Linda gave a long, deep sigh of relief and sat up. She had won. They would not recall the plane now that it was on its way. The elderly official must have failed to get through to the Soviet Embassy in the limited time at his disposal. She was out of Canada, on her way to Norway. And she had both the papers and plenty of money.
Her companion turned toward her and asked, ‘Are you all right? I was afraid you were feeling ill.’
‘No … no,’ Linda smiled. ‘I’m feeling fine. I could do with a drink, though.’
‘We’ll get one in a minute. They always start at the rear of the aircraft.’ As he spoke, an air hostess came up beside them with her order sheet.
‘Champagne for me,’ he said promptly. Linda nodded. ‘For me, too, please.’
‘Getting served first is not the only good thing about being in a rear seat,’ he went on. ‘If the kite crashes, you stand a better chance of getting out alive. Tail usually breaks off, so you don’t get fried. All the same, I travel first most of the time.’
‘You fly a lot, then?’ Linda asked.
He grinned. ‘I like it, and I can afford to. Part of my pension, you see. I’m a senior B.O.A.C. pilot, recently retired. On all B.O.A.C. routes throughout the world I can fly for only ten per cent of the ordinary fare.’
‘How lovely for you. But this isn’t a B.O.A.C. plane, is it?
‘No. That’s why I’m flying economy. Got to get to Olso in a hurry. My wife is Norwegian. She has been there on a visit to her family, while I’ve been renewing my memories of Canada. Had a cable this morning to say she’d been in a car smash. Not in danger, thank God; but I am naturally anxious to join the old girl as soon as I can.’
‘I do hope you’ll find that it’s nothing serious.’
‘Thanks. By the way, my name’s Matthew Jackson. But people always call me Captain Jacko.’
‘Mine’s …’ Linda hesitated. ‘Mine’s Anna Zubarova.’
He raised his bushy grey eyebrows. ‘That sounds Russian; but surely you’re English, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Linda admitted, seeing no reason why she should any longer conceal the fact.
Their drinks arrived. Linda had forgotten that, as she was not travelling first class, she would have to pay for hers, but Captain Jacko would not let her. With more enthusiasm and happiness than she had felt for weeks, she drank the old toast he gave her, ‘Happy landings.’
Shortly afterwards another air hostess came through the distant curtains separating the first from the economy-class passengers. As she approached, Linda caught her words. She was calling out, ‘Miss Zubarova. Miss Zubarova.’
Linda paled, wondering who could have sent her a message. Perhaps back in Ottawa they had verified the fact that she was travelling on a passport that did not belong to her and radioed the pilot. But surely the plane would not turn back, so what could they do to her? Suddenly the awful thought came into her mind that they might prevent her landing in Oslo and bring her back to Canada. But there was no alternative to accepting the message. Reluctantly she held up her hand.
The air hostess gave her an airmail letter card, with the name she was passing under scrawled on it, and said, ‘This was handed in up forward just before takeoff. We always have so many things to see to then that I forgot it temporarily. I’m sorry about the delay.’
Acknowledging the apology with a faint smile, Linda took the flimsy, folded paper and tore it open. One glance told her that it must be written in Russian. She stared at it, put it down, then stared at it again. To know what the message was might be terribly important to her. Seeing her worried look, Captain Jacko said:
‘Not bad news, I hope.’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It is in Russian, and I don’t know that language.’
‘Perhaps I can help,’ he offered. ‘In the war we not only sent tanks and guns to Joe Stalin, but also aircraft. That was before I became a pilot. I was a young engineer flight sergeant, and one of the lads sent out to help the Russians assemble our machines after we’d got them uncrated. I was the best part of a year in Murmansk. Had a Russian girl friend. Pretty little piece, and that’s the best way to learn a language. I picked up quite a lot from her.’
Linda hesitated only a moment. Nothing could stop her now from reaching Oslo, but her future safety might depend on how she acted when she got there. Handing over the letter, she said, ‘If you can translate it, I’d be very grateful.’
Getting out a pair of spectacles, he pored over the letter for several minutes, then he muttered, ‘I’m afraid my Russian is pretty rusty, but from what I make of this it seems that you’re in a spot of trouble.’
‘Don’t I know it!’ Linda heaved a sigh. ‘I may as well tell you at once that I got out of Canada on another woman’s passport, pretending I was a Russian, and I’m very anxious to know what they can do about it.’
He gave her an appraising look. ‘The devil you did! Well, this is more or less what the letter says: Comrade Zubarova. We know you to have succeeded in boarding the aircraft. Tour defection puzzles and distresses us all. Soviet Ambassador will be radioed to meet aircraft at Oslo. You are ordered to hand him papers you carry. Failure to do so will result in disciplining. Sergei Petrovitch, on behalf of Ambassador Chernicov.
After a short pause, Captain Jacko added, ‘There are some words before “disciplining” that have been partly scratched out. They look like the Russian for your being “liquidated”. I suppose the chappie who wrote this felt that if anyone other than you read this, he might think a threat of murder went a bit too far.’
‘That’s what they mean to do to me, though,’ Linda said in a strained voice. A few moments before she had been feeling on top of the world. This sudden knowledge that she had not got away, after all, had, like a bombshell, blown the earth from beneath her feet. From the set-up at the Ottawa airport, she could guess what would happen when they landed at Oslo. As she left the aircraft she would be met by several Russians, including a doctor and a nurse. They would have an ambulance standing by. Despite her protests, she would be hustled into it. The louder she screamed, the more convinced onlookers would be that she was a mental case, the fact that she was carrying a Russian passport being evidence enough that it was her own people who were taking her away. They would take her to the Soviet Embassy and, in a cellar there, either shoot or strangle her.
She wondered what had happened to the real Anna Zubarova. The battering she had received must have inflicted a serious injury to her head. Bad enough for her to be carted off to hospital, and the probability was that she was still lying unconscious there. In any case, it was clear that she had been unable to communicate with her friends, otherwise they would not still be under the impression that she had defected. And it was certain that The Top’s people would not have told the Russians what had really happened. They had nothing to gain by doing so; on the contrary, the less the Russians knew the better chance they would have reckoned they had of getting back the papers themselves and selling them for another fat wad of thousand-dollar bills.
These thoughts had hardly rushed through Linda’s mind when Captain Jacko leaned over and whispered to her, ‘It’s none of my business, but it seems to me that if these Ruskies get you you’ll be for the high jump. I take it you are one of “C” ’s people. If so, I’m willing to do anything I can to help.’
She turned and stared at him. ‘What do you mean by “C”? Who is he?’
The elderly man’s face froze. ‘Oh, well, if you are working for a foreign power, you must count me out.’
‘I’m not,’ Linda replied. ‘I’m on my own.’
He shrugged. ‘You can hardly expect me to believe that. Young girls like you don’t carry round documents that might cost them their lives, unless they are paid jolly well by somebody to do it.’
At that moment the air hostess began to hand out the plastic supper trays. As it was after midnight, the meal was a cold one, consisting of snacks, sandwiches, pastries, cake and fruit on a trolley, f
rom which the passengers took their choice. For once Linda had no appetite, so she asked only for a piece of fruit cake. Captain Jacko took two sandwiches and a banana.
While they were eating, Linda was thinking hard. There was now no getting away from the fact that when they reached Oslo she would be lucky if within a few hours she was not dead. There might be some way in which Captain Jacko could save her. But, apart from admitting to having stolen the jewels, she would have to tell him her whole story, from the time she had arrived in Chicago. As she looked back on it, the way in which she had become involved in The Top’s affairs seemed so fantastic that she felt sure the Captain would not believe her. But there was one thing she could do. She could tell him that the nuclear calculations had come into her possession by pure chance, then hand them over to him. That, at least, would prevent the Russians from getting hold of them, and might induce him somehow to keep her out of their clutches.
He had finished his sandwiches and she was still thinking of the best way to reopen the subject when the air hostess from the first-class compartment came through, stopped beside him, smiled and said, ‘Captain Fisher’s compliments, sir, and would you care to come up to the flight deck for a while?’
It was the invitation normally extended during flights to any V.I.P.s or senior ex-pilots who happened to be in an aircraft. Captain Jacko promptly stood up, wiped his mouth on the paper napkin, left the banana on his plate and replied, ‘Delighted, my dear,’ then followed the girl down the gangway.
Linda sat on, continuing to envisage the awful things that might happen to her after she landed in Oslo. But she had definitely decided by then that, immediately Captain Jacko returned, she would give him the papers and ask for his help.
She refused coffee and ordered another glass of champagne. Captain Jacko seemed to be away for a long time. She could only suppose that he had taken the co-pilot’s seat and was happily gossiping with the captain of the aircraft. The plastic plates were collected and the lights dimmed. The air hostess returned to her galley. A few minutes later a single blast from a shrill whistle sounded from the first-class compartment. A Negress, who had been sitting in the outer seat of the row of three on the opposite side of the gangway to Linda, stood up. In her right hand she held something that looked like a small, square box. Raising it above her head, she shouted in a loud, shrill voice:
‘This is a hijack! All of youse keep youse seats. I’s gotten here a plastic bomb. Make one move, any of youse, an’ I drops it. Blow you all to hell.’
In spite of the threat nearly everyone turned his head to stare at her, but no-one stood up. A bald man a few rows in front of her asked angrily, ‘Where are you hijacking us to?’
The Negress showed her gleaming white teeth between thick red lips in a grin. ‘To Algeria. De land of de free peoples, where they have kill all de rich whitey pigs.’
‘God damn you!’ said the man. Then there fell a sudden hush, broken only by the anxious whispering of neighbours.
Following her momentary shock, Linda suddenly realised what this meant to her. Unless the hijackers were willing to commit suicide, they would not blow the plane up. For the others, being flown to Algeria and perhaps having to spend several days there before they could get to Europe would be an infuriating thing to happen. But the aircraft was not going to land at Oslo, after all. The team of would-be murderers waiting there to carry her off would now wait in vain. It was unlikely that the Algerians would rob the passengers of their possessions, as the Algerian Government would be held responsible for that; so she would still have her four thousand dollars and the papers. When the passengers were allowed to leave, all the odds were that the aircraft’s first stop would be Marseilles, as it was the nearest European airport. She could destroy Anna’s passport and say that the Algerians had taken hers from her; then she could leave the plane at Marseilles. There would be no one there to stop her from taking the papers to the British Consul, and she would be free to start a new life in her beloved South of France. What could possibly have suited her better?
Elated beyond measure by this stroke of, for her, undreamed of good fortune, Linda looked round to ask the air hostess to bring her a third glass of champagne. But the girl was sitting on a tip-up seat about ten feet behind the Negress, her eyes riveted in terror on the plastic bomb.
About five minutes elapsed. During this time the massed feeling of apprehension generated by the passengers, who had now fallen silent, could be felt. Then Captain Jacko appeared between the curtains leading to the first-class compartment. Halting there, he addressed the passengers in a loud, calm voice:
‘Ladies and gentlemen. You are obviously already aware that this aircraft has been hijacked. Your captain has sent me to tell you that, provided you all keep your, seats and do not lift a hand above your shoulders, there is no need for alarm. The hijackers are Black Panthers who succeeded in getting over the frontier from the United States into Canada. They have ordered the pilot to fly the aircraft to Algiers. Once the hijackers have left her, the aircraft will be refuelled and reprovisioned. After the captain and his crew have had a few hours’ rest, it will then be allowed to take off again for our original destination—Oslo.’
‘Oh God!’ Linda breathed, almost silently. She was, after all, to be delivered into the hands of her enemies. Perhaps, though, she could persuade the hijackers to let her get off the plane with them in Algiers. But what then? Algiers was an Arab country, and well disposed toward Russia. If the Russians learned that she was in Algeria, they would ask the Algerians to arrest her, and send somebody to take her back to Moscow. Even if she escaped that, how would she, a white woman, fare among Arabs and Negroes? How long could she hope to keep her money before it was stolen? Besides, the eyes of every man in the street would be stripping the clothes off a pretty white girl on her own. The memory of the giant Negro in the Chicago brothel came back to her, and she shuddered.
Captain Jacko had paused to answer some questions from a passenger in a seat near him. Now he resumed in a louder voice, again addressing the whole company, ‘Ladies and gentlemen. I was about to add that, for the convenience of those passengers who may have been flying on from Oslo to other parts of Europe, on her flight north the aircraft will put down at Marseilles, Berne, Cologne and Bremen.’
Linda let her head fall forward. She was nearly crying with relief. She had been granted a reprieve. She would be able to get off at Marseilles, see the British Consul there, then go on to Nice. There were scores of boutiques there in which an English-speaking girl could easily get taken on. There would be sunshine in the approaching winter, the flower market, with its great bunches of carnations, iced vermouth-cassis in the cafés and leisurely strolls along the Promenade des Anglais.
Captain Jacko walked down the gangway and took his seat beside her again. Having glanced at the Negress who was standing only a few feet away, he said, ‘Damned annoying, this. Still, it’s a bit of luck for you. Your Russian committee of welcome at Oslo will have their wait for nothing.’
‘Yes,’ Linda agreed cheerfully. ‘I’m sorry for the other passengers, though.’
He shrugged philosophically. ‘Oh, well; can’t be helped. These things happen. We may as well get some sleep.’ Then he lay back as far as possible in his seat.
Linda closed her eyes, but could not sleep. While the aircraft roared on through the night, she was busily planning a happy future on the Riviera. She would take a small apartment overlooking the sea with, if she could afford it, a bonne a tout faire, to do her chores while she worked. A job in a boutique would enable her to buy good clothes at reduced prices. There would be concerts to go to, and now and then she might even gamble a little at the Casino.
Dawn came. Captain Jacko was snoring. An hour or so later he suddenly woke up and looked round for the Negress. Standing there for hours had tired her, so she had made the air hostess leave her tip-up seat some distance away and was sitting on it, while the girl squatted on the floor.
Seeing that Linda was a
wake, he leaned over and said in a low voice, ‘We are not going to Algiers—not yet, anyway.’
‘Why not?’ Linda whispered back.
‘Not enough petrol to fly us there. We’ll have to come down somewhere on the way to refuel.’
‘Where?’ asked Linda anxiously.
‘Don’t know. Depends on Captain Fisher and the strength of the head wind we’re flying against. Lisbon perhaps; but maybe we won’t be able to get that far, and have to land at Bordeaux.’
‘Will … will there be any chance of our getting off?’
‘There may be. It all depends on what sort of precautions the ground staff at the place we come down are taking about this sort of thing. And, of course, on how tough these bloody Black Panthers are. If I had my way I’d hang every blasted hijacker that was caught. As they imperil hundreds of people’s lives, there ought to be an international law to that effect.’
He fell silent, and Linda was left to ponder on this new possibility. If she was able to leave the plane at Lisbon, or, even better, Bordeaux, she would escape any unpleasantness at Algiers. From the latter she could make her way overnight to the South of France.
Another hour and a half drifted by. Linda was now hungry and would have given a lot even for a cup of coffee. But there was no possibility of breakfast being served.
There came a break in the clouds. Looking out of the window, she could see land beneath them. Captain Jacko leaned across her and peered down. He drew a sharp breath and exclaimed, ‘By Jove! We’re over Ireland. I’d know it anywhere by the green of the fields. Fisher couldn’t make the Continent, or said he couldn’t. Well done, him! He’s heading for Heathrow.’
‘Heathrow!’ Linda exclaimed in consternation.
He gave her a surprised look. ‘What’s wrong with that? Our people there know their stuff. They keep a guard there now, armed with rifles, to deal with hijackers. They’ll shoot the tyres to pieces so that the aircraft can’t take off again. We’re as good as home and dry.’
The Strange Story of Linda Lee Page 31