by Wilbur Smith
‘Now!’ she said, and the two women fired together. The two shots blended in a thunderous burst of sound, a mind-stopping roar, and blue powder smoke burst from the gaping muzzles, flying specks of burning wadding hurled across the cabin, and the impact of lead shot into living flesh sounded like a handful of watermelon pips thrown against a wall.
Ingrid fired the second barrel a moment before Karen, so this time the two shots were distinct stunning blurts of sound, and in the dreadful silence that followed the two men in the passenger cabins were screaming wildly.
‘Nobody move! Everybody freeze!’
For Peter Stride those fractional seconds seemed to last for long hours. They seemed to play on endlessly through his brain, like a series of frozen frames in a grotesque movie. Image after image seemed separated from the whole, so that forever afterwards he would be able to recreate each of them entire and undistorted and to experience again undiluted the paralysing nausea of those moments,
The pregnant woman took the full blast of one of the first shots She burst open like an overripe fruit, her swollen body pulled out of shape by the passage of shot from spine to navel, and she was flung forward so she somersaulted out into space. She hit the tarmac in a loose tangle of pale thin limbs, and was completely still, no flicker of life remaining.
The plump woman clung to the boy beside her, and they teetered in the open doorway – around them swirled pale blue wisps of gunsmoke. Though she kept her balance, the tightly stretched beige silk of her dress was speckled with dozens of tiny wounds, as though she had been stabbed repeatedly with a sharpened knitting needle. The same wounds were tom through the boy’s white school shirt, and little scarlet flowers bloomed swiftly around each wound, spreading to stain the cloth. Neither of them made any sound, and their expressions were startled and uncomprehending. The next blasts of sound and shot struck them solidly, and they seemed boneless and without substance as they tumbled forward, still locked together. Their fall seemed to continue for a very long time, and then they sprawled together over the pregnant woman’s body.
Peter ran forward to catch the girl-child as she fell, and her weight bore him to his knees on the tarmac. He came to his feet running, carrying her like a sleepy baby, one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders. Her lovely head bumped against his shoulder, and the fine silken hair blew into his face, half blinding him.
‘Don’t die,’ he found himself grunting the words in time to his pounding feet. ‘Please don’t die.’ But he could feel the warm wet leak of blood down his belly, soaking into his shorts, and dribbling down the front of his thighs.
At the entrance to the terminal buildings Colin Noble ran out a dozen paces and tried to take the child from his arms, but Peter resisted him fiercely.
Peter relinquished the frail, completely relaxed body to the Thor doctor, and he stood by without word or expression of regret as the doctor worked swiftly over her. Peter’s face was stony and his wide mouth clamped in a hard line when the doctor looked up at last.
‘I’m afraid she’s dead, sir.’
Peter nodded curtly and turned away. His heels cracked on the echoing marble of the deserted terminal hall and Colin Noble fell in silently beside him. His face was as bleak and expressionless as Peter’s, as they climbed into the cabin of the Hawker command aircraft.
‘Sir William, you point at us for holding enemies of the State without trial.’ The Foreign Minister leaned forward to point the accuser’s finger. ‘But you British discarded the citizen’s right of Habeas Corpus when you passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and in Cyprus and Palestine you were holding prisoners without trial long before that. Now your H block in Ulster – is that any better than what we are forced to do here?’
Sir William, the British Ambassador, gobbled indignantly, while he collected his thoughts.
Kelly Constable intervened smoothly. ‘Gentlemen, we are trying to find common ground here – not areas of dispute. There are hundreds of lives at stake—’
A telephone shrilled in the air-conditioned hush of the room and Sir William lifted the receiver to his ear with patent relief, but as he listened, all blood drained from his face, leaving it a jaundiced, putty colour.
‘I see,’ he said once, and then, ‘very well, thank you,’ and replaced the receiver. He looked down the length of the long polished imbuia wood table to the imposing figure at the end.
‘Prime Minister—’ his voice quavered a little ‘– I regret to inform you that the terrorists have rejected the compromise proposals offered by your government, and that ten minutes ago they murdered four hostages—’
There was a gasp of disbelief from the attentive circle of listening men.
‘– The hostages were two women and two children – a boy and a girl – they were shot in the back and their bodies thrown from the aircraft. The terrorists have set a new deadline – midnight tonight – for the acceptance of their terms. Failing which there will be further shootings.’
The silence lasted for almost a minute as head after head turned slowly, until they were all staring at the big hunched figure at the head of the table.
‘I appeal to you in the name of humanity, sir.’ It was Kelly Constable who broke the silence. ‘We must save the women and children at least. The world will not allow us to sit by as they are murdered.’
‘We will have to attack the aircraft and free the prisoners,’ said the Prime Minister heavily.
But the American Ambassador shook his head. ‘My government is adamant, sir – as is that of my British colleague—’ he glanced at Sir William, who nodded support – we cannot and will not risk a massacre. Attack the aircraft and our governments will make no attempt to moderate the terms of the U.N. proposals, nor will we intervene in the Security Council to exercise the veto.’
‘Yet, if we agree to the demands of these – these animals—’ the last words were said fiercely ‘– we place our nation in terrible danger.’ ‘Prime Minister, we have only hours to find a solution – then the killing will begin again.’
‘You yourself have placed the success chances of a Delta strike as low as even,’ Kingston Parker pointed out, staring grimly at Peter Stride out of the little square screen. ‘Neither the President nor I find those odds acceptable.’
‘Doctor Parker, they are murdering women and children out there on the tarmac.’ Peter tried to keep his tone neutral, his reasoning balanced.
‘Very strong pressure is being brought to bear on the South African Government to accede to the terms for release of the women and children.’
‘That will solve nothing.’ Peter could not restrain himself. ‘It will leave us with exactly the same situation tomorrow night.’
‘If we can secure the release of the women and children, the number of lives at risk will be reduced, and in forty hours the situation might have changed – we are buying time, Peter, even if we have to pay for it with a heavy coin.’
‘And if the South Africans do not agree? If we come to the midnight deadline without an agreement with the hijackers, what happens then, Doctor Parker?’
‘This is a difficult thing to say, ‘Peter, but if that happens—’ Parker spread those long graceful hands in a gesture of resignation, ‘– we may lose another four lives, but that is better than precipitating the massacre of four hundred. And after that the South Africans will not be able to hold out. They will have to agree to free the women and children – at any cost.’
Peter could not truly believe what he had heard. He knew he was on the very brink of losing his temper completely, and he had to give himself a few seconds to steady himself. He dropped his eyes to his own hands that were interlocked on the desk top in front of him. Under the fingernails of his right hand were black half moons, the dried blood of the child he had carried back from the aircraft. Abruptly he unlocked his fingers and thrust both hands deeply into the pockets of his blue Thor overalls. He took a long deep breath, held it a moment, then let it out slowly.
‘
If that was difficult to say, Doctor Parker – console yourself that it was a bloody sight harder to listen to.’
‘I understand how you feel, Peter’
‘I don’t think you do, sir.’ Peter shook his head slowly.
‘You are a soldier—’
‘– and only a soldier knows how to really hate violence,’ Peter finished for him.
‘Our personal feelings must not be allowed to intrude in this.’ Kingston Parker’s voice had a sharp edge to it now. ‘I must once again forcibly remind you that the decision for condition Delta has been delegated to me by the President and your Prime Minister. No strike will be made without my express orders. Do you understand that, General Stride?’
‘I understand, Doctor Parker,’ Peter said flatly. ‘And we hope to get some really good videotapes of the next murders. I’ll let you have copies for your personal collection.’
The other 747 had been grounded for servicing when the emergency began, and it was parked in the assembly area only a thousand yards from where Speedbird 070 stood, but the main service hangars and the corner of the terminal buildings effectively screened it from any observation by the hijackers.
Although it wore the orange and blue of South African Airways with the flying Springbok on the tail, it was an almost identical model to its sister ship. Even the cabin configurations were very close to the plans of Speedbird 070, which had been teleprinted from British Airways Headquarters at Heathrow. It was a fortunate coincidence, and an opportunity that Colin Noble had seized immediately. He had already run seven mock Deltas on the empty hull.
‘All right, you guys, let’s try and get our arses out of low gear on this run I want to better fourteen seconds from the “go” to penetration—’ His strike team glanced at one another as they squatted in a circle. on the tarmac, and there were a few theatrical rollings of eyes. Colin ignored them. ‘Let’s go for nine seconds, gang,’ he said and stood up.
There were sixteen men in the actual assault group – seventeen when Peter Stride joined them. The other members of Thor were technical experts – electronics and communications, four marksmen snipers, a weapons quartermaster, and a bomb disposal and explosives sergeant, doctor, cook, three engineering N.C.O.s under a lieutenant, the pilots and other flight personnel – a big team, but every man was indispensable.
The assault group wore single-piece uniforms of close fitting black nylon, for low night visibility. They wore their gas masks loosely around their necks, ready for instant use. Their boots were black canvas lace-ups, with soft rubber soles for silence. Each man wore his specialized weapons and equipment either in a back pack or on his black webbing belt. No bulky bulletproof flak jackets to impede mobility or to snag on obstacles, no hard helmets to tap against metal and tell tales to a wary adversary.
Nearly all the group were young men, in their early twenties, hand picked from the U.S. Marine corps or from the British 22.SAS regiment that Peter Stride had once commanded. They were superbly fit, and honed to razor’s edge.
Colin Noble watched them carefully as they assembled silently on the marks he had chalked on the tarmac, representing the entrances to the air terminal and the service hangars nearest to 070. He was searching for any sign of slackness, any deviation from the almost impossible standards he had set for Thor. He could find none. ‘All right, ten seconds – to flares,’ he called. A Delta strike began with the launching of phosphorus flares across the nose of the target aircraft. They would float down on their tiny parachutes, causing a diversion which would hopefully bunch the terrorists in the flight deck of the target aircraft as they tried to figure out the reason for the lights. The brilliance of the flares would also sear the retina of the terrorists’ eyes and destroy night vision for many minutes afterwards.
‘Flares!’ shouted Colin, and the assault group went into action. The two ‘stick’ men led them, sprinting out directly under the gigantic tail of the deserted aircraft. Each of them carried a gas cylinder strapped across his shoulder, to which the long stainless steel probes were attached by flexible armoured couplings – these were the ‘sticks’ that gave them their name.
The leader carried compressed air in the tank upon his back at a pressure of 250 atmospheres, and on the tip of his twenty-foot probe was the diamond cutting bit of the air-drill. He dropped on one knee under the belly of the aircraft ten feet behind the landing gear and reached up to press the point of the air-drill against the exact spot, carefully plotted from the manufacturer’s drawing, where the pressure hull was thinnest and where direct access to the passenger cabins lay just beyond the skin of alloy metal.
The whine of the cutting drill would be covered by the revving of the jet engines of aircraft parked in the southern terminal. Three seconds to pierce the hull, and the second ‘stick’ man was ready to insert the tip of his probe into the drill hole.
‘Power off,’ Colin grunted; at that moment electrical power from the mains to the aircraft would be cut to kill the air-conditioning.
The second man simulated the act of releasing the gas from the bottle on his back through the probe and saturating the air in the aircraft’s cabins. The gas was known simply as FACTOR V. It smelled faintly of newly dug truffles, and when breathed as a five per cent concentration in air would partially paralyse a man in under ten seconds – loss of motor control of the muscles, unco-ordinated movement, slurred speech and distorted vision, were initial symptoms.
Breathed for twenty seconds the symptoms were total paralysis, for thirty seconds loss of consciousness; breathed for two minutes, pulmonary failure and death. The antidote was fresh air or, better still, pure oxygen, and recovery was rapid with no long-term after-effects.
The rest of the assault group had followed the ‘stick’ men and split into four teams. They waited poised, squatting under the wings, gas masks in place, equipment and weapons ready for instant use.
Colin was watching his stopwatch. He could not chance exposing the passengers to more than ten seconds of Factor V. There would be elderly people, infants, asthma sufferers aboard; as the needle reached the ten-second mark, he snapped.
‘Power on.’ Air-conditioning would immediately begin washing the gas out of the cabins again, and now it was ‘Go!’
Two assault teams poured up the aluminium scaling ladders onto the wing roots, and knocked out the emergency window panels. The other two teams went for the main doors, but they could only simulate the use of slap-hammers to tear through the metal and reach the locking device on the interior – nor could they detonate the stun grenades.
‘Penetration.’ The assault leader standing in for Peter Stride on this exercise signalled entry of the cabins, and Colin clicked his stopwatch.
‘Time?’ asked a quiet voice at his shoulder, and he turned quickly. So intent on his task, Colin had not heard Peter Stride come up behind him.
‘Eleven seconds, sir.’ The courteous form of address was proof of Colonel Colin Noble’s surprise. ‘Not bad – but sure as hell not good either. We’ll run it again.’
‘Rest them,’ Peter ordered. ‘I want to talk it out a bit.’
They stood together at the full windows in the south wall of the air traffic control tower, and studied the big red, white and blue aircraft for the hundredth time that day.
The heat of the afternoon had raised thunderheads, great purple and silver mushroom bursts of cloud that reached to the heavens. Trailing grey skirts of torrential rain they marched across the horizon, forming a majestic backdrop that was almost too theatrical to be real, while the lowering sun found the gaps in the cloud and shot long groping fingers of golden light through them, heightening the illusion of theatre.
‘Six hours to deadline,’ Colin Noble grunted, and groped for one of his scented black cheroots. ‘Any news of concessions by the locals?’
‘Nothing. I don’t think they will buy it.’
‘Not until the next batch of executions.’ Colin bit the end from the cheroot and spat it angrily into a corner. ‘For two ye
ars I break my balls training for this, and now they tie our hands behind our backs.’
‘If they gave you Delta, when would you make your run?’ Peter asked.
‘As soon as it was dark,’ Colin answered promptly.
‘No. They are still revved up high on drugs,’ Peter demurred. ‘We should give them time to go over the top, and start downing. My guess is they will dope again just before the next deadline. I would hit them just before that—’ He paused to calculate. ‘– I’d hit them at fifteen minutes before eleven – seventy-five minutes before the deadline.’
‘If we had Delta,’ Colin grunted.
‘If we had Delta,’ Peter agreed, and they were silent for a moment. ‘Listen, Colin, this has been wearing me down. If they know my name, what else does that gang of freaks know about Thor? Do they know our contingency planning for taking an aircraft?’
‘God, I hadn’t worked it out that far.’
‘I have been looking for a twist, a change from the model, something that will give us the jump even if they know what to expect.’
‘We’ve taken two years to set it up tightly—’ Colin looked dubious. ‘There is nothing we can change.’
‘The flares,’ said Peter. ‘If we went, we would not signal the Delta with the flares, we would go in cold.’
‘The uglies would be scattered all through the cabins, mixed up with passengers and crew—’
‘The red shirt Ingrid was wearing. My guess is, all four of them will be uniformed to impress their hostages. We would hose anything and everybody in red. If my guess is wrong, then we would have to do it Israeli style.’
Israeli style was the shouted command to lie down, and to kill anyone who disobeyed or who made an aggressive move.
The truly important one is the girl. The girl with the camera. Have your boys studied the videotapes of her?’