by Wilbur Smith
‘What is the buzz, Colin Peter Stride demanded as he slammed the Rover’s door and hurried to meet the American. It had taken him some time and conscious effort to adapt his language and mode of address to fit in with his new second-in-command. He had learned very early not to expect that, merely because he was the youngest major-general in the British army, Colonel Colin Noble was going to call him ‘Sir’ every time he spoke.
‘Missing aircraft.’ It could have been a train, an embassy, even an ocean liner, Peter realized. ‘British Airways. For Chrissake let’s get out of the cold.’ The wind was flapping the legs of Colin’s overalls and tugging at his sleeves.
‘Where?’
‘Indian Ocean.’
‘Are we set for Bravo?’ Peter asked as they climbed into his command plane.
‘All set.’
The interior of the Hawker had been restyled to make it a compact headquarters and communications centre.
There was comfortable seating for four officers directly behind the flight deck. Then the two electronic engineers and their equipment occupied a separate rear compartment, beyond which were the small toilet and galley in the extreme rear.
One of the technicians looked through the communicating door as Peter stooped into the cabin. ‘Good evening, General Stride – we have a direct link with Atlas established.’
‘Put him on the screen,’ he ordered as he sank into the padded leather of his chair behind the small working desk.
There was a single fourteen-inch main television screen in the panel directly facing Peter, and above it four smaller six-inch screens for conference communication. The main screen came alive, and the image of the big noble leonine head firmed.
‘Good afternoon, Peter.’ The smile was warm, charismatic, compelling.
‘Good evening, sir:’
And Dr Kingston Parker tilted his head slightly to acknowledge the reference to the time difference between Washington and England.
‘Right at this moment we are in the dark completely. All we have is that BA 070 with four hundred and one passengers and sixteen crew on a flight from Mahé to Nairobi has not reported for thirty-two minutes.’
Parker was Chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Board, among other duties, and he reported directly to the President of the United States in that capacity. He was the President’s personal and trusted friend. They had been in the same class at Annapolis, both of them had graduated in the top twenty but, unlike the President, Parker had gone directly into government.
Parker was an artist, a talented musician, the author of four scholarly works of philosophy and politics, and a grand master of chess. A man of overwhelming presence, of vast humanity and towering intelligence. Yet also he was a secret man, avoiding the glaring scrutiny of the media, hiding his ambitions, if ambitions he had – although the presidency of the United States would not be an impossible dream to such a man – only taking up with rare skill and strength any burden that was thrust upon him.
Peter Stride had met him personally on half a dozen occasions since being seconded to Thor. He had spent a weekend with Parker at his New York home, and his respect for the man had become boundless. Peter realized that he was the perfect head for such a complex concept as Atlas: it needed the philosopher’s tempering influence over trained soldiers, it needed the tact and charisma of the diplomat to deal directly with the heads of two governments, and it needed that steely intellect to make the ultimate decision that could involve hundreds of innocent lives and incur fearsome political consequences.
Now swiftly and incisively he told Peter what little they knew of Flight 070 and what search and rescue routine was already in force, before going on, ‘Without being alarmist, this does seem to be the perfect target. The flight carries most of the world’s leading surgeons, and the convention was public knowledge eighteen months ago. Doctors have the necessary image to appeal to public sentiment and their nationalities are nicely mixed – American, British, French, Scandinavian, German, Italian – three of those countries have notoriously soft records with militant activity. It’s a British aircraft, and the final destination would probably have been chosen to further complicate the issue and inhibit any counter-action.’
Parker paused, and a small crease of worry appeared for a moment in the broad smooth forehead.
‘I have put Mercury on condition Alpha as well – if this is a strike the final destination could just as easily be eastwards of the aircraft’s last reported position.’
Atlas’s offensive arm comprised three identical units. Thor would be used only in Europe or Africa. Mercury was based on the American Naval base in Indonesia and covered Asia and Australasia, while Diana was in Washington itself and ready for counteraction in either of the American continents.
‘I have Tanner of Mercury on the other relay now. I will be back to you in a few seconds, Peter.’
‘Very well, sir.’
The screen went blank, and in the chair beside him Colin Noble lit one of his expensive Dutch cheroots and crossed his ankles on the desk in front of him.
‘Seems the great god Thor came down to earth for a little poontang. When he’d finished pleasuring one of the vestal virgins he thought he’d let her know the honour she’d been given. “I’m Thor,” he told her. “Tho am I,” she agreed, “but it wath loth of fun.”’
Peter shook his head sorrowfully. ‘That’s funny?’ he asked.
‘Helps to while away the time.’ Colin glanced at his wristwatch. ‘If this is another false alarm, it’s going to make it thirteen straight.’ He yawned. There was nothing to do. It had all been done before. Everything was in the ultimate state of readiness. In the huge Hercules transport, every item of a comprehensive arsenal of equipment was ready for instant use. The thirty highly trained soldiers were embarked. The flight crews of both aircraft were at their stations, the communications technicians had set up their links with satellites and through them to the available intelligence computers in Washington and London. It remained only to wait – the greater part of a soldier’s life was spent waiting, but Peter had never become hardened to it. It helped now to have the companionship of Colin Noble.
In a life spent in the company of many men it was difficult to form close relationships. Here in the smaller closed ranks of Thor in shared endeavour they had achieved that and become friends, and their conversation was relaxed and desultory, moving casually from subject to subject, but without relaxing the undercurrent of alertness that gripped both men.
At one stage Kingston Parker came on the screen again to tell them that search and rescue aircraft had found no indications at the last reported position of 070, and that a photographic run by the ‘Big Bird’ reconnaissance satellite had been made over the same area, but that film would not be ready for appraisal for another fourteen hours. Speedbird 070 was now one hour six minutes past ‘operations normal’ and suddenly Peter remembered Melissa-Jane. He asked communications for a telephone line and dialled the cottage. There was no reply, so the driver would have collected her already. He hung up and rang Cynthia in Cambridge.
‘Damn it, Peter. This really is most inconsiderate of you.’ Freshly aroused from sleep, her voice was petulant, immediately awakening only antipathies. ‘Melissa has been looking forward to this—’
‘Yes, I know, and so have I.’
‘– and George and I had arranged—’ George, her new husband, was a Political History don; despite himself Peter quite liked the man. He had been very good to Meliasa-Jane.
‘The exigencies of the service.’ Peter cut in lightly – and her voice took on a bitter edge.
‘How often I had to listen to that – I hoped never to hear it again.’ They were on the same futile old treadmill, and he had to stop it.
‘Look, Cynthia. Melissa is on her way—’
In front of him the big television screen lit and Kingston Parker’s eyes were dark with regret, as though he mourned for all mankind.
‘I have to go,’ Peter told the woman
whom once he had loved, and broke the connection, leaning forward attentively towards the image on the screen.
‘The South African radar defences have painted an unidentified target approaching their airspace,’ Kingston Parker told him. ‘Its speed and position correspond with those of 070. They have scrambled a Mirage flight to intercept – but in the meantime I’m assuming that it’s a militant strike and we’ll go immediately to condition Bravo, if you please, Peter.’
‘We are on our way, sir.’
And beside him Colin Noble took his feet off the desk and thumped them together onto the floor. The cheroot was still clamped between his teeth.
The target was live and the pilot of the leading Mirage F.1 interceptor had his flight computer in ‘attack’ mode and all his weaponry – missiles and cannon – were armed. The computer gave him a time to intercept of thirty-three seconds, and the target’s heading was constant at 210° magnetic and its ground speed at 483 knots.
Ahead of him the dawn was rising in wildly theatrical display. Avalanches of silver and pink cloud tumbled down the sky, and the sun, still below the horizon, flung long lances of golden light across the heavens. The pilot leaned forward against his shoulder straps and lifted the Polaroid visor of his helmet with one gloved hand, straining ahead for the first glimpse of the target.
His trained gunfighter’s eye picked out the dark speck against the distracting background of cloud and sunlight and he made an almost imperceptible movement of the controls to avoid the direct head-on approach to the target.
The speck swelled in size with disturbing rapidity as they converged at combined speeds of nearly fifteen hundred miles per hour, and at the instant he was certain of his identification the leader took his flight, still in a tight ‘finger five’, up into a vertical climb from which they rolled out neatly five thousand feet above the target and on the same heading, immediately reducing power to conform in speed to the big aircraft far below.
‘Cheetah, this is Diamond leader – we are visual, and target is a Boeing 747 bearing British Airways markings.’
‘Diamond Leader, this is Cheetah, conform to target, maintain five thousand feet separation and avoid any threatening attitudes. Report again in sixty seconds.’
Major-General Peter Stride’s executive jet was arrowing southwards and leaving its enormous protégé lumbering ponderously along in its wake. Every minute increased the distance between the two aircraft, and by the time they reached their ultimate destination – wherever that might be – there would probably be a thousand miles or more separating them.
However, the big Hercules’s slow speed became a virtue when the need arose to take its heavy load of men and equipment into short unsurfaced strips in unlikely corners of the earth – perhaps in the ‘hot and high’ conditions that a pilot most dreads.
It was the Hawker’s job to get Peter Stride to the scene of terrorist activity as swiftly as possible, and the general’s job once there to stall and procrastinate and bargain until Colin Noble’s assault team caught up with him.
The two men were still in contact, however, and the small central television screen in front of Peter was permanently lit with a view of the interior of the Hercules’s main hold. When he lifted his head from his work, Peter Stride could see a picture of his troops, all in the casual Thor overalls, lounging or sprawled in abandoned attitudes of relaxation down the central aisle of the Hercules. They also were veterans at the hard game of waiting, while in the foreground Colin Noble sat at his small work desk, going through the voluminous check list for ‘condition Charlie’ which was the next state of alert when terrorist activity was confirmed.
Watching Colin Noble at work, Peter Stride found a moment to ponder once again the enormous cost of maintaining Atlas, most of it paid by the United States intelligence budget, and the obstacles and resistance that had been overcome to launch the project in the first place. Only the success of the Israelis at Entebbe and of the Germans at Mogadishu had made it possible, but there was still violent opposition in both countries to maintaining a dual national counteraction force.
With a preliminary click and hum the central screen of Peter’s communications console came alive and Dr Parker spoke before his image had properly hardened.
‘I’m afraid it’s condition Charlie, Peter,’ he said softly, and Peter was aware of the rush of his blood through his veins. It was natural for a soldier whose entire life had been spent in training for a special moment in time to welcome the arrival of that moment – yet he found contempt for himself in that emotion; no sane man should anticipate violence and death, and all the misery and suffering which attended them.
– the South Africans have intercepted and identified 070. It entered their airspace forty-five seconds ago.’
‘Radio contact?’ Peter asked.
‘No.’ Parker shook his great head. ‘It is declining contact, and we must assume that it is under the control of militants – so now I’m going to be at this desk until this thing is settled.’ Kingston Parker never used the emotive word ‘terrorist’ and he did not like to hear it from his subordinates either.
‘Never hate your adversary blindly,’ he had told Peter once. ‘Understand his motives, recognize and respect his strengths – and you will be better prepared to meet him.’
‘What co-operation can we expect? Peter asked.
‘All African States that we have so far been able to contact have offered full co-operation, including overflight, landing and refuelling facilities – and the South Africans are being helpful. I have spoken to their defence minister and he has offered the fullest possible co-operation. They will refuse 070 landing clearance, of course, and I anticipate that it will have to go on to one of the black states farther north, which is probably the militants’ intention anyway. I think you know my views about South Africa – but in this instance I must say they are being very good.’
Parker brought into the television shot a black briar pipe with a big round bowl, and began to stuff it with tobacco. His hands were large, like the rest of his body, but the fingers were long and supple as those of a pianist – which of course he was. And Peter remembered the scented smell of the tobacco he smoked. Even though he was a non-smoker, Peter had not found the odour offensive. Both men were silent, deep in thought, Parker frowning slightly as he seemed to concentrate on his pipe. Then he sighed and looked up again.
‘All right, Peter. Let’s hear what you have.’
Peter shuffled through the notes he had been making. ‘I have prepared four tentative scenarios and our responses to each, sir. The most important consideration is whether this is a strike “a l’allemande” or “A l’italienne”—’
Parker nodded, listening; although this was well-travelled ground they must go over it again. A strike in the Italian fashion was the easier to resolve, a straight demand for cash. The German tradition involved release of prisoners, social and political demands that crossed national boundaries. They worked on for another hour before they were interrupted again.
‘Good God.’ It was a measure of Kingston. Parker’s astonishment that he used such strong language. ‘We have a new development here—’
It was only when 070 joined the eastern airway and began to initiate a standard approach and let down, began to initiate a standard approach and let down, without however obtaining air traffic control clearance, that South African Airforce Command suddenly realized what was about to happen.
Immediately emergency silence was imposed on all the aviation frequencies while the approaching flight was bombarded by urgent commands to immediately vacate national airspace. There was no response whatsoever, and one hundred and fifty nautical miles out from Jan Smuts International Airport the Boeing reduced power and commenced a sedate descent to enter controlled airspace.
‘British Airways 070 this is Jan Smuts Control, you are expressly refused clearance to join the circuit. Do you read me, 070?’
‘British Airways 070 this is Airforce Command. You are
warned that you are in violation of national airspace. You are ordered to climb immediately to thirty thousand feet and turn on course for Nairobi.’
The Boeing was a hundred nautical miles out and descending through fifteen thousand feet.
‘Diamond Leader, this is Cheetah. Take the target under command and enforce departure clearance.’
The long sleek aircraft in its mottled green and brown battle camouflage dropped like a dart, rapidly overhauling the huge multi-engined giant, diving down just behind the tailplane and then pulling up steeply in front of the gaily painted red, white and blue nose.
Skilfully the Mirage pilot stationed his nimble little machine one hundred feet ahead of the Boeing and rocked his wings in the ‘Follow me’ command.
The Boeing sailed on serenely as though it had not seen or understood. The Mirage pilot nudged his throttles and the gap between the two aircraft narrowed down to fifty feet. Again he rocked his wings and began a steady rate-one turn onto the northerly heading ordered by Cheetah.
The Boeing held rock steady on its standard approach towards Johannesburg, forcing the Mirage leader to abandon his attempts to lead her away.
He edged back alongside, keeping just above the jet-blast of the Boeing’s port engines until he was level with the cockpit and could stare across a gap of merely fifty feet.
‘Cheetah, this is Diamond One. I have a good view into target’s flight deck. There is a fourth person in the cockpit. It’s a woman. She appears to be armed with a machine pistol.’
The faces of the two pilots were white as bone as they turned to watch the interceptor. The woman leaned over the back of the left-hand seat, and lifted the clumsy black weapon in an ironic salute. She smiled and the Mirage pilot was close enough to see how white her teeth were.
‘– a young woman, blonde hair, mooi, baie mooi—’ the Mirage pilot reported. ‘Pretty – very pretty.’
