the Seychelles (3overnment, returning to schools in England for the new term.” Peter felt the weight of dread bring down upon him like a physical burden. Children, the young lives seemed somehow more important, somehow more vulnerable. But Parker was reading from the telex flimsy in his left hand, the right scratching the back of his neck with the stem of his pipe.
“There is one British businessman, Shell Oil Company, and well -known on the island, and there are four tourists, an American, a
Frenchman and two Germans. These last four appeared to be travelling in a group, the immigration and security officers remember them well.
Two women and two men, all young. Names Sally-Anne Taylor, twenty-five years, American, Heidi Hottschauser, twenty-four and Gunther Retz,
twenty-five, the two Germans and Henri Larousse, twenty-six, the
Frenchman. The police have run a back check on the four. They stayed two weeks at the Reef Hotel outside Victoria, the women in one double room and the two men in another. They spent most of the time swimming and sunbathing until five days ago when a small ocean-going yacht called at Victoria. Thirty-five foot, single-hander around the world,
skippered by another American. The four spent time on board her every day of her stay, and the yacht sailed twenty-faut hours before the departure of the 07O.”
“If the yacht delivered their arms and munitions, then this operation has been planned for a long time,” Peter pondered, land damn well planned.” Peter felt the tingling flush of his blood again, the form of the enemy was taking shape now, the outline of the beast becoming clearer, and always it was uglier and more menacing.
“You have run the names through the computer?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Parker nodded. “Either there is no intelligence record of them, or the names and passports are false-” He broke off as there was sudden activity on the screen that monitored the air traffic control tower, and another voice boomed out of the secondary speaker;
the volume was set too high, and the technician at the control board adjusted it swiftly. It was a female voice, a fresh, clear young voice speaking English with the lilt and inflexion of the west coast of
America in it.
“Jan Smuts tower, this is the officer commanding the task force of the Action Commando for Human Rights that has control of Speedbird 070.
Stand by to copy a message.”
“Contact!” Peter breathed. “Contact at last.” On the small screen Colin Noble grinned and rolled his cheroot expertly from one side of his mouth to the other.
“The party has begun,” he announced, but there was the razor edge in his voice not entirely concealed by his jocular tone.
The three-man crew had been moved back from the flight deck, and were held in the first class seats vacated by the group of four.
Ingrid had made the cockpit of the Boeing her headquarters, and she worked swiftly through the pile of passports, filling in the name and nationality of each passenger on the seating plan spread before her.
The door to the galley was open and except for the hum of the air-conditioning, the huge aircraft was peculiarly silent.
Conversation in the cabins was prohibited, and the aisles were patrolled by the red-shirted commandos to enforce this edict.
They also ordered the use of the toilets: a passenger must return to his seat before another was allowed to rise. The toilet doors had to remain open during use, so that the commandos could check at a glance.
Despite the silence, there was a crackling atmosphere of tension down the full length of the cabin. Very few of the passengers, mostly the children, were asleep, but the others sat in rigid rows, their faces taut and strained watching their captors with a mixture of hatred and of fear.
Henri, the Frenchman, slipped into the cockpit.
“They are pulling back the armoured cars,” he said. He was slim,
with a very youthful face and dreaming poet’s eyes. He had grown a drooping blond gunfighter’s mustache, but the effect was incongruous.
Ingrid looked up at him. “You are so nervous,” She shook her head. “it will all be all right.”
“I am not nervous,” he answered her stiffly.
She chuckled fondly, and reached up to touch his face.
“I did not mean it as an insult.” She pulled his face down and kissed him, thrusting her tongue deeply into his mouth.
“You have proved your courage often,” she murmured.
He dropped his pistol onto the desk with a clatter and reached for her. The top three buttons of her red cotton shirt were unfastened,
and she let him grope and find her breasts.
They were heavy and pointed and his breathing went ragged as he teased out her nipples. They hardened erect like jelly beans but when he reached down with his free hand for the zipper of her shorts,
she pushed him away roughly.
“Later,” she told him brusquely, “when this is over. Now get back into the cabin.” And she leaned forward and lifted a corner of the blanket that screened the side window of the cockpit. The sunlight was very bright but her eyes adjusted swiftly and she saw the row of helmeted heads above the parapet of the observation deck. So they were pulling back the troops as well. It was nearly time to begin talking but she would let them stew in their own juice just a little longer.
She stood up, buttoned her shirt and adjusted the camera on its strap around her neck, paused in the galley to rearrange the shiny mass of golden hair and then walked slowly back down the full length of the central aisle, pausing to adjust the blanket over a sleeping child,
to listen attentively to the complaints of the pregnant wife of the
Texan neurosurgeon.
“You and the children will be the first off this plane I promise you.” When she reached the prone body of the flight engineer, she knelt beside him.
“How is he?”
“He is sleeping now. I shot him full of morphine,”
the fat little doctor muttered, not looking at her, so she could not read the hatred in his expression. The injured arm was elevated to control the bleeding, sticking up stiffly in its cocoon of pressure bandages, oddly foreshortened with the bright ooze of blood through the dressing.
“You are doing good-” She touched his arm. “Thank you.” And now he glanced at her startled, and she smiled such a radiant lovely smile,
that he began to melt.
“Is that your wife?” Ingrid dropped her voice, so that he alone could hear and he nodded, glancing at the plump little Jewish woman in the nearest seat. “I will see she is amongst the first to leave,”
she murmured, and his gratitude was pathetic. She stood and went on down the aircraft.
The red-shirted German stood at the head of the tourist cabin,
beside the curtained entrance to the second galley.
He had the intense drawn face of a religious zealot, dark burning eyes, long black hair falling almost to his shoulders a white scar twisted the corner of his upper lip into a perpetual smirk.
“Kurt, everything is all right?” she asked in German.
“They are complaining of hunger.”
“We will feed them in another two hours but not as much as they expect-” and she ran a contemptuous glance down the cabin. “Fat,” she said quietly, “big fat bourgeoisie pigs,” and she stepped through the curtains into the galley and looked at him in invitation. He followed her immediately, drawing the curtains behind them.
“Where is Karen?” Ingrid asked, as he unbuckled his belt.
She needed it very badly, the excitement and the blood had inflamed her.
“She is resting at the back of the cabin.” Ingrid slipped the button that held the front of her shorts together and drew down the zipper. “All right Kurt,” she whispered huskily, “but quickly, very quickly.” Ingrid sat in the flight
