Avenger

by Frederick Forsyth

  The Serb turned on McBride.

  ‘This is where we part company, Mr McBride. I fear you will have to return to Washington by your own means. The problem here will be sorted, and I shall be getting a new head of security. You can tell Mr Devereaux I shall not renege on our deal, but for the moment I intend to kill the intervening days enjoying the hospitality of friends of mine in the Emirates.’

  The garage was at the end of the basement corridor and the Mercedes was armoured. Kulac drove, his employer seated in the rear. McBride stood helplessly in the garage as the door rolled up and back, the limousine slid under it, across the gravel and out of the still opening gates in the wall.

  By the time the Mercedes had rolled up to it, the hangar was ablaze with light. The small tractor was hitched to the nose-wheel assembly of the Hawker 1000 to tow it out onto the apron.

  The last mechanic fastened down the last hatch on the engines, clattered down the gantry and pulled the structure away from the airframe. In the illuminated cockpit Captain Stepanovic, with his young French co-pilot beside him, was checking instruments, gauges and systems on the strength of the auxiliary power unit.

  Zilic and Kulac watched from the shelter of the car. When the Hawker was out on the apron, the door opened, the steps hissed down, and the co-pilot could be seen in the opening.

  Kulac left the car alone, jogged the few yards of concrete and ran up the steps into the sumptuous cabin. He glanced to his left towards the closed door of the flight deck. Two strides took him to the lavatory at the rear. He flung the door open. Empty. Returning to the top of the steps, he beckoned to his employer. The Serb left the car and ran to the steps. When he was inside, the door closed, locking them in to comfort and safety.

  Outside, two men donned ear defenders. One plugged in the trolley accumulator and Captain Stepanovic started his engines. The two Pratt and Whitney 305s began to turn, then whine, then howl.

  The second man stood way out front where the pilot could see him, a neon-lit bar in each hand. He guided the Hawker clear of the hangars and out to the edge of the apron.

  Captain Stepanovic lined her up, tested brakes one last time, released them and powered both throttles.

  The Hawker began to roll, faster and faster. To one side, miles away, the floodlights around the mansion flickered out, adding to the chaos. The nose lifted towards the sea and the north. To the left the escarpment raced by. The twinjet eased off the tarmac, the faint rumbling stopped, the cliff-edge villas went under the nose and she was out over the moonlit sea.

  Captain Stepanovic brought up his undercarriage, handed over to the Frenchman and began to work out flight plan and track for a first fuel stop in the Azores. He had flown to the UAE several times, but never at thirty minutes’ notice. The Hawker tilted to starboard, moving from her northwest take-off heading towards northeast, and passed through ten thousand feet.

  Like most executive jets, the Hawker 1000 has a small but luxurious lavatory, right at the back, occupying the whole hull from side to side. And like some, the rear wall is a movable partition giving access to an even smaller cubbyhole for light luggage. Kulac had checked the lavatory, but not the luggage bay.

  Five minutes into the flight, the crouching man in the mechanic’s coveralls eased the partition aside and stepped into the washroom. He removed the Sig Sauer 9mm automatic from the toolbox, checked the mechanism yet again, eased off the safety catch and walked into the salon. The two men in the rawhide club chairs facing each other stared at him in silence.

  ‘You’ll never dare use it,’ said the Serb. ‘It will penetrate the hull and blow us all away.’

  ‘The slugs have been doctored,’ said Avenger evenly. ‘One quarter charge. Enough to punch a hole in you, stay inside and kill you, but never go through the hull. Tell your boy I want his piece out, finger and thumb, on the carpet.’

  There was a short exchange in Serbo-Croat. His face dark with rage, the bodyguard eased out his Glock from the left armpit holster and dropped it.

  ‘Kick it toward me,’ said Dexter. Zilic complied.

  ‘And the ankle gun.’

  Kulac wore a smaller back-up gun taped round his left ankle, under the sock. This was also kicked out of range. Avenger produced a pair of handcuffs and tossed them to the carpet.

  ‘Your pal’s left ankle. Do it yourself. In vision all the time or you lose a kneecap. And yes, I am that good.’

  ‘A million dollars,’ said the Serb.

  ‘Get on with it,’ said the American.

  ‘Cash, any bank you like.’

  ‘I’m losing patience.’

  The handcuff went on.

  ‘Tighter.’

  Kulac winced as the metal bit.

  ‘Round the seat stanchion. And to the right wrist.’

  ‘Ten million. You’re a fool to say no.’

  The answer was a second pair of cuffs . . .

  ‘Left wrist, through your friend’s chain, then right wrist. Back up. Stay in my vision or you’re the one saying adios to the kneecap.’

  The two men crouched, side by side, on the floor, tethered to each other and the assembly holding the seat to the floor, which Dexter hoped would be stronger even than the giant bodyguard.

  Avoiding their grip he stepped round them and walked to the cabin door. The captain presumed the opening door was his owner coming forward to ask for progress. The barrel of the gun nudged his temple.

  ‘It is Captain Stepanovic, isn’t it?’ said a voice. Washington Lee, who had intercepted the email from Wichita, had told him.

  ‘I have nothing against you,’ said the hijacker. ‘You and your friend here are simply professionals. So am I. Let’s keep it that way. Professionals do not do stupid things if they can be avoided. Agreed?’

  The captain nodded. He tried to glance behind him, into the cabin.

  ‘Your owner and his bodyguard are disarmed and chained to the fuselage. There will be no help coming. Please do just as I say.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Alter course.’ Avenger glanced at the Electronic Flight Instrument System just above the throttles. ‘I suggest Three-One-Five degrees, compass true, should be about right. Skirt the eastern tip of Cuba, as we have no flight plan.’

  ‘Final destination?’

  ‘Key West, Florida.’

  ‘The USA?’

  ‘Land of my fathers,’ said the man with the gun.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Rendition

  Dexter had memorized the route from San Martin to Key West, but there was no need. The avionics on the Hawker are so clear that even a non-flier can follow the liquid crystal display showing intended course and line of track.

  Forty minutes out from the coast he saw the blur of Grenada’s lights slip under the starboard wing. Then came the two hours of over-water haul to make landfall on the south coast of the Dominican Republic.

  After two more, between the coast of Cuba and the Bahamas’ biggest island, Andros, he leaned forward and touched the Frenchman’s ear with the tip of the automatic.

  ‘Disconnect the transponder now.’

  The co-pilot looked across at the Yugoslav who shrugged and nodded. The co-pilot switched it off. With the transponder, designed to pulse out an endlessly repeated identification signal, disconnected, the Hawker was reduced simply to a speck on the radar screen of someone looking very closely indeed. To anyone not looking that closely, it had ceased to exist. But it had also announced it was a suspect intruder.

  South of Florida, reaching far out over the sea, is the Air Defence Identification Zone, designed to protect the southeastern flank of the USA from the continuous war of the drug smugglers. Anyone entering ADIZ without a flight plan was playing hide and seek with some very sophisticated metal.

  ‘Drop to four hundred feet above the sea,’ said Dexter. ‘Dive and dive now. All nav and cabin lights off.’

  ‘That is very low,’ said the pilot as the nose dropped through thirty thousand feet. The aircraft we
nt dark.

  ‘Pretend it’s the Adriatic. You’ve done it before.’

  It was true. As a fighter pilot in the Yugoslav Air Force, Colonel Stepanovic had led dummy attacks against the Croatian coast at well below four hundred feet to slip under the radar. Still, he was right.

  The moonlit sea at night is mesmeric. It can lure the low-flying pilot down and down until he flips the surface of the waves, rolls in and dies. Altimeters under five hundred feet have to be spot-on accurate and constantly checked. Ninety miles southeast of Islamorada the Hawker levelled at four hundred feet and raced over the Santaren Channel towards the Florida Keys. Coming in at sea level those last ninety miles almost fooled the radar.

  ‘Key West Airport, runway Two-Seven,’ said Dexter. He had studied the layout of his chosen landfall. Key West Airport faces east–west, with one runway along that axis. All the passenger and ops buildings are at the eastern end. To land heading west would put the entire length of the runway between the Hawker and the vehicles racing towards it. Runway Two-Seven means point to compass heading 270, or due west.

  At fifty miles from touchdown they were spotted. Twenty miles north of Key West is Cudjoe Key, home to a huge balloon tethered to a cable and riding twenty thousand feet in the sky. Where most coastal radars look outwards and up, the Cudjoe eye-in-the-sky looks down. Its radars can see any aeroplane trying to slip in under the net.

  Even balloons need occasional maintenance, and the one at Cudjoe is brought down at random intervals which are never announced. It had been down that evening by chance and was heading back up. At ten thousand feet it saw the Hawker coming out of the black sea, transponder off, no flight plan. Within seconds two F-16s on duty alert at Pensacola Air Force Base were barrelling down the runway, going straight to afterburn once they cleared the deck.

  Climbing and breaking the sound barrier, the Fighting Falcons formated then headed south for the last of the Keys. Thirty miles out, Captain Stepanovic was down to two hundred knots and lining up. The lights of Cudjoe and Sugarloaf Keys twinkled to starboard. The fighters’ look-down radars picked up the intruder and the pilots altered course a tad to come in from behind. Against the Hawker’s two hundred knots the Falcons were moving at over a thousand.

  As it happened George Tanner was duty controller at Key West that night and was within minutes of closing the airport down when the alarm was raised. The position of the intruder indicated it was actually trying to land, which was the smart thing to do. Darkened intruders with lights and transponder switched off are given, after fighter interception, one warning to do as they are told and land where they are told. There are no second warnings: the war against the drug smugglers is too serious for games.

  Still and all, a plane can have an on-board emergency and deserves a chance to land. The light stayed on. Twenty miles out the crew of the Hawker could see the lights of the runway glowing ahead of them. Above and behind, the F-16s began to drop and air-brake. For them two hundred knots was almost landing speed.

  Ten miles from touchdown the Falcons found the darkened Hawker by the red glow from the jet efflux each side of its tail. The first the aircrew in the cabin knew, the deadly fighters were formating with each wing tip.

  ‘Unidentified twinjet, look ahead and land. I say look ahead and land,’ said a voice in the captain’s ear.

  Undercarriage came down, with one-third flap. The Hawker adopted its landing posture. Chica Key Naval Air Station swept past to the right. The Hawker’s main wheels felt for the touchdown markings, found the concrete and it was down on US territory.

  For the last hour Dexter had had the spare earphones over his head and the mike in front of his mouth. As the wheels hit the tarmac he keyed the transmit button.

  ‘Unidentified Hawker jet to Key West Tower, do you read?’

  The voice of George Tanner came clearly into his ears.

  ‘Read you five.’

  ‘Tower, this airplane contains a mass murderer and a killer of an American in the Balkans. He is manacled to his seat. Please inform your police chief to exercise close custody and await the federal marshals.’

  Before waiting for a reply, he disconnected and turned to Captain Stepanovic.

  ‘Go right to the far end, stop there and I’ll leave you,’ said the hijacker. He rose and pocketed his gun. Behind the Hawker the Crash/Fire/Rescue trucks left the airport buildings and came after them.

  ‘Door open please,’ said Dexter.

  He left the flight deck and walked back through the cabin as the lights came on. The two prisoners blinked in the glare. Through the open door Dexter could see the trucks racing towards them. Flashing red/blues indicated police cars. The wailing sirens were faint but getting closer.

  ‘Where are we?’ shouted Zoran Zilic.

  ‘Key West,’ said Dexter.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Remember a meadow? In Bosnia? Spring of ninety-five? An American kid pleading for his life? Well, pal, all this’ – he waved his hand outside – ‘is a present from the boy’s grandpa.’

  He walked down the steps and strode to the nose-wheel assembly. Two bullets blew out the tyres. The boundary fence was twenty yards away. The dark coveralls were soon lost in the blackness as he vaulted the chain-link and walked away through the mangrove.

  The airport lights behind him dimmed through the trees but he began to make out the flashes of car and truck headlights on the highway beyond the swamp. He pulled out a cellphone and dialled by the glow of the tiny screen. Far away in Windsor, Ontario, a man answered.

  ‘Mr Edmond?’

  ‘This is he.’

  ‘The package from Belgrade that you asked for has landed at Key West airport, Florida.’

  He said no more and barely heard the yell at the other end before disconnecting. Just to be sure, the cellphone spun away into the brackish swamp water beside the track to be lost for ever.

  Ten minutes later a senator in Washington was roused from his dinner and within an hour two marshals from the Federal Marshal Service Bureau in Miami were speeding south.

  Before the marshals were through Islamorada, a teamster driving north, just out of Key West, on the US1, saw a lone figure by the roadside. Thinking the coveralls meant a stranded trucker, he stopped.

  ‘I’m going up as far as Marathon,’ he called down. ‘Any use?’

  ‘Marathon will do just fine,’ said the man. It was twenty before midnight.

  It took Kevin McBride the whole of the 9th to find his way home. Major van Rensberg, still trying to find the missing impostor, consoling himself that at least his employer was safe, despatched the CIA man as far as the capital city. Colonel Moreno fixed him a passage from the airport to Paramaribo. A KLM flight ferried him to Curaçao Island. There was a connector to Miami International and thence a shuttle to Washington. He landed very late and very tired. On the Monday morning he was early when he walked into Paul Devereaux’s office but his chief was already there.

  He looked ashen. He seemed to have aged. He gestured McBride to a seat and wearily pushed a sheet across the desk.

  All good reporters go out of their way to maintain an excellent contact with the police forces of their area. They would be crazy not to. The Key West correspondent of the Miami Herald was no exception. The events of the Saturday night were leaked to him by friends on the Key West force by Sunday noon and his report filed well in time for the Monday edition. It was a synopsis of the story that Devereaux found on his desk that Monday morning.

  The tale of a Serbian warlord and suspected mass murderer detained in his own jet after an emergency landing at Key West International had made the third lead on the front page.

  ‘Good Lord,’ whispered McBride as he read. ‘We thought he had escaped.’

  ‘No. It seems he was hijacked,’ said Devereaux. ‘You know what this means, Kevin? No, of course you don’t. My fault. I should have explained to you. Project Peregrine is dead. Two years of work down the Swanee. It cannot go forward without him.’

 
Line by line, the intellectual explained the conspiracy he had devised to accomplish the greatest anti-terrorist strike of the century.

  ‘When was he due to fly to Karachi and on to the Peshawar meeting?’

  ‘The twentieth. I just needed that extra ten days.’

  He rose and walked to the window, gazing out at the trees, his back to McBride.

  ‘I have been here since dawn, when a phone call woke me with the news. Asking myself: how did he do it, this damnable, bloody man Avenger?’

  McBride was silent, mute in his sympathy.

  ‘Not a stupid man, Kevin. I will not have it that I was bested by a stupid man. Clever, more than I could have thought. Always just one step ahead of me . . . He must have known he was up against me. Only one man could have told him. And you know who that was, Kevin?’

  ‘No idea, Paul.’

  ‘That sanctimonious bastard in the FBI called Colin Fleming. But even tipped off, how did he beat me? He must have guessed we would engage the cooperation of the Surinam embassy here. So he invented Professor Medvers Watson, butterfly hunter extraordinaire. And fictional. And a decoy. I should have spotted it, Kevin. The professor was a phoney and he was meant to be discovered. Two days ago I got news from our people in Surinam. Know what they told me?’

  ‘No, Paul.’

  ‘That the real cover-name, the Englishman Henry Nash, got his visa in Amsterdam. We never thought of Amsterdam. Clever, clever bastard. So Medvers Watson went in and died in the jungle. As intended. And it bought the man six days while we proved it was a sting. By then he was inside and watching the estate from the mountaintop. Then you went in.’

  ‘But I missed him too, Paul.’

  ‘Only because that idiot South African refused to listen to you. Of course the chloroformed peon had to be discovered in the mid-morning. Of course the alarm had to be raised. To bring the dogs in. To permit the third sting, the presumption that he had murdered a guard and taken his place.’