The Predator

by Denis Pitts

  “Champagne?”

  Claudine sat in the window seat. Michelle, the little Swiss nanny, sat opposite, comforting the baby, who was restless after the change of height and pressure.

  There were seven other passengers in the first-class compartment. Two of them were Americans who drank martinis with frequency and without any apparent ill effects. A matronly Swedish woman who was nervous sought constant reassurance from the smiling stewardess. Two Japanese talked loudly and shot off reels of film at cloud formations. In the very back seats of the compartment sat a young man and a woman who read newspapers quietly and did not take the free drinks frequently offered to them.

  Jean-Paul turned to Claudine and said: “I love you. I didn’t think I could ever love quite like this. It is very strong this morning.”

  They touched glasses.

  “Isn’t it always strong in the morning?” she asked.

  “Today it is something special.”

  “Is it a good thing to be quite so happy?” she asked. “Don’t you feel that sooner or later we’ll be punished for being quite so marvelously, totally happy? I mean, won’t we ever fight or quarrel or storm off into the night like all our friends? Won’t you take to drink with misery?”

  “What strange questions you ask,” he said.

  She put down the champagne and reclined her seat. “Good night, my darling. I’m going to build up my strength for the midnight sun.”

  Smiling, Jean-Paul took a blanket from the rack above and tucked it around her. Then he opened his briefcase and began to examine balance sheets in preparation for that afternoon’s meeting.

  Someone brushed past him and dislodged the papers on his lap. He looked up with irritation; a stewardess was stock-still in the aisle in front of him. She was a slim, pretty girl with long blond upswept hair. Behind her stood the young man who had been sitting at the rear of the compartment. His arms were around the girl. In one hand, he cradled a hand grenade. It was resting immediately below the girl’s right breast. In the other hand he held the grenade’s pin.

  The young man spoke. His voice was guttural, heavy, the accent probably Bavarian, Jean-Paul thought.

  “This is routine hijack,” said the young man. “No one need fear, unless they do something stupid. If you turn around slowly you will see that my colleague is also armed. I must tell you that although she is a charming girl, she is also an expert pistol shot.”

  Jean-Paul swiveled slowly. The girl was sitting on the backrest of the seat, a snub-nosed automatic pistol in her hand. She was grinning.

  Jean-Paul had always thought of hijackers as nervous people. The real danger was in their fear and insecurity. In that respect, at least, these two were reassuring in their calm, practiced approach to what they were doing.

  “There are six more members of our organization in the economy section, so please do nothing that might precipitate trouble.”

  The young man put his face close to that of the stewardess.

  “Now, young lady,” he said softly. “I want you to call the captain and tell him exactly what is happening and tell him to unlock the door to the flight deck.”

  The girl was brave. Her face was deathly pale but she was defiant.

  “I have instructions,” she said. “The aircraft will proceed to Stockholm. I shall not tell the captain.”

  The young man let her go, pulling the pin from the grenade as he did so but holding the release bar down. Still smiling affably, he placed the grenade against the head of the sleeping baby.

  He looked around at the stewardess. Jean-Paul sat frozen. His wife slept on.

  The stewardess picked the intercom telephone from its rest on the cabin wall and talked in rapid Swedish. There was a long pause. The flight-deck door opened and the second officer came into the compartment.

  “You have the grenade, your girlfriend has a pistol and I assume your colleagues are also armed,” the officer said. “The captain is willing to comply with your instructions, provided you put the pin back in that grenade.”

  The young man laughed.

  “Just get out of the way,” he said, and pushed the second officer into the flight deck. The door closed behind him. The nanny, her face contorted with terror, clutched the baby to her breast. The two Americans appeared almost bored by it all. The Japanese sat impassively. The Swedish woman, strangely no longer nervous, watched each event with intelligent, curious eyes.

  The girl at the rear of the plane walked to the front and held the pistol in folded arms. She did not speak. She was pretty, but the prettiness was lost in a scowl which was at once contemptuous and without any hint of interest in the people she faced. Marcel began to whimper. The girl with the pistol sneered down at him.

  Jean-Paul, who had been ready to spring wildly and irrationally at anybody or anything, allowed his body to relax. He turned to the girl beside him. “It’s okay, Michelle,” he said. “It will be all right. These things always are.” The girl’s eyes stayed wide with fear.

  Jean-Paul felt the aircraft bank and make a long, sloping turn. Sun streamed through different windows now, and he guessed that they were flying back to their takeoff point.

  The harsh voice of the young German came over the loudspeaker. There was no trace of strain. It could have been the reassuring voice of any airline captain talking to the passengers.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” the voice said. “This airplane is now under command of the Max Meisters organization and will remain in our possession until certain demands have been met by the West German and Swedish governments.

  “Our demands are not excessive. It is hoped that you will shortly be freed to continue your journey. We apologize for this inconvenience. The cabin staff have been instructed to attend to all your requirements and to make your journey as near to normal as possible. Members of our organization will shortly be distributing a number of leaflets outlining the aims and objectives of our cause. I am sure they will be of interest to you.” There was a mocking irony in the voice now.

  “As you may have noticed, we have diverted from normal course. We estimate landing at Tripoli airport in Libya in two hours and fifteen minutes. Thank you for your attention.”

  Jean-Paul turned to Michelle. “It happens all the time,” he said. “Don’t worry. You’ll be all right. Just try to keep Marcel quiet.”

  There was a strange new smell in the aircraft. He had known it before. It was the acrid smell of fear, mass fear, and it was this that scared him. People in this situation could react in so many different ways. By and large, they did not panic. But they could. And the hijackers were carrying too much weaponry.

  Claudine stirred in her sleep and then opened one eye. Jean-Paul kissed her gently on the mouth. “Sleep on, my darling,” he said. “We’ve a long way to go yet.”

  “What was all that talk?” she murmured.

  “Just the captain’s commercial,” he said. “Bit of a chatterbox, this one.”

  She snuggled under her blanket. “Love you,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  The giant aircraft whined toward the south. The stewardesses, trained to smile, smiled. Handing out drinks and serving lunch, they fought hard not to shake.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention once again.” The young man’s voice still radiated confidence. “I am pleased to tell you that all passengers will be allowed to leave the aircraft upon arrival in Tripoli, with the exception of those holding Swedish and West German passports. Passengers with other passports will be required to hold them up to our members for inspection and they will be issued with a pass entitling them to leave the aircraft.”

  There was the sound of excited chatter from the rear of the aircraft. “Swedish and West German passengers will need to remain on a little longer as our guests. They will be allowed to go upon the safe arrival in Libya of six members of our group who are held as prisoners in their countries.”

  Jean-Paul turned and looked with sympathy at the Swedish woman.

  I
t was really too damned smooth, he thought. He was glad his wife was sleeping; she’d otherwise be terrified for the baby. He leaned over and looked out to see the Italian coastline.

  There would be people on those beaches down there, he thought, lying there looking up at this tiny speck in the blue, not for a moment aware that if one young man released his grip on a grenade, death would hurtle down on them from a clear blue sky.

  He remembered the way the French Paras had juggled with grenades, had played a savage game of “poulet” with the spring unleashed. Four pounds of cordite, two and a half pounds of cast-iron.

  At that moment, the aircraft began to shudder violently. It felt like being in a car driven too fast over cobbled streets. The seat belt signs lit up.

  “This is the real captain speaking,” said a strong Swedish voice from the flight deck. “We are experiencing clear-air turbulence. There is nothing to worry about.”

  The explosion happened at that moment. It came as a sharp crack from the flight deck. The cabin door burst outward on its hinges and crushed the hijacker girl into an ugly, bloody pulp.

  Jean-Paul watched it happen in a fearful slow-motion effect, each frame of the movie held, shifted forward, held again — each scene recorded vividly, too vividly, on a machine in his mind. He felt first the heat of the grenade’s explosion. Then a further explosion, as the pressure hull of the aircraft sliced open and the air compressed inside roared out around him. He saw his baby snatched from the arms of the nanny by the wind, and then ripped through the giant hole on the left-hand side of the fuselage.

  Inside the aircraft there was a thick, choking dust. And suddenly there was a terrible cold. He found he could not breathe. He was aware of an oxygen mask dangling in front of him. He snatched it and took a deep breath. Claudine was awake now, but her eyes were curiously calm. She said something to him, but the screaming of the engines, of the inrushing air and of the people drowned her soft voice.

  He thrust an oxygen mask over her face.

  The airplane reared suddenly upward. Its engines screamed at full pitch, holding one hundred and eighty tons vertically in the sky. Then the plane tipped over on one side and cartwheeled downward.

  Through the shattered bulkhead, Jean-Paul saw the second officer fighting against the powerful forces of gravity, pulling furiously on the control column. But the aircraft was in a steep, uncontrollable dive. Next to him he saw Claudine fighting against that same gravity to make the sign of the cross. He wondered whether she had seen the baby sucked from the aircraft.

  Through the shattered windscreen he could see the deep blue of the Mediterranean below, and then suddenly the sound of the engines stopped. He guessed that they had been ripped from the wings. The force eased a bit, and he managed to put an arm around the body of his wife.

  When the aircraft reared up again, he was pulled deep into his seat. A number of fresh explosions began around him.

  There was a blackness and suddenly the smell of the sea.

  *

  He was conscious only that he felt no pain; but his reasoning had gone and, therefore, he did not know why he felt no pain. He heard a succession of sounds — voices and machinery — that came in disjointed order, the only constant sound being that of a gray mist which tingled as it enveloped him. It was only when a hint of reasoning instructed him to fight this mist that he heard the other sounds.

  Water lapped on the wooden side of a boat. An engine choked in the distance.

  He lay, grotesque in a Savile Row suit, among a luster of burnished red mullet that gawped in the sun. The fishermen looked at him dispassionately.

  “He’s dead, that’s for sure. Look at the hole in his head.”

  “I felt a pulse.”

  “Doesn’t mean a thing. He’s a stiff. Look at his eyes.”

  “He’s still breathing. Very slow. Get down and listen.”

  “That’s a nice-looking watch.”

  “Leave it — it’s bad luck to steal from a drowned man.”

  “You said he was alive.”

  “He’s only just alive.”

  “It isn’t unlucky to steal from the living.”

  “Take the watch, you graverobbing louse. He’ll be dead before we get him to harbor.”

  “It’s a good watch. Gold — look.”

  *

  A new voice. Cultured, young and heavy with artificial callousness.

  “Multiple fractures to left thigh and pelvis. Christ, look at that, nurse. Whole side of skull compressed, almost certainly damage to the brain. Every rib on that side caved in. Check for lung puncture. Breathing very shallow, pulse irregular and faint. Prognosis very poor. The only survivor. He won’t survive. What’s his name? D’Isigny, Jean-Paul. Nationality, French.”

  A woman’s voice now. Instruments clanking on a metal dish. A sad voice.

  “Could be one of the banking family.”

  “If he is, we’re going to have visitors. Inform the next-of-kin. Where the hell do I start? Curare, oxygen to move that heart. I’ll have a closer look at the skull wound. May have to take some fluid off the brain. Call Staino at the Institute in Rome and tell him the name of the patient. And get hold of the best bone men you can. Try Giuliano in Milan and Petrocelli in Venice. I don’t dare move the patient.”

  *

  He sensed light, bright light, and he was aware of his heart kick and of a curious convulsion that was not painful, but which terrified him by its strength, and then he was hurled back into the mist.

  *

  Voices. Thin, rasping.

  “Some loss of brain tissue but the skull will mend. Maybe some loss of locomotion in the right arm and leg. How’s the rest of him?”

  *

  Elegant voice, controlled authority.

  “No, it’s quite natural, he’ll go on sleeping for some time, days probably. Question is: in just what shape he will awake?”

  *

  D’Isigny’s voice. Tortured with sadness.

  “Can you hear me, Jean-Paul? It’s Papa. Hello, Jean-Paul.”

  *

  Elegant voice again. Grave.

  “It has been two weeks. You must prepare yourselves, m’sieur and madame, for the fact that this patient may never recover from his coma.”

  *

  Eva d’Isigny’s voice. No laughter.

  “Wake up, my little one. Come home with us.”

  *

  On the morning of the fifteenth day, the tingling mist in his head began to subside. There was no movement in his body, but it was noted that his pulse was normal and that his heart and blood pressure were no longer forming abstract scribbles on the machines to which his body had been attached. Eva d’Isigny, who had slept in an adjoining bed, noticed that the heavy frown on his face had eased. She called a doctor who announced that Jean-Paul had passed through a crisis.

  *

  He dreamed; curious dreams of colored shapes that he knew he had to fit into other shapes. Sometimes he failed, trying to force a blue triangle into a red square, and it was noted on his chart that the scribble had appeared again for a few seconds.

  Then there were cubed building-bricks with numbers. He would try to build them in a logical sequence that defied him for several dreams. Finally, he built a perfect pile one-to-ten — red, blue, yellow, green. Slowly, the pile of bricks began to sway from one side to the other, and, as they veered crazily, he knew they were going to fall. He began to scream — terrified, monstrous screams. Suddenly he was awake, and he felt the pain surge through his body for the first time. He opened his eyes, still screaming, and saw Eva d’Isigny reaching out to hold him. He smelled the perfume between her breasts and felt her softness. He slept there all night and did not dream any more.

  *

  His recovery was slow and he spent long periods in agony. His shattered leg mended well after a series of complicated operations that left him able to walk without a limp. His ribs knitted quickly. But there was nothing to ease the headaches he suffered for the first six month
s as the doctors slowly withdrew painkillers.

  Each morning he would walk from the small nursing home in the harbor town in the north of Elba to the Church of Santa Margarita, an exquisitely rococo building that lay in a carpet of vineyards at the foot of the mountain. He would sit for hours by Claudine’s grave, his body slumped in misery, his eyes focused on sun-faded wreaths.

  The d’Isigny family flew frequently to the island to plead with him to return to Paris. Failing to persuade him, they consulted psychiatrists.

  Then, on a clear spring day, as the island began to come alive with color, Jean-Paul paid one last visit to the cemetery. He sat there for three full hours, and then he began to cry. He cried for a long time. Eventually, he looked slowly around. It sank into him for the first time that Claudine’s grave was just one of hundreds that stretched — a line of simple white crosses — until they almost disappeared from sight.

  As he walked back to the nursing home, there was new life in his pace. He smiled at the nursing sisters for the first time since he had come out of the coma.

  The next morning he was back in Paris.

  *

  The return of Jean-Paul d’Isigny to the bank was a singularly moving occasion. The entire staff lined the ornate entrance hall as he walked into the building, a bronzed and erect figure in a light-gray suit. His face registered only too clearly the suffering of the previous six months. The skin had tautened and his eyes were hollowed by darkness.

  The elderly chief clerk made a speech of welcome on behalf of the frockcoated employees, and the women of the bank cried openly as the clerk expressed their sympathy at the loss of Claudine and the baby boy.

  Jacques d’Isigny led him to his office, unchanged except for vases of flowers on the sideboard. Nothing, indeed, had changed at the bank. The new computer was working well, d’Isigny told him, and the conservative bank staff had accepted its advantages. Several interesting new accounts had come in, and record profits were expected during that financial year, since the world’s money was moving so fast toward the best interest rates.