opened the cabin door.
“Sir,” he said, “at the speed you want to fly, we’re going to burn up a ton of fuel.”
Hickman smiled. “Don’t spare the engines,” he said, “time is critical.”
“As you wish, sir,” the pilot said as he closed the door again.
Hickman felt the engines throttle up and the plane gain speed. The flight plan called for the Hawker to travel across France along the border with Belgium, then over Switzerland above Zurich. Continuing on across the Alps, they would race down the eastern coast of Italy, then Greece, Crete, and over Egypt. Crossing the Red Sea, they would be in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by early morning.
AS SOON AS Hanley called, Truitt and the others started preparing to leave. After making sure they had carefully photographed everything, they strung tape across the doors and windows of the mill and left handwritten signs warning people not to enter.
Once that was done, they climbed back in the beaten-down truck and headed back to the river and the amphibious plane.
FROM THE EDGE of the trees a young red fox made tentative steps from his cover in the brush. Sniffing at the air, he started across the cargo loading area at the rear of the mill. Warm air was blowing out of the mill through the open cargo doors and he raised his snout and felt the heat. Carefully moving forward, he stopped near the open middle door.
Then, feeling no threat, the fox wandered inside.
Raised near people, he knew that their presence equaled food.
Smelling human scents, he started to forage for scraps of food. He stepped in a strange black substance on the floor that coated his paws. Then he continued on across the floor, the sticky black coating picking up traces of the virus.
Just then the overhead heaters clicked on and the noise scared him. He raced back to the cargo door. When nothing happened, he decided to lie on the floor and wait. Lifting his paw up to his mouth to clean it, he began to lick the blackness away.
Within minutes his body began to convulse. His eyes grew bloodshot and liquid ran from his snout. Twitching as if he were being electrocuted, he tried to rise on his legs and run away.
But his legs would not work, and white foam was running from his mouth.
The fox lay down to die.
THE SOUND OF the whooping horn was filtering throughout the
The team members raced to their stations and the ship was a blur of activity. “Lines are away, Mr. Hanley,” Stone said.
“Take her away from the dock,” Hanley said over the intercom to the wheelhouse.
The
“Have you plotted the course?” Hanley asked Stone.
“Just finishing it, sir,” Stone said, pointing to the large monitor on the wall.
A large map of Europe and Africa was displayed with a thick red line showing the route. Time intervals were displayed alongside the line.
“What’s the quickest we can reach the Red Sea?” Hanley asked.
“January fourth, at eleven a.m.,” Stone said.
“Coordinate the pickup with Michaels on the amphibian and get Adams back on board,” Hanley said, “then arrange the schedule of watches for the journey.”
“Yes, sir,” Stone said.
Then Hanley reached for the telephone.
THE INSISTENCE THAT the cargo of prayer rugs be documented as coming from France would help one side and hurt the other. The Global Air Cargo 747 was quickly cleared to land. After less than an hour on the ground, the cargo was retagged and the plane was off the ground again.
GUNDERSON AND THE team on the Gulfstream would not be as lucky. They were boarded by French customs officials as soon as they landed. Hickman had retrieved a list of all the private planes that had been at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas at the time of the break-in of his penthouse. From there it had been a simple matter of searching flight plans to locate any that had traveled to England thereafter.
The Gulfstream had been the only one.
Hickman then made an anonymous call to Interpol claiming that the plane was carrying drugs. It would take two full days and multiple calls from Hanley and others before his people were released. The French could be difficult to deal with.
CABRILLO WAS LUCKIER. The Challenger 604 with him and Jones aboard left Heathrow within thirty minutes of Hickman’s departure. The pilot immediately set a course for Riyadh, the capital city, at her maximum speed of 548 miles per hour. They streaked through the sky at an altitude of 37,000 feet.
A half hour ahead and now over France, Hickman’s Hawker 800XP was at her maximum speed of 514 miles per hour. The Challenger carrying Cabrillo and Jones at a faster speed should have arrived first, but that would not be the case. Hickman had known his destination for some time—Cabrillo had become aware of it only recently.
On a good day, getting a visa to visit Saudi Arabia is difficult. The process is slow and arbitrary, and tourism is not only discouraged but outlawed. Several of Hickman’s companies did business with the kingdom, and he was a known entity. His application for visiting took mere hours to approve.
Cabrillo would not be so lucky.
EARLY THE MORNING of January 1, Saud Al-Sheik was awakened by the chirping of the computer in his home office, indicating an e-mail had arrived. The mill in England was reporting that the prayer rugs he had been waiting for had cleared customs and were documented in Paris. They were now en route to Riyadh via 747.
Once at the air cargo terminal in Riyadh, they needed to be trucked across Saudi Arabia to Mecca. There the containers would be opened, and the rugs would be sprayed with pesticide, then left to air out for a day or so before being placed in the stadium.
Al-Sheik stared at the clipboard on his desk. With the exact date the rugs would appear an unknown, he had
