. We’re not going to be able to see them over the Sinai.”

  Laskov didn’t answer.

  * * *

  Talman picked up a scrambler phone and called out every squadron he had. He ordered them to violate Egyptian air space and fly a course that might enable them to spot the Concorde on their radar. One of Talman’s aides placed a call to Cairo. The Egyptians would cooperate, but it would be a while before the call could be routed through.

  * * *

  David Becker followed the Lear as it dropped to within a hundred meters of the water. The Sinai coast came up very quickly and they shot over it. Becker lowered the nose cone for better visibility. The desert streaked by below in a blur and the big Concorde bumped wildly in the updrafts. Becker didn’t know what Rish had in mind, but he had no doubt that the man was insane. The Lear was relatively easy to maneuver through this low-level turbulence, but it was all Becker could do to keep the huge Concorde straight and level. His indicated air speed was only 250 knots, and he knew that if he went much slower he would stall. Yet the Lear seemed oblivious to his problems. It alternately gained and lost speed as he followed it. The small craft made slight corrections in heading and altitude that were difficult for Becker to follow. He concluded that the Lear’s pilot wasn’t much of a flyer. Becker had already extended the initial flaps for an extra margin, and he was constantly adjusting the power. Kahn pumped fuel into the number ten midsection tank in an attempt to help keep the aircraft in the proper balance.

  Becker’s mouth was dry and his heart thumped as be grasped the controls. On his right was the Suez Canal, below him the Mitla Pass. To his front, the ground was rising quickly. His sea level altimeter read 330 meters or 1,100 feet, but he could see that he was still no more than the same 100 meters above the ground that he had been when he crossed the coast. In the distance, he could make out the hazy brown peaks of the southern Sinai range that he knew were 800 meters high. He wondered if the pilot of the Lear understood that they should begin climbing now if they didn’t want to meet those mountains.

  Hess looked at Becker. “Dave, this guy is going to kill us.”

  Becker turned up the radio volume, but all he could hear was the jamming device. “Son-of-a-bitch!” He screamed into his headset. “Rish! Lear! We can’t hold this altitude! You are the dumbest son-of-a-bitch who ever sat in a cockpit!” The jamming continued and he turned down the volume. “Bastard!”

  Peter Kahn called out from the flight engineer’s station. “Captain, we’re burning 585 kilograms of fuel a minute.”

  “How much flight time do we have left?”

  “Less than two and a half hours.”

  Becker looked at his watch. It was a little after four. If Rish was planning another Entebbe, they would never make it. “Well, if I knew where the bastard was leading us, I’d know if we should be scared shitless or not.” Becker cursed his bad luck. Two more takeoffs and three more landings. Now, it looked like only one more landing and no more takeoffs.

  The Lear banked sharply to the left and Becker followed, but his turn was not as steep as the Lear’s and he wound up to the right of it when he came out of the turn. He quickly corrected and got behind it again. He asked Kahn to pass him the field glasses. He looked at the Lear, which was now about a thousand meters to the front of him. He could see the plexiglas observation bubble clearly. Someone was staring back at him with field glasses. “Sons-of-bitches.” He put down the glasses. He waited for the imps in his head to start laughing at him. But they were not there. He breathed deeply. He felt strangely calm, more assured than he had felt in a very long time. Was this the way it was when you knew it was all over?

  Hausner, who had been sitting quietly in the jump seat, looked up. “What are the chances of our people tracking us on radar?”

  Hess looked over his shoulder. “At this altitude, over land, just about zero. The E-2D has a computer thing of some kind that can sort out images from the ground clutter, but we’ve been over Egypt for some time and I don’t think he would follow.”

  “How about the Egyptians?”

  Hess shook his head. “They have those Barlock ground radar units from the Russians that can see low-flying craft, but we’re behind Henry Kissinger’s line now. The Egyptian radar is pointed east toward the Israeli lines. We’ve probably been spotted visually from the ground, but by the time the Egyptians figure out what the hell is going on we’ll be over the Red Sea if we hold this course. They can’t help us, anyway, even if they wanted to. Right?”

  “I was thinking of Laskov’s offer to send a missile out,” said Hausner. “Would we go for that if he still has us on his radar?”

  Becker spoke as he held the plane steady. “If he has us on his radar, and if we’re still airborne after dusk, I might consider it. This time of day, it’s not too hard to see a missile’s vapor trail. Electronic detonator signals go faster than missiles.” Becker worked the rudder pedals as the Concorde’s tail yawed left and right. “But we’re damn close to the Lear. On a radar screen we look very, very close. It would have to be one hell of a shot to hit him instead of us.”

  Hausner stood up. “I’m going to take a look at that pressure bulkhead.”

  “Go ahead,” said Becker. “But I’ve already thought of that. There’s no way to get back there from here—as you know. But you’re welcome to climb out on the tail if you’d like.” Becker regretted the remark immediately, but his nerves were becoming more frayed with each minute of flight.

  Hausner walked out of the cockpit. He began the long walk down the aisle. No one spoke to him. Little Yaakov Leiber stared at him through tear-filled eyes. The men who had been at the security meeting turned away from him.

  Miriam Bernstein touched his arm as he went by, but he ignored it. He tapped two of his men on the shoulder as he walked by, and they got up and followed him.

  Hausner entered the rear galley and walked through it into the small baggage compartment where the crew and flight attendants kept their luggage. There were also passengers’ jackets and coats on hangers along the wall. He flung aside the clothing and stared at the pressure bulkhead.

  * * *

  Talman listened as each of his ten squadrons over the Sinai reported in to the Operations Room. No visual sighting. No radar sightings. Laskov reported last. “I’m coming into Eilat to refuel. I want fuelers waiting for us on the strip. When I get up again, I’m not coming back down until I find them. I want you to get American tankers on station to refuel us in mid-air next time. I’m going to fly over every inch of this area until I find them. The pilots and flight officers wil
l take turns sleeping and flying.”

  Talman shook his head. “Wait one, Gabriel.” He looked at his illuminated situation map. With every minute that passed, the extent of the air space in which the Concorde could conceivably be increased geometrically. He looked at the concentric circles on his map that encompassed the last spot where they were sighted, over the coast. They had been flying for a half an hour since they were last seen, at a speed of about 500 kilometers per hour. They could have headed off in any direction after that. The radius of the last concentric circle was 250 kilometers, if he assumed that last speed. He punched the information into a computer and read the digital display. The air space to be searched was already 196,350 square kilometers, without taking into account altitudes from 150 meters up to 8 kilometers. Every minute of flight time would increase the number of square kilometers and cubic kilometers. He pushed his radio button. “Gabriel, they could be heading for Lod, for all we know. Come home. We’ll know where they are soon enough. We’ve violated enough foreign air space for one day. So far, the Egyptians have been very patient. But now they want us out. They promised to send aircraft up to look. Don’t push, Gabriel. That’s what the hijackers want and that’s what we’re trying to avoid. Come back to the barn, old man.” He paused. “That’s an order.”

  Laskov gave a crisp acknowledgment.

  Talman sighed and called in the rest of his squadrons. What he didn’t say over the unsecured air waves was that American satellites were already trying to spot the Concorde. Also, American Lockheed SR-71 reconnaissance craft, successors to the U-2, were already in the troposphere, flying at Mach 3, photographing the entire Sinai Peninsula. The satellite and SR-71 information would take days to he interpreted. It was a long shot, but it was better than doing nothing. Talman suspected, also, that Russian satellites and Mandrakes were doing the same thing. He wondered if the Russians would give Tel Aviv a call if they had any luck. His last ace in the hole was electronic eavesdropping. The powerful electronic ears of both the American National Security Agency and Israeli Intelligence might eventually vector in on the sound of the broad bank jamming device. In almost every country of the world, men and women, paid agents, sat in the upper levels of their houses and took shifts listening and recording every radio transmission that was broadcast in their vicinity. Eventually, one of these people might pick up the sound of the airborne broad band transmitter that they were instructed to listen for. But Talman knew that the Lear, so close to the Concorde, would be transmitting a very weak signal. The chances of picking it up were small, though not impossible.