Air Force One is Down

by John Denis

  ‘I would only have considered killing the captives in the event of the direst emergency, Philpott. I think you believe that. Jagger, on the other hand … Jagger is all beast. Clearly I must waste no more time.’

  He dropped the detonator timer back into his pocket, and pressed a button on the second device. ‘Look!’ he directed, pointing dramatically out to sea.

  Philpott followed his arm. In a blaze of fiery sparks, a rocket scorched into the air from Saucer Island and drew a comet’s tail track in the night-sky.

  SIXTEEN

  Brigadier Tomlin stalked over to the tripod in the light room and jammed his eyes for the hundredth time into the socket of the telescope. ‘This is getting ridiculous,’ he barked, ‘nothing’s happening at all.’

  ‘It’s less than an hour since the deadline,’ Sonya Kolchinsky pointed out reasonably, ‘and Smith didn’t guarantee to act immediately. Anyway, with all this hardware around, we may have succeeded merely in frightening him off. He’s not to know, after all, that we’re only here to have a look-see.’

  Tomlin straightened up and bristled at her. ‘It’s not my job, ma’am,’ he said, ‘to make life easier for a bounder like Smith.’

  She was about to frame a suitably barbed reply when the lighthouse-keeper drew their attention to the rocket, which neither of them had seen leave the island, being too occupied in glaring at each other.

  ‘Damn and blast it!’ Tomlin roared, ‘so that’s how he’s doing it.’

  He snatched a communicator from the table and snapped, ‘All units, repeat, all units. Track that rocket. Don’t lose sight of it. Mark where it falls and recover it. Move!’

  Smith watched the performance through powerful binoculars and chuckled as the watchdog ships peeled away. ‘So splendidly predictable, the military,’ he mused. ‘Do you not agree, Mr Philpott?’

  ‘I take it that the little fireworks display had nothing to do with the collection of the ransom,’ Philpott observed.

  Smith wagged his head, and tut-tutted. ‘But there you would be wrong, my dear fellow. True, it served admirably as a divertissement, but its principal objective is important, indeed crucial, to my plan for picking up the diamonds.’

  Sonya Kolchinsky wasn’t fooled, either. ‘We’re going to the island, Brigadier,’ she announced firmly.

  ‘We are not, Mrs Kolchinsky,’ Tomlin replied, equally firmly.

  Sonya bridled. ‘You have more than sufficient units tracking that Roman Candle. We will take the command boat – the flagship, as I believe you call her – to the island.’

  ‘And why, pray?’

  ‘Mainly because I say so. I shouldn’t need to remind you, Brigadier, that you are under UNACO command. I don’t believe for a moment that the rocket has been magically oriented to pick up our bag of diamonds and transport them to Smith’s current lair. We will investigate.’

  Tomlin heaved a theatrical sigh and muttered, ‘As you wish, ma’am.’

  When the launch slowed to a halt at the gibbet end of the island, Tomlin pointed to where the pole had been and proclaimed, ‘There! I told you – it’s gone!’

  Sonya frowned, then peered into the water where the strong searchlights of the boat were playing. ‘It hasn’t, Brigadier,’ she cried, ‘it’s still there.’

  Before Tomlin could prevent her, she stepped from the prow of the cutter and jumped on to the island. Tomlin shouted, ‘It’s mined! For God’s sake, be careful!’

  Sonya turned to him and waved. ‘Don’t be silly, of course it’s not mined,’ she called out. She trotted over to the centre of the rock slab and found the tube from which the rocket had been launched. A length of singed cord lay half out of the hole, and she examined it curiously. Then she returned to the edge of the island and searched for the pole – which, as she had reported to Tomlin, was indeed still there, only now it was lying horizontally on the surface of the sea, with the cross-bar projecting down into the water.

  Tomlin followed her gaze. ‘By Jove,’ he mumbled incredulously, ‘the bag is still there, too. Shall I have it recovered, ma’am?’

  ‘Please, Brigadier,’ Sonya replied.

  But as a crewman with a boathook leaned over to scoop up the leather bag, a dark, ghostly shape cleaved the water past the launch. Its nose speared the six-inch metal ring which Smith had insisted must be fastened to the end of the bag. The grey shadow swam away, and with it went fifty million dollars in cut diamonds.

  Tomlin’s eyes almost left his head. ‘What – what the blue b—bloody blazes was that?’ he spluttered.

  Almost in a dream, and half to herself, Sonya Kolchinsky murmured, ‘God Almighty, you’ve got to hand it to Smith, haven’t you.’

  ‘What was it?’ Tomlin demanded, his puce countenance turning purple in the garish light.

  Sonya pulled herself together. ‘What was it, Brigadier? A dolphin, of course. What on earth did you think it was – a submarine?’

  McCafferty finished prodding the bruise on Sabrina’s head and remarked, unfeelingly, ‘I think you’ll live.’

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ she replied. ‘Are we ready, then?’ McCafferty bowed and conducted her into the cramped seat of the Kamov helicopter. ‘Your carriage awaits, m’lady,’ he joked.

  They had collected the hostages and sent them back under Cooligan to the Kosgo airstrip, located for them by the Yugoslav Air Force. Mac suggested that the AF One crew should recover their aircraft and prepare it for take-off. If all turned out well, and Smith was either captured or at least prevented from snatching the diamonds, Philpott’s party would join them later for the trip to Geneva. ‘Anyway, Bert, I’ll see you’re kept informed,’ he promised, as the small convoy pulled out of the car-park and descended to the floor of the hostage-cave valley.

  ‘Which way, skip?’ Sabrina inquired as they took off.

  ‘The coast,’ McCafferty answered matter-of-factly. ‘That’s where the ransom-drop is taking place.’ They zoomed up into the starlit sky and Mac banked the Kamov sharply to bring it round for a nose-down straight run to the Adriatic …

  ‘A what?’ Philpott echoed faintly.

  ‘A dolphin,’ Smith said. ‘That’s what I was doing when I pulled on the rope-line just now. It released the end-wall of the dolphin’s cage, and it was also the signal for her to start swimming.

  ‘She needed to keep going for only three or four minutes, homing in on an ultrasonic direction-beacon built into the pole of what you called the gibbet, which your considerable armada was frightened to examine in case the apparatus, or indeed the entire island, was mined.’

  ‘Which of course it wasn’t,’ Philpott supplied drily.

  ‘Which of course it wasn’t,’ Smith confirmed. He then explained at length how the dolphin had been purchased and trained at a dolphinarium in America until she could have made the pick-up blindfolded. The rocket also operated a device linked to a cord which uprooted the guy-rope supporting the pole, and tilted the gibbet down to sea-level, Smith added.

  Philpott listened in silence, then drew a deep breath and exhaled in a frustrated sigh. ‘I hate to admit it, Mister Smith,’ he said, ‘but it’s impossible not to admire your style, if not your actual objectives or methods.’

  ‘Why thank you,’ Smith beamed, and gave the UNACO director a mocking bow. He looked out to sea again when Philpott observed, ‘Your talented lady mammal has come back to daddy.’ The row of bubbles, effervescing more furiously than ever, had reappeared.

  Smith picked up the rope again and waded into the water for perhaps ten yards. He hauled on the line, and the caged dolphin gradually emerged from the waves. ‘Well done, my angel,’ Smith boomed approvingly, patting the dolphin’s snout and removing the ransom bag in one smooth gesture. ‘I may never see you again, but believe me, I am eternally grateful to you.’

  He turned and walked back, the chamois bag slung over his shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you now, Philpott,’ he announced, ‘but let me add one cautionary word: should you feel that you can still prevent me from escaping
, remember that I have another electronic device still in my possession. This one.’

  He pulled a metal box from his anorak, and Philpott had no doubt whatsoever that it was the detonator for the bomb which could destroy the Arab and American captives – provided, that is, that Jagger had not already murdered them.

  Glumly, Philpott watched in silence as the dinghy pulled away from the beach. He dug both hands into the sand beside him, picked up fistfuls of watery gravel, and threw them after Smith, as though he could stop him by a display of sheer bad temper.

  The Kamov cleared the coastline and spanned the necklace of tiny islands, seeing the activity aboard the three naval cutters milling about looking for traces of a long-dead rocket, and spotting Sonya arguing with a tall, red-faced soldier – English, Sabrina thought – on another launch, moored next to an island which was hardly more than a rocky platform.

  ‘Perhaps Smith’s already cleared off,’ Sabrina shouted above the roar of the helicopter’s engine.

  McCafferty nodded, and jabbed his finger repeatedly at the little island. ‘Shall we land and try to find out what’s going on?’ he cried, miming the action in case she hadn’t caught the words.

  ‘What do you think?’ Sabrina yelled above the helicopter noise. Mac thought for a moment, then shook his head. He indicated that they should return and search for Philpott. ‘He may actually be on to something.’

  They dropped until they were practically brushing the waves, and when they reached the shoreline, McCafferty guided the Kamov in a futile patrol of every promising cove, inlet and cliff. Each time they drew a blank – until Sabrina spotted a signal fire.

  Mac gave a jubilant whoop and spun into a tight turn. ‘It’s him!’ Sabrina yelled as they buzzed the beach. ‘He’s still piling brushwood on the fire, and there’s a gasoline can lying beside it. Smith must have left it behind.’

  McCafferty manoeuvred the Kamov into the likeliest-looking stretch of firm sand on the small inlet, and set her down near Philpott’s fire. He and Sabrina piled out, and quickly found that the UNACO chief was suffering from outraged dignity and a nasty ankle-sprain. Sabrina soothed him with a résumé of the latest developments, and a cold compress.

  Philpott had struggled to his feet, supported by McCafferty, when Sabrina reached the description of the killing of Jagger and the neutralising of the bomb. He swore viciously and almost overbalanced. Sabrina rushed to help, but Mac was able to keep him upright.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting around here for?’ Philpott demanded excitedly. ‘Get after Smith! The only thing holding me back from having a go at him myself was that damned remote-control detonator, and this damned ankle. Naturally I couldn’t afford to risk harming all of you, though I guessed when I saw you’d escaped that Mac had been able to pull something out of the hat.

  ‘But now we can’t afford to lose a second. He’s out there, in that blasted dinghy. Where he’s heading, I don’t know, but it’s my opinion he’s sailing off to join a larger boat, or taking his loot and landing it further up the coast. He’ll have a vehicle stashed away somewhere. Anyway, that’s the direction he took. After him, damn it! I can look after myself!’

  They jumped back into the helicopter after promising to radio Sonya with Philpott’s location. McCafferty spotted the Avon dinghy less than twenty miles away, weaving a path round the island of Pag to enter the Velibitski Kanal, a treacherous strip of coastal water strewn with half-submerged rocks and other traps for the unwary mariner.

  Mac banked the helicopter again and motioned to Sabrina to take charge of both guns. ‘Shoot the bastard out of the sea,’ he yelled as hard as he could. ‘We’ll worry about the ransom afterwards.’

  Smith was within five hundred yards of the shoreline, one hand gripping the wheel of the dinghy, the other resting lightly on the ransom sack. He wore a happy, even insane, smile, and the spray whiplashed his face and the wind tore at his hair; but Mister Smith was past caring. He had won, as he always knew he would! He was truly invincible, invulnerable. None could stand against him – not even the great Malcolm Philpott and all the resources of UNACO!

  ‘I’m going to head him on to the beach, or crash him into the rocks,’ McCafferty shouted. ‘As soon as I get close enough, start shooting. Kill him if you can, but most of all I want him good and scared.’

  Sabrina shivered as she checked the guns. She was remembering another helicopter chase, when she had been the quarry. She did not believe she could ever expunge from her mind the horror and despair of being hunted by that huge fast bird, cleverer and more ruthless than any of nature’s winged predators. She could almost feel sorry for Smith; but when she got him in her sights and emptied half a magazine of tracer-rounds at the jinking boat, her hatred of him returned and she was a cold, calculating special agent again.

  The idiot grin vanished from Smith’s face as the bullets whipped the foam piling up on either side of the dinghy. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the Kamov. At first he thought it must be Dunkels and that he had only imagined the shooting, but then Sabrina opened up again, and he spied her face in the helicopter searchlight, and the mane of brown hair streaming over her shoulders.

  McCafferty dived as near to the dinghy as he dared and dropped speed, zipping over Smith’s head and throwing Sabrina’s aim. Smith opened the throttle and changed course. The helicopter banked and darted in for another searingly-close pass. This time Smith was forced to wrench the wheel to starboard and turn the boat for the shore.

  Mac bayed his triumph and settled on Smith’s tail. ‘Take him while he’s going straight,’ he shouted to Sabrina. She sighted on the hunched figure, but some instinct raised the short hairs on the back of Smith’s neck, and as she pressed the trigger he was already selling a dummy to port and bringing the craft into an agonising right-hand bend.

  The helicopter once more overshot its mark and Smith resumed his course parallel to the coast. For the third time Mac brought the Kamov in, then charged across Smith’s bow, whipping up spouts of water and spray. Smith shut his eyes, hunched down even further, drew the sleeve of his anorak across his face and doggedly held his line, dropping and increasing speed, twisting and tacking, handling the dinghy like a master to shake off the accursed helicopter – or to force McCafferty into a fatal error.

  Sabrina pantomimed a lay-off position above the dinghy and matched Smith’s speed, so that she could get a good, steady shot at him. Mac obediently held an escort station, and Sabrina riddled the side of the dinghy with bullets, but Smith, who had dived to the bottom of the boat, steering blind, rose unhurt.

  Mac kept the position at Sabrina’s insistence, and immediately regretted it, for Smith, holding the wheel with one hand and the leather bag between his knees, fired a machine-gun from the hip. McCafferty throttled back and screamed away as the shots ricocheted off his undercarriage.

  ‘You’ve annoyed him now, my pet,’ he said to Sabrina, who shouted back, ‘So what!’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ McCafferty insisted at the top of his voice, ‘I’ve got an idea that can’t miss. Start shooting again when I tell you.’

  He brought the Kamov in carefully to starboard of the boat, then opened up and dipped to the seaward side, yelling ‘Now!’ Sabrina pressed the trigger of the machine-pistol and kept her finger down until the gun was belching nothing but hot air.

  Distracted, Smith yanked the wheel over and ploughed into a course for the shore. He fired back over his shoulder but his aim was erratic, and McCafferty, instead of beating a hasty retreat, managed to close until he was flying directly above the dinghy, knot for knot at Smith’s speed.

  Try as he might, Smith couldn’t shake the Kamov loose, and Mac dropped the aircraft down until he was no more than a few feet over Smith’s head. Lower and still lower he sank, while the down-draught from the helicopter’s flailing rotors grew more violent.

  Sheets of water strafed the boat, buffeting and blinding its driver. He could no longer use the gun, for he could not sight a target. He cou
ld no longer steer the dinghy, for he could not see where he was going.

  He tugged and twisted the wheel this way and that, and each time he abandoned his course he somehow strayed back to it. He was an experienced sailor, but this was worse than the most awesome typhoon he had ever known. Smith shrieked his fury at the wind and the waves – and all the time, though he did not know it, he was sailing closer and closer to the rocky shore.

  McCafferty looked ahead, peering through the spray, and saw the coastline looming up, now less than fifty yards away. Grimly he kept the Kamov at its post, tossed like a cork though it was in its own down-draught. At the last possible moment he pulled up and away and Smith could see – but it was too late. He spun the wheel frantically to avoid a rock, and instead struck a floating log a few feet offshore.

  The sodden, splintering wood acted as a launching ramp, and Smith’s dinghy took to the air. It spun like a dart and thudded into the beach. Smith was catapulted through the windscreen and flung to the wet sand like a rag doll. Fairy lights exploded before his eyes, and he was glad the torture was over. McCafferty spread the flats of both hands wide in a repeated sweeping gesture, and Sabrina got the message: there was no room to land the helicopter on Smith’s beach. She jabbed her own finger towards his recumbent form on the sand, and Mac nodded vehemently. Sabrina checked that she had a full clip in the machine-pistol, slung it over her shoulder, and heaved herself out of the Kamov. Her feet found the landing skids, and she vaulted lightly to earth, sending Mac off with a cheery wave to find another landing place.

  She bent over Smith’s body: he was starting to come round. Mischievously, Sabrina picked up the ransom sack and put it under his head as a pillow. Then she checked the shattered Avon dinghy, retrieved Smith’s gun, unloaded it and threw the magazine away. The lantern he had brought with him still worked, so she propped it on a rock and switched it on.

  Smith opened his eyes, and saw her pale face, framed by the now quiescent halo of hair, cast in the light of the full moon and the rays of the red metal lamp. His gaze fell to the gun she held trained on him. She was kneeling about four feet from him, and when he levered himself up to support his body on his elbows, she relaxed and sat back on her heels.