Hauer'll kill Hess if gets the chance. That make you feel any better?'
Shaw smiled with satisfaction. 'Thank you, Colonel. I shall be in
Berlin by noon.'
IL
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
826 A.M. Angolan Airspace
At eighteen thousand feet the Lear 31-A turbojet knifed southward
through the sky and down the length of Africa. In the sumptuously
appointed passenger cabin, Prime Minister Abdul Bake Jalloud sipped from
a glass of sherry and contemplated the excited face of Dr. Hamid Sabri.
The bespectacled young physicist could barely restrain his enthusiasm.
In a matter of hours he would be shepherding back to Libya the first
nuclear weapon ever to stock an Arab arsenal. Prime Minister Jalloud
was more subdued. Despite Muammar Qaddafi's repeated assurances that
all was well, Jalloud could not shake a vague suspicion that something
was not as it should be.
'Are you all right, Excellency?' asked Dr. Sabri. 'You look pale.'
'It's the food,' Jalloud muttered. 'I shouldn't have eaten anything.'
'I'm nervous myself,' Sabri confessed. 'I cannot wait to return home
with the device.'
'I can't wait to return home, period,' Jalloud murmured.
This curious statement disconcerted the young scientist.
He glanced through his window at the'clouds below. 'Excellency?'
he said quietly. 'I must admit I am glad Major Karami is not
accompanying us on this trip. He makes me uncomfortable. I do not
believe Mr. Horn liked him either.'
'Major Karami makes a lot of people nervous,' said Jalloud, glancing
past Dr. Sabri. At the rear of the cabin, sitting on a pile of
embroidered pillows, six very dangerouslooking soldiers quietly smoked
cigarettes. Qaddafi had assured Jalloud that he'd ordered them loading
of the weapon, but Jallc doubted this. On the last trip two security
guards had been considered adequate escort. Jalloud was almost certain
that these men had been handpicked from Ilyas Karami's personal
bodyguard.
'I'm not so sure we are flee of Major Karanii,' he whispered, cutting
his eyes toward the guards.
Dr. Sabri peered around the prime minister's kefflyah and looked at the
sullen group. 'Don't say that,' he said quietly.
'Allah protect us, don't even think it.'
Twenty-eight miles behind the Lear, Major Ilyas Karami stepped onto the
flight deck of a Soviet-built Yakovlev-42
airliner and leaned down into the pilot's ear. 'Should I go over it for
you again?' he asked.
'It's net necessary, Major,' the pilot replied.
'Good.' Karanii laid a hand on the young man's shoulder.
'Because what I told my commandos goes for you pilots too. Any man that
makes a mistake on this mission will lose his head when we return to
Tripoli.'
The pilot strained to keep his hands steady on the controls.
Ilyas Karaiti's threats Were never empty.
'And his testicles will be in his mouth,',Karami added.
The plane lurched violently, as if buffeted by turbulence.
'I'm sorry, Major!' the pilot croaked.
'Low-pressure pocket,' the copilot covered quickly.
Major Karami snorted and left the flight deck.
This Yakovlev aircraft-popularly known as the Yak-42
-had begun its life as an Aeroflot jetliner, then passed into Libyan
commercial service. But for this mission Major Karami had ordered it
configured as an Air Zimbabwe commercial airliner. Karami smiled with
satisfaction as he walked through the stripped cabin of the plane.
Lining both walls of the Yak-42 were fifty heavily-armed Libyan
commandos; and filling the center section from front to rear were
pallets stacked high with weapons, ammunition, a small truck, and at the
rear of the cabin, lashed to the fuselage by chains, a 105-millimeter
artillery piece.
Karami nodded to his company commanders as he made his way through the
tangle of legs and equipment and stopped beside the small pickup truck.
The bed of the Toyota had been Padded with wrestling mats, and its sides
fitted with cleats sized to take chains. Ostensibly the truck had been
brought along to tow the 105mm howitzer into position.
Only Major Karami knew what special eargo its bed and suspension had
been modified to accept. When they got a little closer to their
destination, however, Karami would let his men in on the secret. For
what force could withstand the fury of Arabs come to claim the weapon
that would finally wipe the Jews from the sands of Palestine?
O40 A-Ai. Northern Transvaal, Republic of South Africa
Alan Burton scrambled over the lip of the Wash and down the slope to
where Juan Diaz half-sat, half-lay in the slowly drying mud. He had
bandaged the Cuban's wound as best he could; it was crusted with blood
but not suppurating. Diaz opened his eyes when he heard Burton
approach.
'Well, English?' he croaked.
'No chance,' Burton said bitterly. 'It's worse than it looked last
night. Fidel's chopper blew itself all over the runway. It's a wonder
we weren't cut to pieces. The tail of that Lear looks like scrap
metal.'
'The lateral finst' Diaz asked hopefully. 'Or the vertical?'
'Left lateral's completely gone. Vertical's got more holes than a Swiss
cheese.'
'Shit! What now, amigo?' Diaz tried to smile. 'We re dead men, eh?'
'Not bloody likely,' Burton said with an optimism he didn't feel.
'That's an airstrip up there, isn't it! This place is too damned remote
to service by road. It's bound to be just a matter of time before
another plane lands.'
Diaz squinted skeptically at the Englishman.
'And when it does, sport,' said Burton, tapping his submachine gun
against his chest, 'I'm going to climb aboard and watch Captain Juan
Diaz fly our wet arses right out of here.'
The Cuban grinned, exposing dazzling white teeth. Burton pulled some
