"Now if only it had been the cavalry instead of the U.S. Marines, Peter said, you'd have been here yesterday-"
"What's your hurry, pal. Doesn't look like the party has started yet." Colin grinned at him from the screen and pushed his baseball cap to the back of his head.
"Damned right," Peter agreed. "We don't even know who is throwing the party. What's your latest estimate on arrival time?"
"We've picked up a good wind one hour twenty-two minutes to fly now,"Colin told him.
"Right, let's get down to it," Peter said, and he began his briefing, going carefully over the field notes he had taken.
When he wanted to emphasize a point, Peter called for a change of shot from his cameramen, and they zoomed in or panned to his instruction, picking up the radar shed or the service hangar ventilator where Peter was siting his snipers.
The image was repeated not only on the command console but in the cavernous body of the approaching Hercules so that the men who would be called to occupy those positions could study them now and prepare themselves thoroughly for the moment. The same images were hurled across the stratosphere to the circling satellite and from there bounced down to appear, only slightly distorted, on the screens of Atlas Command in the west wing of the Pentagon. Sagging like an old lion in his armchair, Kingston Parker followed every word of the briefing, rousing himself only when a long telex message was passed to him by his assistant, then he nodded a command to have his own televised image superimposed on Peter's command console.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, Peter, but we've got a useful scrap here. Assuming that the militant group boarded 070 at Malic, we asked the Seychelles Police to run a check on all joining passengers. There were fifteen of them, ten of whom were Seychelles residents. A local merchant and his wife, and eight unaccompanied children between nine and fourteen years of age. They are the children of expatriate civil servants employed on contract by the Seychelles (3overnment, returning to schools in England for the new term." Peter felt the weight of dread bring down upon him like a physical burden. Children, the young lives seemed somehow more important, somehow more vulnerable. But Parker was reading from the telex flimsy in his left hand, the right scratching the back of his neck with the stem of his pipe.
"There is one British businessman, Shell Oil Company, and well -known on the island, and there are four tourists, an American, a Frenchman and two Germans. These last four appeared to be travelling in a group, the immigration and security officers remember them well.
Two women and two men, all young. Names Sally-Anne Taylor, twenty-five years, American, Heidi Hottschauser, twenty-four and Gunther Retz, twenty-five, the two Germans and Henri Larousse, twenty-six, the Frenchman. The police have run a back check on the four. They stayed two weeks at the Reef Hotel outside Victoria, the women in one double room and the two men in another. They spent most of the time swimming and sunbathing until five days ago when a small ocean-going yacht called at Victoria. Thirty-five foot, single-hander around the world, skippered by another American. The four spent time on board her every day of her stay, and the yacht sailed twenty-faut hours before the departure of the 07O."
"If the yacht delivered their arms and munitions, then this operation has been planned for a long time," Peter pondered, land damn well planned." Peter felt the tingling flush of his blood again, the form of the enemy was taking shape now, the outline of the beast becoming clearer, and always it was uglier and more menacing.
"You have run the names through the computer?" he asked.
"Nothing," Parker nodded. "Either there is no intelligence record of them, or the names and passports are false-" He broke off as there was sudden activity on the screen that monitored the air traffic control tower, and another voice boomed out of the secondary speaker; the volume was set too high, and the technician at the control board adjusted it swiftly. It was a female voice, a fresh, clear young voice speaking English with the lilt and inflexion of the west coast of America in it.
"Jan Smuts tower, this is the officer commanding the task force of the Action Commando for Human Rights that has control of Speedbird 070.
Stand by to copy a message."
"Contact!" Peter breathed. "Contact at last." On the small screen Colin Noble grinned and rolled his cheroot expertly from one side of his mouth to the other.
"The party has begun," he announced, but there was the razor edge in his voice not entirely concealed by his jocular tone.
The three-man crew had been moved back from the flight deck, and were held in the first class seats vacated by the group of four.
Ingrid had made the cockpit of the Boeing her headquarters, and she worked swiftly through the pile of passports, filling in the name and nationality of each passenger on the seating plan spread before her.
The door to the galley was open and except for the hum of the air-conditioning, the huge aircraft was peculiarly silent.
Conversation in the cabins was prohibited, and the aisles were patrolled by the red-shirted commandos to enforce this edict.
They also ordered the use of the toilets: a passenger must return to his seat before another was allowed to rise. The toilet doors had to remain open during use, so that the commandos could check at a glance.
Despite the silence, there was a crackling atmosphere of tension down the full length of the cabin. Very few of the passengers, mostly the children, were asleep, but the others sat in rigid rows, their faces taut and strained watching their captors with a mixture of hatred and of fear.
Henri, the Frenchman, slipped into the cockpit.
"They are pulling back the armoured cars," he said. He was slim, with a very youthful face and dreaming poet's eyes. He had grown a drooping blond gunfighter's mustache, but the effect was incongruous.
Ingrid looked up at him. "You are so nervous," She shook her head. "it will all be all right."
"I am not nervous," he answered her stiffly.
She chuckled fondly, and reached up to touch his face.
"I did not mean it as an insult." She pulled his face down and kissed him, thrusting her tongue deeply into his mouth.
"You have proved your courage often," she murmured.
He dropped his pistol onto the desk with a clatter and reached for her. The top three buttons of her red cotton shirt were unfastened, and she let him grope and find her breasts.
They were heavy and pointed and his breathing went ragged as he teased out her nipples. They hardened erect like jelly beans but when he reached down with his free hand for the zipper of her shorts, she pushed him away roughly.
"Later," she told him brusquely, "when this is over. Now get back into the cabin." And she leaned forward and lifted a corner of the blanket that screened the side window of the cockpit. The sunlight was very bright but her eyes adjusted swiftly and she saw the row of helmeted heads above the parapet of the observation deck. So they were pulling back the troops as well. It was nearly time to begin talking but she would let them stew in their own juice just a little longer.
She stood up, buttoned her shirt and adjusted the camera on its strap around her neck, paused in the galley to rearrange the shiny mass of golden hair and then walked slowly back down the full length of the central aisle, pausing to adjust the blanket over a sleeping child, to listen attentively to the complaints of the pregnant wife of the Texan neurosurgeon.
"You and the children will be the first off this plane I promise you." When she reached the prone body of the flight engineer, she knelt beside him.
"How is he?"
"He is sleeping now. I shot him full of morphine,"
the fat little doctor muttered, not looking at her, so she could not read the hatred in his expression. The injured arm was elevated to control the bleeding, sticking up stiffly in its cocoon of pressure bandages, oddly foreshortened with the bright ooze of blood through the dressing.
"You are doing good-" She touched his arm. "Thank you." And now he glanced at her startled, and she smiled such a radiant lovely smile, tha
t he began to melt.
"Is that your wife?" Ingrid dropped her voice, so that he alone could hear and he nodded, glancing at the plump little Jewish woman in the nearest seat. "I will see she is amongst the first to leave,"
she murmured, and his gratitude was pathetic. She stood and went on down the aircraft.
The red-shirted German stood at the head of the tourist cabin, beside the curtained entrance to the second galley.
He had the intense drawn face of a religious zealot, dark burning eyes, long black hair falling almost to his shoulders a white scar twisted the corner of his upper lip into a perpetual smirk.
"Kurt, everything is all right?" she asked in German.
"They are complaining of hunger."
"We will feed them in another two hours but not as much as they expect-" and she ran a contemptuous glance down the cabin. "Fat," she said quietly, "big fat bourgeoisie pigs," and she stepped through the curtains into the galley and looked at him in invitation. He followed her immediately, drawing the curtains behind them.
"Where is Karen?" Ingrid asked, as he unbuckled his belt.
She needed it very badly, the excitement and the blood had inflamed her.
"She is resting at the back of the cabin." Ingrid slipped the button that held the front of her shorts together and drew down the zipper. "All right Kurt," she whispered huskily, "but quickly, very quickly." Ingrid sat in the flight engineer's seat; at her shoulder stood the dark-haired girl. She wore the cartridge belt across the shoulder of her bright red shirt, like a bandolier and she carried the big ugly pistol on her hip.
Ingrid held the microphone to her lips, and combed the fingers of her other hand through the thick golden tangle of her tresses as she spoke. One hundred and ninety-eight British subjects. One hundred and forty-six American nationals-" She was reading the list of her captives. "There are one hundred and twenty-two women on board, and twenty-six children under the age of sixteen years." She had been speaking for nearly five minutes and now she broke off and shifted in her seat, turning to smile at Karen over her shoulder. The darkhaired girl smiled in return and reached across to caress the fine mass of golden hair with a narrow bony hand, before letting it drop back to her side.
"We have copied your last transmission."
"Call me Ingrid." She spoke into the mike with the smile turning into a wicked grin. There was a moment's silence as the controller in the tower recovered from his shock.
"Roger, Ingrid. Do you have any further messages for us?"
"Affirmative, Tower. As this is a British aircraft and as three hundred and forty-four of my passengers are either British or American, I want a spokesman, representing the embassies of those countries. I want him here in two hours" time to hear my terms for the release of passengers."
"Stand by, Ingrid. We will be back to you immediately we have been able to contact the ambassadors."
"Don't horse around, Tower." Ingrid's voice snapped. "We both know damned well they are breathing down your neck.
Tell them I want a man here in two hours otherwise I am going to be forced to put down the first hostage." Peter Stride was stripped down to a pair of bathing trunks, and he wore only canvas sneakers on his feet.
Ingrid had insisted on a face-to-face meeting, and Peter had welcomed the opportunity to assess at close range.
"We'll be covering you every inch of the way there and back," Colin Noble told Peter, fussing over him like a coach over his fighter before the gong. "I'm handling the gunners, personally." The snipers were armed with specially hand-built .222 magnums with accurized barrels that threw small light bullets with tremendous velocity and striking power. The ammunition was match-grade, each round lovingly hand finished and polished. The infra-red telescopic sights were readily interchangeable with the laser sights, making the weapon deadly accurate either in daylight or at night. The bullet had a clean, flat trajectory up to seven hundred yards.
They were perfectly designed man-killers, precision weapons that reduced the danger to bystanders or hostages. The light bullet would slam a man down with savage force, as though he had been hit by a charging rhinoceros, but it would break up in his body, and not over-penetrate to kill beyond the target.
"You're getting into a lather," Peter grunted. "They want to talk, not shoot not yet, anyway."
"The female of the species-" Colin warned, that one is real poison."
"More important than the guns are the cameras, and sound equipment."
"I went up there and kicked a few arses.
You'll get pictures that will win you an Oscar my personal guarantee." Colin checked his wristwatch. "Time to go. Don't keep the lady waiting." He punched Peter's shoulder lightly.
"Hang loose," he said, and Peter walked out into the sunshine, lifting both hands above his shoulders, palms open, fingers extended.
The silence was as oppressive as the dry fierce heat, but it was intentional. Peter had frozen all air traffic, and had ordered the shut down of all machinery in the entire terminal area. He did not want any interference with his sound equipment.
There was only the sound of his own footfalls, and he stepped out briskly but still it was the longest walk of his life, and the closer he got to the aircraft, the higher it towered above him. He knew that he had been required to strip almost naked, not only to ensure that he carried no weapons, but to place him at a disadvantage to make him feel ill at ease, vulnerable. It was an old trick the Gestapo always stripped the victim for an interrogation so he held himself proud and tall, pleased that his body was so lean and hard and muscled like an athlete's. He would have hated to drag a big, pendulous gut and sagging old-man's tits across those four hundred yards.
He was half-way there when the forward door, just behind the cockpit, slid back and a group of figures appeared in the square opening. He narrowed his eyes: there were two uniformed figures, no three British Airways uniforms, the two pilots and between them the shorter slimmer feminine figure of a stewardess.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, but beyond them he could make out another head, a blonde head but the angle and the light were against him.
Closer, he saw that the older pilot was on the right, short-cropped grey curls, ruddy round face that would be Watkins, the commander. He was a good man, Peter had studied his service record.
He ignored the co-pilot and stewardess and strained for a glimpse of the figure beyond them, but it was only when he stopped directly below the open hatch that she moved to let him get a clear view of her face.
Peter was startled by the loveliness of that golden head, by the smooth gloss of young sun polished skin and the thundering innocence of wide-set, steady, green eyes for a moment he could not believe she was one of them, then she spoke.
"I am Ingrid," she said. Some of the most poisonous flowers are the loveliest, he thought.
"I am the accredited negotiator for the British and American Governments," he said, and switched his gaze to the beefy red face of Watkins. "How many members of your commando are aboard? "he asked.
"No questions!" Ingrid snapped fiercely, and Cyril Watkins extended four fingers of his right hand down his thigh without a change of expression.
It was vital confirmation of what they already suspected, and Peter felt a rush of gratitude towards the pilot.
"Before we discuss your terms, Peter said, "and out of common humanity, I would like to arrange for the wellbeing and comfort of your hostages."
"They are well cared for."
"Do you need food or drinking water?" The girl threw back her head and laughed delightedly.
"So you can dope it with laxative and have us knee-deep in shit?
Stink us out, hey?" Peter did not pursue it. The doped trays had already been prepared by his doctor"
"You have a gunshot casualty on board?"
"There are no wounded aboard," the girl denied flatly, cutting her laughter short but Watkins made the circular affirmative sign of thumb and forefinger, effectively contradicting her, and Peter no
ticed the spots of dried blood on the sleeves of his white shirt. "That's enough," Ingrid warned Peter. "Ask one more question and we'll break off-"
"All right," Peter agreed quickly. "No more questions."
"The objective of this commando is the ultimate downfall of the brutally fascist, inhuman, neo-imperialistic regime that holds this land in abject slavery and misery denying the great majority of the workers and the proletariat their basic rights as human beings." And that, thought Peter bitterly, even though it's couched in the garbled jargon of the lunatic left, is every bit as bad as it can be. Around the world hundreds of millions would have immediate sympathy, making Peter's task just that little bit more difficult. The hijackers had picked a soft target.
The girl was still speaking, with an intense, almost religious fervour, and as he listened Peter faced the growing certainty that the girl was a fanatic, treading the thin line which divided sanity from madness. Her voice became a harsh screech as she mouthed her hatred and condemnation, and when she had finished he knew that she was capable of anything no cruelty, no baseness was beyond her. He knew that she would not stop even at suicide, the final act of destroying the Boeing, its passengers and herself he suspected she might even welcome the opportunity of martyrdom, and he felt the chill of it tickle up along his spine.