“Listen, Peter, you’re in line for that NATO command, everybody knows that. From there the sky is the limit, pat.
Right up there to the joint chiefs just as far as you want to go Peter said nothing, but glanced once more at the gold Rolex wristwatch. It was seventeen minutes past ten o’clock.
“Think, Peter. For God’s sake, man. It’s taken you twenty heart-breaking years of hard work to get where you are.
They would never forgive you, buddy. You’d better believe it.
They’ll break you and your career. Don’t do it, Peter.
Don’t do it. You’re too good to waste yourself. just stop and think for one minute.”
“I’m thinking,” said Peter quietly. “I haven’t stopped thinking since-” he checked, always it comes back to this. If
I let them die then I am as guilty as that woman who pulls the trigger.”
“Peter, you don’t have to beat your head in. The decision is made by someone else.” it would be easier to believe that, wouldn’t it,”
Peter snapped, “but it won’t save those people out there.” Colin leaned across and placed a large hairy paw on Peter’s upper arm. He squeezed slightly. “I know, but it eats me to see you have to throw it all away. In my book, you’re one of the tops, buddy.” It was the first time he had made any such declaration, and Peter was fleetingly moved by it.
“You can duck this one, Colin. It doesn’t have to touch you or your career.”
“I never was very hot at ducking.” Colin dropped his hand away. “I think I’ll go along for the ride,”
“I want you to record a protest, no sense us all getting ourselves fired,” said Peter, as he switched on the recording equipment, both audio and video; now every word would be recorded.
“Colonel Noble,” he said distinctly, “I am about to lead an immediate Delta assault on Flight 070. Please make the arrangements.”
Colin turned to face the camera. “General Stride, I must formally protest at any order to initiate condition Delta without express approval from Atlas Command.”
“Colonel Noble, your protest is noted,”
Peter told the camera gravely, and Colin Noble hit the censor button once again, cutting tapes and camera.
“Okay, that’s enough crap for one day.” He came nimbly to his feet. “Let’s get out there and take the bastards.” Ingrid sat at the flight engineer’s desk, and held the microphone of the on-board loudspeaker system to her lips. There was a greyish tone beneath the sun-gilded skin; she frowned a little at the throbbing pulse of pain behind her eyes and the hand that held the microphone trembled slightly. She knew these were all symptoms of the drug hangover. She regretted now having increased the initial dosage beyond that recommended on the typed label of the tablet phial but she had needed that extra lift to be able to carry out the first executions. Now she and her officers were paying the price, but in another twenty minutes she would be able to issue another round of tablets.
This time she would stay exactly within the recommended dosage,
and she anticipated the rush of it through her blood, the heightened vision and energy, the tingling exhilaration of the drug. She even anticipated the thought of what lay ahead; to be able to wield absolute power, the power of death itself, was one of life’s most worthwhile experiences.
Sartre and Bakunin and Most had discovered one of the great truths of life that the act of destruction, of total destruction, was a catharsis, a creation, a reawakening of the soul. She looked forward,
even through the staleness and ache of the drug let-down, she looked forward to the next executions.
“My friends-” she spoke into the microphone, we have not heard from the tyrant. His lack of concern for your lives is typical of the fascist imperialist. He does not concern himself with the safety of the people, though he sucks and bloats himself on the blood and sweat. outside the aircraft the night was black and close.
Thunderheads blotted out half the sky, and every few minutes lightning lit the clouds internally. Twice since sundown abrupt fierce downpours of torrential rain had hammered briefly against the Boeing hull, and now the airport lights glinted on the puddled tarmac.
We have to show the face of unrelenting courage and iron purpose to the tyrant. We cannot afford to show even a moment’s hesitation.
We must now choose four more hostages. It will be done with the utmost impartiality and I want you all to realize that we are now all part of the revolution together, you can be proud of that-” Lightning exploded suddenly, much closer, a crackling greenish, iridescent flaming of the heavens that lit the field in merciless light, and then the flail of the thunder beat down upon the aircraft. The girl Karen exclaimed involuntarily and sprang nervously to her feet and crossed quickly to stand beside Ingrid. Her dark eyes were now heavily underscored by the dark kohl of fatigue and drug withdrawal; she trembled violently, and Ingrid caressed her absently the way she -might calm a frightened kitten as she went on speaking into the microphone.
We must all of us learn to welcome death, to welcome the opportunity to take our place and add our contribution, no matter how humble it might be, to man’s great reawakening.” Lightning burst in fierce splendour once again, but Ingrid went on talking into the microphone, the senseless words somehow hypnotic and lulling so that her captives sat in quietly lethargic rows, not speaking, unmoving,
seeming no longer capable of independent thought.
“I have drawn lots to choose the next martyrs of the revolution.
I will call out the seat numbers and my officers will come to fetch you. Please cooperate by moving quickly forward to the firstclass galley.” There was a pause, and then Ingrid’s voice again. “Seat number 63B. Please stand up.) The scarred German in the red shirt and with the lank black hair hanging over his eyes had to force the thin,
middle-aged man to his feet, twisting his wrist up between his shoulder blades. The man’s white shirt was crumpled and he wore elastic braces over his shoulders and oldfashioned narrow trousers.
“You can’t let them,” the man pleaded with his fellow passengers,
as Henri pushed him up the aisle. “You can’t let them kill me,
please.” And they looked down at their laps.
Nobody moved, nobody spoke.
“Seat number 43F.” It was a handsome darkhaired woman in her middle thirties, and her face seemed to dissolve slowly as she read the number above her seat, and she covered her mouth with one hand to prevent herself crying out but from the seat exactly across the aisle from her a sprightly old gentleman with a magnificent mane of silver-grey hair rose swiftly to his feet and adjusted his tie.
“Would you care to change seats with me, madam?” he said softly in a clipped English accent, and strode down the aisle, on long, thin,
stork-like legs, contemptuously brushing past the blond moustached
Frenchman who came hurrying forward to escort him. Without a glance to either side, and with thin shoulders thrown back, he disappeared through the curtains into the forward galley.
The Boeing had a blind spot that extended back from the side windows of the flight deck at an angle of 20 to the tail, but the hijackers were so well equipped and seemed to have considered every eventuality in such detail that there was no reason to fear that they had worked out some arrangement to keep the blind spot under surveillance.
Peter and Colin discussed the possibility quietly as they stood in the angle of the main service hangar, and both of them carefully studied the soaring shape of the Boeing tailplane and the sagging underbelly of the fuselage for the glint of a mirror or some other device. They were directly behind the aircraft and there was a little over four hundred yards to cover, half of that through knee-high grass and the rest over tarmac.
The field was lit only by the blue periphery lights of the taxiway, and the glow of the airport buildings.
Peter had considered dousing all the airport lights, but discarded the idea as self-defeating. It would certainly alert the hijackers,
and would slow the crossing of the assault team.
“I can’t see anything,” Colin murmured.
“No,” agreed Peter and they both handed their night glasses to a hovering NCO they wouldn’t need them again. The assault team had stripped all equipment down to absolute essentials.
