“Open the wing tanks and fire some incendiaries into it,” Hyatt said.
“Open them,” Baydr ordered.
Andy and his copilot ran to the plane. They climbed up into the cabin. One ran to either side of the plane. In less than two minutes they were back.
“We’re ready now,” Andy said. “But you better move everybody down to the far end of the strip just in chase she blows up.”
Ben Ezra bellowed his orders. It took almost five minutes to get them all down at the other end of the field. “Get down, everybody,” he said, giving the signal to the riflemen.
The automatic rifles set up a screaming chatter. A moment afterward there was a strange hiss, then a groan as the giant plane blew. A geyser of flame climbed a hundred feet into the air.
“If you don’t see that, they’re blind,” Hyatt said sadly.
Baydr saw the look on his face. “Don’t feel bad. It’s only money,” he said. “If we get out of here, I’ll get you another one.”
Hyatt smiled half-heartedly. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed, chief.”
Baydr’s eyes were grim as he scanned the sky. Behind them the sound of gunfire came closer. He moved toward Jordana. “You all right?”
She nodded, the boys clinging to her. They all searched the sky.
“I think I hear it!” Muhammad yelled.
They listened. The faint sound of the rotors came toward them, growing louder with each passing moment. Two minutes later it was overhead, reflected in the glare of the burning plane. Slowly it began to descend.
The flashes of gunfire were almost at the side of the airstrip now as the soldiers fell back according to plan.
The helicopter touched down. The first man off the plane was Baydr’s father. The two boys ran to him. “Grandfather!”
He scooped them up in his arms as Baydr and Jordana came toward him. Everybody began to converge on the helicopter. The boarding was swift, just a few men still in the field holding off the guerrillas.
Baydr stood at the foot of the ramp, next to Ben Ezra. “Everybody on board?” the general asked.
“Yes,” Baydr answered.
Ben Ezra cupped his hand around his mouth. “Bring them in, corporal!” he yelled in a stentorian voice that could be heard all over the field.
Another fuel tank blew on the 707, bathing the entire field in a daylight glow. Baydr could see the soldiers backing in from the edge of the field, their guns firing into the forest.
A moment later they were almost at the foot of the ramp. The first of them turned and started up the stairs. Ben Ezra swatted him on the behind with his sword in an approving gesture.
The yellow light from the burning plane reached the edge of the forest. Baydr, watching, thought he heard someone calling him. Then suddenly he saw her, running from the forest. Behind her was a man carrying a body across his shoulders.
Automatically a soldier swung his rifle toward her. Baydr struck at the gun so that the barrel pointed at the sky. “Hold it!” he yelled.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Leila cried.
Baydr ran toward her. “Leila! This way!” he shouted.
She turned, making a straight line for him, and ran into his arms. A soldier came dashing up to him. “We’ve got to get out of here, sir!”
Baydr gestured toward Hamid. “Help him,” he said to the soldier.
He turned and with one arm around his daughter went up the steps into the plane. Hamid and the soldier, carrying Dick between them, were right behind them. Ben Ezra came up the ramp and stood in the open door.
Already Hamid and the soldier had placed Dick on a cot, and Dr. Al Fay and the medical team hooked up the plasma and glucose. “Take it up!” Ben Ezra yelled.
As the big rotors began to turn sluggishly overhead Hamid went back to the general. Behind him, Hamid could see the guerillas running onto the field. “I wouldn’t stand there if I were you, general,” he said respectfully.
“Where the hell were you all night?” Ben Ezra shouted angrily as the helicopter began to lift heavily.
“I was merely obeying your orders, sir,” the Syrian said with a straight face. He gestured toward Leila, who was kneeling beside Dick. “I was making sure that no harm would come to her.”
“You were ordered to stay at my si—!” The anger faded from the old man’s voice and was replaced with a note of surprise. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. The scimitar fell from his suddenly nerveless hand. He took a tentative step toward the Syrian, then began to fall.
Hamid caught him in outstretched arms. He felt the old man’s blood gushing through the soft Bedouin robes. Hamid lurched and almost fell as the helicopter seemed to leap into the air. “The general’s been shot!” he yelled.
Baydr and his father were at his side almost before the words had left his mouth. Gently, they moved Ben Ezra to a cot. Dr. Al Fay rolled him on his side, quickly cutting away his robe.
“Do not bother, my friend,” the general whispered. “Save your time for the young man there.”
“The young man will be all right!” Samir said almost angrily.
“So will I,” Ben Ezra said softly. “Now that I have seen my son, I am not afraid to die. You have done well, my friend. You have raised a man.”
Samir felt the tears blur his eyes. He knelt down and placed his lips close to the old man’s ear. “For too long I have allowed him to live a lie. It is time for him to learn the truth.”
A faint smile came to the dying soldier’s lips. “What is the truth? You are his father. That is all he needs to know.”
“You are his father, not I!” Samir whispered vehemently. “He must learn that it was your God who brought him into this world!”
Ben Ezra looked up with rapidly glazing eyes. His gaze turned to Baydr, then back to the doctor. His voice was faint as he summoned all his strength into this last breath. He was dead the moment the words had left his lips.
“There is but one God…”
Harold Robbins, Unguarded
On the inspiration for Never Love a Stranger:
“[The book begins with] a poem from To the Unborn by Stella Benson. There were a lot of disappointments especially during the Depression—fuck it—in everyone’s life there are disappointments and lost hope…. No one escapes. That’s why you got to be grateful every day that you get to the next.”
On writing The Betsy and receiving gifts:
“When I wrote The Betsy, I spent a lot of time in Detroit with the Ford family. The old man running the place had supplied me with Fords, a Mustang, that station wagon we still have…. After he read the book and I was flying home from New York the day after it was published, he made a phone call to the office on Sunset and asked for all the cars to be returned. I guess he didn’t like the book.”
On the most boring things in the world:
“Home cooking, home fucking, and Dallas, Texas!”
On the inspiration for Stiletto:
“I began to develop an idea for a novel about the Mafia. In the back of my head I had already thought of an extraordinary character…. To the outside world he drove dangerous, high-speed automobiles and owned a foreign car dealership on Park Avenue…. The world also knew that he was one of the most romantic playboys in New York society… What the world did not know about him was that he was a deadly assassin who belonged to the Mafia.”
On the message of 79 Park Avenue:
“Street names change with the times, but there’s been prostitution since the world began. That was what 79 Park Avenue was about, and prostitution will always be there. I don’t know what cavemen called it; maybe they drew pictures. That’s called pornography now. People make their own choices every day about what they are willing to do. We don’t have the right to judge them or label them. At least walk in their shoes before you do. 79 Park Avenue did one thing for the public; it made people think about these girls being real, not just hustlers. The book was about walking in their shoes and understanding. Maybe it was a book about forgiveness. I never
know; the reader is the only one who can decide.”
Paul Gitlin (Harold’s agent) on The Carpetbaggers after first reading the manuscript:
“Jesus Christ, you can’t talk about incest like this. The publishers will never accept it. This author, Robbins, he’s got a book that reads great, but it’s a ball breaker for publishing.”
From the judge who lifted the Philadelphia ban on Never Love a Stranger, on Harold’s books:
“I would rather my daughter learn about sex from the pages of a Harold Robbins novel than behind a barn door.”
On writing essentials:
“Power, sex, deceit, and wealth: the four ingredients to a successful story.”
On the drive to write:
“I don’t want to write and put it in a closet because I’m not writing for myself. I’m writing to be heard. I’m writing because I’ve got something to say to people about the world I live in, the world I see, and I want them to know about it.”
Harold Robbins titles from RosettaBooks
79 Park Avenue
Dreams Die First
Never Leave Me
Spellbinder
Stiletto
The Betsy
The Raiders
The Adventurers
Goodbye, Janette
Descent from Xanadu
Never Love A Stranger
Memories of Another Day
The Dream Merchants
Where Love Has Gone
The Lonely Lady
The Inheritors
The Looters
The Pirate
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