Yassen had closed the door. Alex watched as he pulled the lever down, locking it. “Doors to automatic,” said Yassen.
There was a speaker system active in the plane. Everything that was said in the main cabin could be heard in the cockpit. And, sitting at the flight deck, Henryk flicked a switch so that his voice too could be heard throughout the plane.
“This is your captain speaking,” he said. “Please fasten your seat belts and prepare for take-off.” He was joking: a grisly parody of a real departure. “Thank you for flying with Cray Airlines. I hope you have a pleasant flight.”
The engines started up. Out of the window Alex saw the soldiers scatter and run back to the trucks. Their work was done. They would leave the airport and make their way home to Amsterdam. He glanced at Sabina. She was sitting very still and he remembered that she was waiting for him to do something. I know things… You have to leave everything to me. That was what he had told her. How very hollow the words sounded now.
Air Force One was equipped with four huge engines. Alex heard them as they began to turn.
They were about to leave! Desperately he looked around him: at the closed door with its white lever slanting down, at the stairway Leading up towards the cockpit, at the low tables and neatly arranged line of magazines, at the trolley with its bottles and glasses. Cray was sitting with his legs slightly apart, the gun resting on his thigh. Yassen was still standing by the door. He had a second gun. It was in one of his pockets but Alex knew that the Russian could draw, aim and fire before he had time to blink. There were no other weapons in sight, nothing he could get his hands on. Hopeless.
The plane jerked and began to pull back from its stand. Alex looked out of the window again and saw something extraordinary. There was a vehicle parked next to the VIP building, not far from the plane. It was like a miniature tractor, with three carriages attached, loaded with plastic boxes.
As Alex watched, it was suddenly blown away as if it had been made of paper. The carriages spun round and broke free. The tractor itself crashed onto its side and skidded across the tarmac.
It was the engines! Normally a plane of this size would have been towed to an open area out of harm's way before it began to taxi. Cray, of course, wasn't going to wait. Air Force One had been put into reverse thrust and the engines—with a thrust rating of over two hundred thousand pounds—were so powerful that they would blow away anything or anyone who came near. Now it was the turn of the VIP building itself. Windows shattered, the glass exploding inwards. A security man had come out and Alex saw him thrown back like a plastic soldier fired from an elastic band. A voice came through on the speakers inside the cabin. Henryk must have connected up the radio so that they could hear.
“This is air traffic control to Air Force One.” This time it was a man's voice. “You have no clearance to taxi. Please stop immediately.”
The stairs that they had climbed to board the plane toppled to one side, crashing onto the tarmac.
The plane was moving more quickly now, backing out onto the main apron.
“This is air traffic control to Air Force One. We repeat: you have no clearance to taxi. Can you please state your intentions…”
They were out in the open, away from the VIP lounge. The main runway was behind them. The rest of the airport must have been almost a mile away. Inside the cockpit Henryk put the plane into forward thrust, and Alex felt the jolt and heard the whine of the engines as once again they began to move. Cray was humming to himself, his eyes vacant, lost in his own world. But the Smith and Wesson was still in his hand and Alex knew that the slightest movement would bring an instant response. Yassen hadn't stirred. He also seemed wrapped up in his own thoughts, as if he was trying to forget that this was happening.
The plane began to pick up speed, heading for the runway. There was a computer in the cockpit and Henryk had already fed in all the necessary information: the weight of the plane, the outside air temperature, the wind speed, the pressure. He would take off into the breeze, now coming from the east. The main runway is nearly four thousand metres long and the computer had already calculated that the aircraft would only need two and a half thousand of them. It was almost empty. This was going to be an easy take-off.
“Air Force One. You have no clearance. Please abort immediately. Repeat: abort at once.” The voice from air traffic control was still buzzing in his headphones. Henryk reached up and turned the radio off. He knew that an emergency overdrive would have gone into operation and any other planes would be diverted out of his way. After all, this aircraft did belong to the president of the United States of America. Already the Heathrow authorities would be screaming at each other over the phone lines, fearing not just a crash but a major diplomatic incident.
Downing Street would have been informed. All over London, officials and civil servants would be asking the same desperate question.
What the hell is going on?
A hundred kilometres above their heads, the eight Peacekeeper missiles were nearing the edge of space. Two of their rockets had already burnt out and separated, leaving only the last sections with their deployment modules and protective shrouds. The Minutemen and the other missiles that Cray had fired weren't far behind. All of them carried top-secret and highly advanced navigation systems. On-board computers were already calculating trajectories and making adjustments. Soon the missiles would turn and lock into their targets.
And in eighty minutes they would fall back to earth.
Air Force One was moving rapidly now, following the taxi paths to the main runway. Ahead was the holding point where it would make a sharp turn and begin pre-flight checks.
In the cabin Sabina examined Cray as if seeing him for the first time. Her face showed only contempt. “I wonder what they'll do with you when you get to Russia,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Cray asked.
“I wonder if they'll get rid of you by sending you back to England or just shoot you and be done with it.”
Cray stared at her. He looked as if he had been slapped across the face. Alex flinched, fearing the worst. And it came.
“I've had enough of these guttersnipes,” Cray snapped. “They're not amusing me any more.” He turned to Yassen. “Kill them.”
Yassen seemed not to have heard. “What?” he asked.
“You heard me. I'm bored of them. Kill them now!”
The plane stopped. They had reached the holding point. Henryk had heard the instructions being given in the main cabin but he ignored what was happening as he went through the final procedures: lifting the elevators up and down, turning the ailerons. He was seconds away from take-off. As soon as he was satisfied that the plane was ready, he would push down the four thrust levers and they would rocket forward. He tested the rudder pedals and the nose wheel.
Everything was ready.
“I do not kill children,” Yassen said. Alex had heard him say exactly the same thing on the boat in the South of France. He hadn't believed him then, but he wondered now what was going on inside the Russian's mind.
Sabina watched Alex intently, waiting for him to do something. But trapped inside the plane, with the whine of the engines already beginning to rise, there was nothing he could do. Not yet…
“What are you saying?” Cray demanded.
“There is no need for this,” Yassen said. “Take them with us. They can do no harm.”
“Why should I want to take them all the way to Russia?”
“We can lock them in one of the cabins. You don't even need to see them.”
“Mr Gregorovich…” Cray was breathing heavily. There was a bead of sweat on his forehead and his grip on the gun was tighter than ever. “If you don't kill them, I will.” Yassen didn't move.
“All right! All right!” Cray sighed. “I thought I was meant to be in charge, but it seems that I have to do everything myself.”
Cray brought up his gun. Alex got to his feet.
“No!” Sabina cried.
Cray fired.
But he hadn't been aiming at Sabina or even at Alex. The bullet hit Yassen in the chest, spinning him away from the door. “I'm sorry, Mr Gregorovich,” he said. “But you're fired.” Then he turned the gun on Alex.
“You're next,” he said.
He fired a second time.
