by Wilbur Smith
‘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-mm 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?’
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.
Gently the rubber-padded tops of the ladders were hooked onto the leading edges of the wings and into the door sills high above them by black-costumed, grotesquely masked figures working with deceptively casual speed.
Ten seconds from discharge of the Factor V gas into the hull, and Peter clicked thrice. Instantly mains power to the Boeing was resumed and the lights flicked on. Now the air-conditioning was running again, washing the gas swiftly from the cabins and flight deck.
Peter drew one long, slow deep breath and tapped Colin’s shoulder. They went up the ladders in a concerted silent rush, Peter and Colin leading the teams to each wing surface.
‘Nine minutes to eleven,’ said Ingrid to Karen. She lifted her voice slightly above the din of jet engines howling somewhere out there in the night. Her throat was dry and sore from the drug withdrawal and a nerve jumped involuntarily in the corner of her eye. Her headache felt as though a knotted rope was being twisted slowly tighter around her forehead. ‘It looks as though Caliph miscalculated. The South Africans aren’t going to give in—’ She glanced with a small anticipatory twist of her lips back through the open door of the flight deck at the four hostages sitting in a row on the fold-down seats. The silver-haired Englishman was smoking a Virginia cigarette in a long amber and ivory holder, and he returned her gaze with disdain, so that Ingrid felt a prickle of annoyance and raised her voice so he could hear her next words. ‘It’s going to be necessary to shoot this batch also.’
‘Caliph has never been wrong before.’ Karen shook her head vehemently. ‘There is still an hour to deadline—’ and at that instant the lights flickered once and then went out. With all the portholes shaded the darkness was complete, and the hiss of the air-conditioning faded into silence before there was a murmur of surprised comment.
Ingrid. groped across the control panel for the switch which transferred the flight deck onto the power from the aircraft’s own batteries, and as the soft ruddy glow of the panel lights came on her expression was tense and worried.
‘They’ve switched off the mains,’ she exclaimed. ‘The air-conditioning – this could be Delta.’
‘No.’ Karen’s voice
was shrill. ‘There are no flares.’
‘We could be—’ Ingrid started but she could hear the drunken slur in her own voice. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth, and Karen’s face started to distort before her eyes, the edges blurring out of focus.
‘Karen—’ she said, and now in her nostrils the unmistakable aroma of truffles and on her tongue the taste of raw mushrooms.
‘Christ!’ she screamed wildly and lunged for the manual oxygen release. Above each seat the panels dropped open and the emergency oxygen masks dangled down into the cabins on their corrugated hoses.
‘Kurt! Henri!’ Ingrid shrieked into the cabin intercom. ‘Oxygen! Take oxygen! It’s Delta. They are going to Delta.’
She grabbed one of the dangling oxygen masks and sucked in deep pumping breaths, cleansing the numbing paralysing gas from her system. In the first-class galley one of the hostages collapsed slowly forward and tumbled onto the deck, another slumped sideways.
Still breathing oxygen, Ingrid unslung the camera from around her neck, and Karen watched her with huge terrified dark eyes. She lifted the oxygen mask from her face to ask:
‘You’re not going to blow, Ingrid?’
Ingrid ignored her and used the oxygen in her lungs to shout into the microphone.
‘Kurt! Henri! They will come as soon as the mains are switched on again. Cover your eyes and ears for the stun grenades and watch the doors and wing windows.’ Ingrid slapped the oxygen mask back over her mouth and panted wildly.
‘Don’t blow us up, Ingrid,’ Karen pleaded around her mask. ‘Please, if we surrender Caliph will have us free in a month. We don’t have to die.’
At that moment the lights of the cabin came on brightly, and there was the hiss of the air-conditioning. Ingrid took one last breath of oxygen and ran back into the first-class cabin, jumping over the unconscious figures of the hostages and of two air hostesses. She grabbed another of the dangling oxygen masks above a passenger seat and looked down the long fuselage.
Kurt and Henri had obeyed her orders. They were breathing oxygen from the roof panels. The German was ready at the port wing panel, and Henri waited at the rear doorway hatch – both of them had the short big-mouthed shot pistols ready, but their faces were covered with the yellow oxygen masks, so Ingrid could not see nor judge their expressions.
Only a small number of the passengers had been quick enough and sensible enough to grab the dangling oxygen masks and remain conscious – but hundreds of others slumped in their seats or had fallen sideways into the aisles.
A thicket of dangling, twisting, swinging oxygen hoses filled the cabin like a forest of lianas, obscuring and confusing the scene, and after the darkness the cabin lights were painfully bright.
Ingrid held the camera in her free hand, for she knew that they must continue breathing oxygen. It would take the air-conditioning many minutes longer to cleanse the air of all trace of Factor V, and she held a mask over her mouth and waited.
Karen was beside her, with her shot pistol dangling from one hand and the other pressing a mask to her mouth.
‘Go back and cover the front hatch,’ Ingrid snapped at her. ‘There will be—’
‘Ingrid, we don’t have to die,’ Karen pleaded, and with a crash the emergency exit panel over the port wing burst inward, and at the same instant two small dark objects flew threw the dark opening into the cabin.
‘Stun grenades!’ Ingrid howled. ‘Get down!’
Peter Stride was light and jubilant as an eagle in flight. His feet and hands hardly seemed to touch the rungs of the ladder, now in the swift all-engulfing rush of action there were no longer doubts, no more hesitations – he was committed, and it was a tremendous soaring relief.
He went up over the smooth curved leading edge of the wing with a roll of his shoulders and hips, and in the same movement was on his feet, padding silently down the broad glistening metal pathway. The raindrops glittered like diamonds under his feet, and a fresh wind tugged at his hair as he ran.
He reached the main hull, and dropped into position at the side of the panel, his fingertips finding the razor-tight joint while his number-two man knelt swiftly opposite him. The grenade men were ready facing the panel, balanced like acrobats on the curved slippery upper surface of the great wing.
‘Under six seconds.’ Peter guessed at the time it had taken them to reach this stage from the ‘go’. It was as swift and neat as it had never been in training, all of them armed by the knowledge of waiting death and horror.
In unison Peter and his number two hurled their combined strength and weight onto the releases of the emergency escape hatch, and it flew inwards readily, for there was no pressurization to resist, and at exactly the same instant the stun grenades went in cleanly, thrown by the waiting grenade men, and all four members of Peter’s team bowed like Mohammedans in prayer to Mecca, covering eyes and ears.
Even outside the cabin, and even with ears and eyes covered, the thunder of the explosions was appalling, seeming to beat in upon the brain with oppressive physical force, and the glare of burning phosphorus powder painted an X-ray picture of Peter’s own fingers on the fleshy red of his closed eyelids. Then the grenade men were shouting into the interior, ‘Lie down! Everybody down!’ They would keep repeating that order Israeli style as long as it lasted.
Peter was a hundredth of a second slow, numbed by the blast, fumbling slightly at the butt of the Walther, thumbing the hammer as it snapped out of the quick-release holster, and then he went in – feet first through the hatch, like a runner sliding for home base. He was still in the air when he saw the girl in the red shirt running forward brandishing the camera, and screaming something that made no sense, though his brain registered it even in that unholy moment. He fired as his feet touched the deck and his first shot hit the girl in the mouth, punching a dark red hole through the rows of white teeth and snapping her head back so viciously that he heard the small delicate bones of her neck crackle as they broke.
Ingrid used both arms to cover eyes and ears, crouching forward into the appalling blast of sound and light that swept through the crowded cabins like a hurricane wind, and even when it had passed she was reeling wildly clutching for support at a seat back, trying to steady herself and judge the moment when the attackers were into the hull.
Those outside the hull would escape the direct force of the explosives she was about to detonate; there was a high survival chance for them. She wanted to judge the moment when the entire assault team penetrated the hull, she wanted maximum casualties, she wanted to take as many with her as possible, and she lifted the camera above her head with both hands.
‘Come on!’ she shrieked, but the cabin was thick with swirling clouds of white acrid smoke, and the dangling hoses twisted and writhed like the head of the Medusa. She heard the thunder of a shot pistol and somebody screamed, voices were chanting, ‘Lie down! Everybody down!’
It was all smoke and sound and confusion, but she watched the dark opening of the emergency hatchway, waiting for it, finger on the detonator button of the camera. A supple black-clad figure in a grotesque mask torpedoed feet first into the cabin, and at that same instant Karen shrieked beside her.
‘No, don’t kill us,’ and snatched the camera from Ingrid’s raised hands, jerking it away by the strap, leaving Ingrid weaponless. Karen ran down the aisle through the smoke, still screaming, ‘Don’t kill us!’ holding the camera like a peace offering. ‘Caliph said we would not die.’ She ran forward screaming frantically. ‘Caliph—’ and the black-clad and masked figure twisted lithely in the air, arching his back to land feet first in the centre of the aisle; as his feet touched the deck so the pistol in his right hand jerked up sharply but the shot seemed muted and unwarlike after the concussion of the stun grenades.
Karen was running down the aisle towards him, screaming and brandishing the camera, when the bullet took her in the mouth and wrenched her head backwards at an impossible angle. The next two shots blended into a single blurt of sound,
fired so swiftly as to cheat the hearing, and from such close range that even the Velex explosive bullets ripped the back out of Karen’s shirt and flooded it with a brighter wetter scarlet as they erupted from between her shoulder blades. The camera went spinning high across the cabin, landing in the lap of an unconscious passenger slumped in one of the central seats between the aisles.
Ingrid reacted with the instinctive speed of a jungle cat, diving forward, flat on the carpet aisle below the line of fire; shrouded by the sinking white smoke of the grenades she wriggled forward on her belly to reach the camera.
It was twenty feet to where the camera had landed, but Ingrid moved with the speed of a serpent; she knew that the smoke was hiding her, but she knew also that to reach the camera she would have to come to her feet again and reach across two seats and two unconscious bodies.
Peter landed in balance on the carpeted aisle, and he killed the girl swiftly, and danced aside, clearing space for his number two to land.
The next man landed lightly in the space Peter had made for him, and the German in the red shirt jumped out from the angle of the rear galley and hit him in the small of the back with a full charge of buckshot. It almost blew his body into two separate parts, and he seemed to break in the middle like a folding penknife as he collapsed against Peter’s legs.
Peter whirled at the shot, turning his back on Ingrid as she crawled forward through the phosphorous smoke.
Kurt was desperately trying to pull down the short, thick barrel of the pistol, for the recoil had thrown it high above his head. His scarlet shirt was open to the navel, shiny hard brown muscle and thick whorls of black body hair, mad glaring eyes through a greasy fringe of black hair, the scarred lip curled in a fixed snarl.
Peter hit him in the chest, taking no chance, and as he reeled backwards still fighting to aim the pistol, Peter hit again, in the head through the temple just in front of the left ear; the eyelids closed tightly over those wild eyes, his features twisted out of shape like a rubber mask and he went down face first into the aisle.