Алистер Маклин - Air Force One is Down

Philpott listened in silence, then drew a deep breath and exhaled in a frustrated sigh.

‘I hate to admit it, Mister Smith,’ he said, ‘but it’s impossible not to admire your style, if not your actual objectives or methods.’

‘Why thank you,’ Smith beamed, and gave the UNACO director a mocking bow.

He looked out to sea again when Philpott observed, ‘Your talented lady mammal has come back to daddy.’

The row of bubbles, effervescing more furiously than ever, had reappeared.

Smith picked up the rope again and waded into the water for perhaps ten yards. He hauled on the line, and the caged dolphin gradually emerged from the waves.

‘Well done, my angel,’ Smith boomed approvingly, patting the dolphin’s snout and removing the ransom bag in one smooth gesture. ‘I may never see you again, but believe me, I am eternally grateful to you.’

He turned and walked back, the chamois bag slung over his shoulder.

‘I’ll leave you now, Philpott,’ he announced, ‘but let me add one cautionary word: should you feel that you can still prevent me from escaping, remember that I have another electronic device still in my possession. This one.’

He pulled a metal box from his anorak, and Philpott had no doubt whatsoever that it was the detonator for the bomb which could destroy the Arab and American captives – provided, that is, that Jagger had not already murdered them.

Glumly, Philpott watched in silence as the dinghy pulled away from the beach. He dug both hands into the sand beside him, picked up fistfuls of watery gravel, and threw them after Smith, as though he could stop him by a display of sheer bad temper.

The Kamov cleared the coastline and spanned the necklace of tiny islands, seeing the activity aboard the three naval cutters milling about looking for traces of a long-dead rocket, and spotting Sonya arguing with a tall, red-faced soldier – English, Sabrina thought – on another launch, moored next to an island which was hardly more than a rocky platform.

‘Perhaps Smith’s already cleared off,’ Sabrina shouted above the roar of the helicopter’s engine.

McCafferty nodded, and jabbed his finger repeatedly at the little island.

‘Shall we land and try to find out what’s going on?’ he cried, miming the action in case she hadn’t caught the words.

‘What do you think?’ Sabrina yelled above the helicopter noise.

Mac thought for a moment, then shook his head. He indicated that they should return and search for Philpott.

‘He may actually be on to something.’

They dropped until they were practically brushing the waves, and when they reached the shoreline, McCafferty guided the Kamov in a futile patrol of every promising cove, inlet and cliff. Each time they drew a blank – until Sabrina spotted a signal fire.

Mac gave a jubilant whoop and spun into a tight turn.

‘It’s him!’ Sabrina yelled as they buzzed the beach. ‘He’s still piling brushwood on the fire, and there’s a gasoline can lying beside it. Smith must have left it behind.’

McCafferty manoeuvred the Kamov into the likeliest-looking stretch of firm sand on the small inlet, and set her down near Philpott’s fire. He and Sabrina piled out, and quickly found that the UNACO chief was suffering from outraged dignity and a nasty ankle-sprain. Sabrina soothed him with a résumé of the latest developments, and a cold compress.

Philpott had struggled to his feet, supported by McCafferty, when Sabrina reached the description of the killing of Jagger and the neutralising of the bomb. He swore viciously and almost overbalanced. Sabrina rushed to help, but Mac was able to keep him upright.

‘Well, what are you waiting around here for?’ Philpott demanded excitedly. ‘Get after Smith! The only thing holding me back from having a go at him myself was that damned remote-control detonator, and this damned ankle. Naturally I couldn’t afford to risk harming all of you, though I guessed when I saw you’d escaped that Mac had been able to pull something out of the hat.

‘But now we can’t afford to lose a second. He’s out there, in that blasted dinghy. Where he’s heading, I don’t know, but it’s my opinion he’s sailing off to join a larger boat, or taking his loot and landing it further up the coast. He’ll have a vehicle stashed away somewhere. Anyway, that’s the direction he took. After him, damn it! I can look after myself!’

They jumped back into the helicopter after promising to radio Sonya with Philpott’s location. McCafferty spotted the Avon dinghy less than twenty miles away, weaving a path round the island of Pag to enter the Velibitski Kanal, a treacherous strip of coastal water strewn with half-submerged rocks and other traps for the unwary mariner.

Mac banked the helicopter again and motioned to Sabrina to take charge of both guns.

‘Shoot the bastard out of the sea,’ he yelled as hard as he could. ‘We’ll worry about the ransom afterwards.’

Smith was within five hundred yards of the shoreline, one hand gripping the wheel of the dinghy, the other resting lightly on the ransom sack. He wore a happy, even insane, smile, and the spray whiplashed his face and the wind tore at his hair; but Mister Smith was past caring. He had won, as he always knew he would! He was truly invincible, invulnerable. None could stand against him – not even the great Malcolm Philpott and all the resources of UNACO!

‘I’m going to head him on to the beach, or crash him into the rocks,’ McCafferty shouted. ‘As soon as I get close enough, start shooting. Kill him if you can, but most of all I want him good and scared.’

Sabrina shivered as she checked the guns. She was remembering another helicopter chase, when she had been the quarry. She did not believe she could ever expunge from her mind the horror and despair of being hunted by that huge fast bird, cleverer and more ruthless than any of nature’s winged predators. She could almost feel sorry for Smith; but when she got him in her sights and emptied half a magazine of tracer-rounds at the jinking boat, her hatred of him returned and she was a cold, calculating special agent again.

The idiot grin vanished from Smith’s face as the bullets whipped the foam piling up on either side of the dinghy. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the Kamov. At first he thought it must be Dunkels and that he had only imagined the shooting, but then Sabrina opened up again, and he spied her face in the helicopter searchlight, and the mane of brown hair streaming over her shoulders.

McCafferty dived as near to the dinghy as he dared and dropped speed, zipping over Smith’s head and throwing Sabrina’s aim. Smith opened the throttle and changed course. The helicopter banked and darted in for another searingly-close pass. This time Smith was forced to wrench the wheel to starboard and turn the boat for the shore.

Mac bayed his triumph and settled on Smith’s tail.

‘Take him while he’s going straight,’ he shouted to Sabrina.

She sighted on the hunched figure, but some instinct raised the short hairs on the back of Smith’s neck, and as she pressed the trigger he was already selling a dummy to port and bringing the craft into an agonising right-hand bend.

The helicopter once more overshot its mark and Smith resumed his course parallel to the coast. For the third time Mac brought the Kamov in, then charged across Smith’s bow, whipping up spouts of water and spray. Smith shut his eyes, hunched down even further, drew the sleeve of his anorak across his face and doggedly held his line, dropping and increasing speed, twisting and tacking, handling the dinghy like a master to shake off the accursed helicopter – or to force McCafferty into a fatal error.

Sabrina pantomimed a lay-off position above the dinghy and matched Smith’s speed, so that she could get a good, steady shot at him. Mac obediently held an escort station, and Sabrina riddled the side of the dinghy with bullets, but Smith, who had dived to the bottom of the boat, steering blind, rose unhurt.