by Greg Iles
"Where is Major Karami?" Smuts asked. "I had hoped to see him again."
Jalloud smiled. "I'm afraid Major Karami was called away at the last
moment to attend to pressing military matters.
I'll bet he was, Smuts thought wryly, flexing his fists to channel off
tension. "Sorry to hear it."
"Would anyone like refreshments?" Hess asked. "It is a long flight
from Tripoli."
"I'm afraid Our Leader has forbidden any delay, Herr Horn," Jalloud said
softly. "He awaits our return with the utmost anticipation."
"To business then. I assume you wish Dr. Sabri to verify.
the weapon's operational readiness before we load it?"
"If we might so impose," Jalloud said timidly.
In that instant, inexplicably, Smuts decided that if trouble was coming,
Prime Minister Jalloud knew nothing about it.
The Afrikaner signaled his marksmen by touching his right eyebrow with
his right hand. He intended to trigger any treachery long before the
Libyans gained access to the basement complex.
"With all respect, Mr. Prime Minister," he said, "I must ask that your
bodyguards wait here. We allow no fiream the basement."
Jalloud looked uncomfortable. "But Our ]Leader provided these men to
assist with the loading of the weapon."
"The bomb weighs more than a thousand kilograms," Smuts replied.
"It must be loaded mechanically. In fact, I have my doubts about your
jet's ability to carry both the weapon and passengers. I had assumed
you would bring a cargo plane."
"I see," Jalloud said slowly, wondering why no one in Tripoli had
thought of this. Or perhaps, he thought with a shiver, someone did. "By
all means," he said. He turned to the bodyguards. "You will wait here
while Dr. Sabri checks the weapon."
Taken aback by this request, the soldiers hesitated. Their orders had
been to wait until they gained access to the basement before carrying
out their mission. But the Afrikaner had forced their hand.
Simultaneously reaching the same conclusion, Major Karami's four
assassins raised their Uzis as one.
Their faces showed even more surprise than Prime Minister Jalloud's when
Smuts's concealed marksmen opened fire with their R-5
assault rifles. The gray-clad-Afrikaners emptied their clips into the
line of assassins from eight meters away, blowing all four backward
against the great teak door.
"The elevator!" Smuts shouted. "Everyone get inside!
Move!"
While Hess's wheelchair whirred toward the open elevator, Prime Minister
Jalloud and Dr. Sabri shouted ri-antic Arabic and crawled along behind
him. Jalloud took a bullet in the left arm, but in his panic he barely
felt it. Smuts had looked back to make sure that Hess was safe inside
the elevator when a stunned Libyan.sat up with a wild cry and let off a
long burst of bullets in his direction.
"Body armor!" Smuts shouted. "Head shots only!"
Bullets ricocheted through the marble-floored reception hall. One
Libyan took Smuts's advice before the Afrikaners did; his teflon-coated
9mm slugs exploded the head of one of Smuts's marksmen like a
cantaloupe. The surviving Afrikaner avenged this loss, then scurried to
shelter behind a large rosewood chiffonier against the far wall.
Another Libyan darted outside to use the doorway as a firing position.
Two seconds later he staggered back into the great hall, blood spurting
from his throat. Smuts's Zulu driver appeared in the doorway with a
long hunting knife in his hand. The Zulu moved quickly to another
downed Arab, dispatched him with his knife, then fell to a long burst
from the surviving Libyan assassin. Smuts's marksman knocked down the
last Libyan as Smuts himself hustled Jalloud and the dazed physicist
into the cubicle where Hess waited.
"Stay here!" Smuts ordered his marksman. "I'll reinforce you soon."
The elevator door slid shut. Ten seconds later, the last Libyan to fall
opened his eyes, brought up his Uzi and fired a sustained burst from the
floor. Two slugs struck the Afrikaner guard in the head, killing him
instantly. Groaning in agony, Major Karami's last surviving assassin
began crawling toward the elevator.
From Hans and Ilse's bedroom the skirmish in the reception hall sounded
like the Battle of the Bulge. When the firing stopped, Hans shoved open
the door.
"Where do we go?" he asked. "Should we try to get out?
They're probably guarding the main doors."
Ilse poked her head outside the door. "There's nowhere to run, I told
you! We've only got onr, chance! Stern!"
Hans could think of no better plan. "All right," he said.
"But stay behind me, understand?"
Another burst of machine gun fire rattled in the reception hall.
"Behind you," Ilse murmured, wondering where Smuts might be holding
Stern.
Keeping close to the wall, they started down the corridor, away from the
sound of the gunfire.
High in the observatory tower, Pieter Smuts searched the ' airstrip
through a pair of powerful Zei@s field glasses. Dusk was falling fast.
He saw the wreckage of the JetRangers shot down last night spread out
over the eastern end of the runway. In the midst of the debris sat
Hess's own Lear, scorched black and missing most of its tail. There was
a single guard standing beneath the Libyan Leaijet.
No one else.
Where was the main body of the assault force? Where was Major Karami?
Behind Smuts, Hess nodded restlessly in his wheelchair.
He was trying desperately to fathom the reason for the Libyan soldiers'
attempt to kill their prime minister. Jalloud himself sat propped
against a bank of satellite recei moaning from the pain of his shattered
arm. Shaking in fear, Dr. Sabri ministered to him as best he could.
"No sign of Karami yet," Smuts said, pulling the field glasses away from
his eyes. "But it will be dark soon. That's when he'll come."
"VAo?" Hess murmured, still dazed by the suddenness of the attack.
"Yes," Jalloud groaned. "It is Karami. It must be."
Smuts glanced at the Vulcan gun. A trim young Afrikaner sat in the
firing cage, his alert eyes checking the fearsome weapon's night-vision
system. Three more gray-clad South Ahicans manned the radar and
communications gear.
"Why?" Hess cried indignantly. "Has Qaddafi gone mad?"
Smuts chuckled quietly. "He always has been. We knew this was a risk.
We needed more time."
14 Sir," interrupted a radar controller, "I show one aircraft
approaching from the north. He's very close. He must have been flying
ten feet off the veld!"
Smuts pressed a button on his console. "Attention unidenfified
aircraft," he said tersely. "You have entered restricted airspace.
Turn back now or you will be fired upon. Repeat, turn or be fired
upon."
"It must be the Air Zimbabwe jet," said the radar man, "An hour ago I
marked him as a civil airliner bound for -Jo'burg. He must have sneaked
off his flight path after he went into the ground clutter."
Smuts waved his hand to the Vulcan gunner. The Afrikaner donned his
/>
targeting goggles and depressed two foot pedals. With a deep hydraulic
hum the entire turret rotated to face the airstrip.
Inside the approaching Yak-42, Major Ilyas Karami stood behind the
anxious pilot and listened indifferently to Smuts's flint-edged threats.
"Do they have anti-aircraft guns, Major?" the pilot asked.
"Shut up!" Karaini snapped. "You know what to say."
The pilot picked up his mike. "This is Air Zimbabwe Flight 132," he
said in a quavering voice. "We are in disWe have an avionics
malfunction. Do you read?"
-"MajorKarami,"crackledSmuts'svoice."Thisisyourfi-,W warning.
Turn back now or be shot out of the sky."
"Your mother fucks goats!" Karami bellowed.
"He knows who you are!" cried the pilot. "The mission's been
compromised! We're unarmed! We must turn back!"
Suddenly a brilliant line of tracer fire flashed.up through the gray
clouds. It passed high over the nose of the jet, then swung back and
forth, searching out the airborne intruder.
"Allah protect us!" the pilot wailed, instinctively beginning an
evasive maneuver. He had flown MiG fighters in combat, but to sit
helpless in an unarmed airliner was a new and terrifying experience
for,him.
Karami pulled a pistol from his hip holster and laid the barrel against
the pilot's temple. "Land this whore!" he shouted. "Now!"
"Where?" shrieked the pilot.
"I see the flares!" the copilot yelled. "Dive!"
Steeling his nerves, the pilot banked sharply and headed down toward a
line of flares laid by Jailoud's "bodyguards."
It would be a belly-flop landing, but he didn't care. Never in his life
had he wanted so badly to get on the ground.
Smuts cursed as he saw the chain Of green starbursts light up the center
line of the runway. "Shoot out the flares!" he screamed.
"They can't land without them!"
6,M y goggles are going crazy!" the gunner protested. "I can't see a
bloody thing!"
"Take them off! Shoot!"
The roar of the Vulcan blotted out everything. Hess covered his ears
and shouted something, but no one heard him.
The gunner made a valiant effort to extinguish the flares, but only
succeeded in knocking a few out of line. The main effect of the Vulcan
was to rip the surface of the newly laid asphalt to pieces.
Suddenly Hess gasped in horror. Dropping out of the sky like a great
prrhistoric bird was the Libyan Yak-42. It roared past the turret in
profile as it fell earthkvard.
"There they are!" Smuts yelled. "Fire! Fire!"
The gunner depressed his trigger. Scarlet tracer rounds arced from the
Vulcan's flaming barrels, reaching out for the black apparition ...
Suddenly the turret's elevator door hissed open. Smuts turned in
disbelief, then dived protectively across Hess's wheelchair.
Inside the elevator-Trapped on the floor with his back against the
wall-was the surviving Libyan assassi screamed a curse, raised his Uzi
and fired. Bullets sprayed wildly throughout the confined space,
hammering the polycarbonate windows and tearing through the faceplates
of sensitive electronic gear. One of the South African technicians took
a round in the back of the head and fell dead over his console. The
radar technician managed to draw his pistol and get off three shots
before a ricochet caught him in the neck.
And then there was silence. The Libyan had run out of ammunition.
Smuts heaved himself off of Hess, picked up the dead radar man's pistol,
and shot the Libyan twice through the face. It took him three more
seconds to realize the true significance of the silence. The Vulcan had
stopped firing! When Smuts whirled he saw why. His gunner had been
blinded by flying glass. Worse, the Vulcan's electronic targeting
system had been damaged beyond repair!
"The prime minister has been hit again!" Dr. Sabri cried.
Smuts took no notice of the physicist. He darted to the broad window.
The Libyan jet had landed safely! Through his field glasses he watched
fifty commandos spill onto the tarmac. He forced himself to stay calm.
Soon the Libyans would be at the edge of the shallow bolo that
surrounded the house. Inside the killing zone. He dropped his field
glasses and jerked the bleeding gunner from the Vulcan's operating
chair, then climbed in himself. He put his eyes to the visual aiming
goggles and scanned the airstrip. Beneath a wide door in the rear of
the Yak-42 he saw Arabs lowering some type of artillery piece from the
plane by means of winches. Smuts grinned like a demon and opened fire.
The armor-piercing bullets streaked across the Wash and raced toward the
plane.
But just as the tracer beam reached the laboring Arabs, Smuts released
the trigger. Destroying the jet might not be the smartest option in
these circumstances, he realized. With no means of escape, the Libyans
might fight twice as fiercely to take the house. As he watched the
Arabs beneath the plane, Smuts noticed something sitting about ten
meters behind the Yak-42's tail. It was a pickup truck.
What the hell is that for? he wondered. Then he knew. They'd brought
the truck to tow the big gun and to haul their stolen bomb from the
house to the plane! Smuts jammed his thumb down on the Vulcan's
trigger. It took longer than normal to acquire the Toyota using visual
aiming only, but once he did, the uranium-tipped slugs chewed the Toyota
into scrap metal in seconds.
The gas tank fireballed and set aflame three Libyans beneath the plane.
Smuts climbed out of the Vulcan d went to the panel of an switches that
controlled his Claymore mines. His only real worry was the heavy gun.
He would wait until the soldiers got it away from the plane; then he
would destroy men and machine together. He pressed a button on the
console and spoke crisply: "Bunker gunners, prepare to fire at will."
He turned to Hess. "We'd better raise the shields, sir. We @an't risk
letting even one man get irito the basement complex."
"The prime minister is dead!" howled Dr. Sabri from the floor.
Hess rolled his wheelchair over to the bloodied mound of robes lying
near the base of the Vulcan. Prime Minister Jalloud-minus the lower
part of his face-stared blankly upward at the steel roof of the turret.
Two of the Libyan's bullets had found him.
"The shields, sir," Smuts repeated, reaching for the appropriate button.
"Wait!" Hess ordered. "Frau Apfel is still in the outer triangle."
Smuts grimaced with forbearance. "As are Lieutenant Luhr, Linah, the
medical staff, the rest of the servants, and the Jew. Sir, we cannot
afford to wait."
The old man's frantic eyes searched the closed-circuit television
monitors above their heads. Although the cameras showed most of the
outer rooms, he saw no sign of Ilse.
"But ... Pieter, she saved my life! If we shut her outside@' "The
Libyans will never reach the house," Smuts assured him, his voice taut.
"But we must raise the shields, just in case."
"Very well," Hess said thickly. "Raise the shields."
Smuts pressed th
e button. Throughout Horn House, black anodized metal
shields rose up from the floor, blocking every door, staircase, and
window leading from the outer wings to the central complex. The
Afrikaner sighed with satisfaction.
Suddenly an explosion rocked the turret. Leaping to the window in
alarm, Smuts heard the distinctive crump of a mortar. Seconds later a
round fell just short of the outer wall of the house. Two more crashed
through the roof of the west wing. Horn House was on fire. As if urged
forward by d flames, twenty Libyan commandos started across the killing
zone at a fast run.
"Damn you, Karami!" Smuts shouted. He climbed back into the Vulcan and
opened up on the Libyan mortar position&. He quickly silenced one, but
a replacement immediately took its place. After forty seconds of
continuous firing, the Vulcan's drum magazine ran out.
Smuts screamed at one of his soldiers: "Hurry, -man! Load the fucking
gun!"
While the Libyan machine guns chattered and the mortar shells rained
down on the outer walls, Smuts scanned the dark rim of the bowl.
Just as he started to look away from the horizon, he saw the help he had
desperately hoped for. A hundred meters southeast of the Libyans, a
squat black shape stood silhouetted against the lesser shadow of the
falling night. A pair of halogen headlamps winked once, twice, then
died. The black shape crept slowly forward, hesitated again.
By God, that's Graaff, Smuts thought with elation. "It's Major Graaff!"
he cried. "He made it!" Smuts hammered his fists against the Vulcan in
triumph. If he knew Graaff, that armored car was only the spearhead of
a veritable army!
"Drum loaded!" shouted the man beneath the VulcanSmuts fired a
celebratory burst into the darkening sky, then he opened up on the
Libyans with a vengeance.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Poised on the ridge above Smuts's killing zone, Hauer watched the burst
of spectacular tracer fire lance up into the sky from the observatory
turret.
"That's itf' he shouted. "They think Major Graaff sent us!
Go!"
"Wait!" General Steyn called to the Armscor's driver.
"Look at that tracer fire, Hauer. That's a rotary cannon. This
vehicle's tough, but they could blow us to pieces in seconds with that
gun."
Hauer ripped his respirator aside. "General, you gave me tactical
command of this operation!"
