Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  America can again cast their veto with impunity?" Peter made no reply.

  "Answer me!" she screamed suddenly. "They do not believe we are serious, do they?"

  "I am a messenger only," he said.

  "You're not," she screamed in accusation. "You're a trained killer. You're a pig!" She lifted the pistol and aimed with both hands at Peter's face.

  "What answer must I take back?" Peter asked, without in any way acknowledging the aim of the weapon.

  "An answer-" Her voice dropped again to an almost conversational level. Of course, an answer." She lowered the pistol and consulted the stainless steel Japanese watch on her wrist. "It's three minutes past noon three minutes past the deadline, and they are entitled to an answer, of course." She looked around her with an almost bewildered expression. The drug was having side effects, Peter guessed.

  Perhaps she had overdosed herself, perhaps whoever had prescribed it had not taken into account the forty-eight sleepless hours of strain that preceded its use.

  "The answer," he prodded her gently, not wanting to provoke another outburst.

  "Yes. Wait," she said, and disappeared abruptly into the gloom of the interior.

  Karen was standing over the four hostages on the fold down seats.

  She looked around at Ingrid with smouldering dark eyes. Ingrid nodded once curtly, and Karen turned back to her prisoners.

  "Come," she said softly, "we are going to let you go now." Almost gently she lifted the pregnant woman to her feet with a hand on her shoulder.

  Ingrid left her and passed swiftly into the rear cabins.

  She nodded again to Kurt, and with a toss of his head he flicked the lank locks of hair from his eyes and thrust the pistol into his belt.

  From the locker above his head he brought down two of the plastic grenades. Holding one in each fist he pulled the pins with his teeth and held the rings hooked over his little fingers.

  With his arms spread like a crucifix, he ran lightly down the aisle.

  "These grenades are primed. Nobody must move, nobody must leave their seats no matter whatever happens. Stay where you are." The fourth hijacker took up the cry from him, holding primed grenades in both hands above his head.

  "Nobody move. No talking. Sit still. Everybody still." He repeated in German and in French and his eyes had the same hard, glossy glitter of the drug high.

  Ingrid turned back towards the flight deck.

  "Come, sweetheart." She placed an arm round the girl's shoulder, shepherding her towards the open hatchway but the child shrank away from her with dread.

  "Don't touch me, "she whispered, and her eyes were huge with terror. The boy was younger, more trusting. He took Ingrid's hand readily.

  He had thick curly hair, and honey brown eyes as he looked up at her. "Is my daddy here?" he asked.

  "Yes, darling." Ingrid squeezed his hand. "You be a good boy now, and you'll see your daddy very soon." She led him to the open hatchway.

  "Stand there," she said.

  Peter Stride was uncertain what to expect, as the boy stepped into the open hatchway high above him.

  Then next to him appeared a plump middle-aged woman in an expensive but rumpled, high-fashion silk dress, probably a Nina Ricci,

  Peter decided irrelevantly. The woman's elaborate lacquered hairstyle was coming down in wisps around her ears, but she had a kindly humorous face and she placed a protective arm about the boy-child's shoulders.

  The next person was a taller and younger woman, with a pale sensitive skin; her nostrils and eyelids were inflamed pink from weeping or from some allergy and there were blotches of angry prickly heat on her throat and upper arms.

  Under the loose cotton maternity dress her huge belly bulged grotesquely, throwing her off balance; she stood with her thin white legs knock-kneed awkwardly and blinked in the brilliant sparkling sunshine, her eyes still attuned to the shaded gloom of the cabin.

  The fourth and last person was a young girl, and with a sudden blinding stab of agony below the ribs Peter thought it was

  Melissa-Jane. It took a dozen racing beats of his heart before he realized it was not her but she had the same sweet Victorian face, -the classical English skin of rose petals, the finely bred body of almost woman wit h delicate breast-buds and long coltish legs below narrow boyish hips.

  There was naked terror in her huge eyes, and almost instantly she seemed to realize that Peter was her hope of salvation. The eyes turned on him pleading, hope starting to awaken.

  "Please," she whispered. "Don't let them hurt us." So softly that Peter could hardly catch the words. "Please, sir. Please help us."

  But Ingrid was there, her voice rising stridently.

  "You must believe that what we promise, we mean. You and your evil capitalist masters must understand completely that we will not let a single deadline pass without executions. We have to prove that for the revolution we are without mercy. You must be made to understand that our demands must be met in full, that they are not negotiable. We must demonstrate the price for missing a deadline." She paused. "The next deadline is midnight tonight. If our demands are not met in full by then you must know the price you will be made to pay." She halted again, and then her voice rose into that hysterical shriek.

  "This is the price!" and she stepped back out of sight.

  Helpless with dread, Peter Stride tried to think of some way to prevent the inevitable.

  "Jump!" he shouted, lifting both hands towards the girl.

  "Jump, quickly. I will catch you!" But the child hesitated, the drop was almost thirty feet, and she teetered uncertainly.

  Behind her, ten paces back, the dark-haired Karen and the blonde lion-maned girl stood side by side, and in unison they lifted the short, big bored pistols, holding them in the low double-handed grip, positioning themselves at the angle and range which would allow the mass of soft heavy lead beads with which the cartridges were packed to spread sufficiently to sweep the backs of the four hostages.

  "Jump!" Peter's voice carried clearly into the cabin, and Ingrid's mouth convulsed in a nervous rictus, an awful parody of a smile.

  "Now!" she said, and the two women fired together. The two shots blended in a thunderous burst of sound, a mind-stopping roar, and blue powder smoke burst from the gaping muzzles, flying specks of burning wadding hurled across the cabin, and the impact of lead shot into living flesh sounded like a handful of watermelon pips thrown against a wall.

  Ingrid fired the second barrel a moment before Karen, so this time the two shots were distinct stunning blurts of sound, and in the dreadful silence that followed the two men in the passenger cabins were screaming wildly.

  "Nobody move! Everybody freeze!" For Peter Stride those fractional seconds seemed to last for long hours. They seemed to play on endlessly through his brain, like a series of frozen frames in a grotesque movie. Image after image seemed separated from the whole, so that forever afterwards he would be able to recreate each of them entire and undistorted and to experience again undiluted the paralysing nausea of those moments.

  The pregnant woman took the full blast of one of the first shots.

  She burst open like an overripe fruit, her swollen body pulled out of shape by the passage of shot from spine to navel, and she was flung forward so she somersaulted out into space. She hit the tarmac in a loose tangle of pale thin limbs, and was completely still, no flicker of life remaining.

  The plump woman clung to the boy beside her, and they teetered in the open doorway around them swirled pale blue wisps of gunsmoke.

  Though she kept her balance, the tightly stretched beige silk of her dress was speckled with dozens of tiny wounds, as though she had been stabbed repeatedly with a sharpened knitting needle. The same wounds were torn through the boy's white school shirt, and little scarlet flowers bloomed swiftly around each wound, spreading to stain the cloth. Neither of them made any sound, and their expressions were startled and uncomprehending. The next blasts of sound and shot struck them solidly, and the
y seemed boneless and without substance as they tumbled forward, still locked together. Their fall seemed to continue for a very long time, and then they sprawled together over the pregnant woman's body.

  Peter ran forward to catch the girl-child as she fell, and her weight bore him to his knees on the tarmac. He came to his feet running, carrying her like a sleepy baby, one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders. Her lovely head bumped against his shoulder, and the fine silken hair blew into his face, half blinding him.

  "Don't die," he found himself grunting the words in time to his pounding feet. "Please don't die." But he could feel the warm wet leak of blood down his belly, soaking into his shorts, and dribbling down the front of his thighs.

  At the entrance to the terminal buildings Colin Noble ran out a dozen paces and tried to take the child from his arms, but Peter resisted him fiercely.

  Peter relinquished the frail, completely relaxed body to the Thor doctor and he stood by without word or expression of regret as the doctor worked swiftly over her.

  Peter's face was stony and his wide mouth clamped in a hard line when the doctor looked up at last.

  "I'm afraid she's dead, sir." Peter nodded curtly and turned away.

  His heels cracked on the echoing marble of the deserted terminal hall and Colin Noble fell in silently beside him. His face was as bleak and expressionless as Peter's, as they climbed into the cabin of the Hawker command aircraft.

  Sir William, you point at us for holding enemies of the State without trial." The Foreign Minister leaned forward to point the accuser's finger. "But you British discarded the citizen's right of Habeas Corpus when you passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and in Cyprus and Palestine you were holding prisoners without trial long before that. Now your block in Ulster is that any better than what we are forced to do here?" Sir William, the British Ambassador, gobbled indignantly, while he collected his thoughts.

  Kelly Constable intervened smoothly. "Gentlemen, we are trying to find common ground here not areas of dispute. There are hundreds of lives at stake-" A telephone shrilled in the air-conditioned hush of the room and Sir William lifted the receiver to his ear with patent relief, but as he listened, all blood drained from his face, leaving it a jaundiced, putty colour.

  "I see," he said once, and then, "very well, thank you," and replaced the receiver. He looked down the length of the long polished imbuia wood table to the imposing figure at the end.

  "Prime Minister-" his voice quavered a little I regret to inform you that the terrorists have rejected the compromise proposals offered by your government, and that ten minutes ago they murdered four hostages. " There was a gasp of disbelief from the attentive circle of listening men.

  " The hostages were two women and two children a boy and a girl they were shot in the back and their bodies thrown from the aircraft. The terrorists have set a new deadline midnight tonight for the acceptance of their terms. Failing which there will be further shootings." The silence lasted for almost a minute as head after head turned slowly, until they were all staring at the big hunched figure at the head of the table.

  "I appeal to you in the name of humanity, sir." It was Kelly Constable who broke the silence. "We must save the women and children at least. The world will not allow us to sit by as they are murdered."

  "We will have to attack the aircraft and free the prisoners," said the Prime Minister heavily.

  But the American Ambassador shook his head. "My government is adamant, sir as is that of my British colleague-" he glanced at Sir William, who nodded support we cannot and will not risk a massacre.

  Attack the aircraft and our governments will make no attempt to moderate the terms of the U.N. proposals, nor will we intervene in the Security Council to exercise the veto."

  "Yet, if we agree to the demands of these these animals-" the last words were said fiercely we place our nation in terrible danger."

  "Prime Minister, we have only hours to find a solution then the killing will begin again."

  "you yourself have placed the success chances of a Delta strike as low as even," Kingston Parker pointed out, staring grimly at Peter Stride out of the little square screen. "Neither the President nor I find those odds acceptable."

  "Doctor Parker, they are murdering women and children out there on the tarmac." Peter tried to keep his tone neutral, his reasoning balanced.

  "Very strong pressure is being brought to bear on the South African Government to accede to the terms for release of the women and children."

  "That will solve nothing." Peter could not restrain himself "It will leave us with exactly the same situation tomorrow night."

  "If we can secure the release of the women and children, the number of lives at risk will be reduced, and in forty hours the situation might have changed. we are buying time, Peter, even if we have to pay for it with a heavy coin."

  "And if the South Africans do not agree? If we come to the midnight deadline without an agreement with the hijackers, what happens then, Doctor Parker?"

  "This is a difficult thing to say, Peter, but if that happens-" Parker spread those long graceful hands in a gesture of resignation, we may lose another four lives, but that is better than precipitating the massacre of four hundred. And after that the South Africans will not be able to hold out. They will have to agree to free the women and children at any cost." Peter could not truly believe what he had heard. He knew he was on the very brink of losing his temper completely, and he had to give himself a few seconds to steady himself.

  He dropped his eyes to his own hands that were interlocked on the desk top in front of him. Under the fingernails of his right hand were black half moons, the dried blood of the child he had carried back from the aircraft. Abruptly he unlocked his fingers and thrust both hands deeply into the pockets of his blue Thor overalls. He took a long deep breath, held it a moment, then let it out slowly.

  "If that was difficult to say, Doctor Parker console yourself that it was a bloody sight harder to listen to."

  "I understand how you feel, Peter."

  "I don't think you do, sir." Peter shook his head slowly.

  "You are a soldier-" and only a soldier knows how to really hate violence, Peter finished for him.

  "Our personal feelings must not be allowed to intrude in this."

  Kingston Parker's voice had a sharp edge to it now.

  "I must once again forcibly remind you that the decision for condition Delta has been delegated to me by the President and your Prime Minister. No strike will be made without my express orders. Do you understand that, General Stride?"

  "I understand, Doctor Parker," Peter said flatly. "And we hope to get some really good videotapes of the next murders. I'll let you have copies for your personal collection." The other 747 had been grounded for servicing when the emergency began, and it was parked in the assembly area only a thousand yards from where Speedbird 070 stood, but the main service hangars and the corner of the terminal buildings effectively screened it from any observation by the hijackers.

  Although it wore the orange and blue of South African Airways with the flying Springbok on the tail, it was an almost identical model to its sister ship. Even the cabin configurations were very close to the plans of Speedbird 070, which had been tele printed from British Airways Headquarters at Heathrow. It was a fortunate coincidence, and an opportunity that Colin Noble had seized immediately. He had already run seven mock Deltas on the empty hull.

  "All right, you guys, let's try and get our arses out of low gear on this run. I want to better fourteen seconds from the "go" to penetration-" His strike team glanced at one another as they squatted in a circle on the tarmac, and there were a few theatrical rollings of eyes. Colin ignored them. "Let's go for nine seconds, gang," he said and stood up.

  There were sixteen men in the actual assault group seventeen when Peter Stride joined them. The other members of Thor were technical experts electronics and communications, four marksmen snipers, a weapons quart erA master, and a
bomb disposal and explosives sergeant, doctor, cook, three engineering NCOs under a lieutenant, the pilots and other flight personnel a big team, but every man was indispensable.

  The assault group wore single-piece uniforms of close fitting black nylon, for low night visibility. They wore their gas masks loosely around their necks, ready for instant use.

  Their boots were black canvas lace-ups, with soft rubber soles for silence. Each man wore his specialized weapons and equipment either in a back pack or on his black webbing belt. No bulky bulletproof flak jackets to impede mobility or to snag on obstacles, no hard helmets to tap against metal and tell tales to a wary adversary.

  Nearly all the group were young men, in their early twenties, hand picked from the U.S. Marine corps or from the British 22.SAS regiment that Peter Stride had once commanded. They were superbly fit, and honed to a razor's edge.

  Colin Noble watched them carefully as they assembled silently on the marks he had chalked on the tarmac, representing the entrances to the air terminal and the service hangars nearest to 070. He was searching for any sign of slackness, any deviation from the almost impossible standards he had set for Thor. He could find none. "All right, ten seconds to flares," he called. A Delta strike began with the launching of phosphorus flares across the nose of the target aircraft. They would float down on their tiny parachutes, causing a diversion which would hopefully bunch the terrorists in the flight deck of the target aircraft as they tried to figure out the reason for the lights. The brilliance of the flares would also sear the retina of the terrorists" eyes and destroy night vision for many minutes afterwards.

  "Flares!" shouted Colin, and the assault group went into action.

  The two "stick" men led them, sprinting out directly under the gigantic tail of the deserted aircraft. Each of them carried a gas cylinder strapped across his shoulder, to which the long stainless steel probes were attached by flexible armoured couplings these were the "sticks" that gave them their name.

  The leader carried compressed air in the tank upon his back at a pressure of 250 atmospheres, and on the tip of his twenty-foot probe was the diamond cutting bit of the air drill He dropped on one knee under the belly of the aircraft ten feet behind the landing gear and reached up to press the point of the air-drill against the exact spot, carefully plotted from the manufacturer's drawing, where the pressure hull was thinnest and where direct access to the passenger cabins lay just beyond the skin of alloy metal.