Desmond Bagley - High Citadel / Landslide

Forester grabbed the axe from its clips on the bulkhead and raised it to strike, but his arm was caught by Rohde. ‘This is quicker,’ said Rohde, and lifted a heavy pistol in his other hand. He stepped in front of Forester and fired three quick shots at the lock of the door.

O’Hara heard the shots a fraction of a second before the Dakota touched down. He not only heard them but saw the altimeter and the turn-and-climb indicator shiver into fragments as the bullets smashed into the instrument panel. But he had not time to see what was happening behind him because just then the heavily overloaded Dakota settled soggily at the extreme end of the strip, moving at high speed.

There was a sickening crunch and the whole air frame shuddered as the undercarriage collapsed and the plane sank on to its belly and slid with a tearing, rending sound towards the far end of the strip. O’Hara fought frantically with the controls as they kicked against his hands and feet and tried to keep the aircraft sliding in a straight line.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Grivas turn to the door, his pistol raised. O’Hara took a chance, lifted one hand from the stick and struck out blindly at Grivas. He just had time for one blow and luckily it connected somewhere; he felt the edge of his hand strike home and then he was too busy to see if he had incapacitated Grivas.

The Dakota was still moving too fast. Already it was more than halfway down the strip and O’Hara could see the emptiness ahead where the strip stopped at the lip of the valley. In desperation he swung the rudder hard over and the Dakota swerved with a loud grating sound.

He braced himself for the crash.

The starboard wingtip hit the rock wall and the Dakota spun sharply to the right. O’Hara kept the rudder forced right over and saw the rock wall coming right at him. The nose of the plane hit rock and crumpled and the safety glass in the windscreens shivered into opacity. Then something hit him on the head and he lost consciousness.

He came round because someone was slapping his face. His head rocked from side to side and he wanted them to stop because it was so good to be asleep. The slapping went on and on and he moaned and tried to tell them to stop. But the slapping did not stop so he opened his eyes.

It was Forester who was administering the punishment, and, as O’Hara opened his eyes, he turned to Rohde who was standing behind him and said, ‘Keep your gun on him.’

Rohde smiled. His gun was in his hand but hanging slackly and pointing to the floor. He made no attempt to bring it up. Forester said, ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’

O’Hara painfully lifted his arm to his head. He had a bump on his skull the size of an egg. He said weakly, ‘Where’s Grivas?’

‘Who is Grivas?’

‘My co-pilot.’

‘He’s here – he’s in a bad way.’

‘I hope the bastard dies,’ said O’Hara bitterly. ‘He pulled a gun on me.’

‘You were at the controls,’ said Forester, giving him a hard look. ‘You put this plane down here – and I want to know why.’

‘It was Grivas – he forced me to do it.’

‘The señor capitan is right,’ said Rohde. ‘This man Grivas was going to shoot me and the señor capitan hit him.’ He bowed stiffly. ‘Muchas gracias.’

Forester swung round and looked at Rohde, then beyond him to Grivas. ‘Is he conscious?’

O’Hara looked across the cockpit. The side of the fuselage was caved in and a blunt spike of rock had hit Grivas in the chest, smashing his rib cage. It looked as though he wasn’t going to make it, after all. But he was conscious, all right; his eyes were open and he looked at them with hatred.

O’Hara could hear a woman screaming endlessly in the passenger cabin and someone else was moaning monotonously. ‘For Christ’s sake, what’s happened back there?’

No one answered because Grivas began to speak. He mumbled in a low whisper and blood frothed round his mouth. ‘They’ll get you,’ he said. ‘They’ll be here any minute now.’ His lips parted in a ghastly smile. ‘I’ll be all right; they’ll take me to hospital. But you – you’ll …’ He broke off in a fit of coughing and then continued: ‘… they’ll kill the lot of you.’ He lifted up his arm, the fingers curling into a fist. ‘Vivaca …’

The arm dropped flaccidly and the look of hate in his eyes deepened into surprise – surprise that he was dead.

Rohde grabbed him by the wrist and held it for a moment. ‘He’s gone,’ he said.

‘He was a lunatic,’ said O’Hara. ‘Stark, staring mad.’

The woman was still screaming and Forester said, ‘For God’s sake, let’s get everybody out of here.’

Just then the Dakota lurched sickeningly and the whole cockpit rose in the air. There was a ripping sound as the spike of rock that had killed Grivas tore at the aluminium sheathing of the fuselage. O’Hara had a sudden and horrible intuition of what was happening. ‘Nobody move,’ he shouted. ‘Everyone keep still.’

He turned to Forester. ‘Bash in those windows.’

Forester looked in surprise at the axe he was still holding as though he had forgotten it, then he raised it and struck at the opaque windscreen. The plastic filling in the glass sandwich could not withstand his assault and he made a hole big enough for a man to climb through.

O’Hara said, ‘I’ll go through – I think I know what I’ll find. Don’t either of you go back there – not yet. And call through and tell anyone who can move to come up front.’

He squeezed through the narrow gap and was astonished to find that the nose of the Dakota was missing. He twisted and crawled out on to the top of the fuselage and looked aft. The tail and one wing were hanging in space over the valley where the runway ended. The whole aircraft was delicately balanced and even as he looked the tail tipped a little and there was a ripping sound from the cockpit.

He twisted on to his stomach and wriggled so that he could look into the cockpit, his head upside-down. ‘We’re in a jam,’ he said to Forester. ‘We’re hanging over a two-hundred-foot drop, and the only thing that’s keeping the whole bloody aeroplane from tipping over is that bit of rock there.’ He indicated the rock projection driven into the side of the cockpit.

He said, ‘If anyone goes back there the extra weight might send us over because we’re balanced just like a seesaw.’

Forester turned his head and bawled, ‘Anyone who can move, come up here.’

There was a movement and Willis staggered through the door, his head bloody. Forester shouted, ‘Anyone else?’

Señorita Montes called urgently, ‘Please help my uncle – oh, please.’

Rohde drew Willis out of the way and stepped through the door. Forester said sharply, ‘Don’t go in too far.’

Rohde did not even look at him, but bent to pick up Montes who was lying by the door. He half carried, half dragged him into the cockpit and Señorita Montes followed.

Forester looked up at O’Hara. ‘It’s getting crowded in here; I think we’d better start getting people outside.’

‘We’ll get them on top first,’ said O’Hara. ‘The more weight we have at this end, the better. Let the girl come first.’

She shook her head. ‘My uncle first.’

‘For God’s sake, he’s unconscious,’ said Forester. ‘You go out – I’ll look after him.’

She shook her head stubbornly and O’Hara broke in impatiently, ‘All right, Willis, come on up here; let’s not waste time.’ His head ached and he was panting in the thin air; he was not inclined to waste time over silly girls.

He helped Willis through the smashed windscreen and saw him settle on top of the fuselage. When he looked into the cockpit again it was evident that the girl had changed her mind. Rohde was talking quietly but emphatically to her and she crossed over and O’Hara helped her out.