Another rapid fire, shouted order quieted the murmured whispers on the plane. Even if not everyone could understand the language, the meaning was obvious. As was the visible threat of the grenade clutched in one of the hijacker's hands. Shut up. Don’t move. Don’t try anything.
They were all in danger, but the man next to her continued to interpret for her softly. “They’re taking us to Libya.”
Libya? Marty’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“I heard them talking about getting more fuel there,” he mumbled, his head tipped down so the hijackers wouldn’t see his lips moving.
They’d just taken off from Athens, so they should have plenty of fuel to get to Paris, the original destination. If the men were concerned about refueling already, that meant the hijackers’ destination was someplace else. Someplace farther than France. That was not good.
“Are you American?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
“They won’t want trouble with the United States. Maybe they will let you go when we land.”
“And what about you?” she asked.
He patted her hand on the arm rest between them. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve survived worse.”
The crudely tattooed numbers caught her gaze again and she knew he’d already survived more than anyone should in one lifetime.
She knew something else too. His story wasn’t going to go untold. However this turned out, if she lived to tell this man’s story, as well as the one that she had somehow come to be caught in the middle of, she would, or die trying.
It was her duty as a journalist.
Chapter 9
One of the hostage negotiators seated at the table in the FBI’s D.C. office glanced sideways at Peter. “Who are you again?”
Peter drew in a breath. “I work for Senator Scott.”
He wasn’t exactly lying, but he sure as hell wasn’t telling the whole truth either. And in a stroke of good luck, the senator would be on a cross country flight all day and out of reach, so no one could check on Peter’s story.
Agent Voss’s brows drew low. “I’ve already got the governor of Maryland calling me on behalf of this girl’s family. Now I’ve got a senator up my ass too. Would you like to tell me why that is, Mr. . . ? What was your name again?”
“Greenwood. Peter Greenwood. And Senator Scott is understandably concerned about the safety of one of his local constituents. Martha Vanderbilt lives and works in the area. She’s with the Washington Post.” Peter mentally crossed his fingers that the man wouldn’t make the connection that Marty lived and worked in D.C., while Scott was the senator from Virginia. She wasn't even in his voting district.
“Jesus. She’s a reporter and a Vanderbilt? Great.” The man rolled his eyes.
His attitude didn’t leave Peter feeling all that confident. Thank goodness he was only one of about half a dozen men from the FBI involved.
There was a negotiator on site in Libya trying to communicate directly with the hijackers on the plane, while the D.C. bureau listened in. Peter’s combined string-pulling and stretching of the truth had gotten him admittance to the room. But still, all he could do there was sit and wait.
It was maddening.
Meanwhile, while he was away from his office, he wouldn’t be there if Tim called. He’d left strict instructions with the staff that the phone was not to be left unmanned for even a second today. And that they were to take a message if Tim called. Not that Tim would want to leave one but maybe he’d leave some sort of code only Peter would understand.
Jeez. Codes. The FBI. Lies. Intrigue. He felt more like he was in a spy novel than his real life. But this was very real and Marty was really in trouble.
A bustle of movement around him had Peter on alert.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Voss was obviously listening to something over his headphones. Peter would have given anything for a set of his own but that was a request already made and denied.
Finally, Voss answered, “They released one of the hostages.”
Heart pounding, Peter leaned closer. “Marty?”
Voss frowned as he glanced at Peter and he knew he’d tipped his hand. Now it was out there that he was more familiar with Martha Vanderbilt than just an aide to a senator from a neighboring state should be.
“No,” he answered. “A pregnant Brit. She needed a hospital.”
Peter’s hope deflated until Voss touched one of the earpieces of his headphones then said, “They’re moving the plane.”
“What? To where? Paris?”
A deeper frown from Voss silenced Peter’s guesses and he forced himself to wait in silence for an answer.
“Uganda.” That answer, when it came, was not comforting.
“Uganda?” His eyes popped wide.
“Entebbe Airport,” Voss glanced at one of the other agents in the room. “Fucking Amin gave them permission to land and he’s promised the support of his forces.”
Amin. As in Idi Amin, Uganda’s president? This whole thing had just gotten a whole lot more complicated, just when he didn’t think that was possible.
It was no longer the hijackers versus the hostage negotiators.
This had now become a deadly game with many players. The United States, Germany, France, the UK and Israel—who all had citizens on the flight—versus Uganda and its leader, possibly the most notorious despot currently in power, who had apparently decided he wanted in on this living game of chess.
That new information spurred a flurry of activity in the small room, sending Peter into a retreat as he pressed up against a wall to try to stay out of the way. Maps were unrolled and phone calls made by the various agents.
He didn’t know how long had passed, time was a blur to him, when Voss said, “They’re demanding five million US for the release of the airplane. And they want fifty-three Pro-Palestinian militants freed. Forty of them are in prison in Israel. Mossad and the IDF are now involved.”
With the Israel Defense Force, Mossad and the Ugandan army all involved, there was a good chance bullets would start to fly. And when that happened, people tended to die. Innocent people caught in the crossfire.
Voss drew in a breath then shook his head, still visibly listening in to the negotiations through his headset. “If the demands aren’t met, they’ll start killing hostages on July one.”
Still standing because he was too worried to sit, Peter felt the room sway as he counted in his head. That deadline was only three days away. As that reality hit, he caught himself from falling with one palm braced against the cold white block wall next to him.
The motion caught Voss’s attention. The man’s gaze shot to him, his eyes narrowing as if he’d just remembered there was an outsider in the room.
Voss bit out a curse then pinned Peter with a threatening stare. “You better settle in for the long haul, kid. I can’t let you leave. You've heard too fucking much.”
Shell-shocked, he managed a nod. He wouldn’t leave even if they let him. Being locked in was much better than being thrown out. This place was his one lifeline to news about Marty, both good and bad.
Over the next couple of days, the negotiations became the longest game of sit around and wait Peter had ever been a part of. He moved through the day in a caffeine-fueled daze, snapping to attention only during the few times they received news of a change.
The hostages were finally taken off the plane and put into some building at the airfield where they were honored with a visit by Amin, who seemed to be treating this whole thing like some public event.
The Israeli government was, of course, deeply involved. They had the largest number of citizens among the passengers. They were also the keepers of forty of the prisoners the hijackers were demanding be released.
Meanwhile, the hostage negotiations continued as the clock on the hijackers' demands continued to tick.
Voss had taken a break and returned looking freshly showered if not exactly well rested a few hours later.
; Peter dozed for a few minutes here and there with his head down on the table in the corner of the room and no one seemed to care.
He washed as best he could in the men’s room down the hall and survived on coffee and what was in the vending machine. Not that he actually felt hungry, but when he noticed his hands shaking from the caffeine in his empty stomach, he had decided to force down something solid. Now he was regretting that as the pastry churned in his stomach.
Voss, back manning the headphones, sat up straighter and started to scribble something on a pad of paper. That knocked Peter out of his sleep deprived stupor.
“They’ve separated the Israelis and the Jews from the rest of the hostages,” Voss announced.
Peter wanted to think that was a good sign. If they were being separated to be returned to their country of origin it would be a very good thing.
But if they were being separated for some other reason, a reason that had the bile rising in the back of Peter’s throat—He couldn’t even let himself think that. Couldn’t let that image of Marty blindfolded against a wall in front of gunman into his brain or it would break him.
“It looks like they’re getting ready to release the non-Israeli citizens.”
Peter sagged in his chair, relief paving the way for the exhaustion he’d been fighting.
“Thank God,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.
It was the shaking of Voss’s head followed by a mumbled curse that had Peter sitting straight again.
Voss finally shoved the pad away and leaned back in his chair. “A bunch are refusing to leave.”
Peter frowned, not understanding what he was saying until Voss pinned him with a glare. “Vanderbilt is one of them who chose to stay.”
Marty chose to stay? The air left Peter’s lungs and he felt as if he’d never be able to draw breath again.
“She what?” he wheezed out.
“They were going to release her and she wouldn’t go. The same with the Air France crew. They refused to leave too.” Voss shook his head. “Mother-fucking-fuck. What is wrong with these people? When a hijacker says go, you fucking go.”
“What is she thinking?” Peter mumbled, drawing Voss’s attention to him.
“It seems like you know this girl personally,” Voss said.
It was not quite a question, but Peter felt compelled to answer.
He weighed his options.
What could they do to him for lying his way in there? Short of them kicking him out of the room, he didn’t care what they did to him, as long as he wasn’t kept out of the loop of information about Marty.
Finally, he nodded. “I do.”
“You do?” Voss repeated prompting Peter to expand on his answer.
“We’ve . . . become close recently.”
“Close?” Voss said.
There was no question this man was a master negotiator. He was working Peter. Using well-honed techniques on him now. And there wasn’t a damn thing Peter could do about it, because maybe, just maybe, his being honest would help Marty.
Peter drew in a breath. “Yeah. We only met a couple of weeks ago. At the Post Pub. Then again at the Greenpeace rally. She was there both as a reporter and as a supporter of the cause.”
“Supporter of the cause?” Voss repeated.
“Greenpeace. She’s very . . . political. A bit of an activist. More than a bit, actually.” He released a breath.
“It seems you’re not all that surprised by her choice,” Voss said.
Peter considered that for a second. “I guess, now that I think about it, I’m not surprised. She’s probably staying to get the inside scoop on the story for the paper. Or hell, maybe she stayed in solidarity to the rest of the passengers. That’s something she would do too.”
Voss kept Peter pinned with a stare for a good long moment. “Do you even work for Scott?”
Peter let out a nervous laugh. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.”
“But he didn’t send you here, did he?”
It was a risk, but he decided to tell the truth. Besides, after not showing up for work for two days and not calling in, who was to say he still had a job with the senator anymore anyway?
It wasn’t like they could fire him twice.
“No, sir. He didn’t,” Peter admitted.
Voss bobbed his head but to Peter’s huge relief he didn’t order him removed or arrested.
Instead, he shoved a piece of paper and a pen across the table. “Write down every single thing you know about this girl.”
Happy to do something, anything, Peter grabbed the paper. “You think that will help?” he asked.
Voss lifted a shoulder. “It can’t hurt.”
Chapter 10
Entebbe Airport. When Marty boarded the Air France jet in Athens, Uganda was the last place she’d expected to end up. Yet, here she was.
And as much as, as a journalist, she should appreciate the opportunity to get up close and personal with Idi Amin, doing it as a hostage was less than ideal.
The country’s dictator made daily visits to the building where she and the other hostages were being held, during which he spoke to them directly. He told them that he’d personally convinced the hijackers to extend the original deadline for their demands to be met. He assured them he was doing everything in his power to get them released.
That was rich, since all actions indicated he supported the hijackers whole-heartedly by offering them shelter in his country and the visible protection of his armed forces.
She was ready for this to be over. It was hot as hell in the terminal. The food they were being fed was horrendous. Some of the hostages were getting sick, probably from the food that she herself barely touched.
But more than all that, she was starting to fear she'd made a grave mistake.
Days ago, well over a hundred non-Israeli hostages had been released. She could have been one of them. She chose not to be. To instead stay with the ninety-plus passengers and the twelve members of the Air France crew.
But when she had chosen to stay with those still being held, she never considered that a week later she’d still be there.
She should have realized. Should have known better. Governments didn't like to negotiate with terrorists. Would they do it now to save the lives of those there with her? To save her?
They were certainly taking their time with it. Had it really been a whole week she'd been held in Uganda?
What day was it? She’d begun to lose track, but if her calculations were correct, it was July third, maybe?
The following day would be Independence Day in the United States.
The entire country would be celebrating the bi-centennial and two hundred years of freedom. How ironic, considering she couldn’t be further from being free at the moment.
The hundred or so remaining hostages and Marty were all being kept in what appeared to be a waiting room in an empty terminal at the airport. The original four hijackers were there along with four more who had joined them.
She’d managed to hide her small notebook and pen and keep them with her, taking notes when she could, but her passport and camera had been taken.
Marty didn’t have a watch, but she could tell it was late at night. The guards had changed shift and they’d been served dinner hours ago.
Most of the hostages had lain down and were trying to get some sleep. Marty was too keyed up. She could always doze during the day tomorrow. It wasn’t like she had anything else planned.
Maybe she could rest if she closed her eyes . . .
A loud bang had her eyes flying back open. The noise of the front doors of the terminal crashing open elicited a few startled cries from the hostages in the waiting room.
What had to be over two dozen uniformed men ran inside, the sound of their boots pounding against the hard tile floor echoed off the ceiling and the walls.
She sucked in a breath. Were these members of the Ugandan Army? Or more members of the PLO coming to help the hijackers?
&nb
sp; Why were they here and why now? To kill the hostages? Was this it, then?
A bullhorn broadcast a message in what sounded like Hebrew. She glanced around to find someone to interpret for her, but then the sound of more amplified words being spoken this time in English stopped her search.
“Stay down! We are Israeli soldiers come to rescue—” The end of the message was made inaudible by the sound of gunfire.
From what Marty could tell it was coming from both sides, the rescuers and the hijackers. The screaming came from the hostages.
One passenger, a young man, stood. She watched in horror when he immediately crumbled to the floor as a crimson stain bloomed on the front of his shirt.
The sound of crying and the sight of people huddling around two more fallen figures on the ground told her that more than one of the passengers was down. Caught in the crossfire as the battle raged on and on and on.
Marty slumped to the floor.
Keeping as low as possible as she crawled to the restroom, she pushed through the door, seeking shelter there. Meanwhile, the gunfire on the other side of the door continued.
Others joined her. Just as frightened. Just as helpless as three rapid explosions shook the floor she pressed against.
Had they all survived the past week only to be killed during the rescue?
She didn’t know how long they sheltered there before the door opened and one of the commandos who’d come to rescue them shouted, “Come! Follow me.”
They moved as a group, but safety was still far away.
She heard the shots continuing outside the building. Saw perhaps a dozen flaming aircraft scattered on the airfield like broken toys.
The hijackers inside the building were apparently dead, but Amin’s troops were retaliating, still firing on the rescuers as they herded the hostages between armored vehicles in an attempt to shield them.
The passengers, Marty among them, literally ran for their lives toward a large aircraft parked just outside the terminal, while their rescuers took and returned fire.
The worst of the wounded had to be carried on board.
Marty helped one man who’d been shot climb the stairs as she braced herself for the impact of a flying bullet that thankfully, never came. But others weren’t so lucky.
Danger and Desire: A Romantic Suspense Anthology Page 25