Алистер Маклин - Air Force One is Down

Smith had forsaken his Brooks Brothers shirt and clerical grey suit for a light-weight, stone-coloured sweater and dark brown slacks. He picked up a tiny bronze bell and rang it. A girl came in, wearing a dirndl apron over a long green velveteen skirt, and a scarcely opaque blouse, unnecessarily open to the midriff. The blouse was of gossamer-thin, wispy material, and it lay off her shoulders and bisected the mounds of her breasts. In her native tongue, Smith ordered Krug champagne, and invited her to join him.

‘But I am your servant,’ she objected.

‘And you will serve me,’ Smith replied.

Then he, too, made a telephone call and spoke swiftly in yet another language. The man to whom he gave his brief report thanked him courteously and made his farewells. He also accepted a drink – a fine, dry German wine – but not from the hand of the nubile serving girl.

It was given to him by Axel Karilian, who lowered his bulk cautiously on to the sofa next to him and said, ‘May I take it that all is well?’

Myshkin nodded. ‘You may.’

The VC-137C stratoliner called Air Force One trembled on the hardstand at Muharraq Airport.

Klaxons baying, the motorcade sped into a ‘no entry’ road to the airport – the quickest and, therefore, safest route – and the leading outriders slithered to an unscheduled halt, under the watchful and alarmed eyes of perhaps two hundred Bahraini soldiers and policemen.

Jagger-McCafferty leapt from the last limousine in the convoy while it was still slowing down. He had seen film of an airport arrival by the presidential entourage, and Mac had done the same thing on that occasion. It was now almost a trademark with him – and Jagger didn’t want to disappoint any of McCafferty’s fans.

On board the Boeing, the crew went through their pre-flight procedure, Wynanski fussing like a mother hen over canapés, table linen and sparkling crystal glasses. The Commander was tense and edgy, as he always was before a trip. Latimer was his customary debonair and nonchalant self. Kowalski allowed his eyes to flicker across the charted flight plan. Kowalski doubled for the navigation aids, but he was a human being instead of a machine relying on electronics to function. Apart from that, he was a resourceful and experienced navigator – and what the hell, Air Force One carried an inertial guidance system anyway.

Outside the airport, a crowd had gathered to goggle at the flashy black cars and their VIP passengers. They were effectively blocking the route the motorcade was taking – not into the normal departure hall, but through a side road leading straight into the runway area. ‘Clear the road!’ Jagger screamed. ‘Get those people away!’

Soldiers pressed in upon the spectators and jostled them out of the convoy’s path. The access-gate barring the road swung open and the cars motored smoothly behind the motor-cyclists on to the hard-stand, coming to a halt directly opposite the steps leading up to the main hatch (or doorway) of Air Force One.

As Chief Steward, it fell to Wynanski to welcome his eminent guests. He shimmied up to the leading limo and pulled open the door, fixing the Oil Minister for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Doctor Ibrahim Hamady, with a fierce, toothy grin. Dr Hamady nodded graciously enough, and climbed the steps to the plane. Hamady would be the only one of the OPEC tycoons to wear, at all times, full Arab dress, beautifully cut for him by a Riyadh tailor of exceptional skill.

The second car flew the Libyan flag, and the routine for Wynanski was similar. Sheikh Mohammed Khalid Dorani, a handsome man in his early forties, with bouffant grey hair and a luxuriant moustache, shook the Master Sergeant’s hand and made for the Boeing, a porter, weighed down with hand-luggage, shuffling behind.

The next arrival, the nondescript Sheikh Zayed bin Arbeid, of Iraq, was duly decanted, and another limousine left the hardstand. Then came Hemmingsway, who was politely applauded, and in the last car, flying the Bahraini national emblem and getting a special cheer from the home crowd, was a passenger who could have presented Wynanski with logistical problems, if the Chief Steward had not had the foresight to study his brief with special care.

Sheikh Zayed Farouk Zeidan, wearing Western clothes with an Arab headdress, had a proud curving beak of a nose and magnetic black eyes. He was big, with immense shoulders and hands; he was also quite obviously crippled, his left leg hanging useless and wasted. Now sixty-five, Zeidan was accompanied by his twelve-year-old grandson, Feisal, who was on his way back to school in Switzerland. An Arab aide jumped from the other side of the car, jerked open the trunk, and fetched out a collapsible wheelchair. He assembled it swiftly, and wheeled it round to Zeidan.

‘Thank you, Achmed,’ Zeidan said, as the man and the boy helped him into the chair. Fayeed bowed, respectfully but not unctuously, and indicated the ramp which Wynanski’s ground staff had pushed over to replace the steps. Achmed scorned offers of help, and took the wheelchair backwards up the ramp and into the plane.

Feisal followed his grandfather, and was succeeded by Bert Cooligan. Wynanski ticked off the list on his clip-board: one Energy Secretary, American; four ministers, all Ayrab; plus one snot-nosed kid, ditto. Iran and Venezuela, he reflected, would have made a full pack of six for OPEC, but they were unavoidably absent.

Last of all to the aeroplane came Cody Jagger, looking to neither left nor right, his unholstered gun visible to anyone watching. The hatch closed behind him and the steps were removed.

Basil Swann handed the receiver to Philpott.

‘The Pentagon, sir,’ he intoned gravely, like a restrained muezzin. ‘General Morwood.’

‘George,’ Philpott barked, ‘what reports are you getting from Bahrain?’

‘What reports should we be getting from Bahrain?’ Morwood grumbled. ‘Weather reports, perhaps?’

‘No, damn it,’ Philpott cursed, ‘you know what I mean. Is everything all right there? No hitches?’

Morwood sighed and put on an excessively bored and regimental voice.

‘We’re in direct communication with the Commander and pilot of Air Force One, Malcolm. All systems are in order, and all of the personnel are who they’re supposed to be and where they’re supposed to be. The passengers are even now being conducted to their seats by your agent, Sabrina Carver, masquerading as a member of the United States Air Force, under the impeccable scrutiny of your other agent, Colonel Joe McCafferty. And if UNACO has any more agents aboard, which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest – maybe the entire crew are UNACO staff, I don’t know, because nobody ever tells the Pentagon any damned thing, you least of all, Philpott – if , as I said, you have any residual operatives littered about the place disguised as armchairs or engine-cowlings, then I have no doubt that they are also fulfilling their necessary functions, which is what I’m trying to do, if only you’d get off the damned line and stop pestering me .’

Philpott grinned sympathetically.

‘Far be it from me to come between a man and his necessary functions, George,’ he drawled. ‘Hey – you’ve got the radar-plot, haven’t you, as well?’

Morwood agreed; they did have the radar-plot; he explained the process with massive patience, as he would to a six-year-old boy young for his age. Philpott held the receiver away from his ear and let the discourse roll.

‘Satisfied?’ the eminent soldier inquired icily.

‘Sure,’ Philpott replied – then confessed, with a shade of genuine contrition, that UNACO, too, had secured an unauthorised trace on the Boeing’s course. ‘Just thought I’d let you know, George,’ he explained, waiting for the explosion.