Hackitt wet his lips. “Crash land?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe. We’re built to float a while, you know.” Hackitt grinned tightly. “This little ship can do a lot of surprising things—if I’m good enough to coax her into it.”
“How long could we float?”
“Six, maybe eight hours. The wings have flotation tanks in ’em.”
“Put us down, then.”
“On this sea?”
“You’ve got to.”
Hackitt said, “We could follow orders—land where they tell us. Put up a protest that we were lured into their air space by a false beacon—” “Maybe. But there’s something aboard that they want and which Washington’s got to have. Put us down,” Durell said.
“We might all be killed,” Hackitt whispered.
“That’s the general idea.”
Durell looked down at the sea below. The wind had covered the surface of the water with heavy whitecaps. It looked hard and cold and dark down there under the lowering skies. He drew a deep breath, and his mouth felt dry. He turned his head and stared back at the cabin door, then looked down at the sea again.
From above came the first warning scream of another jet fighter dropping upon them.
“Let’s go down,” he said quietly.
Chapter Ten
THE KT-4 floated downhill on a slope of air, sliding to the surface of the sea. The water waited sullenly for them. It seemed to reach up all around the horizon to embrace the dying plane.
“Here they come again,” Hackitt whispered.
The jets glistened like silver darts against the black overhang of clouds. At the same time, a burst of violently angry voices sounded in Hackitt’s earphones, audible even to Durell as he stood beside the Texan.
“What’s it all about?” Hackitt asked.
“They’ve tuned to your wave length, Harry. It’s Russian. It’s probably the squadron leader upstairs. He orders you to level off and follow him at once.”
“Back to his field?”
“He says you’ve intruded into Soviet territory. Follow—or else.”
Hackitt pulled off his earphones angrily. “To hell with that jazz. I was sucked off course deliberately.” He looked questioningly at Durell. “What do I do?”
“Put us down.”
“We could all get killed real fast down there.”
“It’s got to be done,” Durell said. “Keep banking south. There’s something over there—see it? On the water.”
A solitary shape had broken the heaving monotony of gray sea in their range of vision. It was only a blur, a splinter tossing on the uneasy surface of the water far to the south.
“Could be a fishing trawler,” Hackitt muttered. “Turkish, I hope.”
“Can you reach it?”
“Not unless you want to get shot to pieces here and now.” “Then get as close to it as you can before we crash. I’m going back to get everybody strapped in.”
The KT-4 sank lower, sliding on delicate, sensitive wings. Durell ducked through the narrow doorway into the main cabin. He looked up into a gun in Bert Anderson’s hand. Sprawled on the aisle floor behind the courier was John Stuyvers, bleeding from nose and mouth.
“He tried it again,” Anderson said gustily. “Why axe we going down?”
“You saw the MIGs?”
“Yes, but—”
“We’ll crash land to get away from them.”
“Are you crazy?” Anderson’s big, protuberant eyes seemed to pop even further in outrage. “We’ll drown in five minutes down there.”
“It’s the lesser of two evils.”
Colonel Wickham lurched to his feet, his normally florid face pasty white. “See here, Durell, you’ll kill us all! I demand —I order you to obey the instructions of those fighter planes out there! I’m sure it’s all a mistake—we can explain—the pilot’s at fault—”
Durell faced them all. “I suggest you all take your seats and buckle yourselves in. We’ll hit the water in less than three minutes.”
“But—it’s suicide!” Wickham whispered.
Durell pointed to John Stuyvers’ unconscious figure in the aisle. “Pick him up, Colonel. Help him, Susan. Strap him into the seat with you.”
Susan looked dazed. There were finger marks on her cheek where someone had struck her. Durell glanced at Francesca. She sat still beside Kappic. Kappic was disarmed. His dark, Turkish face was furious.
“This courier of yours,” Kappic said softly, “wants to take command. Everybody has gone crazy here.”
“All right, Bert,” Durell said. “Put down your gun.”
“Get out of my way,” Anderson said. “I’m going to talk to the pilot.”
“What for?”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you. Step aside!”
But at that moment there came a sudden rapid shuddering all through the plane, as if a giant hand quickly hammered a succession of blows all along the fuselage. Metal screamed, and smoke filled the compartment. The plane lurched, fell off on one wing. Durell staggered back to the pilot’s door, and Anderson fell with him. There was a confusion of hoarse shouts and screams in the cabin. Durell felt himself slide to the left as the KT-4 went into a long, turning spin. Air howled through the holes torn in the side of the cabin. One of the MIGs had become impatient and sent a burst of shells into the unarmed ship. Durell had a fleeting moment of concern over Hackitt, wondering if the young Texan had been killed—and then, groaning, the KT-4 began to pull out of its dive. Metal cracked and made loud protests as the strain on the long wings took effect. Durell shoved hard at Anderson’s weight. The man had struck his head against the compartment wall. He looked dazed, and offered no resistance when Durell took his gun from him.
Then they struck the sea.
The first jolt was like a hammer blow that slammed into Durell’s spine with enormous impact. He braced his shoulders against the bulkhead, his feet pushing at the nearest seat. The plane slanted up, leveled off, and came down again.
The second impact seemed worse than the first. Several of the others came sprawling down the aisle in a screaming heap near Durell as more metal crashed and tore. Someone screamed in terror and pain.
They struck a third time.
The tail came up and there came another tumble of bodies, arms, legs and anguished faces around Durell. He ducked his head between his knees and braced himself. The nose went down, and there was a vast crashing sound of surging water.
Then the nose lifted and the tail leveled off.
They stopped moving.
There was only the rise and fall of the sea on which they floated for the moment. The silence seemed deafening.
Durell was the first to move. He pushed at someone sprawled across his flexed knees and saw it was Wickham. The colonel was deathly pale. A streak of blood ran from under his brush of white hair. He looked dead. Durell shoved his weight aside and tried to stand up. Pain stabbed at his side. He tried again. He saw Francesca’s white face, and her mouth was open as if to scream at him. But no sound came from her. He stood up.
The floor of the cabin heaved up and down uncertainly. The sound of the sea came through the twisted metal sides of the cabin. Water poured in a thin stream, as if from a hose, through one of the holes torn by the MIGs bullets. It sprayed them all with an icy impact. Durell stared at it without thinking for a moment. He felt numb. He heard groans and whispers all around him as the others stirred. He saw Susan get up and look around uncertainly. She saw him and smiled at him.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes. Yes, I think so.”
“Good,” he said. “Help me.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not,” he said, not sure if this was the truth. He pointed to the flooding hole in the plane’s side. “Let’s stuff that with some loose clothing or blankets.”
“Shouldn’t we get out of here?”
“The plane is supposed to float for hours. It’s saf
est here.” “But if we’re taking in water—”
“Get a blanket,” he repeated.
He moved away toward the stern, where the leak threatened to swamp them in minutes. Already the water was ankle-deep on the cabin floor, and it dragged at his feet with an icy grip. Susan thrust a thin coat into his hands. It was her own. He hesitated, took it, and crammed it into the jagged hole in the plane’s skin. The metal tore at the cloth and the water spurted wildly all around him. He crammed it in further and held it, twisting. The plug of cloth held. Only a small trickle oozed in, running to the cabin floor.
Durell straightened and looked out through the small port window before him. The KT-4 had snapped off one end of the starboard wing, but she floated easily, sustained by the extraordinarily long wingspan that remained. The Black Sea seemed anxious to fulfill its name; the swells were long and dark, racing down from the north with whitecaps riding the crests. The seas broke over the wings and poured in dark streams over the shining metal and smashed angrily at the cabin hull. Durell watched it for a moment. The plane lifted and fell lightly on the heaving water. They didn’t seem to be sinking. He turned away to consider the others.
Miraculously, no one was killed. Wickham was seated now, his uniform rumpled and bloodied from the crack on the scalp he had suffered. He sat on the aisle floor with his back against an overturned seat and whimpered as Durell approached.
“Colonel, can you stand up?”
The man’s eyes were blank with shock, and Durell turned to Susan. “Can you take care of him?”
“What can I do?”
“Just keep him quiet. Find a bottle, if there’s one that hasn’t been broken. I suspect his kit-bag has some Scotch. Feed him some.”
“Are we going to sink?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we climb out?”
“No. Not yet.”
She looked at Wickham with her face smoothed into an expressionless mask, once again in the flat planes of her public character. Durell left her and worked his way forward toward Francesca. The dark-haired girl was trying to get Kappic on his feet. The Turk’s face was a strange yellowish color. Francesca slipped and splashed in the water and fell against Durell. He steadied her and turned to the Turk. “What happened to you?”
“My leg—I think it is broken. I will try—” Kappic pushed himself erect, put some weight on his left foot, and grunted. Great beads of sweat suddenly jumped out of his dark skin. His mouth contorted as he reached down and pulled at his trouser leg. Blood covered his shin, and through the blood glistened the end of a splintered bone. The Turk looked up with his lips skinned back over white teeth. “Can you help me set it?”
“I know how,” Francesca said. She pushed back her dark hair. “But I don’t have the strength.”
“Anderson?” Durell said.
The big man still looked dazed. “Yes?”
“Can you help the lieutenant?”
“What about the pilot?”
“We’ll stay afloat for a few hours. Take care of Kappic, will you?”
Anderson gestured toward John Stuyvers. “What about him?”
Durell glanced at the missionary, who lay back on one of the seats, his face gray. His eyes were open and he kept muttering to himself.
“What is it?” Durell asked.
“My bag—I lost it—”
Durell looked through the tangled piles of coats and bags and paraphernalia that had tumbled about with the impact. He found the bag jammed under a broken packet of rations, and swung the load of books into Stuyvers’ lap. At the same time, he thought with despair that the tapes might be irretrievably lost now. In the confusion of the last few minutes, anything might have been done with them by whoever had it, since those who were set to watch the others, Kappic and Anderson, had been busy with other things. He had gambled against heavy odds, Durell thought—and now it looked as if he had lost. The tapes could easily have been jettisoned into the wreckage tumbled about the cabin. He surveyed the disorder with dark, angry eyes, then abruptly turned and went forward into the pilot’s compartment and closed the door after him. He spoke to the back of the Texan’s head.
“Harry?”
He spoke Hackitt’s name again, then stood still. There was a shattered panel of plexiglass in the pilot’s bubble. The straw-haired Texan sat at the controls, one hand gripping the wheel. The sea surged impersonally beyond the fragile nose of the plane. Hackitt had brought them down safely, skipping from the crest of one swell to the next, repeating the maneuver three times, until he was able to settle the ship on the surface of the uneasy sea.
But one of the MIG slugs had burst the plexiglass bubble over Hackitt and slammed into his back and ruptured the young man’s internal organs. There was not much blood, except for some that ran down one leg into the scuffed cowhide boots that Hackitt had worn to remind himself of Texas. Somehow the boy had brought them all down safely —and then he had died.
Chapter Eleven
DURELL eased out a long, slow breath. He did not touch the dead man. He squeezed past the pilot’s bucket seat to get a wide, sweeping glimpse of the sky. A distant, rumbling thunder of jet exhausts shook the dark vaulted clouds. Rain spattered on the glass overhead. He could not locate the jets until a dark pinpoint came through the lowering clouds and swiftly grew into the sleek, swept-wing shape of the MIG, screaming over the sea to observe them, crashing overhead with an ear-splitting thunder. Then it lifted gracefully in a long sweeping bank and vanished to the north.
Presently the ominous thundering ended, echoing away beyond the horizon.
Durell looked at his watch. It was almost noon.
He wondered how soon a vessel would come this way, prompted by radio directions from the MIGs, to pick them up.
He knew that whatever happened, he could not let himself or Uvaldi’s tapes be taken this way. Yet, there was nothing he could do. He wasn’t even sure he could stay alive.
The sea was choppy, setting in from the north, where the wind blew in spiteful gusts. The trawler they had seen from above was lost beyond the dark horizon of heaving swells and shredded clouds. Rain moved in thick patterns over the dark water, and a few drops found their way into the pilot’s compartment and touched Durell’s face. He studied the long, tapering wings that kept them afloat. In theory, the KT-4 could sustain itself indefinitely on a calm sea; but the Black Sea was not noted for being calm at this season of the year. Durell shivered. Already the cold was creeping into the wrecked ship, now that the engine was silent and the sea air attacked the cabin.
Perhaps the fishing boat they’d seen would try to reach them first. But even if the little vessel was on its way, it
would take three or four hours to be found. By now, other Naval forces would be steaming at top speed to pick them up.
I would be a race, Durell thought, between the clumsy trawler and the high-speed ships sent from the north to find them.
And there were other elements in the race—the question of how long the KT-4 would stay intact in the roughening sea, and how long the survivors could co-operate for their mutual safety.
Someone back in the cabin was a traitor. Durell was sure of this. But suspicion pointed in several directions at once, and he was haunted by the question of identity. Perhaps now that survival was paramount, the strain would crack his opponent’s facade of innocence.
But he made no mistake about this. His enemy was smart and ruthless. He—or she—had killed Uvaldi back in Karagh. Killed efficiently and professionally, with no hesitation. They were all in danger? Durell concluded—not only from the sea and what might be heading toward them from over the horizons of the sea, but from the killer among them who would not scruple to kill again if the success of his mission was threatened.
Someone knocked on the cabin door and opened it. It was Francesca. The dark-haired girl looked pale, and her large gray eyes were clouded with concern. She glanced quickly at Hackitt’s body and closed her eyes for a moment, swallowing.
“He’s dead,” Durell offe
red quietly. “Take it easy, Francesca.”
“Yes. I came here thinking there might be some medical kit for Kappic. Anderson helped me set his leg, but the pain is terrible for him. If I could just find some drugs, some morphine—”
“I think he’ll just have to stand still for it,” Durell said. “He didn’t ask for an opiate, did he?”
“No, but I thought—”
“He would refuse one, anyway,” Durell said. “And I want Kappic awake and with his eyes open, even if it does cost him some sweat.”
“I don’t understand. Do we stay on the plane, really? In this sea?”
“We have no choice. There are no life rafts,” Durell said. “Well, if you think we can survive. . . She paused and bent her head toward the main cabin. “Some of them back there seem determined to commit suicide, the way they behave.”
“I’m not so sure of that. Do you trust any of them, Francesca?”
“No, but—” She paused. “Kappic wants to talk to you, Sam. Alone, if possible. He’s got something on his mind, but I don’t know what it is. But he changed, the moment the MIGs shot us down.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. It’s not just his broken leg, though God knows it must be painful for him. He—his voice, his manner —it just changed, that’s all. And he wants to talk to you.” “All right,” Durell said. “I’ll see him right away.”
“Please. Wait a moment.” The girl turned away, shivering, to look at the sea that washed sullenly over the KT-4’s wings. The sky seemed darker. The rain came down with a heavy persistence on the wreckage. The movement of the plane seemed more uncertain, and certain creaking, snapping noises sounded through the fragile length of the cabin as they lifted and fell on the choppy currents. Francesca said thinly, “If we stay afloat—and if a ship comes to take you prisoner —what happens to someone like you, Sam?”
“I might be shot,” he said. “Or given a big trial with lots of international propaganda.”
“Tried—as a spy, you mean?”
“Yes. If they didn’t execute me at once.”
She shivered. “I think I understand. I didn’t trust you. I didn’t trust anyone. Nobody here seems to be what they claim they are. But you—” She drew a deep breath. “Please let me help you, Sam.”
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