High Citadel / Landslide

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘Now, Harry, the pilot knows what he’s doing. He looked a nice efficient young man to me.’

  Coughlin continued to look from the window. He said nothing more.

  James Armstrong of London, England, was becoming very bored with Joe Peabody of Chicago, Illinois. The man was a positive menace. Already he had sunk half the contents of his flask, which seemed an extraordinarily large one, and he was getting combatively drunk. ‘Whadya think of the nerve of that goddam fly-boy, chokin’ me off like that?’ he demanded. ‘Actin’ high an’ mighty jus’ like the goddam limey he is.’

  Armstrong smiled gently. ‘I’m a—er—goddam limey too, you know,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Well, jeez, presen’ comp’ny excepted,’ said Peabody. ‘That’s always the rule, ain’t it? I ain’t got anything against you limeys really, excep’ you keep draggin’ us into your wars.’

  ‘I take it you read the Chicago Tribune,’ said Armstrong solemnly.

  Forester and Willis did not talk much—they had nothing in common. Willis had produced a large book as soon as they exhausted their small talk and to Forester it looked heavy in all senses of the word, being mainly mathematical.

  Forester had nothing to do. In front of him was an aluminium bulkhead on which an axe and a first-aid box were mounted. There was no profit in looking at that and consequently his eyes frequently strayed across the aisle to Señor Montes. His lips tightened as he noted the bad colour of Montes’s face and he looked at the first-aid box reflectively.

  IV

  ‘There it is,’ said Grivas. ‘You land there.’

  O’Hara straightened up and looked over the nose of the Dakota. Dead ahead amid a jumble of rocks and snow was a short airstrip, a mere track cut on a ledge of a mountain. He had time for the merest glimpse before it was gone behind them.

  Grivas waved the gun. ‘Circle it,’ he said.

  O’Hara eased the plane into an orbit round the strip and looked down at it. There were buildings down there, rough cabins in a scattered group, and there was a road leading down the mountain, twisting and turning like a snake. Someone had thoughtfully cleared the airstrip of snow, but there was no sign of life.

  He judged his distance from the ground and glanced at the altimeter. ‘You’re crazy, Grivas,’ he said. ‘We can’t land on that strip.’

  ‘You can, O’Hara,’ said Grivas.

  ‘I’m damned if I’m going to. This plane’s overloaded and that strip’s at an altitude of seventeen thousand feet. It would need to be three times as long for this crate to land safely. The air’s too thin to hold us up at a slow landing speed—we’ll hit the ground at a hell of a lick and we won’t be able to pull up. We’ll shoot off the other end of the strip and crash on the side of the mountain.’

  ‘You can do it.’

  ‘To hell with you,’ said O’Hara.

  Grivas lifted his gun. ‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But I’ll have to kill you first.’

  O’Hara looked at the black hole staring at him like an evil eye. He could see the rifling inside the muzzle and it looked as big as a howitzer. In spite of the cold, he was sweating and could feel rivulets of perspiration running down his back. He turned away from Grivas and studied the strip again. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked.

  ‘You would not know if I told you,’ said Grivas. ‘You would not understand—you are English.’

  O’Hara sighed. It was going to be very dicey; he might be able to get the Dakota down in approximately one piece, but Grivas wouldn’t have a chance—he’d pile it up for sure. He said, ‘All right—warn the passengers; get them to the rear of the cabin.’

  ‘Never mind the passengers,’ said Grivas flatly. ‘You do not think that I am going to leave this cockpit?’

  O’Hara said, ‘All right, you’re calling the shots, but I warn you—don’t touch the controls by as much as a finger. You’re not a pilot’s backside—and you know it. There can be only one man flying a plane.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ said Grivas shortly.

  ‘I’ll take my own time,’ said O’Hara. ‘I want a good look before I do a damn thing.’

  He orbited the airstrip four more times, watching it as it spun crazily beneath the Dakota. The passengers should know there was something wrong by this time, he thought. No ordinary airliner stood on its wingtip and twitched about like this. Maybe they’d get alarmed and someone would try to do something about it—that might give him a chance to get at Grivas. But what the passengers could do was problematical.

  The strip was all too short; it was also very narrow and made for a much smaller aircraft. He would have to land on the extreme edge, his wingtip brushing a rock wall. Then there was the question of wind direction. He looked down at the cabins, hoping to detect a wisp of smoke from the chimneys, but there was nothing.

  ‘I’m going to go in closer—over the strip,’ he said. ‘But I’m not landing this time.’

  He pulled out of orbit and circled widely to come in for a landing approach. He lined up the nose of the Dakota on the strip like a gunsight and the plane came in, fast and level. To starboard there was a blur of rock and snow and O’Hara held his breath. If the wingtip touched the rock wall that would be the end. Ahead, the strip wound underneath, as though it was being swallowed by the Dakota. There was nothing as the strip ended—just a deep valley and the blue sky. He hauled on the stick and the plane shot skyward.

  The passengers will know damn well there’s something wrong now, he thought. To Grivas he said, ‘We’re not going to get this aircraft down in one piece.’

  ‘Just get me down safely,’ said Grivas. ‘I’m the only one who matters.’

  O’Hara grinned tightly. ‘You don’t matter a damn to me.’

  ‘Then think of your own neck,’ said Grivas. ‘That will take care of mine, too.’

  But O’Hara was thinking of ten lives in the passenger cabin. He circled widely again to make another approach and debated with himself the best way of doing this. He could come in with the undercarriage up or down. A bellylanding would be rough at that speed, but the plane would slow down faster because of the increased friction. The question was: could he hold her straight? On the other hand if he came in with the undercarriage down he would lose airspeed before he hit the deck—that was an advantage too.

  He smiled grimly and decided to do both. For the first time he blessed Filson and his lousy aeroplanes. He knew to a hair how much stress the undercarriage would take; hitherto his problem had been that of putting the Dakota down gently. This time he would come in with undercarriage down, losing speed, and slam her down hard—hard enough to break off the weakened struts like matchsticks. That would give him his belly-landing, too.

  He sighted the nose of the Dakota on the strip again. ‘Well, here goes nothing,’ he said. ‘Flaps down; undercarriage down.’

  As the plane lost airspeed the controls felt mushy under his hands. He set his teeth and concentrated as never before.

  V

  As the plane tipped wing down and started to orbit the airstrip Armstrong was thrown violently against Peabody. Peabody was in the act of taking another mouthful of whisky and the neck of the flask suddenly jammed against his teeth. He spluttered and yelled incoherently and thrust hard against Armstrong.

  Rohde was thrown out of his seat and found himself sitting in the aisle, together with Coughlin and Montes. He struggled to his feet, shaking his head violently, then he bent to help Montes, speaking quick Spanish. Mrs Coughlin helped her husband back to his seat.

  Willis had been making a note in the margin of his book and the point of his pencil snapped as Forester lurched against him. Forester made no attempt to regain his position but looked incredulously out of the window, ignoring Willis’s feeble protests at being squashed. Forester was a big man.

  The whole cabin was a babel of sound in English and Spanish, dominated by the sharp and scratchy voice of Miss Ponsky as she querulously complained. ‘I knew it,’ she screamed. ‘I knew it w
as all wrong.’ She began to laugh hysterically and Rohde turned from Montes and slapped her with a heavy hand. She looked at him in surprise and suddenly burst into tears.

  Peabody shouted, ‘What in goddam hell is that limey doing now?’ He stared out of the window at the airstrip. ‘The bastard’s going to land.’

  Rohde spoke rapidly to Montes, who seemed so shaken he was apathetic. There was a quick exchange in Spanish between Rohde and the girl, and he pointed to the door leading to the cockpit. She nodded violently and he stood up.

  Mrs Coughlin was leaning forward in her seat, comforting Miss Ponsky. ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ she kept saying. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen.’

  The aircraft straightened as O’Hara came in for his first approach run. Rohde leaned over Armstrong and looked through the window, but turned as Miss Ponsky screamed in fright, looking at the blur of rock streaming past the starboard window and seeing the wingtip brushing it so closely. Then Rohde lost his balance again as O’Hara pulled the Dakota into a climb.

  It was Forester who made the first constructive move. He was nearest the door leading to the cockpit and he grabbed the door handle, turned and pushed. Nothing happened. He put his shoulder to the door but was thrown away as the plane turned rapidly. O’Hara was going into his final landing approach.

  Forester grabbed the axe from its clips on the bulkhead and raised it to strike, but his arm was caught by Rohde. ‘This is quicker,’ said Rohde, and lifted a heavy pistol in his other hand. He stepped in front of Forester and fired three quick shots at the lock of the door.

  VI

  O’Hara heard the shots a fraction of a second before the Dakota touched down. He not only heard them but saw the altimeter and the turn-and-climb indicator shiver into fragments as the bullets smashed into the instrument panel. But he had not time to see what was happening behind him because just then the heavily overloaded Dakota settled soggily at the extreme end of the strip, moving at high speed.

  There was a sickening crunch and the whole air frame shuddered as the undercarriage collapsed and the plane sank on to its belly and slid with a tearing, rending sound towards the far end of the strip. O’Hara fought frantically with the controls as they kicked against his hands and feet and tried to keep the aircraft sliding in a straight line.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Grivas turn to the door, his pistol raised. O’Hara took a chance, lifted one hand from the stick and struck out blindly at Grivas. He just had time for one blow and luckily it connected somewhere; he felt the edge of his hand strike home and then he was too busy to see if he had incapacitated Grivas.

  The Dakota was still moving too fast. Already it was more than halfway down the strip and O’Hara could see the emptiness ahead where the strip stopped at the lip of the valley. In desperation he swung the rudder hard over and the Dakota swerved with a loud grating sound.

  He braced himself for the crash.

  The starboard wingtip hit the rock wall and the Dakota spun sharply to the right. O’Hara kept the rudder forced right over and saw the rock wall coming right at him. The nose of the plane hit rock and crumpled and the safety glass in the windscreens shivered into opacity. Then something hit him on the head and he lost consciousness.

  VII

  He came round because someone was slapping his face. His head rocked from side to side and he wanted them to stop because it was so good to be asleep. The slapping went on and on and he moaned and tried to tell them to stop. But the slapping did not stop so he opened his eyes.

  It was Forester who was administering the punishment, and, as O’Hara opened his eyes, he turned to Rohde who was standing behind him and said, ‘Keep your gun on him.’

  Rohde smiled. His gun was in his hand but hanging slackly and pointing to the floor. He made no attempt to bring it up. Forester said, ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’

  O’Hara painfully lifted his arm to his head. He had a bump on his skull the size of an egg. He said weakly, ‘Where’s Grivas?’

  ‘Who is Grivas?’

  ‘My co-pilot.’

  ‘He’s here—he’s in a bad way.’

  ‘I hope the bastard dies,’ said O’Hara bitterly. ‘He pulled a gun on me.’

  ‘You were at the controls,’ said Forester, giving him a hard look. ‘You put this plane down here—and I want to know why.’

  ‘It was Grivas—he forced me to do it.’

  ‘The señor capitan is right,’ said Rohde. ‘This man Grivas was going to shoot me and the señor capitan hit him.’ He bowed stiffly. ‘Muchas gracias.’

  Forester swung round and looked at Rohde, then beyond him to Grivas. ‘Is he conscious?’

  O’Hara looked across the cockpit. The side of the fuselage was caved in and a blunt spike of rock had hit Grivas in the chest, smashing his rib cage. It looked as though he wasn’t going to make it, after all. But he was conscious, all right; his eyes were open and he looked at them with hatred.

  O’Hara could hear a woman screaming endlessly in the passenger cabin and someone else was moaning monotonously. ‘For Christ’s sake, what’s happened back there?’

  No one answered because Grivas began to speak. He mumbled in a low whisper and blood frothed round his mouth. ‘They’ll get you,’ he said. ‘They’ll be here any minute now.’ His lips parted in a ghastly smile. ‘I’ll be all right; they’ll take me to hospital. But you—you’ll…’ He broke off in a fit of coughing and then continued: ‘…they’ll kill the lot of you.’ He lifted up his arm, the fingers curling into a fist. ‘Vivaca…’

  The arm dropped flaccidly and the look of hate in his eyes deepened into surprise—surprise that he was dead.

  Rohde grabbed him by the wrist and held it for a moment. ‘He’s gone,’ he said.

  ‘He was a lunatic,’ said O’Hara. ‘Stark, staring mad.’

  The woman was still screaming and Forester said, ‘For God’s sake, let’s get everybody out of here.’

  Just then the Dakota lurched sickeningly and the whole cockpit rose in the air. There was a ripping sound as the spike of rock that had killed Grivas tore at the aluminium sheathing of the fuselage. O’Hara had a sudden and horrible intuition of what was happening. ‘Nobody move,’ he shouted. ‘Everyone keep still.’

  He turned to Forester. ‘Bash in those windows.’

  Forester looked in surprise at the axe he was still holding as though he had forgotten it, then he raised it and struck at the opaque windscreen. The plastic filling in the glass sandwich could not withstand his assault and he made a hole big enough for a man to climb through.

  O’Hara said, ‘I’ll go through—I think I know what I’ll find. Don’t either of you go back there—not yet. And call through and tell anyone who can move to come up front.’

  He squeezed through the narrow gap and was astonished to find that the nose of the Dakota was missing. He twisted and crawled out on to the top of the fuselage and looked aft. The tail and one wing were hanging in space over the valley where the runway ended. The whole aircraft was delicately balanced and even as he looked the tail tipped a little and there was a ripping sound from the cockpit.

  He twisted on to his stomach and wriggled so that he could look into the cockpit, his head upside-down. ‘We’re in a jam,’ he said to Forester. ‘We’re hanging over a two-hundred-foot drop, and the only thing that’s keeping the whole bloody aeroplane from tipping over is that bit of rock there.’ He indicated the rock projection driven into the side of the cockpit.

  He said, ‘If anyone goes back there the extra weight might send us over because we’re balanced just like a seesaw.’

  Forester turned his head and bawled, ‘Anyone who can move, come up here.’

  There was a movement and Willis staggered through the door, his head bloody. Forester shouted, ‘Anyone else?’

  Señorita Montes called urgently, ‘Please help my uncle—oh, please.’

  Rohde drew Willis out of the way and stepped through the door. Forester said shar
ply, ‘Don’t go in too far.’

  Rohde did not even look at him, but bent to pick up Montes who was lying by the door. He half carried, half dragged him into the cockpit and Señorita Montes followed.

  Forester looked up at O’Hara. ‘It’s getting crowded in here; I think we’d better start getting people outside.’

  ‘We’ll get them on top first,’ said O’Hara. ‘The more weight we have at this end, the better. Let the girl come first.’

  She shook her head. ‘My uncle first.’

  ‘For God’s sake, he’s unconscious,’ said Forester. ‘You go out—I’ll look after him.’

  She shook her head stubbornly and O’Hara broke in impatiently, ‘All right, Willis, come on up here; let’s not waste time.’ His head ached and he was panting in the thin air; he was not inclined to waste time over silly girls.

  He helped Willis through the smashed windscreen and saw him settle on top of the fuselage. When he looked into the cockpit again it was evident that the girl had changed her mind. Rohde was talking quietly but emphatically to her and she crossed over and O’Hara helped her out.

  Armstrong came next, having made his own way to the cockpit. He said, ‘It’s a bloody shambles back there. I think the old man in the back seat is dead and his wife is pretty badly hurt. I don’t think it’s safe to move her.’

  ‘What about Peabody?’

  ‘The luggage was thrown forward on to both of us. He’s half buried under it. I tried to get him free but I couldn’t.’

  O’Hara passed this on to Forester. Rohde was kneeling by Montes, trying to bring him round. Forester hesitated, then said, ‘Now we’ve got some weight at this end it might be safe for me to go back.’

  O’Hara said, ‘Tread lightly.’

  Forester gave a mirthless grin and went back through the door. He looked at Miss Ponsky. She was sitting rigid, her arms clutched tightly about her, her eyes staring unblinkingly at nothing. He ignored her and began to heave suitcases from the top of Peabody, being careful to stow them in the front seats. Peabody stirred and Forester shook him into consciousness, and as soon as he seemed to be able to understand, said, ‘Go into the cockpit—the cockpit, you understand,’