By the Rivers of Babylon

by Nelson DeMille

  Talman was satisfied that he had done everything that could be done, for the moment. He picked up the telephone and called the Prime Minister. He gave a situation report, then turned in his resignation. He hung up before he received a reply. He got up from his chair, walked over to his Deputy Chief of Operations, General Hur, and spoke to him for a moment. Then he took his hat and walked out of the Operations Room. Everyone watched quietly as the door shut behind him.

  * * *

  The Concorde climbed in slow stages over the mountains of the Sinai. Becker could see that the Lear wanted to keep within 150 meters of the ground, but the sudden rises and falls in the land made for a sickening roller coaster ride. Several of the passengers were already ill.

  Mount Sinai rose up in front of them and the Lear skipped over the top with barely fifty meters to spare. Becker pushed forward on the throttles and cleared the peak. His ground altimeter bounced wildly between fifty and a hundred meters as the huge delta wings were buffeted by updrafts. He’d had enough. He pushed the throttles forward again and began to climb over the Lear. The Lear suddenly accelerated and rose up directly in front of him. Becker chopped back on the throttles and the Concorde shuddered as it approached a stall. He quickly moved the throttles forward once more until he got well above stall speed, then held it steady.

  “That was too close,” commented Hess. His voice was a little shaky. “I guess he means for us to follow, no matter how hard we have to work at it. He must know what a terrific pilot you are, Dave.”

  Becker wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. The Lear descended to its previous altitude and reduced its speed again, and again Becker fell in behind him. He felt like an obedient child following a truant officer to some undisclosed place of punishment, and the feeling was humiliating. He knew that Rish was prepared to cause a mid-air collision if things didn’t go exactly his way. Becker’s hands shook from rage more than from fear.

  * * *

  Hausner’s men were stripping away the plastic laminate from the steel bulkhead with their commando knives. Hausner watched as the steel wall was revealed, piece by piece. There was no possible way to get through it. “Any good ideas?”

  One of his men, Nathan Brin, steadied himself on the bouncing floor and looked up. “How about a desperate idea?”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  The young man rose and spoke quickly. “We can take the powder from our rounds and a container from the galley and make a shapecharge, put an electric wire to it, and blow a hole in the bulkhead. With a few coat hangers and a flashlight we can snag the wire that leads to the bomb and pull it off.”

  Hausner turned to the other man, Moshe Kaplan. “Kaplan, is this the kind of man I’m hiring these days?”

  Brin turned red. “What’s wrong with that idea?” he demanded.

  “It’s dangerous. And what makes you think there is a wire instead of a battery?”

  Brin thought. “There must be an aircraft power source to the radio receiver and to the detonator. Something detonated the bomb on 01 and it wasn’t a battery planted over a year ago.”

  Hausner nodded. “All right, if it is a wire, then it must be connected to something with a constant and stable voltage. Something like the tail navigation light.” He thought a moment, then rushed out of the baggage room and back up the aisle toward the flight deck.

  Becker turned around as he heard Hausner enter the cockpit. “Any luck?”

  “Listen, the power source for this radio and detonator might be the tail navigation light. Turn it off.”

  Becker considered. He remembered that Rish had made a point of telling them to leave their navigation lights on. All aircraft always flew with them on, anyway. Why emphasize it? “There are other power sources back there. All the hydraulics in the tail are also electrically activated and monitored, including my tail bumper wheel and the rudder. I can certainly shut off the tail navigation light and I can even cut off the power to my tail bumper wheel, but I can’t shut off the rudder. I need it to fly.”

  Kahn spoke up from the flight engineer console. “I thought of all that, too. There’s a good chance that the power source is the tail navigation light. But any radio-controlled bomb would have a battery back-up, and the battery would get a steady trickle charge from one of those sources in the tail. Even if it’s been in place for years, the radio battery is fully charged every time we start our engines. But I may be wrong. I can shut off the tail navigation light and bumper wheel assembly, and we can fly away from here. Maybe we’ll be blown up. Maybe we won’t. Anybody want to try it?”

  Nobody did.

  Hausner sat in the jump seat and lit a cigarette. The momentary elation was gone. “Maybe we could lift a section of the cabin floor and then we could also lift the armor mesh and insulation and stamp through the aluminum roof of the baggage compartment. In the baggage compartment it might be easier to get through the bulkhead into the tail.”

  Becker shook his head again. He didn’t like people making holes in his plane and burrowing around in it. “You know the baggage compartment is pressurized. The bulkhead down there is just as thick as the one in the cabin. Even if you could get through—I don’t want any holes. No going through floors. I can’t risk it. Too many wires.”

  Hausner stood up and forced a smile. “Then I don’t suppose you’d like the idea of using cartridge powder to blow a hole in the pressure bulkhead?”

  Becker laughed in spite of the situation. “Sorry.” He knew that Hausner was a man who would rather die than face life after what had happened here, unless he could personally save the situation. He also knew that Hausner was a man under sentence of death, anyway. He couldn’t trust his judgment any longer. “Mr. Hausner, thank you for what you’re trying to do. But as Captain of this aircraft I have to veto any ideas that would endanger this craft or the people on it. As long as we’re airborne, I’m in command. Not you, not Burg, not the Foreign Minister. Me.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Look, Jacob, I know what you’re going through, but just take it easy. We have about two hours of flying time left. Let’s see what happens.”

  Hausner nodded. “All right.” He left the flight deck.

  9

  The Concorde passed over the tip of the Sinai Peninsula and headed toward the Red Sea, following the Lear as it banked sharply left and headed toward Saudi Arabia. Becker was curious about where they were going, but their destination seemed less and less important.

  With its nose dropped and its tail and flaps down, the Concorde looked more than ever like a big, forlorn seabird that wanted to land on the water below, but, for some reason, could not. Becker looked at the whitecaps on the Red Sea until he was mesmerized by them.

  “Coast coming up, Dave.”

  The Saudi Arabian shoreline slid by quickly. The ground was flat as far as he could see. He breathed a sigh of relief. “It won’t be so bad now.”

  Hess glanced over at him. “That’s one way of looking at it. Want me to take the wheel for a while?”

  Becker looked at him. He wondered if Hess could fly a formation with the Concorde under these conditions. He decided to be blunt. “Can you fly it?”

  “I can fly the crate it came in.”

  Becker smiled and let go of the controls. He fished in his pocket for a cigarette. He almost felt good. If ever a pilot had reason to lose his nerve, the flight over the Sinai was it. No matter what happened now, he was comforted by the thought that this, his last flight, had been his best.

  The Lear picked up speed quickly and was doing about 800 kilometers per hour. Hess fought to keep the Concorde at 150 meters above the ground.

  Ahead, Becker could see a few Bedouins on camels, staring at them. The sinking sun cast the huge delta shadow in front of the aircraft, over the Bedouins. The camels spooked and bolted clumsily as it passed. He drew on his cigarette. Now, over the flatlands, the flight looked safe enough, but Becker knew that, with the increased speed and the 150–meter altitude, any small dip in the nose would send them screa
ming into the ground before there was a chance to correct.

  Peter Kahn looked up from his instruments. “One hour and fifty minutes fuel remaining, skipper.”

  Dobkin came onto the flight deck. He put his hand on Becker’s shoulder. “How is it going?”

  “All right. Any thoughts?”

  Dobkin nodded. “We had a little meeting back there.”

  “And?”

  “Well . . . we have concluded that they are very clever fellows. First of all, they didn’t go into a long political harangue, like these chaps usually do, so we don’t even know who they are, except that they’re probably Palestinians. If Hausner hadn’t recognized Rish’s voice, we wouldn’t even know that. This all makes it very hard for our intelligence people to begin work on this.”

  “Not good,” said Becker.

  “Not good at all,” agreed Dobkin. “They further changed their modus operandi by jamming our radios. That can only mean that we’re going to a secret destination. This time, there won’t be a thousand newsmen at an international airport when we land. There will be no Entebbe rescue, either, because no one will know where we are. We’re going to be held incommunicado.”

  Becker had come to similar conclusions. He had suspected he’d be putting the Concorde down in the desert, and now he was sure of it. He hoped, at least, it would be a hard-packed airstrip like Dawson’s Field.

  Dobkin seemed to be reading his thoughts. “Can you put it down anywhere?”

  “Anywhere but a swine yard. No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  * * *

  Hausner took a seat next to Miriam Bernstein. They spoke quietly for a while. They both shared a sense of guilt that they were trying to relieve by speaking to each other. A steward, Daniel Jacoby, had taken charge of the flight attendants and was giving instructions to serve a meal and drinks, whether anyone wanted them or not. Hausner ordered a double Scotch. He stirred his drink. “I can’t believe I could have overlooked that.”

  Miriam Bernstein took a sip from his drink. “They would have found another way to do it.”

  “Whatever way they found, I would have been responsible.”

  “I keep thinking about Teddy . . . General Laskov. He fell into the same trap we all did. I know he would have reacted differently if I hadn’t . . .”

  “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 sou
th. “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.