Алистер Маклин - Air Force One is Down

‘It isn’t that, Mac,’ he admitted, ‘it’s just that we’ll now have to assume that Smith knows everything, and act accordingly.’

‘How so?’ Cooligan frowned, as mystified as McCafferty.

Philpott grinned ruefully.

‘Sabrina never could lie with a straight face,’ he explained. ‘She’s like an open book: plenty of guts, plenty of brains, but not a shred of guile.

‘No – Smith will have found out as much as he needs by now. I was going to hold off trying for the caves until Smith had picked up the ransom, so as not to endanger the hostages unnecessarily; but all that’s changed. We must strike at the caves first, and quickly. I have a suspicion that the hostages’ lives may not be worth a row of beans after Smith’s got his hands on the diamonds.’

McCafferty objected, ‘But I thought you said he wasn’t a murderer by design.’

Philpott shook his head wearily.

‘I know, Mac,’ he replied, ‘but this operation seems to be different. He’s already allowed Hawley Hemmingsway to die, and since he knows we’re hot on his tail he may be starting to feel threatened. And we all know what rats do when they’re cornered. I fancy I’ve always assumed that Mister Smith is some sort of gentleman bastard … but I’ve never seen his evil side, Mac. For everyone’s sake, Sabrina’s included, we must tread very prudently from now on.’

As the ‘assault force’ boarded the jeep to take them to the caves, Smith stood, arms folded, alongside Jagger at the side of the suspension-bridge nearer to the captives on their cold, cramped ledge.

Smith looked approvingly, and Jagger grinned, the light from his torch picking out the guerilla who was placing a plastic explosives charge into a hole in the wall of the cave above the ledge.

Unseen by the hostages below, the man wired a detonator to the plastique , and rolled the coil of bright yellow cable across to Jagger. The ringer scooped it up and spliced the loose end into a reel. He backed across the bridge unwinding the cable, and Smith followed him, meticulously avoiding the wire snake.

Sabrina sat on a rock eating a peppery goulash and pondered the meaning of Smith’s last remark. The connection she did make – the Wagnerian one between ‘Siegfried’, ‘Brünhilde’ and Götterdämmerung – was not reassuring, since the ‘Twilight of the Gods’ implied the destruction of practically everyone in sight.

At the end of Dunkels’ gun she was conducted to the bridge over the river chasm, where they had to give way to Smith and Jagger returning from the hostage cave and sharing some secret diversion. Her eyes met the ringer’s, and for an instant she knew the sensation of cold steel in her heart.

The fleeting insight of Jagger’s gaze boring into her own made her now unswervingly sure of something she had merely suspected: that whatever fate Smith had planned for the captives, Jagger intended killing every last one of them.

She read the message unmistakably in the ringer’s eyes as clearly as if he had spoken the words. And he did not hide the pitiless loathing he felt for her, for he knew that he would never see her again.

The realisation brought her to a halt on the swaying bridge, and she felt the barrel of Dunkels’ machine-pistol drill into the small of her back. She looked wildly round at him, and down at the slatted wood under her feet, then back at the entrance cavern, and stumbled as she tried to move. Dunkels’ arm shot out and supported her as she half fell – but before he pushed her roughly ahead she caught the barest glimpse (and again – and there, again!) of the yellow cable tacked to the side-runner of the bridge.

Anger swiftly replaced the fear in her, and she strode off the bridge barely acknowledging the bomb which she could see clearly in its nest of rock. Dunkels propelled her down the steps, where Feisal ran to her, and she caught the boy in her arms.

‘Don’t let her out of your sight,’ Dunkels said in Serbo-Croat to the single remaining guard, ‘and keep away from her yourself. She’s dangerous. She may not look it, but she is.’

The guard nodded curtly, and Dunkels backed up the flight of steps and disappeared.

Sabrina eased the boy from her embrace, but allowed him to lead her to his grandfather. She guessed that neither Sheikh Zeidan nor any of the other hostages knew that Smith had given Jagger the means to kill them all, and she preferred to tell Zeidan first and seek his counsel.

The old Arab heard her out in silence, and allowed his eyes to stray only once to the point high on the wall of the cave where Sabrina indicated the explosives were placed. Feisal followed his gaze, then turned his head back and looked steadily at Sabrina.

‘If you recall,’ the boy said softly, ‘I am rather good at climbing. Should you or someone else be successful in persuading the guard not to look, I believe I could get up there and defuse that bomb.’

Sabrina gasped and shook her head violently.

‘No!’ she whispered. ‘Never! I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you.’

Sheikh Zeidan’s hand fell on her wrist and he tugged it gently.

‘The decision would not be yours to make, Miss Carver,’ he said. ‘Nor indeed would it be mine. Feisal is of royal blood, my blood, going back untraceable numbers of centuries. He is brave like the desert lion and as fearless as a hunting falcon. If he wishes to do this thing, then he shall. Besides,’ Zeidan added with a twinkling smile, ‘he does know about chemistry.’

‘He does?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Feisal, ‘I have dealt with explosives before.’

Philpott sniffed the air again. ‘Still smells like goulash to me,’ he said.

‘Whatever it is,’ McCafferty replied, ‘we’ve found the place.’

With Cooligan, they had driven to the approximate area of the hostage caves indicated by Sabrina’s directions, and spent a fruitless twenty minutes exploring the locale with shaded torches, until Philpott caught the odour of home-cooking.

‘You stay here, Chief,’ Mac directed. ‘Bert – over to the other side of that concrete outcrop there; it’s obviously the front door. I’ll get above them and flash you: once for all clear, twice for guards. Don’t reply.’

They were scarcely in position when all doubt was removed. The entrance cavern was flooded with light, the two sentries came to attention, and out walked Mister Smith into what McCafferty could now see was a car-park for the minibus, a collection of jeeps, and Dunkels’ Kamov helicopter.

Smith halted before the bus, then turned and beckoned towards the mouth of the cave. Jagger came to join him.

From above and below, Joe McCafferty and Malcolm Philpott got their first in-the-flesh sighting of the ringer, and each man experienced a thrill of dread as they realised how appallingly difficult it would have been for AF One crew members – or anyone else who had known McCafferty – to tell the ringer from the real thing.

Smith’s voice wafted down to Philpott.

‘As soon as the diamonds are in my hands,’ he told Jagger, ‘I’ll signal you. Then you can clear out and leave the hostages. I’ll make sure Philpott knows where they are.’

‘Do you have your insurance with you?’ Jagger asked.

Smith held up his hand and revealed a small flat box fitted with a switch and an inset timing device.

‘I have it. Any trouble with the ransom and I’ll use it. I’ll warn you first, though, so that you get our people out of the way.’

‘Will the signal be strong enough to detonate the bomb from somewhere out at sea?’ Jagger queried.

Smith grinned and replied, ‘Plenty strong enough. I made it myself.’

While they were talking, Philpott had been inching through the rocks under the cave’s mouth, and was now hauling himself up to the car-park. He crouched behind the minibus as Smith bade the ringer farewell and boarded the bus. Smith was talking earnestly to the driver and so missed seeing the next thing Jagger did. But Philpott saw it.