by Stan Mason
‘This is Air Traffic Control at Ben Gurion Airport,’ came a stentorian voice. ‘What kind of aircraft are you and what’s your destination?’
‘I don’t know,’ I bleated trying to keep my voice on an even keel. ‘I’m just a passenger. The pilot’s baled out of the aircraft.
It’s a light aircraft but I can’t tell you any more than that. We left Stansted Airport and we’re headed for the Gaza Strip. I’ve never flown a plane before. All I can say is that we’ve been flying for well over three hours and there’s a lot of sea below but no land.’
‘You’re too low to show up on our radar screen,’ continued the voice, ‘but I can still talk you down. For Gaza, on your course from Stansted, you should be on a vector of three hundred and five degrees. There’s a gyro in front of you that should register the number.’
I searched the dials desperately until I found the right one. ‘The gyro reads three hundred and sixty,’ I told him. ‘At present we’re on automatic pilot.’
‘Okay,’ he commanded bluntly. ‘Remove the automatic pilot control and move the yoke slightly to your left. When you get the vector right you can reapply the automatic pilot.’
I obeyed his instruction and the plane lost altitude quickly, veering sharply. For a few seconds it was totally out of control but somehow I managed to compensate and sat back after switching on the automatic pilot control again. ‘Three hundred and five degrees!’ I confirmed with a sigh of relief. My hands were shaking and my knees felt as though they were made of rubber.
‘Good! Now there’s no point in continuing this dialogue until you reach land. When that happens, I want you to call me. Roger and out!’
I sat in the pilot’s seat without moving for what seemed to be a long time then I returned the manual to the locker. As I was about to close the locker door, I stared at a device which had been jammed in there. It had a clock dial on the front and it was ticking. Flashes of the wrecked plane in Crete returned to me with a vengeance and I recalled that the bomb which killed Chedda had also been placed in the cockpit. The dial was already close to zero which meant that the bomb was close to exploding or it wasn’t working at all. I took a mental bet with myself that it was likely to be the former. Pray... I thought to myself... pray! There was no means by which I would escape this time if the bomb exploded. There was no point in contacting the Air Traffic Control in Israel and I couldn’t remove the device for fear of setting it off.
It was a further eight minutes before land came into sight. My eyes were on the clock on the bomb practically all the time. On seeing land I decided to resume contact with Air Traffic Control and told them about the bomb knowing there was nothing either of us could do about it.
‘As soon as you cross to land we’ll get you down fast,’ the voice continued. ‘What you’re going to have to do is called a sideslip movement. You’ll need to turn the yoke to your left and simultaneously jam your foot against the right rudder pedal. The ailerons on the edges of the wings will respond immediately. The left aileron will be up; the right one will drop. The opposing forces created by the crossed control will cause the aircraft to turn sharply to its left side, putting the plane into distress and creating severe drag. It will drop precipitously in both air speed and altitude. You’ll find the plane will lurch to a precarious angle and you’ll experience a sensation of falling very fast. There’ll be a lot of shaking, bouncing and rattling but you’ve got to sideslip firmly. If you fall too fast, be careful your wingtips don’t touch the ground or you’ll crash. When you’re about forty feet from your chosen runway ease up on the controls and level off. Then brace yourself for impact. As there’s a suspected bomb on board, I suggest you get out of the plane as quickly as possible. In the meantime, I’ll keep this channel open.’
The moment the aircraft crossed the threshold between sea and land I performed the sideslip manoeuvre with my heart in my mouth. The plane reacted exactly as my mentor had explained but it was one thing to talk about it and another to experience it. The controls almost wrenched themselves out of my hands and the blood rushed to my head as the aircraft dropped like a stone. Then every piece of metal around me seemed to groan and whine as it bent and shuddered angrily. I was extremely concerned about the angle of the aircraft for one wing faced the ground while the other reached up to the sky. The controls juddered fiercely trying to wrest themselves out of my grip but I managed to hold on for all I was worth. The altimeter sped around the dial much faster than I had expected and when I calculated the magic figure of forty feet I levelled off unsteadily, gradually pushing the yoke forward so that the nose pointed downwards. The ground came up at a tremendous rate. As the aircraft touched down heavily, it lurched on the uneven surface. I jammed my feet on the brake pedals causing the tyres to burst and the plane skidded all over the place in a shower of sparks. When it came to a halt, I leapt from the cockpit and sprinted as far and fast as I could before collapsing on the ground. The threat of the bomb created greater fear that the dilemma of landing the aircraft. It had been a reaction which suited the situation well.
I walked slowly to put more distance between myself and the plane, shading my eyes from the blistering sun and looked ahead. There was desert all around. Paradoxically, it was possible that I had survived the landing but would die of thirst and dehydration. I had to find civilisation but it was necessary to choose a direction. The sea was behind me. I could follow the coast. I scanned the horizon and then noticed a jeep in the distance moving towards me. I waited patiently for it to arrive. When it arrived, the driver, dressed in casual clothing, alighted and called out my name.
‘Mr. Scott!’ he shouted. I nodded hesitantly wondering whether he was a friend or a foe. ‘Commander Yasood sent me to fetch you. We picked up your communication with Air Traffic Control. It seems you were the victim of a vendetta.’
‘A vendetta?’ I was puzzled and intrigued to have been such a subject.
‘We understand Bross was your pilot. He’ s a cousin of
Chedda. He must have thought you had a hand in Chedda’s death and decided to exact his revenge.’
‘Well,’ I returned. ‘I thought there was a bomb located next to the pilot’s seat but it seems I was mistaken. I feel embarrassed having caused so much fuss about nothing.’
At that moment, as if it were on cue, there was the sound of a tremendous explosion a short distance away as the aircraft collapsed in a cloud of smoke, falling forward in a heap before our eyes as flames began to engulf it. We watched the blaze for a short while without speaking.
‘You’re very lucky, Mr. Scott,’ he muttered whimsically. ‘We need people like you on our side. Climb aboard. I’ll take you to the Commander.’
I got into the jeep and he drove off across the desert well versed in following solid tracks that I could hardly see. It was twenty minutes before we reached the rock in the desert with the interior designed by the 21st Century Crusaders. The driver produced a small remote control from his pocket and there was a smooth humming as the door opened automatically in the rock face. He drove directly to the underground car park and we walked along the corridor graced with flagstoned floors. I never thought I would return to this place but fate held otherwise.
‘I think everyone’s already here,’ commented the driver, putting a little extra pace in his step. ‘The car park’s almost full.’
We walked through the double doors into the large auditorium.
It was filled with capacity but this time there were face which were familiar to me. Commander Yasood stood on the podium about to address the audience. Commander Spring was seated in the front row. A few seats away sat Menel. And, as expected, there in the front row was Schmuel Musaphia.
‘Welcome Commander Scott,’ greeted Yasood amiably, causing everyone to turn in my direction. ‘I you will please take your seat here in front, we shall begin.’
I was stunned at the greeting but f
ailed to make any comment.
‘Well,’ began Yasood facing his audience from the front edge of the podium., ‘thank you all for coming here today. We gather to celebrate a milestone in our master plan and I’m delighted to tell you that the second phase has been completed. You’ll recall that the first phase was the ‘formation’ of our organisation. The second is the ‘development’. The third is ‘operation’. In the second phase, we recruited some fine people and established ourselves in many countries in Europe. But most importantly of all, we have developed a weapon to give us superiority in terms of warfare... far greater and more powerful than anything produced before. We are still at the experimental stage but we are well on our way. At the same time, our intelligence network is becoming equal to all others known in the Western world. Before I continue with the details of our development, it is well to report that the caucus of Islam will find its seeds in Turkey. Islam in the middle of the sixteenth century was at its all-conquering zenith. Its spearhead, the Ottoman Turks, threatened to engulf Christianity. The might of the Ottoman empire, under the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent, was ruthless, trained to inflict savage cruelty on all those who opposed it. As a matter of interest, I’ll read to you his titles.’ He picked up a sheet of paper from the lectern beside him.’
“Sultan of the Ottomans, Allah’s Deputy on Earth, Lord of the Lords of this World, King of Believers and Unbelievers, Shadow of the Almighty Dispensing Quiet in the Earth.” He put the paper back on the lectern before continuing. ‘We don’t wish to have Lord of the Lords of this World governing us in the future. There is also another matter in contention with Islam. In Siberia, lies the greatest of all oil reserves the world has ever known. In our previous assumption we believed that Islam would rise in fifty years’ time when the oil runs out in the Middle East. With the advent of Russian oil coming the fore, the Arab states will find their markets diminishing within the next ten or twenty years. The dependency of oil from Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Libya will reduce considerably. There will be a great deal of malcontent amongst the people in that region. As a result, World War Three is likely to approach much sooner than expected. Such news is not encouraging. It means we must react faster than planned. We must be ready to meet the rising tide of Islam.’
He droned on for some time outlining details about the countries where the 21st Century Crusaders were now established, the development of the laser gun, and the plan for full operation. When his delivery came to an end, he received outstanding applause and then the audience stood up and mulled around the auditorium in discussion. My heart started to beat faster as I looked around to search for Jan but she was nowhere to be seen. Commander Yasood headed in my direction and drew me to one side.
‘I hoped you weren’t shocked when I introduced you as Commander Scott,’ he said apologetically. ‘That’s the good thing Schmuel Musaphia suggested would be coming your way. We want to recruit you as our Commander in the United Kingdom. it’s a tremendous challenge and you’ll really enjoy it.
‘Is that what it was all about?’ The blackmail... facing death half a dozen times, the abduction of my wife! All because you wanted to recruit me. Why didn’t you ask me in the first place?’
‘Tell me, Jason,’ he went on. ‘If you were the Chief Executive of Dandy Advanced Electronics, and you wanted the best deputy that money could buy to handle the weaponry division, what would you do?’
‘I’d get in touch with the best executive personnel recruitment agency and let them handle the selection for me,’ I returned insolently.
‘And then you receive curriculum vitae of the applicants, and take on the interviews to narrow down the field. Then what would you do... bearing in mind that the weaponry division is something very secret, very confidential, and ultimately special.
‘I’d check on every applicant thoroughly by means of a private detective. Every past record would be investigated.’
‘But how could you be certain that everything the private detective told you was absolutely authentic. Would you know, for example, how any one of the applicants would react under certain kinds of pressure or crisis?’ Or how loyal they would be to the organisation over an extended period of time?’
‘Impossible to tell,’ I told him flatly. ‘I would hope that the selected person would have a track record in the field of operation proving that they could take such pressures and handle crises without difficulty. With regard to loyalty, people respond to promotion, remuneration and rewards. Executives tend to switch from one organisation to another if they can achieve something better.’
‘Exactly!’ he concurred. ‘You see, we selected you for recruitment some years ago. Your background, temperament, obstinacy, and analytical mind made you a prime choice for the role that needed to be filled. For a long time we needed an executive to run the British end . We had many people look you over and check you out in the past five years. Penny Smith was one, Primar was another. We checked you out in terms of credentials but we had no idea whether you had zeal , audacity or spirit. So we set you difficult tasks but the plans went wrong through the ambitions of certain individuals within our ranks. Unfortunately, that is the way of the world. It was by the grace of God you weren’t killed. Apparently Primar and Chedda were waging some kind of vendetta against each other. You were caught up in the cross-fire. Chedda believed that you were important to Primar so he tried to kill you and Miss Smith. He intended to parachute to safety over Crete leaving a bomb on board the aircraft. No one would ever know what had happened but he was no munitions expert. This caused a multitude of problems because his colleague, Tomar Duran, was waiting for him in Crete. Penny Smith was working for us and she used all her ingenuity to have you moved to safety by getting you arrested by the police. However, I would not return there if I were you because you are still wanted by them for questioning.’
‘But there were no bodies!’ I exclaimed. ‘No one was killed! The duplicate Jason Scott turned up in Turkey. Tomar Duran was working in the weaponry division of Dandy Advanced Electronics.’
‘Not Tomar Duran. Miss Smith shot him with his own gun in Crete but substituted blanks for the real cartridges later on. The man you thought was Tomar Duran who ended up on the electrified fence was actually his twin brother trying to get the plan for his Muslim colleagues. In due course, Schmuel Musaphia, our strategist and adviser, insisted that he met you. It was then Primar decided to go independent on his own account. He started working for MOSSAD, the Israeli intelligence agency as did Penny Smith but he wanted to sell the laser gun to the highest bidder.. He used you, as he did Kemal in Istanbul, when the man was about to shoot you over the Galata bridge. Yes... it was arranged for you to see the Mahdi and then steal the laser gun plans You succeeded commendably. For that reason we’re awarding you with the Purple Ribbon of Valour. The highest honour of the 21st Century Crusaders for your audacity. It was well and truly won!’
‘Are you saying that everything I did was a test of my courage and ability?’ I asked, feeling my temperature rising as I thought of all the pain and suffering I had endured. ‘And that my wife was never abducted but merely kept in the background as a blackmail threat in case I wouldn’t play!’
‘That’s rather a simplified way of looking at it but fairly accurate,’ he responded coolly.
I stared at him angrily gritting my teeth. ‘When I think what I went through to get the plans of the laser gun and you didn’t really need them, did you?
‘They were useful up to a point,’ he admitted. ‘Our intelligence is very extensive. We needed to know how far they had got and, indeed, some of the information was helpful.’
‘Well let me tell you a thing or two,’ I uttered irately. ‘Penny Smith is dead... murdered by Primar! And there’s more. I killed Primar myself yesterday!’
‘We know all about that,’ he returned as though it hardly mattered. ‘Naturally we moved the bodies so there would be no trac
e of either of them. It served our purpose. You see we removed everything relating to Primar and left a letter, written by you, to say that you discovered Miss Smith was two-timing you with another man and that you would kill her if you caught her with him. Now that she’s missing, the police will want to question you and they may even have a warrant for your arrest. You’re going to have a very rough time if they catch you.’ 374