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
