had he wanted so badly to get on the ground.
Smuts cursed as he saw the chain Of green starbursts light up the center
line of the runway. 'Shoot out the flares!' he screamed.
'They can't land without them!'
6,M y goggles are going crazy!' the gunner protested. 'I can't see a
bloody thing!'
'Take them off! Shoot!'
The roar of the Vulcan blotted out everything. Hess covered his ears
and shouted something, but no one heard him.
The gunner made a valiant effort to extinguish the flares, but only
succeeded in knocking a few out of line. The main effect of the Vulcan
was to rip the surface of the newly laid asphalt to pieces.
Suddenly Hess gasped in horror. Dropping out of the sky like a great
prrhistoric bird was the Libyan Yak-42. It roared past the turret in
profile as it fell earthkvard.
'There they are!' Smuts yelled. 'Fire! Fire!'
The gunner depressed his trigger. Scarlet tracer rounds arced from the
Vulcan's flaming barrels, reaching out for the black apparition ...
Suddenly the turret's elevator door hissed open. Smuts turned in
disbelief, then dived protectively across Hess's wheelchair.
Inside the elevator-Trapped on the floor with his back against the
wall-was the surviving Libyan assassi screamed a curse, raised his Uzi
and fired. Bullets sprayed wildly throughout the confined space,
hammering the polycarbonate windows and tearing through the faceplates
of sensitive electronic gear. One of the South African technicians took
a round in the back of the head and fell dead over his console. The
radar technician managed to draw his pistol and get off three shots
before a ricochet caught him in the neck.
And then there was silence. The Libyan had run out of ammunition.
Smuts heaved himself off of Hess, picked up the dead radar man's pistol,
and shot the Libyan twice through the face. It took him three more
seconds to realize the true significance of the silence. The Vulcan had
stopped firing! When Smuts whirled he saw why. His gunner had been
blinded by flying glass. Worse, the Vulcan's electronic targeting
system had been damaged beyond repair!
'The prime minister has been hit again!' Dr. Sabri cried.
Smuts took no notice of the physicist. He darted to the broad window.
The Libyan jet had landed safely! Through his field glasses he watched
fifty commandos spill onto the tarmac. He forced himself to stay calm.
Soon the Libyans would be at the edge of the shallow bolo that
surrounded the house. Inside the killing zone. He dropped his field
glasses and jerked the bleeding gunner from the Vulcan's operating
chair, then climbed in himself. He put his eyes to the visual aiming
goggles and scanned the airstrip. Beneath a wide door in the rear of
the Yak-42 he saw Arabs lowering some type of artillery piece from the
plane by means of winches. Smuts grinned like a demon and opened fire.
The armor-piercing bullets streaked across the Wash and raced toward the
plane.
But just as the tracer beam reached the laboring Arabs, Smuts released
the trigger. Destroying the jet might not be the smartest option in
these circumstances, he realized. With no means of escape, the Libyans
might fight twice as fiercely to take the house. As he watched the
Arabs beneath the plane, Smuts noticed something sitting about ten
meters behind the Yak-42's tail. It was a pickup truck.
What the hell is that for? he wondered. Then he knew. They'd brought
the truck to tow the big gun and to haul their stolen bomb from the
house to the plane! Smuts jammed his thumb down on the Vulcan's
trigger. It took longer than normal to acquire the Toyota using visual
aiming only, but once he did, the uranium-tipped slugs chewed the Toyota
into scrap metal in seconds.
The gas tank fireballed and set aflame three Libyans beneath the plane.
Smuts climbed out of the Vulcan d went to the panel of an switches that
controlled his Claymore mines. His only real worry was the heavy gun.
He would wait until the soldiers got it away from the plane; then he
would destroy men and machine together. He pressed a button on the
console and spoke crisply: 'Bunker gunners, prepare to fire at will.'
He turned to Hess. 'We'd better raise the shields, sir. We @an't risk
letting even one man get irito the basement complex.'
'The prime minister is dead!' howled Dr. Sabri from the floor.
Hess rolled his wheelchair over to the bloodied mound of robes lying
near the base of the Vulcan. Prime Minister Jalloud-minus the lower
part of his face-stared blankly upward at the steel roof of the turret.
Two of the Libyan's bullets had found him.
'The shields, sir,' Smuts repeated, reaching for the appropriate button.
'Wait!' Hess ordered. 'Frau Apfel is still in the outer triangle.'
Smuts grimaced with forbearance. 'As are Lieutenant Luhr, Linah, the
medical staff, the rest of the servants, and the Jew. Sir, we cannot
afford to wait.'
The old man's frantic eyes searched the closed-circuit television
monitors above their heads. Although the cameras showed most of the
outer rooms, he saw no sign of Ilse.
'But ... Pieter, she saved my life! If we shut her outside@' 'The
Libyans will never reach the house,' Smuts assured him, his voice taut.
'But we must raise the shields, just in case.'
'Very well,' Hess said thickly. 'Raise the shields.'
Smuts pressed the button. Throughout Horn House, black anodized metal
shields rose up from the floor, blocking every door, staircase, and
window leading from the outer wings to the central complex. The
Afrikaner sighed with satisfaction.
Suddenly an explosion rocked the turret. Leaping to the window in
alarm, Smuts heard the distinctive crump of a mortar. Seconds later a
round fell just short of the outer wall of the house. Two more crashed
through the roof of the west wing. Horn House was on fire. As if urged
forward by d flames, twenty Libyan commandos started across the killing
zone at a fast run.
'Damn you, Karami!' Smuts shouted. He climbed back into the Vulcan and
opened up on the Libyan mortar position&. He quickly silenced one, but
a replacement immediately took its place. After forty seconds of
continuous firing, the Vulcan's drum magazine ran out.
