Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  Sartre and Bakunin and Most had discovered one of the great truths of life that the act of destruction, of total destruction, was a catharsis, a creation, a reawakening of the soul. She looked forward, even through the staleness and ache of the drug let-down, she looked forward to the next executions.

  "My friends-" she spoke into the microphone, we have not heard from the tyrant. His lack of concern for your lives is typical of the fascist imperialist. He does not concern himself with the safety of the people, though he sucks and bloats himself on the blood and sweat. outside the aircraft the night was black and close.

  Thunderheads blotted out half the sky, and every few minutes lightning lit the clouds internally. Twice since sundown abrupt fierce downpours of torrential rain had hammered briefly against the Boeing hull, and now the airport lights glinted on the puddled tarmac.

  We have to show the face of unrelenting courage and iron purpose to the tyrant. We cannot afford to show even a moment's hesitation.

  We must now choose four more hostages. It will be done with the utmost impartiality and I want you all to realize that we are now all part of the revolution together, you can be proud of that-" Lightning exploded suddenly, much closer, a crackling greenish, iridescent flaming of the heavens that lit the field in merciless light, and then the flail of the thunder beat down upon the aircraft. The girl Karen exclaimed involuntarily and sprang nervously to her feet and crossed quickly to stand beside Ingrid. Her dark eyes were now heavily underscored by the dark kohl of fatigue and drug withdrawal; she trembled violently, and Ingrid caressed her absently the way she -might calm a frightened kitten as she went on speaking into the microphone.

  We must all of us learn to welcome death, to welcome the opportunity to take our place and add our contribution, no matter how humble it might be, to man's great reawakening." Lightning burst in fierce splendour once again, but Ingrid went on talking into the microphone, the senseless words somehow hypnotic and lulling so that her captives sat in quietly lethargic rows, not speaking, unmoving, seeming no longer capable of independent thought.

  "I have drawn lots to choose the next martyrs of the revolution.

  I will call out the seat numbers and my officers will come to fetch you. Please co-operate by moving quickly forward to the first-class galley." There was a pause, and then Ingrid's voice again. "Seat number 63B. Please stand up.) The scarred German in the red shirt and with the lank black hair hanging over his eyes had to force the thin,

  middle-aged man to his feet, twisting his wrist up between his shoulder blades. The man's white shirt was crumpled and he wore elastic braces over his shoulders and oldfashioned narrow trousers.

  "You can't let them," the man pleaded with his fellow passengers, as Henri pushed him up the aisle. "You can't let them kill me, please." And they looked down at their laps.

  Nobody moved, nobody spoke.

  "Seat number 43F." It was a handsome dark-haired woman in her middle thirties, and her face seemed to dissolve slowly as she read the number above her seat, and she covered her mouth with one hand to prevent herself crying out but from the seat exactly across the aisle from her a sprightly old gentleman with a magnificent mane of silver-grey hair rose swiftly to his feet and adjusted his tie.

  "Would you care to change seats with me, madam?" he said softly in a clipped English accent, and strode down the aisle, on long, thin, stork-like legs, contemptuously brushing past the blond moustached Frenchman who came hurrying forward to escort him. Without a glance to either side, and with thin shoulders thrown back, he disappeared through the curtains into the forward galley.

  The Boeing had a blind spot that extended back from the side windows of the flight deck at an angle of 20 to the tail, but the hijackers were so well equipped and seemed to have considered every eventuality in such detail that there was no reason to fear that they had worked out some arrangement to keep the blind spot under surveillance.

  Peter and Colin discussed the possibility quietly as they stood in the angle of the main service hangar, and both of them carefully studied the soaring shape of the Boeing tailplane and the sagging underbelly of the fuselage for the glint of a mirror or some other device. They were directly behind the aircraft and there was a little over four hundred yards to cover, half of that through knee-high grass and the rest over tarmac.

  The field was lit only by the blue periphery lights of the taxiway, and the glow of the airport buildings.

  Peter had considered dousing all the airport lights, but discarded the idea as self-defeating. It would certainly alert the hijackers,

  and would slow the crossing of the assault team.

  "I can't see anything," Colin murmured.

  "No," agreed Peter and they both handed their night glasses to a hovering NCO they wouldn't need them again. The assault team had stripped all equipment down to absolute essentials.

  All that Peter carried was a lightweight eleven-ounce VHF transceiver for "communicating with his men in the terminal building and in a quick-release holster on his right hip a Walther PK 38 automatic pistol.

  Each member of the assault team carried the weapon of his own choice. Colin Noble favoured the Browning Hi-power .45 for its massive killing power and large fourteen-round magazine, while Peter liked the pinpoint accuracy and light recoil of the 9 men. parabellum Walther with which he could be certain of a snap head-shot at fifty metres.

  One item was standard equipment for all members of the assault team. Every one of their weapons was loaded with Super Velex explosive bullets which trebled the knockdown power at impact, breaking up in the human body and thereby reducing the risk of over-penetration and with it the danger to innocents. Peter never let them forget they would nearly always be working with terrorist and victim closely involved.

  Beside Peter, Colin Noble unclipped the thin gold chain from around his neck which held the tiny Star of David, twinkling gold on the black bush of his chest hair. He slipped the ornament into his pocket and buttoned down the flap.

  "I say, old chap-" Colin Noble gave an atrocious imitation of a Sandhurst accent shall we toddle along then?" 4 Peter glanced at the luminous dial of his Rolex. It was sixteen minutes to eleven o'clock.

  The exact moment at which my career ends, he thought grimly, and raised his right arm with clenched fist, then pumped it up and down twice, the old cavalry signal to advance.

  Swiftly the two men raced out ahead, absolutely silent on soft rubber soles, carrying their probes at high port to prevent them clattering against tarmac or against the metal parts of the aircraft, dark hunchbacked figures under the burden of the gas cylinders they carried.

  Peter gave them a slow count of five, and while he waited he felt the adrenalin charge his blood, every nerve and muscle of his body coming under tension, and he heard his own words to Kingston Parker echo in his ears like the prophecy of doom.

  "There is no middle ground. The alternative is one hundred per cent casualties. We lose the aircraft, the passengers and all the Thor personnel aboard her." He thrust the thought aside, and repeated the signal to advance. In two neat files, bunched up close and well in hand, the assault teams went out, at the run. Three men carrying each of the aluminium alloy scaling ladders, four with the sling-bags of stun grenades, others with the slap hammers to tear out the door locks, and each with his chosen weapon always a big calibre handgun for Peter

  Stride would trust nobody with an automatic weapon in the crowded interior of a hijacked aircraft, and the minimum requirement for every member of the assault teams was marksmanship with a pistol that would enable him to pick a small moving target and hit it repeatedly and quickly without endangering innocents.

  They ran in almost total silence; the loudest sound was Peter's breathing in his own ears, and he had time now for a moment's regret.

  It was a gamble which he could never win, the best that could happen was the utter ruin of his life's work, but he steeled himself brutally and thrust aside the thought. He ran on into the night.

 
Just ahead of him now, silhouetted by the lights of the terminal building, the dark figures of the "stick" men were in position under the bulging silver belly; and lightning flared suddenly, so that the tall silver thunderheads rippled with intense white fire, and the field was starkly lit, the double column of black-clad figures standing out clearly against the paler grass. If they were observed, it would come now, and the crash of thunder made Peter's nerves jump, expecting detonation and flame of a dozen percussion grenades.

  Then it was dark again, and the sponginess of wet grass beneath his feet gave way to flat hard tarmac. Then suddenly they were under the Boeing fuselage, like chickens under the protective belly of the hen, and the two columns split neatly into four separate groups and still in tight order every man dropped onto his left knee, and at the same moment, with the precision of repeated rehearsals, every member of the team lifted his gas mask to cover his nose and mouth.

  Peter swept one quick glance back at them, and then depressed the transmit button on his transceiver. He would not speak a word from now until it was over; there was always a remote possibility that the hijackers were monitoring this frequency.

  The click of the button was the signal to the members of his team in the terminal and almost immediately, there was a rising whistling howl of jet engines running up.

  Even though the aircraft were parked up in the northern international departures area, they had been turned so the jet exhausts were pointed at the service area, and there were five intercontinental jet liners co-operating. The combined sound output of twenty big jet engines was deafening even at that range and Peter gave the open hand signal.

  The "stick" man was waiting poised, and at the signal he reached up and placed the drill bit against the belly of the fuselage. Any sound of the compressed air spinning the drill was effectively drowned,

  and there was only the slight jerk of the long probe as it went through the pressure hull.

  Instantly the second "stick" man placed the tip of his probe into the tiny hole, and glanced at Peter. Again the open hand signal, and the gas was spurting into the hull. Peter was watching the sweep hand of his watch.

  Two clicks on the transmit button, and the lights behind the row of shaded portholes blinked out simultaneously as the mains power was cut and the air-conditioning in the Boeing's cabins with it.

  The howl of combined jet engines continued a few seconds longer and Peter signalled the ladder men forward.

  Gently the rubber-padded tops of the ladders were hooked onto the leading edges of the wings and into the door sills high above them by black-costumed, grotesquely masked figures working with deceptively casual speed.

  Ten seconds from discharge of the Factor V gas into the hull, and Peter clicked thrice. Instantly mains power to the Boeing was resumed and the lights flicked on. Now the air-conditioning was running again, washing the gas swiftly from the cabins and flight deck.

  Peter drew one long, slow deep breath and tapped Colin's shoulder.

  They went up the ladders in a concerted silent rush, Peter and Colin leading the teams to each wing surface.

  ten minutes to eleven," said Ingrid to Karen. She lifted her voice slightly above the din of jet engines howling somewhere out there in the night. Her throat was dry and sore from the drug withdrawal and a nerve jumped involuntarily in the corner of her eye.

  Her headache felt as though a knotted rope was being twisted slowly tighter around her forehead. "It looks as though Caliph miscalculated. The South Africans aren't going to give in. -" She glanced with a small anticipatory twist of her lips back through the open door of the flight deck at the four hostages sitting in a row on the fold-down seats. The silver-haired Englishman was smoking a

  Virginia cigarette in a long amber and ivory holder, and he returned her gaze with disdain, so that Ingrid felt a prickle of annoyance and raised her voice so he could hear her next words. "It's going to be necessary to shoot this batch also."

  "Caliph has never been wrong before." Karen shook her head vehemently. "There is still an hour to deadline-" and at that instant the lights flickered once and then went out.

  With all the portholes shaded the darkness was complete, and the hiss of the air-conditioning faded into silence before there was a murmur of surprised comment.

  Ingrid groped across the control panel for the switch which transferred the flight deck onto the power from the aircraft's own batteries, and as the soft ruddy glow of the panel lights came on her expression was tense and worried.

  "They've switched off the mains," she exclaimed. "The air-conditioning this could be Delta." W "No." Karen's voice was shrill. "There are no flares."

  "We could be-" Ingrid started but she could hear the drunken slur in her own voice. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth, and Karen's face started to distort before her eyes, the edges blurring out of focus.

  "Karen-" she said, and now in her nostrils the unmistakable aroma of truffles and on her tongue the taste of raw mushrooms.

  "Christ!" she screamed wildly and lunged for the manual oxygen release. Above each seat the panels dropped open and the emergency oxygen masks dangled down into the cabins on their corrugated hoses.

  "Kurt! Henry!" Ingrid shrieked into the cabin intercom.

  "Oxygen! Take oxygen! It's Delta. They are going to Delta." She grabbed one of the dangling oxygen masks and sucked in deep pumping breaths, cleansing the numbing paralysing gas from her system. In the first-class galley one of the hostages collapsed slowly forward and tumbled onto the deck, another slumped sideways.

  Still breathing oxygen, Ingrid unslung the camera from around her neck, and Karen watched her with huge terrified dark eyes. She lifted the oxygen mask from her face to ask: "You're not going to blow,

  Ingrid?" Ingrid ignored her and used the oxygen in her lungs to shout into the microphone.

  "Kurt! Henri! They will come as soon as the mains are switched on again. Cover your eyes and ears for the stun grenades and watch the doors and wing windows." Ingrid slapped the oxygen mask back over her mouth and panted wildly.

  "Don't blow us up, Ingrid!" Karen pleaded around her mask.

  "Please, if we surrender Caliph will have us free in a month. We don't have to die." At that moment the lights of the cabin came on brightly,

  and there was the hiss of the air-conditioning. Ingrid took one last breath of oxygen and ran back into the first-class cabin, jumping over the unconscious figures of the hostages and of two air hostesses. She grabbed another of the dangling oxygen masks above a passenger seat and looked down the long fuselage.

  Kurt and Henri had obeyed her orders. They were breathing oxygen from the roof panels. The German was ready at the port wing panel, and Henri waited at the rear doorway hatch both of them had the short big-mouthed shot pistols ready, but their faces were covered with the yellow oxygen masks, so Ingrid could not see nor judge their expressions.

  Only a small number of the passengers had been quick enough and sensible enough to grab the dangling oxygen masks and remain conscious but hundreds of others slumped in their seats or had fallen sideways into the aisles.

  A thicket of dangling, twisting, swinging oxygen hoses filled the cabin like a forest of ha has obscuring and confusing the scene, and after the darkness the cabin lights were painfully bright.

  Ingrid held the camera in her free hand, for she knew that they must continue breathing oxygen. It would take the air-conditioning many minutes longer to cleanse the air of all trace of Factor V, and she held a mask over her mouth and waited.

  Karen was beside her, with her shot pistol dangling from one hand and the other pressing a mask to her mouth.

  "Go back and cover the front hatch," Ingrid snapped at her.

  "There will be-"

  "Ingrid, we don't have to die," Karen pleaded, and with a crash the emergency exit panel over the port wing burst inward, and at the same instant two small dark objects flew threw the dark opening into the cabin.

  "Stun grenades!" Ingrid howled. "Get down
!" Peter Stride was light and jubilant as an eagle in flight.

  His feet and hands hardly seemed to touch the rungs of the ladder, now in the swift all-engulfing rush of action there were no longer doubts, no more hesitations he was committed, and it was a tremendous soaring relief.

  He went up over the smooth curved leading edge of the wing with a roll of his shoulders and hips, and in the same movement was on his feet, padding silently down the broad glistening metal pathway. The raindrops glittered like diamonds under his feet, and a fresh wind tugged at his hair as he ran.

  He reached the main hull, and dropped into position at the side of the panel, his fingertips finding the razor-tight joint while his number-two man knelt swiftly opposite him.

  The grenade men were ready facing the panel, balanced like acrobats on the curved slippery upper surface of the great wing.

  "Under six seconds." Peter guessed at the time it had taken them to reach this stage from the "go. It was as swift and neat as it had never been in training, all of them armed by the knowledge of waiting death and horror.

  In unison Peter and his number two hurled their combined strength and weight onto the releases of the emergency escape hatch, and it flew inwards readily, for there was no pressurization to resist, and at exactly the same instant the 7 stun grenades went in cleanly, thrown by the waiting grenade men, and all four members of Peter's team bowed like Mohammedans in prayer to Mecca, covering eyes and ears.

  Even outside the cabin, and even with ears and eyes covered, the thunder of the explosions was appalling, seeming to beat in upon the brain with oppressive physical force, and the glare of burning phosphorus powder painted an X-ray picture of Peter's own fingers on the fleshy red of his closed eyelids. Then the grenade men were shouting into the interior, "Lie down! Everybody down! They would keep repeating that order Israeli sty leas long as it lasted.