by John Denis
McCafferty looked ahead, peering through the spray, and saw the coastline looming up, now less than fifty yards away. Grimly he kept the Kamov at its post, tossed like a cork though it was in its own down-draught. At the last possible moment he pulled up and away and Smith could see — but it was too late. He spun the wheel frantically to avoid a rock, and instead struck a floating log a few feet offshore.
The sodden, splintering wood acted as a launching ramp, and Smith’s dinghy took to the air. It spun like a dart and thudded into the beach. Smith was catapulted through the windscreen and flung to the wet sand like a rag doll. Fairy lights exploded before his eyes, and he was glad the torture was over. McCafferty spread the flats of both hands wide in a repeated sweeping gesture, and Sabrina got the message: there was no room to land the helicopter on Smith’s beach. She jabbed her own finger towards his recumbent form on the sand, and Mac nodded vehemently. Sabrina checked that she had a full clip in the machine-pistol, slung it over her shoulder, and heaved herself out of the Kamov. Her feet found the landing skids, and she vaulted lightly to earth, sending Mac off with a cheery wave to find another landing place.
She bent over Smith’s body: he was starting to come round. Mischievously, Sabrina picked up the ransom sack and put it under his head as a pillow. Then she checked the shattered Avon dinghy, retrieved Smith’s gun, unloaded it and threw the magazine away. The lantern he had brought with him still worked, so she propped it on a rock and switched it on.
Smith opened his eyes, and saw her pale face, framed by the now quiescent halo of hair, cast in the light of the full moon and the rays of the red metal lamp. His gaze fell to the gun she held trained on him. She was kneeling about four feet from him, and when he levered himself up to support his body on his elbows, she relaxed and sat back on her heels.
‘Game’s up, Mister Smith,’ Sabrina said laconically. ‘Too bad. You’re quite a guy in your own weird, perverted way.’
His head darted from side to side like a cobra’s as he searched the beach for the bag of diamonds. Sabrina grinned and remarked, ‘Maybe you’re not so smart, huh?’
‘What have you done with them?’ Smith asked.
‘Taken them back to Philpott? I can’t believe you’d do that, Sabrina … you of all people. Your body would look so — exquisite — picked out in diamonds.’
Sabrina gave an ironic chuckle. ‘Mister,’ she said. ‘I’ve stolen more diamonds than you’ve had Lobster Thermidors. What’s so special about these?’
‘They’re mine,’ Smith replied, ‘by right of conquest, planning, superb execution. They’re mine, and I want them … but I will share them with you. Fifty-fifty?’
She shook her head. ‘It’d be no fun that way,’ she mused. ‘I get my kicks from stealing diamonds, not by being made a present of them. Besides, where would I spend them? I don’t have your contacts, and Mr Philpott would be very displeased.’
Smith sat up, shaking off the last effects of his ordeal. ‘Then come with me,’ he urged. ‘I don’t have to tell you we’d make a superb team. I’ll share everything with you, Sabrina … and I have so much. Great houses, châteaux, a ranch, an island in Micronesia—’
‘Only one?’
Smith grinned. ‘I know you’re mocking me now, but just use that agile brain of yours and think. You’re still young and quite appallingly beautiful. Do you want to waste your substance running from the police of a dozen countries, or risking your life for Malcolm Philpott’s gratification?
‘You’re an odd girl, you know; very odd. You’re quite splendidly amoral on one side of your existence, and I deeply admire you for your remarkable accomplishment as a jewel thief. And yet there’s this grotesque puritanical streak in you that seemingly makes you want to deny to other people the pleasure you yourself derive from criminal activities. It’s a disturbing mixture; and I am not sure I could easily accommodate to it.’
‘That’s that then,’ Sabrina returned briskly. ‘I told you we’d never make it. Apart from anything else, what do I really know about you, Mister Smith? What does anyone know — you, even? Who are you, where are you from, what do you really look like? Oh, I know the face you’ve got now, but that’s different from the one you wore when we last met. No — on reflection, I don’t think I could ever “accommodate”, as you put it, someone so desperately anonymous as you, Mister Smith. Master criminal you may be, but you’re not a person in the accepted sense. You’re a kind of — kaleidoscope. And colour patterns bore me, buddy. I like cool, glittering sparkles — lots of them.’
Smith surveyed her with a sardonic grin. ‘Too bad. But at least tell me what you’ve done with the ransom sack.’
She pointed behind him. ‘The metal ring which you were so insistent we fastened to it, is at this moment about an inch and a half from the back of your right hand.’
Smith jerked his eyes down and murmured, ‘Delightful, my pet. You are truly capricious. I like that.’
She waved the gun at him. ‘That’s as close as you’re going to get to them, sweetheart. When McCafferty comes back, you return to the cooler, and the rocks, unfortunately, to the Amsterdam Diamond Exchange. In fact, I think I hear Mac’s engine now.’
Smith cocked his ear and observed that she was probably right. Then he started a stream of aimless chatter, probing her about minor irrelevancies, praising her, praising Philpott, McCafferty, UNACO, the Savoy Hotel Grill Room … and by the time her suspicion that he was trying to distract her hardened into certainty, a boat had drawn up on the beach. A man clad in a black wet suit, holding a large torch in one hand and a gun in the other, stood behind her.
‘You,’ the man said in guttural English, ‘the girl. You. Up.’ Sabrina straightened and swivelled on her knees to look into the barrel of his gun and seven others. A silent ring of men, wet-suited and anonymous, made it abundantly clear that if she fought them, she would die.
She climbed to her feet and tossed the machine-pistol into a bush.
‘Good,’ said the man, and turned to Smith. ‘You — into the boat.’
‘My friend,’ Smith cried. ‘I don’t know who you are, but you’ve come at the right moment. I want to—’
He reeled back as the leader of the group cuffed him sharply on the mouth. Blood dribbled from his split lip, and Smith’s eyes grew large and frightened.
‘Into the boat. No time for talk.’
Smith recovered some of his composure. ‘Of course, of course,’ he soothed. ‘I take your point utterly.’ He bent triumphantly to Sabrina. ‘Well, my sweet,’ he crowed, ‘it appears that, after all, you have lost and I have won. It’s a great pity you did not accept my offer. It is, of course, unrepeatable.’
‘I’ll live with the disappointment,’ Sabrina said drily, although she was inwardly boiling with rage and frustration. How could she have been so dumb as to mistake the noise of the launch for McCafferty’s helicopter? And where the hell was Mac, anyway?
Smith bowed — then his eyes flashed again as two men roughly seized his arms and propelled him towards the boat. He protested loudly, but they picked him up and dumped him over the side, still clutching the ransom bag.
The launch revved, the sea churned in its wake, and the wind rose, and above the noise Sabrina could hear Smith’s voice, screaming, pleading, commanding.
As the boat pulled away from the shore with its passenger and wordless sentinels, a dark object flew through the air in a graceful arc and landed at her feet.
She picked it up by the metal ring and opened the chamois leather bag.
Fifty million dollars in cut diamonds glinted warmly in her eyes.
* * *
Philpott had fashioned himself a rude crutch and was now stoking his fire more for the comfort it provided against the chill night air than for its value as a beacon. He was engrossed in the task, but his keen ears caught the soft footfall behind him. His senses flared and he looked for the gun McCafferty had left him. It was lying by the fire, after he had used it as a poker.
‘You won’t need the weapon, Mr Philpott,’ came Myshkin’s soft, sinister voice. ‘I am sorry to see that you are hurt. It is, I trust, nothing serious.’
Philpott turned to greet his visitor, the flames dancing merrily behind his head. ‘Not too serious, General,’ he replied. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’
Myshkin’s lips tightened into a smile. ‘Merely that I wished to offer you my congratulations, Mr Philpott. You have won at least half of your battle.’
‘Won? What are you talking about?’ Philpott gabbled.
Myshkin’s mouth actually relaxed. ‘You will soon learn everything, I am sure. Suffice it for the moment to say that your charming agent Miss Carver is in possession of the ransom money. Intact. No deductions for expenses.’
Philpott gaped at him. ‘And Smith?’
Myshkin shrugged and spread his hands apologetically. ‘There, I’m afraid, is the half of the battle you lost. Mister Smith has been, shall we say, removed from the scene for a while. If he had been captured by your forces, you would have put him back into prison, and that, my dear Philpott, would have been a criminal waste of an extraordinary criminal mind.’
Philpott let out a cynical chuckle. ‘You mean you have him, General, and of course you want to make sure he keeps quiet about your own questionable role in this affair.’
Myshkin shrugged again, and observed that Smith would probably keep a low profile for an acceptably long period of time. ‘Then — who knows?’
‘Who indeed?’ Philpott retorted. ‘And when, pray, did all these miracles happen, Myshkin?’
The KGB man studied his watch and said, ‘I think you will find my intelligence is accurate, Mr Philpott.’
Philpott inclined his head. ‘It’s good to see you acting in the capacity of a loyal and upright UNACO member state, General.’
Myshkin loosed an oily grin again. ‘I thought you’d take that view, Mr Philpott. May I offer you a cigar?’
‘You may.’
Myshkin produced a handsome leather cigar case inscribed, in ornate gold letters, ‘With affection and respect: Warren G. Wheeler.’ Philpott accepted a Havana-Havana and a light, and drew the smoke gratefully into his lungs.
‘Isn’t that your transport?’ Myshkin asked suddenly, pointing at the skyline. Philpott peered after his finger, and picked out the winking lights of a helicopter.
‘It is,’ he confirmed, ‘and Mac’s guiding one of our launches in so that I can get a more comfortable ride.’
He turned back and began, ‘Well, I must say, General, I’m greatly impressed—’
But he stopped in mid-sentence, for Myshkin had melted away into the night …
* * *
Philpott sat at a table in Air Force One, supporting his sprained ankle on a cushioned seat. He glowed expansively as Dr Hamady said, ‘Naturally, I can only speak for the sovereign state of Saudi Arabia, but I think it likely; if only as a tribute to our departed and lamented colleague, Hawley Hemmingsway, that we shall consider the oil accord to bear every chance of success. What do you say, Your Excellency?’ he asked of Sheikh Arbeid.
The Iraqi grunted agreement. The Libyan, Sheikh Dorani, followed suit. The Bahraini, Sheikh Zeidan, smiled gravely, and Feisal nodded enthusiastically.
‘I am sure the American Government will be most grateful to you, gentlemen,’ Philpott beamed.
‘They should be grateful to you, and of course to UNACO and its agents,’ Zeidan put in. ‘Without you we should not have been saved, and neither would the ransom, although that is of small consequence.’
‘Oh, quite,’ said Philpott.
Zeidan leaned forward and whispered into Philpott’s ear, ‘Ought our gratitude not to be extended in perhaps another direction, too?’
‘What do you mean?’ Philpott whispered back.
Zeidan smiled knowingly. ‘Do not imagine for a moment,’ he continued, ‘that I, for one, believe Mister Smith could have mounted an operation on that scale without benevolent assistance, shall we say. His very presence in Yugoslavia, his access to men, armaments, machines, would have been impossible unless …’
‘Unless?’
‘Unless he had the help of — a big brother? A big red brother? In any case, where is Smith? You don’t have him? Shall we ever see him again, Mr Philpott?’
‘I suspect, Your Excellency,’ Philpott replied glumly, ‘that we shall.’ And he gave Sheikh Zeidan a broad wink.
Sabrina Carver arrived at the table with a teapotful of Scotch and the promise of an interesting night ahead with Joe McCafferty in Geneva.
‘Now then, Your Excellency,’ she said to Sheikh Arbeid, ‘was that tea with milk and sugar, or coffee with cream and no sugar, or tea with cream and—’
Chief Steward Master Sergeant Pete Wynanski groaned on the sidelines. ‘That dame,’ he confided to McCafferty, ‘will never be anything but useless.’
ALISTAIR MACLEAN’S AIR FORCE ONE IS DOWN
Alistair MacLean, who died on 2 February 1987, was the international bestselling author of thirty books, including world-famous novels such as The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare. In 1977 he was commissioned by an American film company to write a number of story outlines that could be adapted into a series of movies; two, Hostage Tower and Air Force One Is Down, were, with Alistair MacLean’s approval, published as novels by John Denis; these were followed by six by Alastair MacNeill, the highly successful Death Train, Night Watch, Red Alert, Time of the Assassins, Dead Halt and Code Breaker, and two, Borrowed Time and Prime Target by Hugh Miller.
Writing at the time, MacLean said: ‘I was very happy for John Denis to write the novel of Hostage Tower, the first of the series to be filmed, because I was completing my novel Athabasca at the time. I believe that John Denis made such a good job of Hostage Tower that he should also write the novel of Air Force One is Down. Why change a winning team? This is after all a series of stories based on the doings of the same group of characters, and continuity is all-important.’
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