Sidney Sheldon - If Tomorrow Comes

Tracy felt faint. She looked at the box and thought, I can't get in there. I'll die.

The man was looking at her strangely. “Avez-vous mal?”

Now was the time to back out, to put a stop to this. “I'm all right,” Tracy mumbled. It would be over soon. In a few hours she would be on her way to Switzerland.

“Bon. Take this.” He handed her a double-edged knife, a long coil of heavy rope, a flashlight, and a small blue jewel box with a red ribbon around it.

“This is the duplicate of the jewel box you will exchange.”

Tracy took a deep breath, stepped into the container, and sat down. Seconds later a large piece of canvas dropped down over the opening. She could hear ropes being tied around the canvas to hold it in place.

She barely heard his voice through the canvas. “From now on, no talking, no moving, no smoking.”

“I don't smoke,” Tracy tried to say, but she did not have the energy.

“Bonne chance. I've cut some holes in the side of the box so you can breathe. Don't forget to breathe.” He laughed at his joke, and she heard his footsteps fading away. She was alone in the dark.

The box was narrow and cramped, and a set of dining-room chairs took up most of the space. Tracy felt as though she were on fire. Her skin was hot to the touch, and she had difficulty breathing. I've caught some kind of virus, she thought, but it's going to have to wait. l have work to do. Think about something else.

Gunther's voice: You've nothing to worry about, Tracy. When they unload the cargo in Amsterdam, your pallet will be taken to a private garage near the airport. Jeff will meet you there. Give him the jewels.and return to the airport. There will be a plane ticket for Geneva waiting for you at the Swissair counter. Get out of Amsterdam as fast as you can. As soon as the police learn of the robbery, they'll close up the city tight. Nothing wilt go wrong, but just in case, here is the address and the key to a safe house in Amsterdam. It is unoccupied.

She must have dozed, for she awakened with a start as the container as jerked into the air. Tracy felt herself swinging through space, and she clung to the sides for support. The container settled down on something hard. There was a slam of a car door, an engine roared into life, and a moment later the truck was moving.

They were on their way to the airport.

The scheme had been worked out on a split-second schedule. The container with Tracy inside was due to reach the cargo shipping area within a few minutes of the time the De Beers pallet was to arrive. The driver of the truck carrying Tracy had his instructions: Keep it at a steady fifty miles an hour.

Traffic on the road to the airport seemed heavier than usual that morning, but the driver was not worried. The pallet would make the plane in time, and he would be in possession of a bonus of 50,000 francs, enough to take his wife and two children on a vacation. America, he thought. We'll go to Disney World.

He looked at the dashboard clock and grinned to himself. No problem. The airport was only three miles away, and he had ten minutes to get there.

Exactly on schedule, he reached the turnoff for Air France Cargo headquarters at the Fertnord sign and drove past the low gray building at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, away from the passenger entrance, where barbed-wire fences separated the roadway from the cargo area. As he headed toward the enclosure holding the enormous warehouse, which occupied three blocks and was filled with boxes and packages and containers piled on doilies, there was a sudden explosive sound as the wheel jerked in his hand and the truck began to vibrate. Foutre! he thought. A fucking blowout.

The giant 747 Air France cargo plane was in the process of being loaded. The nose had been raised, revealing rows of tracks. The cargo containers were on a platform level with the opening, ready to slide across a bridge into the hold of the plane. There were thirty-eight pallets, twenty-eight of them on the main deck and ten of them in the belly holds. On the ceiling an exposed heating pipe ran from one end of the huge cabin to the other, and the wires and cables that controlled the transport were visible on the ceiling. There were no frills on this plane.

The loading had almost been completed. Ramon Vauban looked at his watch again and cursed. The truck was late. The De Beers consignment had already been loaded into its pallet, and the canvas sides fastened down with a crisscross of ropes. Vauban had daubed the side of it with red paint so the woman would have no trouble identifying it. He watched now as the pallet moved along the tracks into the plane and was locked into place. There was room next to it for one more pallet, before the plane took off. There were three more containers on the dock waiting to be loaded. Where in God's name was the woman?

The loadmaster inside the plane called, “Let's go, Ramon. What's holding us up?”

“A minute,” Vauban answered. He hurried toward the entrance to the loading area. No sign of the truck.

“Vauban! What's the problem?” He turned. A senior supervisor was approaching. “Finish loading and get this cargo in the air.”

“Yes, sir. I was just waiting for —”

At that moment the truck from Brucиre et Cie raced into the warehouse and came to a screaming halt in front of Vauban.

“Here's the last of the cargo,” Vauban announced.

“Well, get it aboard,” the supervisor snapped.

Vauban supervised the unloading of the container from the truck and sent it onto the bridge leading to the plane.

He waved to the loadmaster. “It's all yours.”

Moments later the cargo was aboard, and the nose of the plane was lowered into place. Vauban watched as the jets were fired up and the giant plane started rolling toward the runway, and he thought, Now it's up to the woman.

There was a fierce storm. A giant wave had struck the ship and it was sinking. I'm drowning, Tracy thought. I've got to get out of here.

She flung out her arms and hit something. It was the side of a lifeboat, rocking and swaying. She tried to stand up and cracked her head on the leg of a table. In a moment of clarity she remembered where she was. Her face and hair dripped with perspiration. She felt giddy, and her body was burning up. How long had she been unconscious? It was only an hour's flight. Was the plane about to land? No, she thought. It's all right. I'm having a nightmare. I'm in my bed in London, asleep. I'll call for a doctor. She could not breathe. She struggled upward to reach for a telephone, then immediately sank down, her body leaden. The plane hit a pocket of turbulence, and Tracy was thrown against the side of the box. She lay there, dazed, desperately trying to concentrate. How much time do I have? She wavered between a hellish dream and painful reality. The diamonds. Somehow she had to get the diamonds. But first… first, she had to cut herself out of the pallet.

She touched the knife in her coveralls and found that it was at terrible effort to lift it. Not enough air, Tracy thought. l must have air. She reached around the edge of the canvas, fumbled for one of the outside ropes, found it, and cut it. It seemed to take an eternity. The canvas opened wider. She cut another rope, and there was room enough to slip outside of the container into the belly of the cargo plane. The air outside the box was cold. She was freezing. Her whole body began to shake, and the constant jolting of the plane increased her nausea. I've got to hold on, Tracy thought. She forced herself to concentrate. What am I doing here? Something important… Yes… Diamonds.

Tracy's vision was blurred, and everything was moving in and out of focus. I'm not going to make it.

The plane dipped suddenly, and Tracy was hurled to the floor, scraping her hands on the sharp metal tracks. She held on while the plane bucked, and when it had settled down, she forced herself to her feet again. The roaring of the jet engines was mixed with the roaring in her head. The diamonds. I must find the diamonds.