by Wilbur Smith
‘Later,’ she told him brusquely, ‘when this is over. Now get back into the cabin.’ And she leaned forward and lifted a corner of the blanket that screened the side window of the cockpit. The sunlight was very bright but her eyes adjusted swiftly and she saw the row of helmeted heads above the parapet of the observation deck. So they were pulling back the troops as well. It was nearly time to begin talking – but she would let them stew in their own juice just a little longer.
She stood up, buttoned her shirt and adjusted the camera on its strap around her neck, paused in the galley to rearrange the shiny mass of golden hair – and then walked slowly back down the full length of the central aisle, pausing to adjust the blanket over a sleeping child, to listen attentively to the complaints of the pregnant wife of the Texan neurosurgeon.
‘You and the children will be the first off this plane – I promise you.’
When she reached the prone body of the flight engineer, she knelt beside him.
‘How is he?’
‘He is sleeping now. I shot him full of morphine,’ the fat little doctor muttered, not looking at her, so she could not read the hatred in his expression. The injured arm was elevated to control the bleeding, sticking up stiffly in its cocoon of pressure bandages, oddly foreshortened with the bright ooze of blood through the dressing.
‘You are doing good—’ She touched his arm. ‘Thank you.’ And now he glanced at her startled, and she smiled – such a radiant lovely smile, that he began to melt.
‘Is that your wife?’ Ingrid dropped her voice, so that he alone could hear – and he nodded, glancing at the plump little Jewish woman in the nearest seat. ‘I will see she is amongst the first to leave,’ she murmured, and his gratitude was pathetic. She stood and went on down the aircraft.
The red-shirted German stood at the head of the tourist cabin, beside the curtained entrance to the second galley. He had the intense drawn face of a religious zealot, dark burning eyes, long black hair falling almost to his shoulders
– a white scar twisted the corner of his upper lip into a perpetual smirk.
‘Kurt, everything is all right?’ she asked in German.
‘They are complaining of hunger.’
‘We will feed them in another two hours – but not as much as they expect—’ and she ran a contemptuous glance down the cabin. ‘Fat,’ she said quietly, ‘– big fat bourgeoisie pigs,’ and she stepped through the curtains into the galley and looked at him in invitation. He followed her immediately, drawing the curtains behind them.
‘Where is Karen?’ Ingrid asked, as he unbuckled his belt. She needed it very badly, the excitement and the blood had inflamed her.
‘She is resting – at the back of the cabin.’
Ingrid slipped the button that held the front of her shorts together and drew down the zipper. ‘All right Kurt,’ she whispered huskily, ‘but quickly, very quickly.’
Ingrid sat in the flight engineer’s seat; at her shoulder stood the dark-haired girl. She wore the cartridge belt across the shoulder of her bright red shirt, like a bandolier – and she carried the big ugly pistol on her hip.
Ingrid held the microphone to her lips, and combed the fingers of her other hand through the thick golden tangle of her tresses as she spoke.
‘– One hundred and ninety-eight British subjects. One hundred and forty-six American nationals—’ She was reading the list of her captives. There are one hundred and twenty-two women on board, and twenty-six children under the age of sixteen years.’ She had been speaking for nearly five minutes and now she broke off and shifted in her seat, turning to smite at Karen over her shoulder. The dark-haired girl smiled in return and reached across to caress the fine mass of golden hair with a narrow bony hand, before letting it drop back to her side.
‘We have copied your last transmission.’
‘Call me Ingrid.’ She spoke into the mike with the smile turning into a wicked grin. There was a moment’s silence as the controller in the tower recovered from his shock.
‘Roger, Ingrid. Do you have any further messages for us?’
‘Affirmative, Tower. As this is a British aircraft and as three hundred and forty-four of my passengers are either British or American, I want a spokesman, representing the embassies of those countries. I want him here in two hours’ time to hear my terms for the release of passengers.’
‘Stand by, Ingrid. We will be back to you immediately we have been able to contact the ambassadors.’
‘Don’t horse around, Tower.’ Ingrid’s voice snapped. ‘We both know damned well they are breathing down your neck. Tell them I want a man here in two hours – otherwise I am going to be forced to put down the first hostage.’
Peter Stride was stripped down to a pair of bathing trunks, and he wore only canvas sneakers on his feet. Ingrid had insisted on a face-to-face meeting, and Peter had welcomed the opportunity to assess at close range.
‘We’ll be covering you every inch of the way there and back,’ Colin Noble told Peter, fussing over him like a coach over his fighter before the gong. ‘I’m handling the gunners, personally.’
The snipers were armed with specially hand-built .222 magnums with accurized barrels that threw small light bullets with tremendous velocity and striking power. The ammunition was match-grade, each round lovingly hand finished and polished. The infra-red telescopic sights were readily interchangeable with the laser sights, making the weapon deadly accurate either in daylight or at night. The bullet had a clean, flat trajectory up to seven hundred yards. They were perfectly designed mankillers, precision weapons that reduced the danger to bystanders or hostages. The light bullet would slam a man down with savage force, as though he had been hit by a charging rhinoceros, but it would break up in his body, and not over-penetrate to kill beyond the target.
‘You’re getting into a lather,’ Peter grunted. ‘They want to talk, not shoot – not yet, anyway.’
‘The female of the species—’ Colin warned, ‘– that one is real poison.’
‘More important than the guns are the cameras, and sound equipment.’
‘I went up there and kicked a few arses. You’ll get pictures that will win you an Oscar – my personal guarantee.’ Colin checked his wristwatch. Time to go. Don’t keep the lady waiting.’ He punched Peter’s shoulder lightly. ‘Hang loose,’ he said, and Peter walked out into the sunshine, lifting both hands above his shoulders, palms open, fingers extended.
The silence was as oppressive as the dry fierce heat, but it was intentional. Peter had frozen all air traffic, and had ordered the shut down of all machinery in the entire terminal area. He did not want any interference with his sound equipment.
There was only the sound of his own footfalls, and he stepped out briskly – but still it was the longest walk of his life, and the closer he got to the aircraft, the higher it towered above him. He knew that he had been required to strip almost naked, not only to ensure that he carried no weapons, but to place him at a disadvantage – to make him feel ill at ease, vulnerable. It was an old trick – the Gestapo always stripped the victim for an interrogation – so he held himself proud and tall, pleased that his body was so lean and hard and muscled like an athlete’s. He would have hated to drag a big, pendulous gut and sagging old-man’s tits across those four hundred yards.
He was half-way there when the forward door, just behind the cockpit, slid back and a group of figures appeared in the square opening. He narrowed his eyes: there were two uniformed figures, no three – British Airways uniforms, the two pilots and between them the shorter slimmer feminine figure of a stewardess.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, but beyond them he could make out another head, a blonde head – but the angle and the light were against him.
Closer, he saw that the older pilot was on the right, short-cropped grey curls, ruddy round face – that would be Watkins, the commander. He was a good man, Peter had studied his service record. He ignored the co-pilot and stewardess and strained for a glimpse of
the figure beyond them, but it was only when he stopped directly below the open hatch that she moved to let him get a clear view of her face.
Peter was startled by the loveliness of that golden head, by the smooth gloss of young sun-polished skin and the thundering innocence of wide-set, steady, green eyes – for a moment he could not believe she was one of them, then she spoke.
‘I am Ingrid,’ she said. Some of the most poisonous flowers are the loveliest, he thought.
‘I am the accredited negotiator for the British and American Governments,’ he said, and switched his gaze to the beefy red face of Watkins. ‘How many members of your commando are aboard?’ he asked.
‘No questions!’ Ingrid snapped fiercely, and Cyril Watkins extended four fingers of his right hand down his thigh without a change of expression.
It was vital confirmation of what they already suspected, and Peter felt a rush of gratitude towards the pilot.
‘Before we discuss your terms,’ Peter said, ‘and out of common humanity, I would like to arrange for the wellbeing and comfort of your hostages.’
‘They are well cared for.’
‘Do you need food or drinking water?’
The girl threw back her head and laughed delightedly. ‘So you can dope it with laxative – and have us knee-deep in shit? Stink us out, hey?’
Peter did not pursue it. The doped trays had already been prepared by his doctor.
‘You have a gunshot casualty on board?’
‘There are no wounded aboard,’ the girl denied flatly, cutting her laughter short – but Watkins made the circular affirmative sign of thumb and forefinger, effectively contradicting her, and Peter noticed the spots of dried blood on the sleeves of his white shirt. ‘That’s enough,’ Ingrid warned Peter. ‘Ask one more question and we’ll break off—’
‘All right,’ Peter agreed quickly. ‘No more questions.’
‘The objective of this commando is the ultimate downfall of the brutally fascist, inhuman, neo-imperialistic regime that holds this land in abject slavery and misery – denying the great majority of the workers and the proletariat their basic rights as human beings.’
And that, thought Peter bitterly, even though it’s couched in the garbled jargon of the lunatic left, is every bit as bad as it can be. Around the world hundreds of millions would have immediate sympathy, making Peter’s task just that little bit more difficult. The hijackers had picked a soft target.
The girl was still speaking, with an intense, almost religious fervour, and as he listened Peter faced the growing certainty that the girl was a fanatic, treading the thin line which divided sanity from madness. Her voice became a harsh screech as she mouthed her hatred and condemnation, and when she had finished he knew that she was capable of anything – no cruelty, no baseness was beyond her. He knew that she would not stop even at suicide, the final act of destroying the Boeing, its passengers and herself – he suspected she might even welcome the opportunity of martyrdom, and he felt the chill of it tickle up along his spine.
They were silent now, staring at each other, while the hectic flush of fanaticism receded from the girl’s face and she regained her breath, and Peter waited, controlling his own misgivings, waiting for her to calm herself and continue.
‘Our first demand—’ the girl had steadied and was watching Peter shrewdly now, ‘– our first demand is that the statement I have just made be read on every television network in Britain and the United States, and also here upon the South African network.’ Peter felt his loathing of that terrible little box rise to the surface of his emotions. That mind-bending electronic substitute for thought, that deadly device for freezing, packaging and distributing opinion. He hated it, almost as much as the violence and sensation it purveyed so effectively. ‘It must be read at the next occurrence of 7 p.m. local time in Los Angeles, New York, London and Johannesburg—’ Prime time, of course, and the media would gobble it up hungrily, for this was their meat and their drink – the pornographers of violence!
High above him in the open hatch the girl brandished a thick buff envelope. ‘This contains a copy of that statement for transmission – it contains also a list of names. One hundred and twenty-nine names, all of them either imprisoned or placed under banning orders by this monstrous police regime. The names on this list are the true leaders of South Africa.’ She flung the envelope, and it landed at Peter’s feet.
‘Our second demand is that every person on that list be placed aboard an aircraft provided by the South African Government. Aboard the same aircraft there will be one million gold Kruger Rand coins also provided by the same government. The aircraft will fly to a country chosen by the freed political leaders. The gold will be used by them to establish a government in exile, until such time as they return to this country as the true leaders of the people.’
Peter stooped and picked up the envelope. He was calculating swiftly. A single Kruger Rand coin was worth $170 at the very least. The ransom demand was, therefore, worth one hundred and seventy million dollars.
There was another calculation. ‘One million Krugers will weigh well over forty tons,’ he told the girl. ‘How are they going to get all that on one aircraft?’
The girl faltered. It was a little comfort to Peter to realize that they hadn’t thought out everything perfectly. If they made one small mistake, then they were capable of making others.
‘The government will provide sufficient transport for all the gold and all the prisoners,’ the girl said sharply. The hesitation had been momentary only.
‘Is that all?’ Peter asked; the sun was stinging his naked shoulders and a cold drop of sweat tickled down his flank. He had never guessed it could be this bad.
‘The aircraft will depart before noon tomorrow, or the execution of hostages will begin then.’ Peter felt the crawl of horror. ‘Execution.’ She was using the jargon of legality, and he realized at that moment that what she promised she would deliver.
‘When those aircraft arrive at the destination chosen by the occupants, a pre-arranged code will be flashed to us, and all women and children aboard this aircraft will immediately be released.’
‘And the men?’ Peter asked.
‘On Monday the sixth – three days from now, a resolution is to be tabled before the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. It will call for immediate total mandatory economic sanctions on South Africa – including withdrawal of all foreign capital, total oil and trade embargoes, severance of all transport and communications links, blockade of all ports and air borders by a U.N. peace-keeping force – pending free elections under universal suffrage supervised by U.N. inspectors—’
Peter’s mind was racing to keep ahead of the girl’s demands. He knew of the U.N. motion, of course, it had been tabled by Sri Lanka and Tanzania. It would be vetoed in the Security Council. That was a certainty – but the girl’s timing brought forward new and frightening considerations. The beast had changed shape again, and what he had heard sickened him. It surely could not be merely coincidence that the resolution was to be tabled within three days of this strike – the implications were too horrible to contemplate. The connivance, if not the direct involvement, of world leaders and governments in the strategy of terror.
The girl spoke again deliberately. ‘If any member of the Security Council of the U.N. – America, Britain or France – uses the veto to block the resolution of this General Assembly, this aircraft and all aboard her will be destroyed by high explosive.’
Peter had lost the power of speech. He stood gaping up at the lovely blonde child, for child she seemed, so young and fresh.
When he found voice again, it croaked hoarsely. ‘I don’t believe you could have got high explosive aboard this aircraft to carry out that threat,’ he challenged her.
The blonde girl said something to somebody who was out of sight, and then a few moments later she tossed a dark round object down to Peter.
‘Catch!’ she shouted, and he was surprised by the weight of it
in his hands. It took only a moment to recognize it.
‘Electronically fused!’ The girl laughed. ‘And we have so many I can afford to give you a sample.’
The pilot, Cyril Watkins, was trying to tell him something, touching his own chest – but Peter was occupied with the explosive in his hands. He knew that a single one of these would be fully capable of destroying the Boeing and all aboard her.
What was Watkins trying to tell him? Touching his neck again. Peter transferred his attention to the girl’s neck. She wore a small camera slung around her neck. Something connecting camera and grenade – perhaps? Is that what the pilot was trying to tell him?
But now the girl was speaking again. Take that to your masters, and let them tremble The wrath of the masses is upon them. The revolution is here and now,’ she said, and the door of the hatchway was swung closed. He heard the lock fall into place.
Peter turned and began the long walk back, carrying an envelope in one hand, a grenade in the other, and sick loathing in his guts.
Colin Noble’s rugged frame almost filled the hatchway of the Hawker, and for once his expression was deadly serious, no trace of laughter in his eyes or at the corners of the wide friendly mouth.
‘Doctor Parker is on the screen.’ He greeted Peter who was still buttoning his overalls as he hurried to the command plane. ‘We copied every word, and he was hooked into the system.’
‘Christ, it’s bad, Colin,’ Peter grunted.
‘That was the good news,’ Colin told him. ‘When you have finished with Parker, I’ve got the bad news for you.’
‘Thanks, pal.’ Peter shouldered his way past him into the cabin, and dropped into his leather command chair.
On the screen Kingston Parker was hunched over his desk, poring over the teleprinter sheet on which the entire conversation between Ingrid and Peter had been recorded, the cold empty pipe gripped between his teeth, the broad brow creased with the weight of his responsibility as he studied the demands of the terrorist commando.