Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  They were silent now, staring at each other, while the hectic flush of fanaticism receded from the girl's face and she regained her breath, and Peter waited, controlling his own . misgivings, waiting for her to calm herself and Continue.

  "Our first demand-" the girl had steadied and was watching Peter shrewdly now, 4 our first demand is that the statement I have just made be read on every television network in Britain and the United

  States, and also here upon the South African network." Peter felt his loathing of that terrible little box rise to the surface of his emotions.

  That mind-bending electronic substitute for thought, that deadly device for freezing, packaging and distributing opinion. He hated it, almost as much as the violence and sensation it purveyed so effectively. "It must be read at the next occurrence of 7 p.m. local time in LOS Angeles, New York, London and Johannesburg-" Prime time, of course, and the media would gobble it up hungrily, for this was their meat and their drink the pornographers of violence!

  High above him in the open hatch the girl brandished a thick buff envelope. "This contains a copy of that statement for transmission it contains also a list of names. One hundred and twenty-nine names,

  all of them either imprisoned or placed under banning orders by this monstrous police regime. The names on this list are the true leaders of South Africa." She flung the envelope, and it landed at Peter's feet.

  "Our second demand is that every person on that list be placed aboard an aircraft provided by the South African Government. Aboard the same aircraft there will be one million gold Kruger Rand coins also provided by the same government. The aircraft will fly to a country chosen by the freed political leaders. The gold will be used by them to establish a government in exile, until such time as they return to this country as the true leaders of the people." Peter stooped and picked up the envelope. He was calculating swiftly. A single Kruger Rand coin was worth $170 at the very least. The ransom demand was, therefore, worth one hundred and seventy million dollars.

  There was another calculation. "One million Krugers will weigh well over forty -tons," he told the girl. "How are they going to get all that on one aircraft?" The girl faltered. It was a little comfort to Peter to realize that they hadn't thought out everything perfectly.

  If they made one small mistake, then they were capable of making others.

  "The government will provide sufficient transport for all the gold and all the prisoners," the girl said sharply. The hesitation had been momentary only.

  "Is that all?" Peter asked; the sun was stinging his naked shoulders and a cold drop of sweat tickled down his flank.

  He had never guessed it could be this bad.

  "The aircraft will depart before noon tomorrow, or the execution of hostages will begin then." Peter felt the crawl of horror.

  "Execution." She was using the jargon of legality, and he realized at that moment that what she promised she would deliver.

  "When those aircraft arrive at the destination chosen by the occupants, a pre-arranged code will be flashed to us, and all women and children aboard this aircraft will immediately be released."

  "And the men?" Peter asked.

  "On Monday the sixth three days from now, a resolution is to be tabled before the General Assembly of the United Nations in New

  York. It will call for immediate total mandatory economic sanctions on South Africa including withdrawal of all foreign capital, total oil and trade embargoes, severance of all transport and communications links, blockade of all ports and air borders by a U.N. peace-keeping force pending free elections under universal suffrage supervised by U.N. inspectors-" Peter's mind was racing to keep ahead of the girl's demands. He knew of the U.N. motion, of course, it had been tabled by Sri Lanka and Tanzania. It would be vetoed in the Security Council. That was a certainty but the girl's timing brought forward new and frightening considerations. The beast had changed shape again, and what he had heard sickened him. It surely could not be merely coincidence that the resolution was to be tabled within three days of this strike the implications were too horrible to contemplate. The connivance, if not the direct involvement, of world leaders and governments in the strategy of terror.

  The girl spoke again deliberately. "If any member of the Security Council of the U.N. America, Britain or France uses the veto to block the resolution of this General Assembly, this aircraft and all aboard her will be destroyed by high explosive." Peter had lost the power of speech. He stood gaping up at the lovely blonde child, for child she seemed, so young and fresh.

  When he found his voice again, it croaked hoarsely. "I don't believe you could have got high explosive aboard this aircraft to carry out that threat," he challenged her.

  The blonde girl said something to somebody who was out of Sight, and then a few moments later she tossed a dark round object down to Peter.

  "Catch!" she shouted, and he was surprised by the weight of it in his hands. It took only a moment to recognize it.

  "Electronically fused!" The girl laughed. "And we have so many I can afford to give you a sample." The pilot, Cyril Watkins, was trying to tell him something, touching his own chest but Peter was occupied with the explosive in his hands. He knew that a single one of these would be fully capable of destroying the Boeing and all aboard her.

  What was Watkins trying to tell him? Touching his neck again.

  Peter transferred his attention to the girl's neck. She wore a small camera slung around her neck. Something connecting camera and grenade perhaps? Is that what the pilot was trying to tell him?

  But now the girl was speaking again. "Take that to your masters,

  and let them tremble. The wrath of the masses is upon them. The revolution is here and now," she said, and the door of the hatchway was swung closed. He heard the lock fall into place.

  Peter turned and began the long walk back, carrying an envelope in one hand, a grenade in the other, and sick loathing in his guts.

  Colin Noble's rugged frame almost filled the hatchway of the Hawker, and for once his expression was deadly serious, no trace of laughter in his eyes or at the corners of the wide friendly mouth.

  "Doctor Parker is on the screen." He greeted Peter who was still buttoning his overalls as he hurried to the command plane. "We copied every word, and he was hooked into the system."

  "Christ, it's had, Colin," Peter grunted.

  "That was the good news," Colin told him. "When you have finished with Parker, I've got the bad news for you."

  "Thanks, pal." Peter shouldered his way past him into the cabin, and dropped into his leather command chair.

  On the screen Kingston Parker was hunched over his desk, poring over the teleprinter sheet on which the entire conversation between Ingrid and Peter had been recorded, the cold empty pipe gripped between his teeth, the broad brow creased with the weight of his responsibility as he studied the demands of the terrorist commando.

  The communications director's voice from off-screen alerted Parker.

  "General Stride, sir. "And Parker looked up at the camera.

  "Peter. This is you and me alone. I have closed the circuit and we will restrict to single tape recording. I want your first reaction,

  before we relay to Sir William and Constable-" Sir William Davies was the British Ambassador and Kelly Constable was the United States Ambassador to Pretoria.

  "I want your first reaction."

  "We are in serious trouble, sir,"

  Peter said, and the big head nodded.

  "What is the militant capability?"

  "I am having my explosives team take down the grenade but I have no doubt that they have the physical capability to destroy 070, and all aboard. I reckon they have an overkill potential of at least ten."

  "And the psychological capability."

  "In my view, she is the child of Bakunin and Jean Paul Sartre-" Again Parker nodded heavily and Peter went on.

  "The anarchist conception that destruction is the only truly creative act, that violence is man r
ecreating himself. You know Sartre said that when the revolutionary kills, a tyrant dies and a free man emerges."

  "Will she go all the way?" Parker insisted.

  "Yes, sir." Peter answered without hesitation. "If she is pressed she'll go all the way you know the reasoning. If destruction is beautiful, then self-destruction is immortality.

  In my view, she'll go all the way." Parker sighed and knocked the stem of his pipe against his big white teeth.

  "Yes, it squares with what we have on her."

  "You have read her?"

  Peter asked eagerly.

  "We got a first-class voice print, and the computer cross matched with her facial structure print."

  "Who is she?" Peter cut in impatiently; he did not have to be told that the sound intensifier and the zoom video cameras had been feeding her voice and image into the intelligence computer even as she issued her demands.

  "Her born name is Hilda Becker. She is a third-generation American of German extraction. Her father is a successful dentist widowed in 1959. The girl is thirty-one years old-" Peter had thought her younger, that fresh young skin had misled him. "- I.Q. 138. University of Columbia 1965-68, Master's degree in Modern Political History. Member of SDS that's Students for a Democratic Society-"

  "Yes." Peter was impatient. "I know." Activist in Vietnam war protests. Worker for the draft evasion pipeline to Canada. One arrest for possession of marijuana 1967, not convicted. Implicated with Weathermen and one of the leaders of on-campus rioting in the spring of 1968. Arrested for bombing of Butler University and released. Left America in 1970 for further study at Dusseldorf. Doctorate in

  Political Economics 1972. Known association with Gudrun Ensslin and Horst Mahler of the Baader-Meinhof. Went underground in 1976 after suspicion of implication in the abduction and murder of Heinrich Kohler, the West German industrialist--2 Her personal history was an almost classical development of the modern revolutionary, Peter reflected bitterly, a perfect picture of the beast. "Believed to have received advanced training from the PFLP in Syria during 1976 and 1977.

  No recorded contact since then. She is a habitual user of cannabis-based drugs, reported voracious sexual activity with members of both sexes-" Parker looked up. "That's all we have, he said.

  "Yes," Peter repeated softly. "She'll go all the way."

  "What is your further assessment?"

  "I believe that this is an operation organized at high level possibly governmental-"

  "Substantiate!" Parker snapped.

  "The coordination with UNO. proposals sponsored by the unaligned nations points that way."

  "All right, go on."

  "For the first time we have a highly organized and heavily supported strike that is not seeking some obscure, partisan object. We've got demands here about which a hundred million Americans and fifty million Englishmen are going to say in unison, "Hell, these aren't unreasonable.""

  "Go on, "said Parker.

  "The militants have picked a soft target which is the outcast pariah of Western civilization. That U.N. resolution is going to be passed a hundred to nil, and those millions of Americans and Englishmen are going to have to ask themselves if they are going to sacrifice the lives of four hundred of their most prominent citizens to support a government whose racial policies they abhor."

  "Yes?" Parker was leaning forward to stare into the screen.

  "Do you think they'll do a deal?"

  "The militants? They might." Peter paused a moment and then went on. "You know my views, sir. I oppose absolutely dealing with these people."

  "Even in these circumstances?" Parker demanded.

  "Especially now. My views of the host country's policies are in accord with yours, Doctor Parker. This is the test.

  No matter how much we personally feel the demands are just, yet we must oppose to the death the manner in which they are presented. If these people win their objects, it is a victory for the gun and we place all mankind in jeopardy."

  "What is your estimate for a successful counter strike Parker demanded suddenly, and even though he had known the question must come, still Peter hesitated a long moment.

  "Half an hour ago I would have put the odds at ten to one in our favour that I could pull off condition Delta with only militant casualties."

  "And now?"

  "Now I know that these are not fuddle-headed fanatics.

  They are probably as well trained and equipped as we are, and they have had years to set this operation up."

  "And now? "Parker insisted.

  "We have a four to one in our favour of getting them out with a Delta strike, with say less than ten casualties."

  "What is the next best chance?"

  "I would say there is no middle ground. If we failed, we would be into a situation with one hundred per cent casualties we would lose the aircraft and all aboard, including all Thor personnel involved."

  "All right then, Peter." Parker leaned back in his chair, the gesture of dismissal. "I am going to speak with the President and the Prime Minister, they are setting up the link now. Then I will brief the ambassadors and be back to you within the hour." His image flickered into darkness, and Peter realized that all his hatred was suppressed. He felt cold, and functional as the surgeon's blade.

  Ready to do the job for which he had trained so assiduously, and yet able to assess and evaluate the enemy and the odds against success.

  He pressed the call button. Colin had been waiting beyond the soundproof doors of the command cabin, and he came through immediately.

  "The explosives boys have taken down the grenade. It's a dandy.

  The explosive is the new Soviet Q composition, and the fusing is factory manufacture. Professional stuff and it will work. Oh, baby, will it ever work. Peter hardly needed this confirmation, and Colin went on as he flung himself untidily in the chair opposite Peter.

  "We put the list of names and the text of the militant statement on the teleprinter for Washington,-" He leaned forward and spoke into the cabin intercom. "Run that loop without sound first." Then he told

  Peter grimly. "Here's the bad news I promised." The loop of video tape began to run on the central screen. It had clearly been shot from the observation post in the office overlooking the service area.

  It was a full shot of the Boeing, the background flattened by the magnification of the lens and swimming and wavering with heat mirage rising from the tarmac of the main runway beyond the aircraft.

  In the foreground were Peter's own naked back and shoulders as he strode out towards the aircraft. The lens had again flattened the action so that Peter appeared to be marking time on the same spot without advancing at all.

  Suddenly the forward hatch of the Boeing changed shape as the door was slid aside, and the cameraman instantly zoomed in for the closer shot.

  The two pilots and the air hostess in the doorway, the camera checked for a few frames and then zoomed closer.

  The aperture of the lens adjusted swiftly, compensating for the gloom of the interior, and the shot was close and tight on the blonde girl's head for a heartbeat, then the head turned slightly and the lovely line of her lips moved as she spoke it seemed like three words before she turned back full face to the camera.

  "Okay," Colin said. "Run it again with neutral balance on the sound." The entire loop reran, the cabin door opened, there were the three hostages, the fine golden head turned, and then the words "Let's slide," from Ingrid, but there was background hiss and clutter.

  "Let's slide? "Peter asked.

  "Run it again with the bass density filter on the sound, Colin ordered.

  The same images on the screen, the golden head turning on the long neck.

  "It's slide."" Peter could not quite catch it.

  "Okay," Colin told the technician. "Now with full filter and resonance modulation." The repetitive images, the girl's head, the full lips parting, speaking to somebody out of sight in the body of the aircraft.

  Very clearly, unmistakably, she said,
"It's Stride." And Peter felt it jolt in his belly like a fist.

  "She recognized you," said Colin. "No, hell, she was expecting you!" The two men stared at each other, Peter's handsome craggy features heavy with foreboding. Atlas had one of the highest security classifications. Only twenty men outside the close ranks of Atlas itself were privy to its secrets. One of those was the President of the United States another was the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

  Certainly only four or five men knew who commanded the Thor arm of Atlas and yet there was no mistaking those words the girl had spoken.

  "Run it again," Peter ordered brusquely.

  And they waited tensely for those two words, and when they came they were in the clear tilt of that fresh young voice.

  "It's Stride,"said Ingrid, and the screen went blank.

  Peter massaged his closed eyelids with thumb and forefinger. He realized with mild surprise that he had not slept for nearly forty-eight hours, but it was not physical weariness that assailed him now but the suddenly overwhelming knowledge of treason and betrayal and of undreamed-of evil.

  "Somebody has blown Atlas," said Colin softly. "This is going to be a living and breathing bastard. They'll be waiting for us at every turn of the track." Peter dropped his hand and opened his eyes. "I

  must speak to Kingston Parker again," he said. And when Parker's image reappeared on the main screen he was clearly agitated and angry.

  "You have interrupted the President."

  "Doctor Parker-" Peter spoke quickly. Circumstances have altered. In my opinion the chances of a successful Delta strike have dropped. We have no better than an even chance."

  "I see." Parker checked the anger. "That's important. I will inform the President." The lavatories were all blocked by this time, the bowls almost filled, and the stench permeated all the cabins despite the air-conditioning.

  Under the strict rationing of food and water most of the passengers were suffering from the lethargy of hunger, and the children were petulant and weepy.

  The terrible strain was beginning to show on the hijackers themselves. They were standing a virtual non-stop watch, four hours of broken rest followed by four of ceaseless vigil and activity. The red cotton shirts were rumpled and sweat-stained at the armpits, the sweat of nervous and physical strain, eyes bloodshot and tempers uncertain.