AIR FORCE ONE IS DOWN
Alistair MacLean, who died on 2 February 1987, was the bestselling author of 
thirty books, including world famous novels such as The Guns of Navarone, Where 
Eagles Dare and Santorini. Of the story outlines he was commissioned to write by 
an American film company in 1977, two were, with Alistair MacLean's approval, 
turned into novels written by John Denis: Hostage Tower and Air Force One is 
Down. A successful film was made of Hostage Tower.
Since Alistair MacLean's death, two further story outlines have been turned into 
novels: Death Train (of which a film is in production) and Night Watch, both by 
Alastair MacNeill. Further novels from Alistair MacLean outlines are planned. It 
is hoped that the publication of these and future novels based on MacLean 
outlines will please the many readers for whom Alistair MacLean's death has left 
a gap.
ALISTAIR MACLEAN'S
Air Force One Is Down
JOHN DENIS
FONTANA/Collins
First published by Fontana Paperbacks 1981 Eighth impression October
Copyright © Alistair MacLean and John Denis
Printed and bound in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd, Glasgow
CONDITIONS OF SALE
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or 
otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the 
publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in 
which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition 
being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
CHAPTER ONE
Mister Smith's watch had long since been taken from him, so he logged the 
passing seconds in his head. Not all of them, but enough to keep him in touch 
with reality.
No natural light penetrated the cell, for he was a Category "A" convict, rating 
a top-security tomb. No everyday sounds of the world outside reached his ears 
through the solid old walls of Fresnes Prison.
In three years, even during his twice-daily canters round the exercise yard, not 
a single aeroplane engine had Smith heard, nor the dying snarl of a lorry, nor 
the aimless twittering of a sparrow.
His hearing had become abnormally and selectively acute, sifting the melange of 
man-made, purposeful noises for the odd accidental one to disturb the relentless 
pattern of normality. But these were few, scattered like grace notes through an 
otherwise pedestrian score. Yet still, and obsessively, Smith listened - for the 
catch in the footfalls of his guards that meant a broken step, for the clang of 
a dropped key and the curse that always followed it, for the scraping of a match 
as a warder unknowingly bestowed on Smith the priceless gift of lighting a 
cigarette outside his cell.
These sounds, after a while, slotted subliminally into his mind, and were used 
by Smith to fuel his determination to avoid mental stagnation in his solitary 
confinement. He owned one of the truly original criminal minds of the century, 
and had no intention of letting it rust into disuse.
He exercised his body ruthlessly to keep his muscles finely toned, and drilled 
his brain no less fanatically with complex chess and bridge problems committed 
to memory. And when he had dispatched these, he would reconstruct in perfect 
detail the greatest achievements of his long career, and go on to plan those yet 
to happen.
That they would happen, Smith never doubted. He had known with a cold certainty 
on the day that the forces of the United Nations Anti-Crime Organisation 
defeated his commando army on the Eiffel Tower, that no prison could hold him 
beyond his calculated tolerance.
Now he had tolerated Fresnes Prison for long enough. Smith had rarely spoken, 
still more rarely smiled, during his incarceration. But as he sat on his bunk 
and squinted at the naked light-bulb which he had come to think of as a trusted 
friend, the ghost of a grin touched his lips.
While his brain schemed at a feverish pitch, he dropped his eyes and 
absent-mindedly sketched with a fingernail on the palm of his hand the ragged 
outline of an aeroplane. And he whispered a name.
'Dunkels.'
Dunkels was Smith's creature, dragged from the gutters of Berlin. Smith had made 
Dunkels rich, and fear of Smith kept the German loyal. The time had come for 
Dunkels to repay his master, to be the catalyst of Smith's freedom, and of the 
crime he would perpetrate and which would rock the Western world.
'Dunkels,' Smith breathed again, drawing comfort from the sound, for sounds were 
precious to him. Dunkels would not let Mister Smith down. No one ever did that.
The Swissair DC-9 started its lazy descent into Zurich airport. The "No Smoking" 
sign came on in the first-class compartment, and Siegfried Dunkels obediently 
mashed his cigarette into pulp with elegantly powerful fingers.
He teased a flake of ash from the crease of his blue mohair trousers and glanced 
out of the cabin window. White puffs of cumulus danced on the snow-topped Alpine 
peaks, basking in their Christmas card complacency under an otherwise china-blue 
sky. His thin lips twisted. Dunkels detested the smug Swiss, but envied and 
feared them, too, for their effortless success and smooth financial brigandry. 
He had been bested, cheated, by Swiss money-men in the past; it would not, he 
vowed, happen again.
No Zurich gnome had ever beaten Mister Smith. Dunkels mused; and he was in 
Switzerland on Mister Smith's business. Nothing must go wrong. On Dunkels' life, 
nothing must go wrong.
A pert stewardess, confidently pretty, stopped by his seat and glanced 
meaningfully at his lap through lowered lids. She was merely checking that his 
seat-belt was fastened, yet she made it seem like an invitation.
'I trust,' Dunkels said in German,'that your Swiss doctors are more amenable 
than your bankers.'
'I beg your pardon?' said the girl.
'You have it,' Dunkels rejoined, stretching his mouth into a smile.
Fawn-coloured sunlight flooded into the aircraft as the pilot turned on to his 
final approach. A priest in the window seat struggled with the mini-blind, and 
Dunkels reached across him to flick it expertly down and mask the sudden glare. 
The priest bowed his thanks. Men of God, Dunkels thought, should not travel 
first class. It did not demonstrate a proper humility, though he doubted whether 
one such as his companion, clearly a bishop, would even bother to affect an 
attitude of humility.
The tension of the landing mounted in the cabin, and was reflected by seasoned 
travellers like Dunkels who steeled themselves for the touch-down. A sigh of 
relief escaped from the bishop when the DC-9's wheels rode safely on to the 
tarmac. The prelate crossed himself, and started to say something to Dunkels, 
who pretended, with an exaggerated pantomime, to be deaf.
Later, Dunkels hefted his alligator-skin case from the baggage-carousel and 
strolled past the deferential Swiss douaniers to the automatic exit doors. A 
uniformed chauffeur standing by a black Mercedes signalled to him with a gloved 
hand. The driver indicated the front passenger seat, but Dunkels pointedly 
waited for the rear door to be opened. Just as pointedly, he insulated himself 
from the possibility of small-talk on the journey by leaving the limousine's 
plate-glass partition closed.
Dunkels did not look through the tinted window at the breath-taking scenery, but 
into it at his own reflection. He saw, and admired, a square-jawed, firmly 
fleshed face with a slightly kinked nose jutting aggressively under his 
deceptively mild brown eyes. The chin was adequately cleft and the forehead 
broad and bland. His eyebrows, like his hair, were ash-blond. The hair was kept 
short and sculpted by an Italian barber who was an artist with a razor. Dunkels 
drew a comb from his pocket and ran it across his scalp. In its wake, the 
individual hair follicles snapped smartly back into place like Prussian 
guardsmen.
A fleeting shadow intruded on his self-absorption. Dunkels frowned, and peered 
more closely. Then he grinned. It was an aeroplane. A Boeing 707. The undulating 
silhouette was not unlike the shape Smith had traced on his hand in the Fresnes 
Prison.
The dignified italic script on the sign said "Edelweiss Clinic" in English, and 
Dunkels mentally switched to English for the period he was to stay there; a 
short time, he hoped. Like Smith, Dunkels was an accomplished linguist - though 
without Smith's encyclopaedic command of esoteric tongues. Dunkels had known 
Smith to range languidly through the alphabet from Albanian to Xhosa purely for 
mental stimulus.
Gravel crackled beneath the wheels of the Mercedes when it left the main road 
and turned into the clinic's long drive. Edelweiss, Dunkels assumed, would be an 
unwelcome intruder into the probably regimented sterility of the clinic, which 
at last came into view through the front window. It was a newish, chalet-style 
complex nestling in a fold of the mountain, and built out from it to overlook 
the vertiginous drop to a rock-strewn valley. Patients of Doctor Richard Stein 
who were unable to afford his treatment, or failed to benefit from it, could 
solve their problems simply by walking off his expensive terracing, Dunkels 
thought. He spread his long, spare body over the rear seat of the Mercedes and 
waited for the chauffeur to release him. A white-coated figure came out through 
the swing-doors and descended the steps towards him.
Doctor Richard Stein looked old for his years. He was an acknowledged 
front-runner in the treatment of rheumatoid-arthritic complaints among the 
elderly and rich, as well as a gifted psychiatrist. He was also (but less 
acknowledged) probably the most skilful plastic surgeon in Switzerland. It was a 
fortunate aptitude to possess in a land where a secret access of fortune often 
demanded a consequential change in appearance.
Richard Stein oiled rusting joints, cleared cobwebbed minds, and restructured 
dangerous faces with the same impartial expertise. He was small, dark and 
frail-seeming, with a prominent aquiline nose. His shoulders were bent, and 
Dunkels, who towered over him, saw the permanently crooked upper half of his 
body swivel from the waist as Stein extended a bony hand in greeting. 
'Physician, heal thyself,' Dunkels murmured indelicately.
'Mr Dunkels, I presume,' Stein said in German.
Dunkels ran his tongue along his strong, square teeth and grinned. 'There's an 
answer to that, I believe,' he replied in English,'though I never learned what 
it was. Doctor Stein: it's good to meet you at last.' He gripped Stein's hand 
with careless strength, but released it when the Swiss grimaced in pain. 
'Sorry,' Dunkels said, 'I wouldn't hurt your hands for all the money in Zurich.'
'Even with all the money in Zurich, I doubt that you'd be able to buy their 
equal,' Stein remarked, in excellent, though accented, English. He rubbed his 
abused fingers ruefully and added, 'I'll lead the way, then,' turning as fluidly 
as a man afflicted with apparent arthritic curvature of the spine can rotate.
The Mercedes slid away, and Dunkels followed the little Swiss doctor along two 
uniformly pristine corridors until they came to an oak-panelled door bearing the 
single word "Director". Stein's office was functional G-plan, with a 
picture-window framing the valley and mountains like an adjustable holiday-snap. 
Stein settled himself behind the desk and seemed to grow in stature now that he 
was exercising his own territorial imperative. He waved Dunkels into a 
comfortable low hide chair.
'You have the photographs and the anatomically detailed descriptions?' Stein 
asked, breaking the silence.
Dunkels nodded. 'You have the candidate?'
Stein nodded. Dunkels waited for the exposition, but none came Finally he 
sniffed loudly and said, 'Name?'
Stein linked his fingers and laid them on the desk, leaning forward and gazing 
intently at Dunkels as if he were on the point of revealing a state secret. 
'Jagger. Cody Jagger.'
Dunkels pursed his lips. 'It has a somewhat theatrical ring,' he mused.
'It's his real name,' Stein supplied confidentially.
Dunkels sat up and leaned in towards Stein. 'He's here now?'
Stein inclined his impressive head. 'Would you like to see his picture?' Dunkels 
indicated that he would.
It was an ordinary enough face gazing out at him from the first page of the 
manilla folder which Stein shot across the polished mahogany desk. The 
ordinariness, Dunkels knew, was a bonus. It was also a strangely pliable-looking 
face… no highlights or promontories, no points of interest or focus; it could 
have been moulded from plasticine for all the definition it carried. Another 
bonus. Dunkels stared hard at the face, then closed his eyes and tried to 
visualise its contours; and failed. He grinned, and smacked his lips 
approvingly.
Stein smiled too. 'I knew you'd like him. Good basic building-material. There 
are, additionally, certain similarities already between Jagger and the subject, 
and for total conversion… well, at the very least Jagger's physiognomy creates 
no obstacles, as you can see. The colouring, incidentally, is identical, and his 
height and weight match the subject's almost exactly.'
'Almost?'
'Each man is six feet two inches tall, but Jagger is eight pounds heavier than 
the subject. This is not a problem, since my clinic specialises in 
reducing-diets '
'Among other things.'
'As you say,' Stein acknowledged, among other things
Dunkels flipped through the remaining pages of the Jagger file, and granted in 
amusement. Stein regarded him questioningly. Dunkels snapped the file shut and 
remarked, 'Not exactly a model citizen, our Cody, is he?'
Stein replied, 'You didn't tell me you wanted a circuit preacher.' Dunkels 
grinned. 'It makes no difference what he is,' he conceded, 'as long as he is the 
man he claims to be. If he checks out, he'll do.'
'He will.'
'He'll have to,' Dunkels said, leaving the implicit warning unstated.
Stein unlaced his fingers and spread them wide in apparent consternation. 'I've 
never let Smith down before, have I?' he demanded.
'Mister Smith,' Dunkels corrected icily.
'Mister Smith, I'm sorry,' Stein apologised. 'But all the same, I've always 
delivered. Even when it was Mister Smith's own face. I made him Javanese, if you 
recall. And Swedish and Peruvian. No complaints? No.' Stein's fingertips 
agitated like the hands of a blue-rinse matron drying a full house of painted 
nails.
'I gave him his present face,' he protested,'the aristocratic look, that's what 
he wanted - top-drawer English. And that's what he got. He could pass for a Duke 
at Buckingham Palace.'
'He did,' Dunkels interposed drily.
'There you are, then,' Stein exclaimed,'though of course Mister Smith's face is 
marvellously - eh - malleable. And unmemorable, too. He tells me he's quite 
forgotten what he originally looked like.'
That, Dunkels admitted, rising from the hide chair, was true. 'OK, Stein,' he 
said brusquely, 'I'll put Jagger through the mincer, and if he comes out kosher, 
he's it.' Dunkels prided himself on his idiomatic English.
They lunched expansively in Stein's penthouse which afforded an even more 
staggering panorama of Switzerland's greatest natural asset. When they had 
finished eating, Stein inquired tentatively whether Dunkels really thought they 
could get away with the impersonation.
'What do you think?' Dunkels replied. 'You're doing the important part.'
Stein explained that the assumption of the subject's physical identity was not 
difficult. He had made people into other people before. 'Naturally,' he went on, 
'I'll be able to offer a more qualified opinion on Jagger's chances when you 
tell me a little more about our subject. At present, all you've given me is his 
face in six different poses, for which I'm grateful, plus the information that 
he's connected with the American forces, though which branch I don't know.'
Dunkels cracked his knuckles and drew a baleful glance from Stein. 'His name is 
Joe McCafferty,' Dunkels said slowly, as if grudging every word. 'He's on 
secondment from the United Nations Anti-Crime Organisation - UNACO to the elite 
Secret Service Corps forming the American President's bodyguard. Currently, 
McCafferty has been re-seconded to head the security force aboard Air Force One, 
which is, as you know
'Yes,' Stein interrupted, 'I know what Air Force One is. The Boeing - 707, isn't 
it? — used by the President as a sort of aerial White House. So…' he dragged the 
conjunction out admiringly, and whistled,'so McCafferty's an important man.'
'He is'
Then you'd better come along and see him,' Stein twinkled. 'I mean, of course, 
his potential doppelganger, his look-alike, his - other self.' Stein paused and 
added, half to himself, 'How unpleasant it will be for McCafferty to discover 
that he has suddenly become two people.'
Smith's computer "mincer", located thirty miles north of the Brazilian city of 
Sao Paolo, was extraordinarily swift and adept. It placed its imprimatur on 
Jagger's credentials while Dunkels was still waiting for his coffee to arrive. A 
courteous waiter handed him the telex, and Dunkels himself took the good news to 
Jagger, who was billeted in a room at the end of a wing that was private even by 
the reclusive character of the Edelweiss Clinic.
He introduced himself and told Jagger, 'You'll be seeing a lot of me from now 
on.' The ringer stood up and clasped Dunkels' hand. He grinned crookedly and 
said, 'Cody Jagger - and this is probably the last you'll ever see of me as I 
look now.'
Four hours later, Dunkels left the clinic in the same Mercedes that had brought 
him there. His close interrogation of Jagger had endorsed the computer's 
verdict: that Cody Jagger was indeed Cody Jagger. Dunkels was also satisfied, by 
his own and Smith's high standards, that Jagger was psychologically as well as 
physiologically adjusted to becoming one Joseph Eamonn Pearse McCafferty, 
Colonel USAF, presently Head of Security Operations, Air Force One, and seconded 
to the 89th Military Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA.
The Alpine peaks were almost purple in the waning light when Stein knocked at 
Jagger's door, and entered without an invitation. The ringer, who was standing 
before a back-lit shaving mirror saying goodbye to his face, remarked tersely. 
'He's hooked.'
'Excellent,' Stein beamed. 'So Smith will be hooked too. Moscow should be very, 
very pleased.'
'So they ought to be,' Jagger retorted. 'This thing could be bigger than either 
we or they thought.' He lapsed into silence, then added, 'Are you sure Smith 
will buy it?'
'Tut, tut, tut,' Stein said, waving an admonitory finger at him, 'Mister Smith 
if you don't mind. That, Jagger, is your first lesson.'
Smith listened to the days going by. Dunkels' last message had been affirmative. 
The ringer was perfect. The caper was on. His freedom lay barely a week away; 
then the world of sound, sight and scent would assume its normal proportions.
But strangely, that mattered less and less to Smith as the elongated hours 
passed. What was important was the crime he had planned to celebrate his return 
to life - the big one. which would destroy the credibility of UNACO and its 
commander, Malcolm Philpott. Smith deeply hated the man who had condemned him to 
the scarcely endurable catalepsy of imprisonment but this time he would triumph 
and UNACO would fall.
Dunkels would not let him down. Nor would Jagger; nor would Stein. Failure, as 
always with Mister Smith, was unthinkable. He had felt President Warren G. 
Wheeler squirming in his hands once before; and he would do so again.
Smith's mind conjured up anew the vision of the converted Boeing 707 that was, 
to Warren G. Wheeler, Air Force One. 'Oh dear,' he murmured, 'has the nasty man 
taken your toy away?'
And for the first time in three years, four months and eighteen days, genuine, 
unforced laughter filled the lonely prison cell, so near to his beloved Paris 
that Smith could almost smell the drains.
CHAPTER TWO
Over the next four days, Cody Jagger survived the mental and physical agony of 
losing his persona.
He could not, though, have been in more skilful or patient hands. Stein's 
operating theatre, in which he was joined by only two members of his staff, 
wholly dependent on him for money and drugs, was set out like a society 
photographer's salon.
Every inch of wall space was given over to huge blow-up pictures of McCafferty's 
face taken from six different angles, including a shot of the back of his neck, 
showing the precise set of his flat, trim ears.
The operating table was surrounded by a forest of tripods bearing 
multi-bracketed floodlights, adjustable vertically and in their angles of 
concentration. Stein, bent over the table which glowed under its own bank of 
arc-lamps, constantly barked instructions to his minions to sharpen or 
illuminate particular features of the subject.
Then, squinting fiercely at the pictures that charted McCafferty's face with the 
fine detail of an Ordnance Survey Map, Stein wielded his scalpel on the 
unconscious Jagger to trade cheek for cheek, jowl for jowl, nose for nose.
With total detachment, and a square centimetre at a time, Stein sliced away 
slivers of Cody Jagger and moulded them into jigsaw pieces of Joe McCafferty, 
like Lego bricks of flesh, the common denominators of a man which the surgeon 
simply rearranged in the shape of a different man.
Finally it was done, the stitches out, the scars pink and fresh. It was 0330 on 
the morning of the fifth day, and Stein, slumped cross-legged on the floor 
studying his handiwork in an enlarging mirror set into the ceiling, reflected 
sourly that in only a day and a half more, the God of Abraham and Isaac had 
created an entire world. 'Probably had better hired help than me,' Stein 
chuckled malevolently. He had never felt so enervated, so completely exhausted.
He looked at the taped and bandaged head. If there was no tissue infection, the 
bulk of the hard work was over. But Stein had sensed from the mounting urgency 
in Dunkels voice on the phone that Smith's plans were coming to a head.
Stein knew he could delay no further in contacting Karilian.
The Mercedes drew up once more at the Edelweiss Clinic, midway through the 
evening of the same day. Stein, Who had spent the intervening hours sleeping, 
crabbed down the steps to greet the large, square-faced man who had elbowed the 
respectful chauffeur impatiently aside. The driver, by inclination a gregarious 
type, was rapidly tiring of ferrying rude and uncommunicative foreigners to his 
employer.
Axel Karilian, KGB controller, Switzerland, ignored Stein's outstretched hand, 
grasping him instead roughly by the elbow and pivoting him around to face back 
up the steps. 'Show me,' he commanded, propelling the little Swiss doctor 
through the entry doors.
As a high-ranking and, by definition, high-risk criminal. Smith was customarily 
fed in his cell, keeping him away from contact with other prisoners. So when his 
evening meal-tray was removed, and the others in his block (Smith subconsciously 
counted them, identifying the cells solely by the sounds of their doors closing 
and the number of steps it took to reach them), he knew that it would be half an 
hour to the guard's final round of the day, a further twenty minutes to complete 
the tour, and an additional fifteen minutes to "lights out". The regimen never 
varied. Smith would have been distressed if it had.
That evening, while Doctor Richard Stein was entertaining Axel Karilian in the 
Edelweiss Clinic's penthouse. Mister Smith ate his dinner in the prison's 
isolation wing with more than usual relish.
He was aware that it would be the last meal he would ever take there. He lay 
back on his bunk and considered the immediate and more distant future, while his 
mind automatically catalogued the jail's grinding routine, cell by cell, tray by 
tray, door by door, step by squeaky-booted step (a squeaking boot! Not two, but 
one! A pleasing paradox to take out with him).
Smith chuckled his delight, and in his brain the nagging metronome that kept 
time for him ticked remorselessly on. He fell asleep, but even as he awoke hours 
later his first conscious impression was of the metronome taking over again, so 
that he knew for an indisputable fact that the hour was drawing near.
The prison "trusty" bribed to be the prime mover in springing Smith from jail 
licked his lips and tried to stop his eyes from darting repeatedly to the wall 
clock in the maintenance block. The second hand clicked over from 0359 to 0400, 
and the convict jammed the flat of his hand down on the plunger-key of the 
detonator device that had been smuggled in to him.
In the isolation wing, two hundred yards away, an electric spark leapt out from 
a junction box to join a trail of black powder. The powder spluttered into 
flame, and eleven seconds later a can of gasoline exploded in a bedding store at 
the end of Smith's corridor. Soon the store and its adjoining rooms were well 
alight, and the prison staff, squeaky-boot among them, rushed to the scene. That 
was when Smith's cell light came on.
The alarm from the prison to the local fire-station was automatic on the 
location of any uncontrolled outbreak, but still the fire-officers tended to 
wait for a confirmatory phone call. When it came, six fire appliances - two 
turntable ladder-wagons, a control vehicle and three water/foam-tenders roared 
out at a reckless speed into the night.
The fire spread quickly, yet the prison governor, and the deputy governor and 
the chief warder, all had to be roused and mobilised before the order to 
evacuate the threatened areas could be given. The guards drew rifles and riot 
guns from the armoury, and a nervous police commissioner turned out a cadre of 
the local CRS detachment, the not police.
Arc-lamps and sweep-lights illuminated every cranny of the gaunt building, and 
Smith sat up and then leaned back on his elbows when his cell door burst open.
'Out!' the armed guard ordered. 'There's a fire. We're clearing the block. Out!'
'Where to?' Smith asked, putting on a show of sudden panic.
'The main yard. Join the queue. Hurry!'
Mister Smith left the place which had been his home for more than three years 
without so much as a backward glance.
The fire-engine convoy wailed and clanged its way through the dark streets, to 
be joined at an intersection by police cars and outriders, adding still more 
manic noise to the already insane cacophony.
At the prison, shouting guards urged streams of convicts from five different 
directions into the large central yard, herding them into resentful chains to 
feed water and sand to the flames. The keening of sirens and screeching of tyres 
announced the arrival of the police, who did little apart from get in each 
other's way until the firemen came.
The fire had now spread to the stretch of buildings nearest the high 
perimeter-wall, and the two big turntable appliances straight away hoisted up 
their ladders above the wall. Firemen scrambled along them like mountain goats, 
and trained their hoses on the flames.
Unnoticed by the firemen, but ushered smartly to the wall by the police, a third 
turntable engine coming from the opposite direction from the main force, also 
shot its ladder up over the wall. The chief fire-officer in overall charge of 
operations in the control vehicle screamed directions at the crew for 
concentrating their water and foam.
The message was passed up the ladder to the man at the top, Leading Fireman 
Siegfried Dunkels, who acknowledged with a capable wave. Then he waved again, 
using both arms and trapping his hose between his knees. This time Smith saw 
him.
The yard was filled with smoke, clamour and confusion, and it was easy for Smith 
to clutch at his throat, retch noisily, and stumble out of the crocodile, which 
automatically closed ranks to fill his place.
Smith fell to his knees, apparently choking, then got up and lurched towards a 
patch of clearer air. It was covered by the harsh white glare of a searchlight, 
so the prison officer he bumped into en route did not trouble to turn him away 
from an area that would normally be strictly out-of-bounds to convicts: the foot 
of the wall.
Dunkels' ladder, and the hoses of his men, were pointed at the heart of the 
fire, but gradually the ladder began swinging away from the blaze and towards 
the yard until it centred over the crumpled figure of Mister Smith. Dunkels 
dropped a weighted nylon rope-ladder smack into his lap. Smith grasped it and 
started to scale the wall.
A guard - primed, like his colleagues, to watch for signs of a break-out - 
caught the unnatural movement of the human fly in the corner of his vision, and 
shouted a warning. As he charged over to the gyrating figure he saw the 
rope-ladder, and leapt for its trailing end. But Dunkels had already jerked his 
hose away from the flames and was swivelling it downwards. Carefully avoiding 
Smith, he aimed the hose, and the high-pressure jet of water took the guard full 
in the chest, slamming him to the, ground and pinning him there like a butterfly 
in a specimen case.
Smith reached the top of the wall and clutched the turntable ladder, which 
retracted, dropped its angle, and deposited him on the ground by the 
fire-engine. The hard-pressed fire chief also had the bad luck to notice Smith's 
escape. He ran in the direction of the third appliance, the presence of which 
had been bothering him for some little while.
Dunkels, in the still-retracting ladder, gave him the full treatment, bowling 
him over like a ninepin and then worrying him until he crawled back to his 
control wagon, where sympathetic hands hauled him inside.
Smith jumped into the cab, and the driver gunned the motor and moved the 
appliance away at top speed, sirens blaring. Dunkels, perched on the end of the 
now horizontal ladder, used his hose like a tail-gunner to deadly effect, 
scattering startled firemen and CRS toughies who tried vainly to stop them.
The madly racing fire-engine left the city limits at an impossible speed five 
minutes later. In a quiet country road, the appliance stopped. The crew got out, 
peeled off their uniforms, and six of them piled into a neutral-coloured van 
which matched the name on their early-shift construction workers' overalls.
Smith, Dunkels and the remaining three boarded a pair of Citroen cars, where 
changes of clothing were waiting for them. The limousines moved off together, 
and Smith heaved a sigh of profound relief.
'Excellent, Dunkels,' he said,'truly excellent. Now - get me a safe-house and a 
woman, in that order.'
Dunkels grinned. 'Should you wish to reverse the order, sir,' he said,'there's a 
woman in the back of the other car.'
Karilian had reluctantly allowed Stein to take the lead when the surgeon ordered 
him to be gloved, masked and gowned, then demonstrated beyond doubt that Jagger 
was no longer in the operating theatre.
They reached Jagger's off-limits suite, and Stein kept the bad news from him 
until they had tip-toed across to Jagger's bedside. 'What the hell's this?' 
Karilian burst out, jabbing a stubby finger at the bandaged head. 'I want to see 
his face. That's why I'm here, remember?'
'Shhh,' Stein soothed him. 'Keep the noise down, I beg you. I don't want him 
suddenly awoken. He's still under sedation and mustn't move quickly.'
Without dropping his voice, Karilian demanded when he could see Jagger properly. 
Stein had assured him that Jagger would wake naturally in the early hours, when 
the sedatives and antibiotics had worked through his system. But while there was 
still the risk of tissue infection, or even rejection, the ringer must remain 
unconscious. 'Please do as I ask.' he entreated Karilian. 'Come and dine with me 
upstairs. I have some excellent vodka and Beluga caviar.'
Karilian looked thunderously at him from beneath his shaggy brows, the hard, 
flinty grey eyes contemptuous and unblinking. Then he gave a half-grunting, 
half-snorting bark and growled, 'Make it Glenfiddich, Dom Perignon and a T-bone 
steak, and I might consider it.'
Stein also relaxed, his body subsiding from warped tension into its normal 
question mark shape. 'But I do want to see him - tonight.' Karilian warned him.
'So you shall,' Stein promised,'so you shall.'
The little doctor invariably won their minor skirmishes. Richard Stein, who had 
started life in Switzerland with the less acceptable name, in those days, of 
Scholomo Asher Silberstein, had known Axel Karilian for thirty-five years. 
Stein, then a gifted young medical student, had been trapped in Poland at the 
outbreak of war, and was sent to the nearest concentration camp with his fellow 
Jews. Luckily, it was a small and indifferently run camp under a weak but 
perverted commandant. Stein had wheedled his way into the camp's medical unit, 
and the commandant's confidence, and used the stepping-stones to Himmler's Final 
Solution to advance himself into a position of power.
Stein pandered grossly to the commandant's twisted mind (and improved his own 
knowledge of surgical techniques) by performing ghastly and obscene experimental 
operations on the inmates. His greatest medical triumph had been grafting organs 
from a large, fully-grown man on to the body of a seven-year-old girl. The child 
had lived for six weeks until the poisons trapped inside her literally erupted.
The Red Army surged swiftly through Poland on its way to Germany, and the 
commandant and his staff were unprepared for the sudden onslaught on the camp. 
The major in charge of the Soviet force lined up the Germans and shot them out 
of hand. He did the same with the weakest and most ailing of the Jews.
But Stein, neither sickly nor weak, was handed over to a young Ukrainian 
Intelligence captain who had just been posted to the advance armies, and so 
began the long friendship between Axel Karilian and the soon-to-be Richard 
Stein.
Stein was spirited away when the Ukrainian learned of his special abilities, and 
to protect him from Jewish revenge, Karilian took him to Odessa, where the Swiss 
Jew passed on enough of his hideously acquired skill in plastic surgery and 
skin-grafting to enable local doctors to change his face.
Stein did not stop at that, though; he wanted his shape changed as well. And he 
told the orthopaedic surgeons how to do it. It was an operation he had performed 
many times on unanaesthetised Jewish children, with more pliable bones than his, 
transforming them from human beings into grotesque monsters. Stein laid out 
every step of the operation for the Russians, endured the agony and, like 
Jagger, survived.
Richard Stein was no hapless victim of rheumatoid-arthritis. He was a self-made 
question mark.
After the war the KGB set him up in the Edelweiss Clinic, and Karilian joined 
him in Switzerland as the Geneva-based controller. It frequently amused Stein, 
as he amassed considerable wealth with the success of the clinic, that many of 
his best customers now were even wealthier Jews. On them, of course, he operated 
with the utmost care and skill. And never forgot the anaesthetic.
Cody Jagger's path to the embrace of the KGB was equally painful, and was also 
to involve Axel Karilian.
After a boyhood of petty offences and a brace of unhelpful prison terms when he 
graduated from a more serious school of crime, Jagger made PFC in the Army and 
was captured early on in the Vietnam war, waging a bloody and highly personal 
counter-offensive north of Hue.
He was tough, truculent, a born bully, and no trouble at all to the Viet Cong 
torture squads, who broke him inside a month.
Jagger was selected for training by a travelling KGB recruiting officer, but far 
from easing his lot the new status turned Cody's life into a living hell. 
Physical torment and mental assault alternated in a pattern of treatment which 
took him to the very borders of his sanity. Only afterwards did he dimly 
appreciate that turncoat material was of no use to the Soviet intelligence 
machine. He had given in too easily to the Viet Cong; therefore, the KGB 
reasoned, he could just as easily revert back to the Americans. They could not 
afford that kind of risk, so they handed Jagger over to Axel Karilian, who had 
picked up any number of useful tips in his fruitful association with Richard 
Stein.
Karilian's programme for Jagger was typical in its uncomplicated logic: the 
American must be cowed and brutalised into abject, unquestioning submission 
until he became a safe prospect.
It took Jagger three years to realise what was happening. When he did, he 
submitted - and meant it. Moscow sent him back to Hanoi, where the torture was 
increased daily for two months, to the point where Jagger lived every waking 
moment in constant, gibbering terror.
Only then had Karilian been satisfied. Thereafter, the KGB ruled Jagger by fear 
and fear alone.
He performed well enough for them as an agent in the States, but at a purely 
basic level, so that when Smith instructed Stein to find ringer-material for 
him, and Stein had passed on the news to Karilian, even the Ukrainian had been 
reluctant to use Jagger. But when he reconsidered the proposition, Karilian knew 
that Jagger must be the perfect candidate, though Stein still had misgivings.
Stein and Karilian entered once more the bedroom of the now restlessly stirring 
man. Jagger's eyes opened and regarded them through the slits in his bandages. 
'How is he?' Stein inquired of the nurse sitting by the bed.
'Much better.' she replied. 'Doctor Gruhner had a look at him just now. He says 
all the tissue has taken well, and there's no sign of infection. The scars are 
healing nicely.'
'Have you seen his face?' Karilian asked her brusquely. The nurse shook her 
head. Karilian motioned towards the door with his hand. 'Out,' he ordered.
Stein lifted the bandages carefully away, and was arranging them on a metal 
trolley when the telephone rang. The call was for Karilian.
The Ukrainian spoke only his name, listened, grunted twice and slammed the 
receiver back in its cradle. 'That was Paris,' he said,'there's been a fire at 
Fresnes Prison. One inmate made a daring escape. Guess who.'
Stein's eyes lit up. 'Then it's about to start?'
Karilian nodded. 'Your waxwork doll there will be needed sooner than we thought. 
Well - let's take a look at him.'
Jagger murmured in distress as Karilian loomed menacingly over the bed. Cody was 
conditioned to tremble at Russians, and at Karilian in particular. The Ukrainian 
took photographs from Stein's folder on the trolley and leaned in closer, 
holding a 12 x 10 enlargement next to Jagger's new pink ear. He rose and turned 
to Stein. 'Good enough,',he conceded.
'Good enough?' Stein bridled. 'He would fool Joe McCafferty's own mother.'
The telephone rang again. Stein picked it up, announced himself, and listened, 
also to silence. Then he said, 'Have no fear, he'll be ready. Yes. Until next 
week then. Au revoir,'
'Dunkels,' Stein said when Karilian raised an inquiring eyebrow. Smith would be 
at the clinic in a week, he explained, and he wanted the ringer to be fit, 
unscarred and word-perfect within a further five weeks.
Karilian smiled, with no trace of mirth. Then so do I, my dear Richard. You'd 
better see to it, hadn't you?'
Stein promised it would be accomplished. They had tapes of McCafferty's voice 
and an elocution expert as back-up, plus mute and sound film of his walk, 
gestures and mannerisms. Stein had a copy of Smith's dossier on the UNACO man, 
which was formidably comprehensive. His background, education, love affairs, 
close friendships, likes and dislikes… all were documented in detail. 
Psychiatric assessments and physical reports were attached, together with 
medical histories and dental records. McCafFerty's relations with his brother 
officers were charted, and the file also included thumbnail pictures and 
mini-dossiers of the people closest to him at work, who would clearly expect 
instant recognition from McCafferty.
One factor was in Jagger's favour: McCafferty commanded his own unit, so he 
didn't have to be too unctuously friendly with anyone, superior or subordinate. 
Aloofness could be used to cover a temporary lapse. Nonetheless, the ringer 
would have to memorise not merely the faces, but the backgrounds as well, of all 
those men and women in McCafferty's immediate family and circle, especially the 
officers he had served with on his way up through the ranks. Each of them would 
have similar combat stories to which the ringer must unhesitatingly respond - 
and get the details right.
The women in McCafferty's life, Stein reasoned, could present the major problem. 
Affairs they knew about were fully outlined, with portraits, curricula vitae, 
favourite food, music, authors and suchlike, of the leading contenders. Sexual 
accomplishments and/or deviations were listed where possible, but it would be in 
bed that Jagger could betray himself. Several authorities rated McCafferty as a 
considerate and expert lover - whereas Jagger was, at best, an unfeeling rapist, 
with a conviction to prove it.
Fortunately, Stein had partially solved the problem by circumcising Jagger to 
match McCafferty, so it would be some time before the ringer could use himself 
without pain. But as a general rule he would be ordered to avoid sexual 
contacts, pleading recurrent hepatitis, or a mild case of a social disease, or 
any other plausible excuse.
Again Stein asked Karilian, as they stood looking down on the scarred ringer, 
how good their chances were of getting away with it for any length of time.
'Can Jagger really manage it?' he insisted. 'Is he that bright, that adaptable? 
It needs a considerable actor, you know, Axel, to carry off this part.'
Karilian told him to stop worrying. 'He'll do it all right,' he said grimly, 
'and he'll do it well. I don't know why Smith wants him on Air Force One, but 
it's got to be something very, very big for an operator like him to go to all 
this expense and preparation. And for his man to be our man as well, unknown 
either to Smith or people like UNACO. who'll be involved now that Smith is free, 
is a master-stroke. Moscow's in raptures at the prospect.'
Stein grinned at Karilian's obvious relish, but suggested that the more Jagger 
was exposed as McCafferty the greater his vulnerability might become. Karilian 
shook his huge head. 'You're wrong,' he replied,'the more he plays the role the 
better he'll get at playing it - that surely follows.'
'I don't know,' Stein muttered, 'I just don't know. How can you be so certain?'
'How? Simple. I know Jagger. He's terrified of what will happen to him if he 
doesn't do it. Something a hundred - a thousand - times worse than death. Can 
you imagine the depth of his fear. Doctor, a fate as monstrous as that which 
Jagger believes could be his? But how silly of me; of course you can. You, after 
all, are an acknowledged expert in pain and terror. For example, you would only 
have to threaten to "rearrange" him again, but without the anaesthetic. It would 
not be the first time, would it?'
Stein flushed angrily, but could not look Karilian in the eyes. 'What about the 
real McCafferty?' he muttered. 'What happens to him?'
Karilian laughed. 'If Smith doesn't kill him,' he said,'then of course I will.'
CHAPTER THREE
Basil Swann, a young man with spots, horn-rimmed glasses and a string of honours 
from three universities, bustled into the office of Malcolm G. Philpott, 
Director of the United Nations Anti-Crime Organisation. The bureau was located 
in the UN Building in New York City, and Basil was childishly proud to work 
there, although he would not have dreamed of showing it. He had a predictably 
sound future with UNACO - provided that UNACO itself had one.
The bureau had never been - and, Philpott feared, never would be - a totally 
secure operation, free from political pressure and financial stress. Philpott 
himself had proposed the formation of the top-secret group when he was a 
research professor at a New England college.
His specialist subjects had been behavioural sciences, but Philpott's deepest 
interest lay in the motivation and machination of the criminal mind. He had 
lobbied furiously to gain UN approval, and won it only because the US government 
of the day had funded the initial outlay. Philpott resisted the American 
patronage, and ever since then had fought successive Administrations to keep 
UNACO independent of the American, or any other, state. The bureau must, he 
insisted, be at the disposal of all UN member countries, from whichever 
power-bloc. An enlightened UN secretariat finally saw the point.
Philpott's other problem - easily foreseen but difficult to resolve - was 
infiltration by the UN states who were picking up the bills. Philpott fought off 
patently obvious attempts at penetration by both the CIA and the KGB, but the 
French, Israeli, British and South African plants were sometimes trickier to 
uncover. Gradually, the Director established his right to a cordon sanitaire as 
the only effective means of guaranteeing UNACO's neutrality and 
disinterestedness.
He managed to cope with the naturally divided feelings of his American-born 
operatives, who had constantly to fend off appeals to their native patriotism, 
and relied heavily on his Assistant Director, Sonya Kolchinsky, a Czech 
national, for ammunition against Warsaw Pact interests.
Lastly, Philpott had to persuade all his clients that UNACO was not in business 
to play politics… that the American de-stabilisation of Chile and Jamaica, or 
the Soviet Union's ruthless repression of Czechoslovakia and Poland, were not 
international crimes in the accepted sense; deplorable, but not actionable. 
UNACO's enemies were criminals who challenged the security of nations and the 
stability of social order; and of those known to Philpott, Mister Smith came 
near the top of the list.
An unwanted complication for the UNACO Director was the depth of his personal 
relationship with the US President, Warren G. Wheeler, a close friend since 
college days. Wheeler had to be treated as impartially as any other UN head of 
state, but it created a difficult tight-rope for Philpott to walk. If he leaned 
too far in either direction, he would fall, and UNACO with him. But then, 
Malcolm Gregory Philpott had been trained for the risk business. And anyway, it 
made life interesting.
Now approaching his mid-fifties, Philpott was still a lean, trim and handsome 
man, though his abundant hair was iron-grey and his sharp, intelligent face was 
seamed, more from responsibility than age. The principal emotions showing on it 
as Swann walked into his office were tension and concern, rather belying 
Philpott's reputation as a cunning poker player.
The large room through which Swann had passed on his way to see the Director 
housed the UNACO master computer, plus an electronically operated wall map of 
the world and a staff of multi-lingual monitors, whose continuous task was to 
tap listening-posts in a hundred and thirty countries.
Each time a new contact was made, a red light flickered on the wall map, 
indicating its point of origin. An exact see through miniature of the map rested 
on Philpott's uncluttered desk. Basil Swann approached the desk, stood in 
silence, coughed discreetly, and handed the Director a computer print-out. It 
was a brief list, no more than five lines.
USSR : Gold bullion shipment - Klvost to Moscow.
EEC : Brussels. Quarterly NATO conference.
MIDDLE EAST : Bahrain. OPEC ministers to Washington. : Cairo. Israeli-Egyptian 
defence talks.
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE : Cape Town. Diamonds in transit to Amsterdam.
Philpott quickly scanned the entries and accompanying estimate of dates, and 
then read it over, more slowly. 'Is this everything?' he inquired.
'It is a complete catalogue of the likeliest events within the next three months 
in which the computer considers our friend might conceivably display a criminal 
interest,' Swann replied ponderously.
'Which friend?' called a voice from the doorway, 'and furthermore, what do you 
mean by bleeping me at the hairdresser's? You know how sensitive Pepito is. It'd 
better be important.'
'It is, Sonya,' Philpott answered as his Assistant Director, newly and radiantly 
coiffured, sailed into the room, and sank into a chair proffered by Swann. Sonya 
Kolchinsky was sumptuously fashioned and of above-average height, with a round 
face, soft grey eyes and short brown hair, elegantly moulded to her shapely 
head. She was a good ten years younger than Philpott, but saw no reason to 
permit minor considerations like age difference or their positions in UNACO to 
interfere with the affair they had both conducted, guiltlessly and joyfully, 
ever since she had become part of UNACO and of Philpott's life.
'It's very important,' Philpott added gravely. 'Smith's got out of jail.'
'O-h-h,' she breathed, 'that friend.'
'That friend.'
Sonya pondered the news. 'He hadn't long to serve, had he?' she said. 'I 
remember he bribed his way to a lenient sentence after the Eiffel Tower snatch. 
It could have had only a few more months to run.' Philpott nodded his agreement. 
'In which case,' Sonya pressed, 'wasn't it rather foolish of him to break out 
now?'
'Maybe,' Philpott conceded,' - or maybe not.'
'Why "maybe not"?'
'Because, my pet, it could be he's planning something so important that only he 
personally can mastermind it. Ergo, he wanted out of Fresnes.'
Sonya frowned. 'So - we're looking for the big one, are we?' Philpott nodded, 
and handed her the print-out.
The computer's come up with these,' he explained, concern in his voice. 'It 
could be any of them. They're all his style, although a couple are more overtly 
political than usual for Smith.'
A single glance confirmed the impression for Sonya, and she provisionally 
eliminated the Brussels conference and the Cairo talks. Like Malcolm Philpott, 
she had become obsessed with Mister Smith when UNACO finally got to grips with 
him and succeeded in putting him away. Smith was arguably the most enigmatic 
force in world crime, a rare breed of criminal: dedicated to anarchy, and 
totally amoral. Perhaps even worse, he was wedded to the abstract concept of 
crime for its own sake, as a cleansing agent in a second-rate world.
Financial gain seemed hardly to matter to him; he craved solely the power and 
influence to commit more astounding and more atrocious assaults on people, on 
governments, institutions and social systems.
Smith did not seek to become the Napoleon, the Alexander or the Tamburlane of 
crime; in his warped mind, he already was. No one - not those closest to him, 
even knew where he had come from, what he had originally looked like (he altered 
his appearance like other people changed their clothing), or the precise nature 
of the obsessional paranoia that drove him. He was fabulously rich, 
well-connected, young for his age (whatever that was), and a man of almost 
limitless accomplishment who could have been outstanding in any area of human 
activity he chose. Yet Mister Smith had chosen one of the lowest forms of human 
activity and, unfortunately for the world, he had elevated it to an art form.
As Director of UNACO, Philpott had recruited, and still used, international 
criminals, poachers turned gamekeepers, to fight Smith. They had been successful 
once, and Philpott was convinced that only UNACO could stop him again.
But if they could not, then whatever the chosen battleground, Philpott had an 
uneasy foreboding that UNACO, directly or indirectly, would be right in the 
firing line. Together with its Director and Assistant Director.
'Right,' said Philpott, handing the print-out back to Swann, 'plant agents in 
sensitive areas of all the operations I've marked - including Cairo and 
Brussels.'
'But not Bahrain?' Basil protested.
Philpott cupped his chin in his hand and pursed his lips. 'No,' he agreed, 'not 
Bahrain. The transport of the OPEC ministers to Washington at, I believe, the 
end of next month, is being done in Air Force One, and we already have Joe 
McCafferty on secondment there as Head of Security. We couldn't possibly have 
anyone safer in such a sensitive area.'
'Right, sir,' said Swann, and was half-way to leaving the room when Sonya called 
him back. Philpott looked up at her inquiringly.
'I'm not so sure…' she said, appearing deep in thought. Philpott cocked a 
quizzical eyebrow.
It went back, she explained, to their joint suspicion that Smith could be 
planning some form of revenge upon UNACO, even if only as a by-product of the 
larger operation. If that were so, might he not select the Bahrain gathering and 
go for Air Force One because UNACO's man was seconded to the plane as Head of 
Security? '
'Deliberately bracket us in the target, you mean.' said Philpott, pensively.
'Yes, deliberately. After all, what would destroy our credibility more 
effectively than that something awful should happen to the US President's 
private aircraft, with one of UNACO's top men in charge?'
Philpott stroked the bridge of his nose, then removed his spectacles and chewed 
the ear-piece reflectively. It was, he thought, a hell of a position to be in, 
having to compromise one of their own leading field operatives on secondment by 
planting a check agent on him; but Sonya had advanced a persuasive argument.
'He's so unpredictable,' she pressed. 'The big one could be any of these - or 
none of them.'
'OK. Basil,' Philpott conceded, 'we'll cover all the options, including Bahrain. 
I'll contact McCafferty in general terms and warn him to be especially vigilant 
on the OPEC trip, and you assign an operative to Air Force One.'
'With McCafferty's knowledge and permission?' Swann inquired.
'Without it, Basil,' Philpott said firmly, 'most definitely without it. Clearly, 
it must be someone Joe hasn't served with previously, has never met, and doesn't 
even know works for us. We've done it before.'
'Not to top cats like McCafferty,' Swann persisted. Philpott grinned and said, 
'There's always a first time for everyone. With Smith, we can't afford to take 
chances.'
Basil left, and Sonya regarded Philpott shrewdly. 'Why the anonymous back-up?' 
she inquired. It had not been part of her thinking. She had merely wished to 
strengthen McCafferty's hand.
Philpott looked back at her levelly, and liked what he saw. He liked her thought 
processes, too; they had played seven card draw poker a couple of times in bed, 
where she had him at a constant and embarrassing disadvantage. 'Merely covering 
the options,' he replied.
She grinned. 'Or playing both ends against the middle.'/p> 
Philpott winked at her. 'Yeah, well.' he said, 'you and Smith aren't the only 
clever bastards in this little game '
The weather was once again a splendid advertisement for Switzerland, with the 
air as clear and bracing as Stein's brochure claimed. The Mercedes driver was in 
excellent humour, too; for once he had a communicative passenger. To Dunkels' 
astonishment. Smith had insisted on keeping up a flow of spirited conversation 
throughout the journey to the Edelweiss Clinic. Dunkels guessed that he might be 
doing no more than testing out his new accent and persona; aristocratic Boston 
Irish, with long Harvard vowel-sounds to match his Ivy League suit. The 
chauffeur, though, had been impressed, not least by Smith's courtesy in 
explaining his more obscure witticisms in faultless Swiss patois.
Stein met them at the door and took them straight round to the landscaped 
gardens at the rear of the clinic, which reached back to the sheer wall of the 
mountain. Jagger sat in a wheelchair in a far corner, talking to a blonde nurse, 
recently hired to replace the previous one who had been sacked on Karilian's 
orders. The fewer people who knew that Jagger and the plastic surgery case from 
the private wing were one and the same man, the better, Karilian reasoned.
Before Stein could call out to Jagger, Smith shouted. 'Colonel McCafFerty. 
Visitors.' 
The wheelchair swung about, and Jagger, in what even at that early stage was a 
passable imitation of McCafferty's voice, said, 'I don't believe we've met. have 
we?'
'Good, Jagger, good,' Smith exulted. 'I have not had the honour of Colonel 
McCafferty's acquaintance, and it's my intention to keep it that way. You've 
done well. Already, you've exceeded my expectations.'
He turned to Stein and pressed congratulations on him, too, which the little 
doctor was compelled modestly to accept. The transformation had, in all truth, 
been a miracle of plastic surgery.
Stein then mentioned that Jagger was curious about the nature of the assignment 
he was to carry out as McCafferty, but Smith advised Jagger not to worry; he 
would be told all in a few weeks. Meanwhile, he was to immerse himself in the 
role, for he would periodically be examined in his mastery of it by Dunkels. 'I 
need hardly have to explain,' Smith purred,'that I shall be most displeased if 
all the hard work and expense I have gone to proves to be wasted. If you are 
found ultimately incapable of performing this task, I assure you that you will 
not survive long enough to ponder your failure.'
Jagger flushed as far as the stretched pink tissue of McCafferty's face would 
permit, and made as if to rise from the wheelchair, but Stein and the nurse 
eased him back down. Stein protested that Smith was being unfair, and could 
unsettle Jagger's psychological acceptance of the permanent loss of his 
identity.
Smith dismissed the possibility with an airy wave of his hand, and reassured 
Jagger of his confidence in the ringer's powers. He repeated that Jagger would 
learn everything he needed to know before long. 'You, on the other hand, my dear 
Doctor,' Smith said to Stein, 'will not be told the details of the plan. When it 
becomes a fait accompli, the whole world will know. In the meantime, I am paying 
as much for your silence as for your undoubted medical skill.'
Stein smiled and inclined his head. Smith need have no fears for his discretion, 
Stein promised, nor would he seek information from Jagger when the ringer was in 
full possession of the facts. 'Then we understand each other. Doctor,' Smith 
replied, a satisfied smile on his face.
Stein beamed back at him. Probably no other man alive, he reflected, had ever 
double-crossed Mister Smith and collected a large fee from him at the same time.
No other man, true. But a woman had…
… and her name was Sabrina Carver.
She had been a member of Smith's Eiffel Tower commando team, but in reality (and 
undetected by Smith) had helped bring about his destruction there, for she was 
also a valued agent of UNACO. Sabrina knew the identity of only one other UNACO 
field operative - and it was not Joe McCafferty.
Philpott had made it a corner of UNACO's game-plan to keep his agents anonymous 
and apart. It protected the agents, and it shielded UNACO, since a captured 
operative could denounce only himself or herself, or the headquarters staff. And 
everyone knew who the headquarters staff were; their names were published in 
official UN documents. Philpott's only truly secret weapons were his agents, 
which he employed in every UN member state. A full roster of their names would 
make a priceless intelligence weapon, and surprising reading, especially to the 
agents themselves.
When circumstances absolutely required it, Philpott paired agents into a team 
for a "need to know" one-to-one relationship. Sometimes, teams stayed together - 
if both members survived. Certain operatives were never twinned, either from 
disinclination, or because they were politically or strategically sensitive. 
McCafferty was in the strategically sensitive category.
Philpott drew his field staff from all classes, colours and creeds, and if he 
had to pair an agent, he took what sometimes seemed to Sonya Kolchinsky to be an 
almost perverse delight in matching polar opposites.
For example, Joe McCafferty, who now had to be twinned, was an honest and 
straightforward career airman, a fiercely patriotic American and a high-ranking 
officer with an outstanding reputation, both in the Pentagon and in the American 
Secret Service.
Whereas Sabrina Carver, whom Philpott had selected as McCafferty's partner, was 
an international jewel thief.
Her fee for the Eiffel Tower job (reluctantly agreed by Philpott) had been the 
proceeds of an astonishing raid on the Amsterdam Diamond Exchange, which she had 
carried out to impress Smith into hiring her for his team. Philpott's ruthless 
efficiency, and proven success with UNACO frequently collided head-on with his 
conscience when the delicate question arose of the head of an anti-crime squad 
actually aiding and abetting his own pet criminals. Luckily, his conscience 
invariably fell at the first fence. UNACO's finances, never more than grudgingly 
yielded by the UN member countries, depended on results, and there was very 
little that Malcolm Philpott would not do to obtain those results. Particularly 
when he was forced to deal with criminal monsters like Smith.
Philpott gave Swann his instructions on Sabrina's role of shadow to Joe 
McCafFerty. 'There's to be only a one-way "need to know" this time,' he 
emphasised. 'Sabrina must know about McCafferty, but he is not to know about 
her, unless I expressly order it. Clear?'
Swann left to bring in Sabrina for briefing, and Sonya complained that the 
situation was still far from clear to her, even if Swann understood it. 'He 
doesn't,' Philpott declared, 'but he'll do as he's told. The point is that Joe 
will be a frontline target and won't want to be bothered with looking after a 
"twin". At the same time, he won't appreciate feeling that we've set someone to 
watch him.
'But I reckon that if Smith does have designs on Air Force One, then Joe will be 
able to use all the help he can get, and I'll deal with his outraged manhood 
when the whole thing's over.'
Philpott looked gravely at Sonya, and ventured a weary smile. 'It could be bad,' 
he said slowly. The worst we've ever had to face. If Smith launches an action 
against Air Force One and half a dozen oil sheikhs, I don't have to tell you 
that there's nothing, absolutely nothing, anyone except our people aboard that 
Boeing can do about it.'
As the long-serving and respected correspondent of the Soviet newspaper Isvestia 
in Central Europe, Axel Karilian enjoyed an enviably high standard of living in 
a luxury apartment block near the centre of Geneva. He had resisted all attempts 
by the Swiss to plant domestic staff in his flat to spy on him, so it was 
Karilian himself who answered the imperious ring at his doorbell in the early 
hours of the morning. He recognised his visitor as medium- to top-ranking in the 
KGB.
'They did not tell me you were coming,' Karilian said in greeting.
'I did not tell them I was going,' his visitor said coldly Karilian revised his 
estimate; there had clearly been a purge in the Gorski Prospekt, and his 
uninvited caller, code-named Myshkin, was now indisputably top-rank. Karilian 
produced whisky and cigars, vodka and cigarettes being reserved strictly for 
lower order guests.
'This man Smith,' the KGB high-flier said, 'interests us. So does his project, 
whatever it may turn out to be. We will refer to it in vague terms, please, 
since - ' he pantomimed a listening device ' - we cannot be too careful.'
Karilian protested, in suitably oblique language, that the apartment was 
"clean", but Myshkin waved him to silence. 'It will be as I say,' he ordered. 
Karilian shrugged and nodded.
'We consider the project,' Myshkin went on,'to be of the utmost significance to 
us.' Karilian suddenly felt a thrill of unease steal over him; despite Myshkin's 
denial, Moscow had obviously penetrated Smith's security; they knew his target.
'An international incident of extreme gravity can be created from the Smith 
project,' Myshkin was saying, 'one which will cause maximum embarrassment to a 
certain person who is not precisely our closest friend.'
Karilian inclined his head at the blatant clue, while excitement gripped his 
innards. The reference must be to Warren G. Wheeler, President of the United 
States of America - and Karilian had found out sufficient details of Air Force 
One's future schedule to be certain now that Smith's target was the OPEC 
ministers. Nothing else fitted the facts. Only by maximising an incident 
involving the oil sheikhs could Moscow conceivably create an international 
situation of "extreme gravity" for the USA and UNACO, and cause the American 
President supreme embarrassment.
'You are with me?' Myshkin inquired. Karilian gravely nodded his head.
'Good. The plan will succeed. It will not be permitted to fail. The doppelganger 
will be everything he purports to be. Do I make myself clear?'
Without waiting for a reply, Myshkin remarked that if all went well, Moscow 
would be under a deep obligation to Karilian for involving the KGB in Smith's 
project. Karilian swallowed, with difficulty. Not too pleased with me, he prayed 
silently; not pleased enough to bring me back to Moscow.
As if readings his innermost thoughts, Myshkin grinned slyly and sat forward in 
his chair. The light from the anglepoise lamp illuminated his sharp, knowing 
features, from the sheen on his dark hair to the point of his pomaded chin.
He made Karilian feel gross. And afraid. 'What I mean is that you could be 
promoted to a posting of your own choice… outside Russia.'
Karilian tried desperately hard not to show his relief.
'But of course, should Mister Smith's little venture end in failure, there will 
nonetheless be a welcome awaiting you in Moscow. On the whole, though, I would 
advise against failure,' Myshkin said sympathetically. 'You know how - eh - warm 
our welcomes can sometimes be, my dear Axel, don't you?'
CHAPTER FOUR
Hawley Hemmingsway III stretched his big, well-covered frame in the Sheikh of 
Bahrain's bath and paddled the foaming water to make the scents rise. The bath 
had been prepared for him by a maid, but Hemmingsway guessed that at least three 
exotic oils had been used to perfume his ablutions, one of them attar of roses. 
'Something about me that even my best Arabian friends won't confide?' he mused.
Hemmingsway chuckled in his deep and melodious voice. Only one aspect of an 
American Energy Secretary could conceivably get up an Arab's nose, and Hawley 
had no trouble in that direction. He chortled again as he recalled Warren 
Wheeler's acute embarrassment at the White House luncheon party where 
Hemmingsway was offered the job.
'You're absolutely certain, now, Hawley,' the President had persisted, the 
anxiety showing in the fork of frown-lines etched into the fingertip of flesh 
between his eyes. 'Even three, four generations back you're sure, are you? Not a 
single drop of Hebrew blood anywhere? God knows - and I'm sure you do - that I'm 
no racist,' Wheeler had interjected quickly, 'but I simply cannot afford to 
annoy these OPEC guys, and one way to get them foaming at the mouth and biting 
their Persian carpets would be to appoint even a quarter-Jewish Energy 
Secretary.'
Hemmingsway had assured the President that he was New England WASP clear back to 
the Pilgrim Fathers. With a sly grin he added, 'As a matter of fact, the 
Hemmingsways were playing croquet with the Cabots and the Adamses and the Lodges 
while the Wheelers were still skinning beaver and raccoon to make a dress for 
Pocahontas.'
The jibe had gone unremarked but for a slight lift of the President's eyebrows; 
Hemmingsway knew his man, however, and had walked away from the West Wing with 
the Energy portfolio safely in his pocket. His credentials duly passed the 
scrutiny of the Arabs, and when the OPEC ministers met in Bahrain for talks on a 
possible East-West oil accord, Hemmingsway had been invited to join them as the 
house guest of the Ruler. One of the Sheikh's fleet of Cadillacs was put at his 
disposal, and Hemmingsway derived satisfaction from roaring unnoticed around the 
island at the sort of gas-gulping speeds that were firmly outlawed in the States 
by his own energy conservation programme.
The talks were going well, too, justifying President Wheeler's decision not only 
to send Hemmingsway to Bahrain, but also to lay on his personal aeroplane, Air 
Force One, for the journey via Geneva to Washington, where the second stage of 
the negotiations would take place.
Hemmingsway drew himself out of the huge round bath, walked to the shower where 
he sluiced off the oily water, and from there straight into a towelling robe 
held aloft by the maid, teeth gleaming beneath her yashmak, eyes decorously 
averted. Hawley grinned and thanked her in Arabic. He was an extremely 
conscientious Energy Secretary.
Strictly speaking, Air Force One is not Air Force One at all unless the 
President of the United States is on board. Ferrying the Secretary of State, for 
example, it becomes Air Force Two, but it is still the same plane - what the 
USAF called a VC-137C stratoliner, which is their term for a Boeing 707 
commercial long-distance airliner. And if the President chose to loan it out as 
Air Force One, that was his prerogative. The plane was his, together with the 
name, current since 1962 but now universally known.
The Boeing was converted to include an office and living-suite for the President 
between the forward and centre passenger compartments. Visitors were not invited 
to occupy the "apartment", but there was plenty of comfortable and roomy seating 
in the three passenger areas, flanked by front and rear galleys and rest rooms. 
Externally, Air Force One carried the streaming legend "United States of 
America", and the Presidential insignia. She was crewed, always, by personnel of 
the USAF's 89th Military Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, Washington DC.
The sun winked blindingly on her fuselage and gleaming wings as the liner turned 
on to the heading for Muharraq Airport, Bahrain. Major Patrick Latimer brought 
the big plane down to skim over the threshold; then he ran it to the taxi-way 
leading to the hardstand. Latimer, though officially designated the pilot, sat 
in the co-pilot's seat to the right of the controls. On his left, in the pilot's 
seat, was the Commander of Air Force One, Colonel Tom Fairman. Behind them sat 
the navigator, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Kowalski, and next to him crouched one of 
the flight's two engineers, Master Sergeant Chuck Allen. They completed the 
closing-down procedures, and Sergeant Allen operated the Boeing's hatch.
Another man - a member of the crew, but with no aeronautical purpose to fulfil - 
waited for the airport staff to position the moving steps just below the hatch. 
He was always the first man to leave the plane, the last to board it. He stood 
by the open hatch, revolver drawn, peering out into the strong, clear sunlight.
Just as it was Colonel Thomas D. Fairman's task to supervise the flight of Air 
Force One, so the job of guaranteeing the safety of the Boeing, its crew and 
occupants, was ultimately the responsibility of only one man: the Head of 
Security, Colonel Joe McCafferty.
The entire crew filed to the hatch and waited patiently while McCafferty 
completed his surveillance. Then Mac bolstered his gun and walked down the 
stairway, followed by Fairman, Latimer and the other airmen. Last out of the 
plane was Bert Cooligan, agent of the US Secret Service, and the only other 
armed man on the flight.
Fairman increased his stride and came abreast of McCafferty. 'Seeing the Manama 
sights before we leave, Mac?' he inquired. McCafferty treated him to a flinty 
grin. 'Your job may be over, Tom,' he returned, 'but mine's just beginning. Not 
that the vibrant and sinful capital of Bahrain doesn't hold its attractions for 
me, but I think I'll check around a bit and then retire to the hotel with a 
bottle of Jack
Daniels and a good security schedule.' Fairman grinned. 'Not even a Gideon 
Bible?'
'Here? No. it's either the Koran or my smuggled copy of Plavboy not to be left 
laying around for the natives to read.
Gives them a bad impression of the flower of American womanhood.' Both men 
laughed, and the Arab watching them from the terminal building's balcony through 
binoculars minutely adjusted the focus.
Since the age of seven in her native town of Fort Dodge, Iowa, Sabrina Carver 
had been a thief. She started with a tiny brooch stolen from a fellow passenger 
on a trip down the Des Moines River. She got two dollars for it, which was a 
rip-off, for the brooch had three diamonds set into a silver clasp. Sabrina 
failed to recognise the stones as diamonds; it was a mistake she would not make 
again.
Ten years later she left her home and Fort Dodge and, as far as she could see. 
would never need to return to either. She had seventy thousand dollars in a bank 
account kept for her by an admiring professional fence, and on her eighteenth 
birthday doubled her nest-egg with a hotel raid that the police said could only 
have been committed by a squad of acrobatic commandos.
For that was Sabrina Carver's forte: she channelled her astonishing physical 
fitness, her sporting prowess, even her beauty and considerable intellect, into 
becoming one of the greatest cat-burglars ever known. And she used her skill to 
equip herself, perhaps uniquely, for her ruling passion: not just stealing, but 
stealing diamonds.
Philpott, who had his finger clamped firmly on the pulse of international crime, 
became aware of the swiftly rising star (she was still only twenty-seven) and 
watched her subsequent career with interest and not a little pleasure. He waited 
for her first mistake, and when she made it in Gstaad, trusting a greedy lover, 
Philpott had snatched her from the Swiss police and enrolled her as a part-time 
agent of UNACO.
Philpott paid her lavishly enough for her not to have to steal again, but, as he 
freely acknowledged, a girl with Sabrina's brains and stunning beauty had never 
actually needed to be a thief; she simply enjoyed it. Stealing was what she did 
best, and neither Philpott nor her position as a UNACO field operative would 
prevent her from doing it. That was why she was a part-time agent.
She sat in the foyer of Manama's most splendid hotel and quickly adjusted to. 
the idea that most of the diamonds in Bahrain would be worn by men. She was idly 
sketching in her mind a plan to penetrate the Sheikh's palace when she was 
forced to relinquish pleasure and get back to reality - Joe McCafTerty strode in 
through the ornate revolving doors.
McCafferty spotted her immediately, for she was wearing the uniform of Airman 
First Class in the USAF. He had been heading for the reception desk, but changed 
direction when he saw Sabrina. As he got closer his stride faltered and he 
blinked. Sabrina Carver had that effect on men; she was breath-catchingly 
lovely, with a cascade of dark brown hair falling to her shoulders, framing a 
face elliptical in its contours, from the central hair parting high on her 
forehead to the dimple in her chin. Her brow was deep, her eyes wide-spaced and 
large, and her nose and mouth were set in exquisite classical proportion.
McCafferty completed the journey with outstretched hand and slightly glazed 
eyes. 'You're Prewett's replacement, I expect,' he said. A Flight Traffic 
Specialist (the equivalent of a stewardess on a civil airline) had dropped out 
at the last moment, and he had been warned by radio that a substitute would meet 
Air Force One in Bahrain. Fairman was able to make the outward trip with only 
one stewardess, but he needed two for the passenger-run to Washington. As always 
with the President's jet, all new attachees to the crew reported in the first 
instance to the Head of Security. Sabrina stood up, saluted and handed over her 
identification documents, as she had been briefed to do by Basil Swann after 
Philpott had fixed the Pentagon.
She took McCafferty's hand and felt his strong fingers enclose her own. She was 
careful not to return equal pressure, though her hands were undoubtedly a good 
deal more adaptable and educated even than his. 'AIC Carver, sir,' she 
said,'reporting as directed to Air Force One. You're Colonel McCafferty, sir?' 
Mac confirmed the introduction; he was still faintly dizzy from the impact she 
made on him. 'Right then, C-Carver,' he stammered, 'or may I call you whatever 
it is, since we're off duty?'
She smiled winningly and replied, 'It's Sabrina - strictly while we're off duty. 
Do I keep calling you "sir", sir? Only for off-duty, that is?'
'Ah - no. My name's Joe, but most of my friends call me Mac.'
'Which do you prefer?'
'I'll leave the choice to you.'
'Well, since we're apparently going to be friends, perhaps I'd better make it 
"Mac",' Sabrina rejoined with not a trace of coyness. McCafferty smiled a shade 
awkwardly and she decided that the file photographs of him which Basil Swann had 
shown her did not do the Colonel justice. He was decidedly handsome in an 
aggressive and somehow unflattering way, with a hint of pugnacity, or perhaps 
cruelty, in the determined set of his mouth and chin; his nose was long, wide 
and straight, and his eyes coloured a piercing blue.
She questioned him about their schedule, and McCafferty explained that they 
intended making a convenience refuelling stop in Geneva while picking up stores 
which were not easily obtainable in Bahrain. They would stay in Switzerland 
overnight. Take-off from Manama (he consulted his watch) was in four hours.
'Do you have a room here?' McCafferty asked innocently, then blushed as he 
realised how his question could be taken. 'I -I didn't mean - for God's sake - 
well, you know - I'm not that fast a worker. Wh-what I meant was —'
'What you meant,' Sabrina replied, enjoying his discomfiture and liking him for 
it, at least what I hope you meant, was do I, like the rest of the crew, have a 
room at the hotel where I can freshen up before the trip.'
McCafferty breathed a sigh of relief. 'Thanks for letting me off so easily. I'm 
not really that sort of guy - despite anything you may have heard to the 
contrary.'
Mac groaned when he saw how deeply he had landed both feet in it this time, and 
sent up his hands to cover the flush that threatened to suffuse his entire face. 
Sabrina burst out laughing, but quickly apologised to save him from even more 
acute distress. He could not, after all, possibly know that she was able to 
recite the names of every woman Mac had slept with over the past five years, as 
well as their assessments of his capabilities - in and out of bed.
'I really don't have that sort of reputation,' Mac protested earnestly.
I'm sure you don't, Colonel - sorry, "Mac" - but since you've given me the 
impression that you do, maybe I should think twice about accepting that 
dinner-date in Geneva you were on the point of offering me.'
Mac looked at her in amazement. 'How did you know I was planning to buy you 
dinner in Geneva tonight?' he exploded. 'I hadn't even got around to the 
preliminary -uh— '
'Preliminary seduction moves?' she whispered, wide-eyed and girlish. 'Gosh, gee 
and golly, I've never been seduced by an expert before, by a famous Lothario 
like the great Joe McCafferty —'
'Now you're toying with my emotions,' Mac protested, drawing himself up sternly. 
'In my capacity as Head of Security on Air Force One, and as the first crew 
member to set eyes on you, I consider it my military duty to protect you from 
that crowd of rampant wolves by ordering you, AIC Carver, to dine with me this 
evening in Geneva. Is that understood?'
'Aye aye, Colonel,' she responded, throwing him a second smart salute, 'as long 
as it's purely in the interests of protective discipline, of course.'
It was Mac's turn to smile. 'I don't normally beat the crew,' he said, 'but I 
could always make an exception of you, if that's what turns you on.' Sabrina 
reddened prettily and gulped. 'I think we'd better end this conversation and 
continue our "on duty" relationship, sir,' she said.
'But you'll make it for dinner tonight?' Mac pleaded.
'You bet.'
They parted, and the Arab sipping an ice-cream soda in the screened-offbar area 
to their left, laid his binoculars case on the table and jotted an entry in a 
slim blue notebook.
Sabrina received a message from a man who announced himself as Chief Steward 
Master Sergeant Pete Wynanski from Air Force One. The Commander, he said, had 
ordered a crew muster in the hotel lobby. She saw the group at the far end away 
from the bar as she left the elevator. McCafferty was not with them, and she 
felt unreasonably disappointed. She saluted Colonel Fairman and met the crew, 
each of whom looked at her perhaps a little too much, to Fairman's evident 
amusement.
'I can see you're going to enjoy it with us, Carver,' he grinned. 'Even if you 
don't, the rest of the crew obviously will.'
Sabrina smiled back and inquired for McCafferty's whereabouts. 'Aah,' moaned the 
delicately structured, poetic looking Latimer theatrically, 'already smitten 
with our dashing Head of Security, I can tell. Swashes his buckle at anything 
female that moves aboard the plane, does Mac, although I have to admit that this 
time, for once, he has shown excellent taste.'
'Stow it, Pat,' said Fairman, 'AIC Carver's a member of this crew, and I do not 
want her position made any more -eh - difficult than it is at the moment. She's 
with Air Force One to work, and I want nothing to interfere with that. To answer 
your question, Carver, Colonel McCafferty's gone out to the airport with Agent 
Cooligan via the route the OPEC ministers will use. Then, if I know Mac, he'll 
check, double-check and recheck the plane, the police, the airport guards, the 
luggage hold, and even look for cracks in the runway. Colonel McCafferty's 
damned good at what he does. I only wish that went for the rest of my so-called 
crew.'
The Commander chuckled easily along with the rest of the flight staff, then 
returned once more to business, asking Sergeant Wynanski if he was all fixed for 
provisions. Wynanski replied that he had been furnished by the White House with 
a list of the ministers' dietary requirements, which he had augmented through 
discreet inquiries at the hotel and at the palace. He still had to pick up a few 
items from the markets in Manama.
'Good work, Sergeant,' Fairman commended him, 'you have about an hour. That 
applies to everyone. I'll want cabin personnel aboard by 1600 hours. Flying crew 
to Ops by 1650. You'll find minibuses outside this hotel half an hour before 
reporting times. Roll-out's at 1805.'
Wynanski and his staff and most of the flying crew drifted away; Fairman stayed 
to take Sabrina on one side. As a new crew member, she got the Commander's 
introduction to Air Force One at full strength on the patriotism scale. Fairman 
also impressed her with the importance of their current assignment.
'This isn't going to be just a milk run,' the Colonel said gravely. 'We're using 
Air Force One mainly because our own Energy Secretary, Mr Hemmingsway, will be 
on board - but let me assure you that we do wish to impress the OPEC ministers; 
we want to make them feel good. I need hardly tell you, if you've been keeping 
up with the news, that if they don't come in with us on this oil deal, then 
they're likely to cut back production so far that we'll be riding bicycles and 
reading by candlelight back in the States for years to come. Nothing, but 
nothing, must go wrong on this trip, Carver; so - be alert, polite and efficient 
at all times. A good stewardess can make the world of difference to a military 
flight. Chief Steward Wynanski's something of a martinet, but I guess you'll 
have him eating out of your hand in no tune, just like the rest of us.'
Sabrina felt herself going hot and was framing a suitably tart reply when 
Fairman held up a warning hand. 'Jus' teasing, honey, just teasing,' he assured 
her.
'So was Major Latimer, sir,' she replied sweetly, 'and, as I recall you hauled 
out his ass for it.'
Fairman regarded her appraisingly, and grinned. 'Somehow I don't think you 
really need any advice from me. Carver,' he said.
Axel Karilian paced the floor of his Geneva apartment and bayed into the 
telephone.' It is important - vital - that Jagger contacts me here as soon as 
possible,' he roared. 'Do you understand that, Stein?' Karilian sneaked a 
sideways glance at the menacingly imperturbable Myshkin, lounging on a sofa 
nursing a generous Chivas Regal.
'It's not long to zero-hour there,' Stein protested. 'For God's sake, Axel, 
Jagger will be very busy, with Smith and Dunkels breathing down his neck the 
whole time. It'll be very difficult to contact him.'
'You must!' Karilian insisted. 'There has to be a way.'
Modesty, a strong suit with Doctor Stein, veiled the slyness with which the 
little Swiss produced his trump card. mostly for the benefit of Myshkin, whom he 
correctly guessed was in Karilian's apartment. 'Of course,' Stein said smoothly, 
'Jagger can be contacted discreetly. I have, as it were, an open channel to 
him.'
'Then use it! Jagger must call. There are new instructions to be passed to him, 
which alter the entire picture of the operation. Hot from Moscow, Stein - and 
they have to be obeyed. Get on with it.' He banged the telephone down and was 
uncomfortably aware of Myshkin's gaze, directed at him through barely-raised 
eyelids.
It took Jagger half an hour from receiving Stein's message before he could elude 
Dunkels for long enough to make a telephone call. The ringer's blood chilled 
when the cold, precise voice of Myshkin talked to him first in Russian and then 
repeated his orders in English to establish absolute clarity.
'As I understand it, Jagger,' Myshkin said, 'Mister Smith's plan is to - ah - 
interfere, shall we say, with the operation of Air Force One sufficiently to 
enable him to make a financial gain from the situation in which the OPEC 
ministers will consequently be placed. I do not wish to go into further detail 
on an open line.'
Jagger confirmed the details. Karilian nervously pressed together the damp palms 
of his hands, and Myshkin continued, 'Up to a point that is still satisfactory, 
but we feel that greater advantage can be gained by us if the affair concludes 
in a more - ah - drastic way. Do you follow me?'
'I - I don't, I'm afraid,' Jagger replied uncertainly.
Myshkin gave an exasperated grunt. 'I can see I shall have to be more specific,' 
he said caustically. 'It is of crucial importance to us, Jagger, that America 
comes badly out of this episode - as badly as can possibly be imagined. And 
there is surely one way to persuade the OPEC states not merely to refuse to sign 
the oil accord, but actually to sever relations of any kind with the United 
States.' Both sides of the conversation were in English now; Myshkin had to make 
absolutely sure that Jagger understood him.
The ringer gasped in disbelief. 'You can't mean - you can't
'But I do,' Myshkin said. 'That is precisely what I mean. You will kill the OPEC 
ministers, and the surviving crew members of Air Force One. You may leave us to 
deal with the genuine McCafierty.
'How you do it, Jagger, is your business. But do not fail me. Whatever happens, 
do not fail. Even if you are the only person alive on Air Force One when it is 
finished, that will be acceptable. But you must accomplish this task.'
Jagger put down the receiver in his Bahrain hotel and took the elevator to the 
ground floor. As he stepped on to the ground floor, Dunkels hurried forward and 
grabbed his arm.
'Get into uniform,' the German snapped brusquely. 'We leave in five minutes. 
Achmed's reported that the pigeon is sitting up begging to be plucked.'
McCafferty and Bert Cooligan came down the steps of Air Force One to meet the 
advancing posse of uniformed senior Bahraini policemen, all armed to their 
splendidly white teeth. McCafferty stopped and scuffed one of his shoes over a 
mark on the hardstand. Cooligan grinned. 'That is not, sir,' he whispered, 'a 
crack, and even if it were, it's not on the runway.'
Mac then met the police - who had tactfully placed themselves under his orders - 
and handed them copies of the security schedule. After their brief exchange, he 
and Cooligan walked on to the terminal building, where an Arab toyed with the 
strap of his binoculars case and decided to visit the men's room. McCafferty 
looked up at the roof of the terminal, and saw three machine-gunners placed 
strategically along the parapet.
'Check those guys out, Bert,' he murmured. 'Make sure they know that they're to 
fire indiscriminately at any, and I mean any, unauthorised person getting within 
fifty yards of the Air Force One steps. Give 'em copies of the programme, too; I 
don't want to be shot when I lead in the convoy. I'm going back to the hotel. I 
need a shower and a drink and another chat with Hemmingsway before we get the 
motorcade under way. OK?'
Cooligan said 'Ciao,' and Mac went through the terminal out into the street, in 
the wake of a tall, well-groomed young Arab in a Savile Row suit, who had a 
leather binoculars case swinging from his shoulder.
Mac carefully surveyed the front of the airport, where the police detachments 
were manoeuvring into their positions, and so missed the barely perceptible 
signal which the Arab, known as Achmed Fayeed, made to a cab-driver who was 
separated from the main gossiping bunch at the head of the taxi rank. The 
driver, who had been leaning casually against the side of a car, arms folded, 
unwound himself and got into the first cab.
As McCafferty lifted his arm to wave, the cab peeled off the rank and screeched 
to a halt about six inches from the American's leading foot. Mac yanked open the 
door, jumped in and gave the name of his hotel. On the route out of the airport, 
they passed a by-road leading up to the cargo-sheds. A short way along the 
by-road, its engine revving, sat a shiny black Cadillac. Achmed Fayeed spun the 
wheel, and cruised out after the cab.
Once he had settled in his seat, Mac returned to his security schedules for 
Geneva as well as those for Bahrain. Even if he noticed the following Cadillac, 
it did not register on his mind. Cadillacs - mostly in the Ruler's fleet - were 
common enough in Bahrain, and throughout the Gulf States. His driver watched the 
American carefully in the rear-view mirror.
A causeway links the airport at Muharraq with the main island of Bahrain, and 
when McCafferty glanced up and saw the road stretching out before him and the 
sunlight glistening on the water to either side, he dropped his eyes once more 
to the intricate details of his assignment. He was relaxed, and totally 
unprepared for the savage wrench at the wheel which took the taxi off the tarmac 
highway and on to a rutted dirt track that veered off to the right just before 
the water-crossing.
The track led to a cluster of tiny buildings known to the Bahrainis as 
borrastis, mean little huts made from palm fronds and mud into wattle beehives. 
Mac saw none of this. He went instinctively for his gun, but he was fractionally 
too late. The driver, a handkerchief clamped to his nose and mouth, aimed an 
aerosol spray over his shoulder, and it took the American full in the face.
McCafferty actually had his revolver in his hand, but it dropped from his 
unfeeling fingers. He slumped forward against the back of the driver's seat, and 
blackness descended on him.
Achmed Fayeed's car pulled up on the rough ground alongside the taxi, and the 
Arab pointed in the direction of the borrasti huts, which were hidden from the 
main road and the perimeter-buildings of the airport by a fringe of palm trees. 
Both vehicles shot away and were soon lost in the oasis.
Achmed opened the rear door of the taxi and yanked out McCafferty's body. 
Dunkels strolled from the hut, looking down at the security chief. Then he 
turned and regarded a second man emerging from the borrasti. The likeness 
between the two was staggering, perfect in every detail.
Dunkels ordered Achmed to retrieve Mac's personal effects, ticking them off on 
his fingers: wallet, gun, security shield, documentation, money, pen, 
handkerchief, lighter (if any). The Arab ransacked the American's body and 
handed the articles to Jagger, who stowed them away, checking at the same time 
that his uniform matched the security chiefs exactly. 'Take him inside now,' 
Dunkels said, 'and bring him round. There are things we need to know that only 
he can tell us.'
'And if he won't?' Jagger asked. Dunkels shrugged. 'He's going to die anyway. He 
might as well make it easy for himself.'
'Not too easy,' Jagger sneered, and got into the cab. The driver reversed his 
vehicle in a swirl of dust and took off back down the potholed track towards the 
causeway. There he turned on to the road-bridge and sped away to Manama.
He was in a hurry but drove with studied care. After all, he carried an 
important passenger: the Head of Security of Air Force One.
CHAPTER FIVE
Air Force One is a standard-frame Boeing intercontinental jet airliner, 153 feet 
long and almost as wide with a wing-span of 145 feet, 9 inches. She has four 
engines - Pratt and Whitney turbojets - which are capable of lifting a maximum 
take-off weight of more than 150 tons.
With a range of over seven thousand miles, she can land on less than five 
thousand feet of runway. No pilot with fewer than four thousand flying hours 
under his belt can sit at her controls. The motto of the 89th Military Aircraft 
Wing, Special Missions (MAC), which provides the Boeing's crew, is "Experto 
Crede" (Trust one who has experience). Many times the President and people of 
the United States of America have had cause to be grateful to the people who fly 
Air Force One, and doubtless will have cause again.
The plane has a flight-ceiling of more than forty thousand feet, and never 
carries less than ten in her crew. The Boeing's economic cruising speed is 550 
mph, and she is unique in American aviation in carrying a Lieutenant Colonel as 
navigator. Air Force One flight crewmen wear blue uniforms, and the stewards 
maroon blazers with blue trousers or skirts, each uniform sporting the coveted 
Presidential Service Badge.
More by accident than design, the President's aircraft has become something of a 
cottage industry in its own right. The tableware and accoutrements are 
purpose-made and supplied gratis by manufacturers eager for the First Citizen's 
approval. Since all the articles, from silverware, crystal glasses, dinner 
plates, cups and saucers, down to ash-trays, match-books and dinner napkins, 
bear the Presidential seal, they are eagerly sought by souvenir hunters.
Given the thriving black market in Air Force One artifacts, it is axiomatic that 
those who travel on her will yield to temptation and appropriate the portable 
items among the plane's equipment. These are highly prized, and have even been 
used as a kind of ersatz currency, rather like schoolboys doing "swaps".
The 89th (located, in fact, in Maryland, though the address of Andrews AFB is 
always given as Washington DC) would prefer to equip their flagship through the 
orthodox channels of paying for their own supplies and prosecuting people who 
steal from the plane, but the traditions of patronage and perks are deeply 
ingrained into American politics.
She had been cleaned, waxed and polished in preparation for the OPEC trip, and 
her tyres given a wash and brush-up, and she stood now on the runway at 
Muharraq, proud and gleaming and lovely in the yellowing rays of the sun, 
waiting for yet another manifest of passengers to board her who would never be 
charged for their journey.
The starboard engines, three and four, were already running to supply power and 
air-conditioning and to prepare the Boeing for a rapid start. The stores and 
spares inventories had been minutely examined and approved and, together with 
the baggage of the OPEC ministers, sent on ahead. On the flight deck the crew 
were at their posts for the necessary pre-flight procedures.
Master Sergeant Pete Wynanski, Chief Steward, handed "Airman" Sabrina Carver a 
print-out of the guest-list. 'Study it,' he snapped, 'because this ain't a Bunny 
Dip for Hollywood moguls. These oil ministers are not just VIPs -they're EDPs.'
They're what?'
'They're what - "Sergeant".'
'Sorry. They're what - Sergeant?'
'EDPs. Exceptionally Distinguished Passengers. I don't want any of 'em sloshing 
around in wet socks because you spilled drinks over them. 'Kay?'
'Completely, chief. Uh - Sergeant,' Sabrina replied. Master Sergeant Wynanski 
seemed to be the only crew member with an absolute zero-response to her gorgeous 
body, and he, she reflected ruefully, had to be the one she picked as her boss. 
'There ain't no justice.' she mused.
'Yerright,' snapped Wynanski, 'there ain't. Now dooties. You're drinks. Airman 
Fenstermaker here (indicating a honey-blonde with tinted glasses and an enormous 
bosom standing alongside Sabrina) you're snacks. 'Kay? You may have to swap 
later. Depends. 'Kay?'
'Right, Sergeant.' they chorused, though Sabrina's brow was furrowed as her eyes 
ran down the Arab names. 'S'matter, Carver?' Wynanski grunted.
'Well, you said I was drinks, but it looks as if most of them will be sticking 
to tea.' Sabrina explained.
'Look. Carver, fer Chrissakes,' Wynanski moaned. He had once been a waiter on 
the Staten Island ferry and had seen life. You gotta unnerstan' - these guys are 
Ayrabs. Moslems. Goddit?'
'Uh-uh,' she said, shaking her head.
'They ain't supposed to like booze,' Wynanski said, patiently, 'but from time to 
time, and especially when they're out of Ayrabia, they - well — indulge, if you 
get me. But still they can't appear to, and they don't like you to know it, nor 
anybody else. Right? So. Read down the list again out loud, so Fenstermaker 
don't make a tit outa herself as well. Sorry, Fenstermaker. Nothin' personal 
about yah boobs.'
Sabrina spluttered, but regained control and recited from the print-out.
"Tea with milk and sugar."
'That's straight tea real tea, from leaves; with milk and sugar, like it says,' 
Wynanski pronounced.
Tea with sugar but no milk.' Sabrina intoned.
'Scotch.' said Wynanski firmly, 'on the rocks, no water.'
Sabrina's mouth dropped open. 'Ohhh,' she breathed.
'Bout time, too.' Wynanski snarled. 'Continue.'
'Tea with lemon.'
'Vodka. Ice. Lime juice.' Sabrina made tiny notations.
'Black coffee, no sugar.'
'Cognac, neat.' Wynanski supplied.
'Tea - no sugar, no milk.' Sabrina read. Wynanski looked puzzled. 'Gimme that.' 
he ordered, and scanned the list.
Then his brow cleared, and a beatific smile illumined his battered face. 'How 
about that?' he whispered, 'one o' these guys got the hots fer Jack Daniels. 
Whooppee!'
Through the open hatch of the Boeing, the far-off wail of police-car sirens 
reached Sabrina's ears. The motorcade, she calculated, must be on the causeway 
by now.
She found herself keenly anticipating the flight, whatever dangers it might 
hold. Especially, she was looking forward to seeing McCafferty again. He had 
made, she decided, quite an impression on her.
Philpott gazed meditatively for the umpteenth time at the computer print-out, 
dog-eared now, which was pinned to the front of Smith's UNACO file. 'Two down,' 
he said,'three to go.' He darted an exasperated glance at the ominous barrage of 
clocks, adjusted for time-zones and the individual preferences of more than a 
score of countries, sitting atop the electronic mural in the bureau's 
nerve-centre, naggingly pushing forward the time for action. 'And one just about 
coming up.'
'Sir?' Basil Swann inquired.
'Just thinking out loud,' Philpott returned. 'All set for Bahrain?'
Swann replied with a trendy "Affirmative". Air Force One, he supplied, would 
take off inside half an hour, on schedule. Sabrina Carver - "Airman First Class 
Carver" was already on board the Boeing, and Colonel Joe McCafferty, according 
to his invariable procedure, would board last of all, after delivering the OPEC 
emissaries.
'No gremlins in the tracker-bug?' Philpott asked. None, Basil assured him. 
Philpott chewed his lip, and refused to notice the Gulf time-zone clock, which 
had advanced by no more than a minute since he had last fixed it with a baleful 
glare. The tension got straight to his stomach, and he eased out a muted burp. 
Sonya Kolchinsky, from the neighbouring swivel-armchair, gave his hand a 
sympathetic squeeze.
Of the original five events which the UNACO computer had linked to Smith's 
escape, two were already safely dispatched: the gold bullion run to Moscow, and 
the Middle East defence talks in Cairo.
The bureau's resident agents - one a Soviet Army physical training instructor, 
the other sous-chef in a Cairo hotel - had slotted into the operations, and both 
incidents were accomplished interference-free in their varying ways; but 
assuredly with no sign of criminal activity, from Smith or anyone else. The 
third event, chronologically speaking, on the master-list, was the journey Air 
Force One was about to commence, air-lifting the Arabian oil titans to 
Washington DC, via Geneva, Switzerland.
Philpott, for reasons he could not isolate, had a stronger feeling of 
apprehension about this one than the first two, or even the remaining pair. The 
fatal joker in the Air Force One pack had always been clear to him: the 
operation could not be controlled from the ground.
Despite the presence of McCafferty, unknowingly backed up by Sabrina Carver, a 
swift and audacious strike by Smith at the President's Boeing could succeed, 
immobilising both agents - or killing them. And Philpott would be powerless to 
prevent it, or to control the action thereafter. He had insisted as a minimum 
precaution on a monitoring capacity for UNACO to track the flight. It was 
impossible, though, to pick up a duplicate radar-trace, so Basil Swann simply 
arranged a feed of the signal relayed through a communications satellite to the 
Pentagon.
The signal came from the Boeing's inertial navigation system, and Swann - 
against the odds, for it was a closely guarded secret - had discovered the 
frequency on which it was relayed. The signal was then decoded by the bureau's 
computer, which obligingly translated it into a visual display on the vast wall 
map.
At present it was no more than a pin-point, throbbing expectantly on the island 
of Bahrain like an unleashed terrier.
But when the plane got airborne, the tracker-bug signal would snake out in a 
green line across the Middle East, the Near East and the Mediterranean, 
following whichever course Colonel Tom Fairman had selected to take the Boeing 
to Geneva.
While the President's plane was in the skies, doing what it was supposed to do, 
going where it ought to go, the green tracker-line would continue crawling over 
the map. But should anything happen to the Boeing, the marker trail would 
vanish.
At all times, Malcolm Philpott would know the exact position and course of the 
aircraft unless, by some inconceivable means. Mister Smith launched an attack, 
overwhelming even UNACO's redoubtable agents. Carver and McCafferty. 'And by 
then, of course,' Philpott murmured, 'we shan't be able to do a damned thing 
about it.'
'Hi,' said the disembodied voice, 'finished?'
Cody Jagger stared wildly at the telephone in his hand, and fleetingly cursed 
himself for not taking it off the hook in his (McCafferty's, rather) bedroom.
Cody had not wanted his first test to come in this fashion. Given an even chance 
and brought face to face with anybody high enough in McCafferty's circle, he 
reckoned he was good enough to pass. But trapped on the end of a phone with 
someone close enough to Mac not to feel it necessary to announce his name… the 
odds were that Jagger would fail. And he had. Stein had played him tapes, over 
and over again, of the voices of some of the UNACO man's friends, and Jagger had 
absorbed them. But he had never before heard the voice that had just spoken to 
him; of that Cody was sure.
He kept silent, seeking a clue, willing the caller to identify himself. Jagger 
controlled his breathing; his forehead was beaded in sweat. At least he had 
remembered Stein's instruction for telephone calls: never be the first one to 
speak; it would give him time to think; it would disconcert the caller, Stein 
had urged; and it would allow Jagger, in the last eventuality, to feign a wrong 
number in another assumed voice, and hang up.
He had almost made up his mind to cradle the receiver when the voice said. 'That 
is you. Colonel, is it?'
"Colonel" - Jagger's mind raced to cope with the import of the formal address. A 
friend, but not too close a friend, then. Precise with the use of the title, so 
more than probably military; Army or Air Force. Possibly a crew member? Not 
flight crew, though, or engineers; nor maintenance, technicians or stewards. 
None of these would have sufficient reason to disturb the security chief in his 
hotel bedroom.
Only one other man aboard Air Force One would actually have business with 
McCafferty. Jagger decided to take a chance. He could only fail a second time, 
and he might be able to bluff his way out of trouble.
'Sorry, Bert,' he chuckled, 'I was miles away.'
'You can say that again,' Cooligan replied in an aggrieved tone. 'Now, to return 
to the point - have you or have you not finished?'
Once more Jagger waited, but this time deliberately, even allowing himself a 
small, judicious cough. The sweat was still spangling his eyebrows, yet his 
confidence was returning; he had, after all, won the first round. He had deduced 
Bert Cooligan - and he had been right.
Now it was Cooligan who was unwilling to break the silence. Could he be getting 
suspicious? Jagger wondered, the panic raising prickles of fear on his exposed 
skin.
Finally, Cooligan co.uld stand it no longer. 'Look, Colonel,' he said patiently, 
'if you don't want to talk to me, for Christ's sake say so. But do me the favour 
of coming back from wherever it is that you are, because you sure aren't in your 
room talking to me on the phone.
'Now just for the record, you told me at the airport - and I say this again - 
you told me you were coming back to the hotel to shower and have a drink. So - 
if you haven't finished the shower bit, shall I come up to your room and leer at 
your magnificent body while you don clean drawers and best Air Force One blues? 
Or do I wait down here in the bar for you? Or do you wish me to have drinks sent 
up? Or you want I should go throw myself under a camel? Or like what?'
Jagger started to say 'Sure, Bert' to one of the propositions when Cooligan 
interrupted him. 'Boy, am I dumb, chief! 'Course - you got company. Huh? Tricky 
bastard.'
Cody laughed and assured Cooligan that he was (a) alone, and (b) with him again 
in body, mind and spirit. What was he to do now though? Jagger mused. Face the 
music? He made up his mind.
'Sure, come on up, Bert,' he said easily. 'Give me five minutes and I'll promise 
to dress before you get here so's not to put you to shame, on condition that 
you're accompanied by a bottle of malt Scotch, a crowded ice-pail, four glasses 
and - since you've given me the taste - two dusky harlots.'
'Tush, Colonel, not while we're on duty,' Cooligan admonished.
'You're right, Agent Cooligan,' Jagger conceded, 'forget the ice.' Cooligan 
chortled and said, 'That's better, Mac. You had me worried there for a moment. 
See you soon.'
Jagger mopped his forehead and then snapped his fingers in annoyance. He tore 
off his uniform and sprinted for the shower, taking the jets of water barely 
lukewarm. He towelled himself down, slipped on clean underpants, and was 
lounging on the balcony in a bathrobe when Cooligan appeared.
The Secret Service agent was followed by a waiter pushing a trolley laden in the 
manner prescribed, and bearing a bonus of sandwiches. There seemed to be a world 
shortage of harlots, fuliginous or otherwise.
'I checked the airport guards like you said,' Bert began when they were settled 
in easy-chairs nursing a double Laphroaig apiece. 'Their officers know what 
they're doing, and the guys themselves seem keen enough, if not a shade 
trigger-happy. No one's been within stone-chucking distance of the Big Bird 
since the Bahrainis took over. I've briefed them, and I've had a word with the 
police outside. There'll be no trouble.'
'For this relief, much thanks,' Jagger sighed, choosing a quotation which he 
knew McCafferty might employ,'though it wasn't crowd scares I was anxious 
about.'
'Huh?'
Jagger explained that, on the face of it, the trip could present a golden 
opportunity for Israeli irregulars, or even for a black propaganda PLO coup, 
zapping the plane and blaming it on Mossad or the Jews in general.
'Cautious old Mac,' Bert grinned, lifting his glass in salute. 'You don't 
change, do you?'
'You'd be disappointed if I did, wouldn't you?' Jagger said.
'I would,' Cooligan admitted, 'and so, no doubt, would that rather gorgeous 
stewardess Latimer tells me you're dating in Geneva tonight.'
Jagger forced a grin as alarms probed sharply at his mind. He nearly bit his 
tongue to stop himself saying 'I am?'
Gradually the rain of stinging blows on his cheeks and the shock of the water 
dashed into his face from an earthenware pitcher brought McCafferty round. 
Achmed, crouched on his haunches over the American on the mud floor of the 
borrasti, shouted to Dunkels. The German examined their prisoner and complained 
that Achmed had been unnecessarily rough. A second Arab standing by Achmed 
grinned and drove his booted foot into Mac's ribs. The breath left the 
American's body in a rush, and a cry of pain came from his bruised lips.
'Oh, I am sorry,' Achmed Fayeed apologised, 'his foot slipped.' Dunkels laughed, 
and asked McCafferty if he was feeling co-operative. Mac shook his head to clear 
away the fog and focus his eyes.
'Does he mean he isn't going to co-operate?' Achmed asked, round-eyed. 
McCafferty looked at him dully; then, deliberately, he filled his mouth and spat 
a gobbet of blood-streaked saliva into Achmed's face. Fayeed fastidiously wiped 
the mess from his chin, studied it on his handkerchief, and nodded casually to 
the other Arab, his servant, Selim. Selim stepped over the American's body and 
back-heeled him viciously, turning in one fluid movement and crashing his other 
foot into the side of McCafferty's head, whipping it round to meet Achmed's fist 
from the other direction. In case the American hadn't got the point, they gave a 
repeat performance. Then Siegfried Dunkels held up his hand.
That's enough,' he ordered. 'I want him to talk. Much more of that and he won't 
be able to even if he's willing.' Achmed leaned forward, grabbed McCafferty by 
the shirt-front, and hauled him to a sitting position. Dunkels sprayed him with 
water again, and yanked up his head with a handful of hair. 'Well, Colonel?' he 
said pleasantly.
'Whoever you are,' Mac replied thickly, his tongue feeling unnaturally big 
inside his swollen mouth, 'whoever you are, you're trying something you can't 
possibly get away with. Let me go, release me, and I'll see that it goes down as 
a robbery; the police won't take any action.
'But keep me here, for whatever reason, and I promise you that every soldier in 
the Bahraini Army and every policeman on this island will be looking for me. Air 
Force One can't leave without me, and they'll find me - you'd better believe it. 
They'll have the backing of the President of the United States of America, and I 
wouldn't want to be where you are when all this blows up.'
'What makes you think it isn't just a robbery?'
Mac grinned crookedly and painfully. 'No mugger would strip me as clean as you 
have,' he replied. 'I don't seem to have a thing on me anywhere now to prove 
that I even exist. So clearly I was a target - and apart from that, you know who 
I am.'
Dunkels threw back his head and laughed. 'We do, Colonel,' he spluttered. 'Oh, 
we do.' Then he stopped, and his mouth set into a sneer. 'And we think, too, 
that you may be, shall we say, overrating your importance? You say that Air 
Force One couldn't leave without you.' He shook his head, bent down and 
whispered, 'To the contrary, Colonel, your absence will hardly be noticed.'
Mac stared at him. 'What the hell d'you mean?' he exploded. 'If I'm not on that 
aircraft —'
'If you're not on the plane,' Dunkels interrupted smoothly, 'no doubt there 
would be some speculation for a short while on the flight deck, yes. Colonel - 
Fairman, is it? - yes, Colonel Fairman, I think… he might well express concern 
to Major Latimer, the pilot is he not? Or Lieutenant Colonel Kowalski, the 
navigator, could pass some sort of comment to Master Sergeant Allen, the 
engineer. But I dare say that's as far as it would go. What do you think, 
Colonel?'
The cobwebs were still playing paper streamers in the American's mind. He shook 
his head again, in disbelief. The world was going crazy; this suave European and 
the murderous Arabs were unbalanced. What they said just didn't make sense. 'You 
have to be joking,' he grated, 'Washington would hear of it, and when they do —'
'Ah, you mean they'd monitor the flight deck conversation on the open line to 
Andrews Air Force Base. Of course —'
'That can't be done,' Mac flung at him savagely, 'as you must know. But it won't 
take Tom Fairman two seconds to get them on the radio, and Pat Latimer would 
not, I repeat not, take off without me.'
Dunkels stood up and roared with delight. 'Jeeze, Mac,' he said,'that's some 
bull's eye. That sure is a hole in one. Achmed - see that you-know-who gets the 
information: Latimer's known as "Pat", not Patrick or Paddy, and Andrews Base 
have no facility to eavesdrop on the Air Force One flight deck. They can only 
communicate through the radio. Got that?'
The Arab rose to his feet, smiling broadly. Then he looked at his watch and 
said, 'I'll make the calls on the way back to Manama. I'm overdue already. My 
master will not be pleased.'
'Screw him,' Dunkels said shortly.
'Now, now,' Achmed chided, 'not all we Arabs are pederasts, although they do say 
—'
Dunkels gestured at him impatiently. 'I don't have the time for you to tell me 
what they say, Achmed. As you mentioned, you're late. On your way.'
Fayeed strode from the borrasti, but turned at Dunkels' command. 'The key,' the 
German said.
Achmed fished in his pocket and tossed Dunkels a small bunch of keys, 
incongruously suspended on a thin gold chain. The small one fits the cocktail 
bar,' he said, and waved from the door.
The German turned once more to McCafferty, who was tentatively feeling his 
battered face and body, the point of Selim's machine-gun following every 
movement, never more than six inches away. Dunkels chuckled and said, 'You don't 
know how helpful you've been to us, Colonel… or perhaps you do. Anyway,' he 
added briskly, 'we must get you looking decent. Selim — ' he snapped his fingers 
at the grinning Arab.
They stripped the American, who was still as weak as a kitten, to his shirt and 
underclothing. Selim tugged baggy Oriental trousers over his shoes and up to his 
waist, fastening them with a leather belt. Then Dunkels pulled over Mac's head a 
full-length, wide-sleeved cloak, and Selim drew up the hood to hide his face.
Mac leaned heavily on Selim as the two men guided him out to another car 
concealed behind the mud hut, and pushed him into the rear seat. Dunkels got in 
beside him, and jammed the barrel of a Walther 9mm pistol roughly into 
McCafferty's injured side. 'Just to remind you, Colonel,' the German said, 'no 
tricks. That would be very foolish.'
McCafferty regarded him through puffy eyelids. 'I don't know who you work for, 
or even what you are trying to do. But I'll tell you once again - you can't get 
away with it.
'Air Force One is due to take off in less than half an hour. If I'm not on it, 
there'll be the biggest man-hunt in the history of the Persian Gulf.'
Dunkels replied with a high-pitched whinny, like a knowing hyena. 'But don't you 
see. Colonel, you will be on the plane.'
Mac looked at him blankly. 'You - you mean… you're going to let me go?'
The German snickered again. 'Not precisely, but you'll be there all right. 
There's no harm in telling you now. As you say, we haven't long to go, and in 
any case there would seem to be nothing you can do about it.
'You see, it won't be you on board Air Force One as Head of Security, Colonel. 
But someone will be there; somebody remarkably like you. So much so that he'll 
fool Tom and Pat and Paul and Chuck and Bert, and anyone else who knows you or 
is likely to meet you in the near future, including Mr Malcolm Philpott and the 
President of the United States of America.'
The realisation sunk slowly into Mac's fuddled brain. He squinted at the 
jubilant Dunkels and breathed, 'You have to be loco if you think you can bring 
that off. Bananas.'
The German shook his blond head vigorously. 'No, McCafferty, we're not,' he 
replied, 'neither me nor the man behind me, the man who is going to bring down 
UNACO, and who doesn't care if the American Administration falls with it. It's 
someone not entirely unknown to you, I believe.'
Mac's eyes widened, and he muttered, half to himself, 'Of course. Smith. It's 
got to be…'
Dunkels drove the Walther a second time into the American's ribs. 'Mister Smith 
to you, Colonel,' he replied.
Jagger took Achmed's call in the hotel lobby just as he was leaving the hotel 
with Cooligan to pick up the EDP convoy. He excused himself and crossed to the 
reception desk. The clerk handed him the telephone. Jagger digested the 
information, and put the phone down.
Smith received the news thousands of miles to the north of Bahrain in a 
darkening room set high up in a once impregnable fortress. Smith's teeth gleamed 
and he purred to Achmed, 'You have done well, my friend. I'll wish you "bon 
voyage", and please present my greetings to your esteemed father.' He tut-tutted 
at Fayeed's unfilial reply.
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.'
CHAPTER SIX
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 canapes, 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!'
Soliders 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 hardstand, 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.
But there wasn't one. Morwood chuckled throatily and sneered, 'My dear Malcolm, 
did you really think you'd put one over on us with the tap into the inertial 
guidance system monitoring? We knew what you were up to, and our boys at Andrews 
AFB had instructions to look the other way. We weren't born yesterday you know, 
Sherlock. You keep track, we keep track. That way, everybody's happy.'
Philpott gulped, duly chastened. 'OK, George, strike one to the Pentagon. But 
seriously, you will let me know the instant anything goes wrong with the 
radar-plot, won't you?'
Morwood assured him that nothing could go wrong. The Boeing was scheduled to fly 
at a comfortable height, her range was more than sufficient for the first leg of 
the journey, she had ample fuel reserves, and she was in excellent working 
order.
'All the same,' Philpott pressed.
Morwood sighed. 'Malcolm,' he said, 'if it makes you happy, I'll give you a 
progress report on how the toilets are flushing and what goes down them.'
He hung up, and Philpott glanced at the Gulf zone clock. Take-off in two 
minutes…
The principal stateroom on Air Force One provided for its guests capacious 
armchairs built on tracks, with levers for moving or reclining the chairs, like 
in the better class of car. The chairs were grouped in fours, the pairs facing 
each other across tables. Sabrina pasted on a brilliant smile and showed the oil 
moguls to their seats. She warmed to the young Feisal immediately, but drew off 
when he treated her with something approaching aloof disdain.
On the flight deck the intercom buzzed and Fairman snapped, 'Who's that?'
'Wynanski, sir,' came the reply,'they're all aboard and settled.'
'Strapped in?'
A pause, and Wynanski replied, 'Affirmative, Colonel.'
Fairman grunted, and spoke into a microphone. 'Clear to start one and two?' A 
member of the ground crew checked the area around the port engines. 'Clear on 
both,' he replied.
'Start two,' the Commander ordered. Latimer depressed a switch. 'Starting two,' 
he said. The mighty plane shuddered as the engine caught. 'Two steady,' Latimer 
added.
'Start one.'
'Starting one.' Another rumble of elemental power went through the shivering 
airframe. 'One steady. Rotation one and two.'
'Move it,' the Commander said.
Latimer sent the Boeing forward, reported 'Taxiing power,' and left the 
hardstand for the allocated runway at Muharraq Airport. The liner completed a 
half-turn and sat at the end of the runway. Fairman operated the throttle and 
the engine-note rose to a banshee whine. 'Let's go,' he said. The speed of Air 
Force One increased.
'Rolling,' Latimer answered laconically.
Fairman took over the controls at a hundred knots, and when the pilot said 
'V-one' the Commander repeated the code - the fail-safe point for commitment to 
lifting the plane from the ground. If he accepted it - as he had - there could 
be no going back on his decision. The plane must take off.
'V-two.'
'Rotate.'
'Rotating.' Fairman eased the control yoke back, and the President's aeroplane 
surged into the clear blue sky…
Jagger had gone straight to the rear toilet when he boarded the Boeing, seeing 
no one but Chuck Allen, whose greeting he acknowledged with a curt nod. Locking 
the door, he took from the pocket of his flying jacket a smaller version of the 
aerosol spray can which had been used on McCafferty in the taxi. Jagger opened 
the door of one of the wall cabinets and placed the can unobtrusively at the 
back among a selection of toilet articles.
He left the facilities area, and in the rear passenger compartment was 
confronted by not one, but two, stewardesses. His second test - crisis, perhaps 
- was unavoidable, staring him in the face. He had reckoned on coping with only 
one girl at a time, but now he had no choice. So which one was he supposed to 
have dated?
Cody Jagger may have assumed McCafferty's form and face, but he retained his own 
taste in women. Not even Stein's genius could erase that. Jagger had rarely 
enjoyed success with truly beautiful and desirable women. His technique was to 
grab what he wanted and conquer it by sheer animal force. Of all the women Cody 
had known, his favourites were blondes built for comfort.
Sabrina Carver was dark, spectacular and, even in her uniform, expensive. Jeanie 
Fenstermaker was blonde, and a big, sexy girl behind her tinted shades.
Reverting to type, Cody grinned crookedly at Fenstermaker and said, 'Don't 
forget our dinner-date, Airman.'
McCafferty's last conscious impression came at the outskirts of Manama, when 
Dunkels' free hand advanced towards his face holding the same canister of 
knockout gas which had been used on him by the cab-driver. The American awoke in 
a darkened room which, he later discovered, was in a house belonging to Achmed. 
For the mysterious Fayeed was not merely private secretary and principal aide to 
the Oil Minister of his native Bahrain; he was also distantly connected to 
Zeidan's family, standing high enough in his favour to rate a rent-free villa 
inside the enormous grounds of the Sheikh's home. As Achmed smugly described it 
to Dunkels, there could be few safer safe-houses throughout the length and 
breadth of the island.
To Mac's astonishment, he had not been shackled, nor even tied, though he soon 
learned that this apparent oversight (or contemptuous neglect?) made no 
difference to his situation. The metal-framed window had been welded shut behind 
stout iron bars. A small window set high up on the wall had been jammed open to 
the extent of no more than three-quarters of an inch. There was no other 
ventilation, and just one entrance to the room; a closet door was set into the 
wall opposite the bed.
Mac pulled back the heavy curtain and peeped out. Through the violently hued 
scented blossoms trailing down the wall, a guard grinned up at him and waved a 
Kalashnikov rifle. McCafferty dropped the curtain back into place, then once 
more drew it carefully aside. The guard was still there. The gun was a 
Kalashnikov - a Russian infantry weapon, though freely available on the black 
market. And the man was not an Arab.
He heard the sound of someone opening the double-locked door. A strong beam of 
light swept the room, raking the empty bed, locating the only other furniture - 
a table, chair and wash-basin - and finding the prisoner standing before the 
window, shielding his eyes against the glare. Dunkels stepped in behind the 
torch, which Mac could now see was held by another man. The German snapped on 
the light-switch and ordered the guard, in a language unfamiliar to the 
American, to kill the torch. A third guard (armed, like Dunkels and the first 
man) sidled in and kicked the door shut with his heel.
'We heard you moving,' Dunkels said. 'I see you're none the worse for your - uh 
- experience. You may not believe it. but that actually pleases me.'
McCafferty spat out a globule of blood and made no reply. Dunkels laughed, and 
suggested that Mac might get used to the idea that he was worth more alive than 
dead. He could also speak freely in front of the guards, the German added. They 
did not understand English.
'Worth more alive to Smith?' Mac sneered. 'If I am, you sure had a funny way of 
showing it back in the hut.'
Dunkels spread his hands wide in an elaborate shrug. 'You're still here, aren't 
you? In one piece? Doesn't that speak for itself?'
Mac grinned painfully. 'It tells me only that you're keeping me intact for 
reasons that suit you rather than me.'
'Such as?'
To learn more from him about his role with UNACO, or on Air Force One, Mac 
hazarded. Or until whatever mad scheme Smith had hatched up for the President's 
plane had come to its logical end - disaster. Or just to prolong the agony 
because Smith and Dunkels were grade "A" bastards. 'Any one of those reasons,' 
Mac added, 'or all three.'
Dunkels chuckled again. 'Normally I'd agree,' he countered, 'because normally 
you'd be right.'
'Not this time?'
The German shook his leonine head. 'No, somebody else wants you alive. They'd 
like a chat with you too. In fact, they asked me to tell you.'
'Did they? And afterwards? After they've finished their chat?'
Dunkels shrugged again. 'Who knows? You're obviously valuable to them. They 
might get to like you.'
McCafferty looked long and hard at the sentries. He had been covertly observing 
them during his exchange with the German. He thought Dunkels might be telling 
the truth; they appeared to follow nothing that was being said. True, they had 
both laughed at times - but only when Dunkels laughed; and, comparatively 
speaking, a long time after they should have.
He returned his gaze to Dunkels. 'So who are my newfound friends,' he inquired 
acidly,'the ones who want so badly to chat to me?'
The German smirked. 'Would you believe.- the Soviets?'
Mac blinked and raised an eyebrow. Dunkels nodded enthusiastically. 'Does Smith 
know?' Mac asked. Dunkels smiled, very slowly. Obviously not, Mac thought. 'And 
what's in it for you?' he pressed. Dunkels opened a hand and made scratching 
motions across the palm with his fingernails.
'So you deliver me to them and cheat on Smith and they pay you lots of lovely 
dough?'
Dunkels nodded again. 'You catch on, buddy,' he grinned. He explained that, 
totally unexpectedly, the Russians had contacted him through an emissary at his 
hotel. He had already been paid sufficient money - in dollars - to persuade him 
that the Soviet offer was genuine.
'It's they who want to interrogate you, not me or Smith,' he stressed. 'You want 
to stay alive - play ball. You don't have a choice, McCafferty. Get wise.'
He spun on his heel and left the room, the two armed men backing out after him. 
As the door was re-locked, Mac reflected on the two pieces of important 
knowledge he had gained… one of them horrifying in its implications.
If the false McCafferty was now controlled not by Smith but by the KGB, were 
they planning to use the ringer to double-cross Smith? And if so, could they 
then afford to leave the hostages alive?
McCafferty bit his lip and shook his head angrily at the sheer impotence of his 
position. He had priceless information within his grasp - yet he was locked up 
as tight as he would be if he'd been court-martialled and pulled five to ten in 
Fort Leavenworth.
That brought him to consideration of the second piece of intelligence Dunkels 
had unwittingly shown him. Not only could his guards speak no English; but, like 
the man he had seen outside his window, they were not Arabs.
What nationality were they, then? Mac wondered. And if he found out where they 
came from, could he use the knowledge?
Once again Jagger was helped by a twist of fate which he had first diagnosed as 
malign: yet the fact that he had encountered both stewardesses together, so 
forcing his hand, had actually saved him. They were standing close to each 
other, and as soon as the words were out and he saw Jeanie Fenstermaker's 
generous mouth start to open in perplexity, Jagger switched his gaze to Sabrina 
Carver and repeated the injunction, 'As I said, don't forget our dinner-date, 
Airman.'
Now it was Sabrina's turn to look bewildered. 'You may have said it to me,' she 
pointed out, 'but you were looking at Jeanie. At least, the first time you 
were.'
Jagger stared at her. 'I was?' he queried incredulously. 'Are you sure? Gee, I'm 
sorry - eh - Airman. It's the tension of the job - you know? The spy business 
gets to you in funny ways. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be straightforward.'
Sabrina gave him a doubtful look and asked him if he would be fully recovered by 
the evening; just so that she could be sure she was still supposed to be going 
out with him. Jagger grinned easily and affirmed that he would be his old self 
again by the time they got to Geneva. He smiled even more broadly as he 
appreciated what he had said. 'See you both later, then,' he added, ending the 
encounter as speedily as politeness would permit.
He walked quickly towards the front of the plane, still in something of a 
quandary. Since meeting Sabrina, he had rerun the McCafferty amours through his 
finely trained mind, and he was certain that her face had not appeared among the 
thumbnail sketches. So she must be someone McCafferty had literally only just 
met - and for whom he had formed an instant attraction. The trouble with that 
was that Jagger didn't even know her name.
He reached the flight deck and casually leafed through his own security files 
until he came to the copy of Wynanski's crew and passengers manifest. If the big 
blonde, whom the other had referred to as "Jeanie", was Airman First Class 
Fenstermaker, Jean, then his date - less desirable because more inaccessible - 
must be Airman First Class Carver, Sabrina. Problem solved.
Not that it mattered, Jagger thought with a fleeting sneer. Neither of the girls 
would reach Geneva alive. Pity to waste Fenstermaker, though, he grinned to 
himself. She showed promise.
'Private joke, chief?' Cooligan inquired, spotting the sly smile.
Jagger pulled himself together. 'Sorry again, Bert,' he said, 'I was looking 
forward to my date tonight.'
'Ah, la belle Carver,' Cooligan replied with relish. 'You'll give me a full 
report, of course.'
'If you don't see me at breakfast,' he rejoined, 'you won't need a report. You 
can just use your imagination.'
Sabrina and Fenstermaker passed through to the stateroom at the exact moment 
that Sonya Kolchinsky, in the UNACO control room, saw the green dot of Air Force 
One shoot out a hesitant tendril on the wall map. 'She's away, sir,' Sonya sang 
out to Philpott, nudging him gently. Philpott raised his eyes and heaved a huge 
sigh of relief.
'Then drinks are in order, Sonya, my dear,' he declared, 'because for the moment 
we're safe. Smith didn't make his strike on the ground, where I expected him to, 
and if he's going to do it while she's airborne it'll have to be some plan to 
beat the team we've got on board. So, for a while - let's relax, shall we?'
He stood up and led the way into his office, turning only to remind Basil Swann 
that the inertial navigation system trace on the Boeing must be monitored at all 
times. 'And keep in touch with General Morwood at the Pentagon,' Philpott 
continued. 'He's cued into the actual radar-track through the radio link to 
Naples. That's our double-check. Call me the moment you have even the slightest 
feeling of unease about anything. I don't care if it turns out to be wrong. We 
have to watch this one like the proverbial hawk; there's a great deal riding on 
it for UNACO.'
He and Sonya sank into deep armchairs, hers in the far corner of the room by the 
window, Philpott's midway along the wall facing his desk. He sipped a Plymouth 
gin, with ice and water and a tiny white cocktail onion bobbing on the surface; 
it was an affectation he had borrowed from a very senior British sailor. Sonya 
drank a dry martini.
'I wonder if we've been worrying too much about this one,' Philpott mused. Sonya 
wrinkled her brow and made a fetching moue. 'No,' she decided, and took a 
longish pull at her drink. 'As we agreed at the beginning, it's got all the 
hallmarks of the big one for Smith. Unlike you, though, I didn't favour a strike 
at Bahrain.'
Philpott stretched out his legs, regarded his gleaming black toecaps, and 
saluted her with his glass. 'Geneva?' Sonya nodded.
'Well, we've taken every precaution,' Philpott contended. 'McCafferty's been 
instructed to exercise special care right from the very instant of the approach 
to touch-down. The Swiss, like good little UNACO members, have been 
exceptionally co-operative, both in allowing our people access and giving them 
effective back-up - the airport, the drive to town, the hotel, the private 
dinner-party -everything's covered.
'Every inch of the way has been vetted and will be under surveillance. Anyone 
scheduled to come into contact with our guests at any level has been scrutinised 
and passed - or otherwise; in which case they've been replaced. I honestly 
believe we have Geneva wrapped up,' he ended, a complacent smile on his lips. He 
raised his glass again and toasted her impishly.
'Always provided,' Sonya said,'that Air Force One ever gets to Geneva.'
Philpott chuckled. 'God damn it, Kolchinsky,' he exclaimed, 'I was just about 
feeling good on this one, and now you go and spoil things.' He helped himself to 
another long gin, and flashed her a broad wink.
In the Boeing's stateroom, Stewardess Carver made clear notes on her pad of the 
precise form of drink requested by each passenger. She ended up with Scotch 
narrowly winning over vodka, plus a pair of Jack Daniels and a genuine tea 
without milk or sugar. This would normally have represented another Jack 
Daniels, but Sheikh Zeidan ordered it for the twelve-year-old Feisal, so it 
really had to be tea.
'OK,' she said, smiling at the boy. As an afterthought she fished from her 
pocket a bar of chocolate which she offered to Feisal. 'Helps to pass the time,' 
she said brightly. The slim brown fingers of the solemn-faced little Arab boy 
remained daintily laced in his lap, and he looked neither at her nor at the 
chocolate. Then he said, 'I regret that my medical advisers do not permit me to 
eat such things. But you could not have known that. You may leave.' He spoke in 
perfect Southern Standard English, like a candidate for a job as a BBC 
announcer.
His grandfather, who was playing chess with Hemmings-way, leaned over and spoke 
softly to the boy in Arabic. Then he smiled apologetically at Sabrina. 'At his 
age, young lady,' he said in his rich, dark voice, 'life is earnest indeed, not 
to be frittered away in mere living. Dignity is all when you are twelve. 
Nonetheless, what he said is true, though I cannot defend the way he said it. 
But my grandson does have a diabetic condition and so, naturally, cannot enjoy 
chocolate as other children do. It is a cross - if you'll forgive the Christian 
allusion - which he has to bear.'
Sabrina flushed, momentarily unsettled. 'I - I'm so sorry,' she stammered. 
'Naturally I wouldn't have suggested —'
Zeidan waved his hand in a gesture of tolerance and forgiveness, spiced with a 
soupcon of deprecation. 'Please, of course not. But as Feisal said, you could 
not have been aware of his condition.' He hesitated, and then ventured, 'There 
is something, however, that you might be able to do for me.'
Sabrina assured him of her willingness, and Zeidan inquired if the aircraft 
carried a physician. Sabrina shook her head. 'When the President's on board, his 
doctor would normally travel with him, but this is a relatively short flight so… 
Anyway, don't worry about it. I am a qualified paramedic. If Feisal should need 
something, I'll be glad to help.'
Zeidan smiled his thanks and said, 'Perhaps, then, you would care to take charge 
of this.' He picked up from the table before him a small tooled leather case and 
handed it to her. Sabrina opened its clasp, and saw the hypodermic syringes and 
insulin capsules. 'I'll be glad to, sir,' she replied.
The "tea" was served from genuine Chinese teapots - for appearances, as Wynanski 
explained - which were part of a set taken on at Bahrain. The ministers, 
Hemmingsway included, drank from delicate, paper-thin china cups, rattling now 
with unaccustomed chunks of ice, which had been diced into smaller, more 
manageable lumps by the acute Chief Steward.
The moguls, supplied with acceptable snacks by Airman Fenstermaker, whose 
superstructure earned admiring glances, settled down to talk oil. Jagger walked 
through the stateroom on one of his seemingly compulsive tours of the plane, and 
Sabrina gazed thoughtfully after him.
Unlike her colleague, she had not been wholly convinced by the attempts of the 
man whom she unhesitatingly accepted as Joe McCafferty to cover up his memory 
lapse in the rear passenger area. His explanation - the tension of the flight, 
the pressures of security - might excuse the faulty recognition, but Sabrina did 
not altogether accept it. She was not extraordinarily vain but, try as she 
might, she could not for the life of her see how anyone could confuse Jeanie 
Fenstermaker with Sabrina Carver.
She had casually quizzed Wynanski about McCafferty, asking if the security chief 
was normally moody at take-off times. 'No more than most,' Wynanski replied, 
'but one thing's for sure: when he's on duty, Mac's all business. No time for 
women - even one like you, the sap.'
Sabrina stood in a corner of the stateroom, a puzzled frown still clouding her 
face. She did not hear the soft step on the carpeted floor. Then a hand fell 
upon her shoulder. She jumped and wheeled round. 'Penny for them,' Cooligan 
said. She stammered an apology and confessed that she had been miles away.
Bert looked at her curiously, rubbing his chin. 'Yeah,' he drawled,'there's a 
lot of it around. Seems to be an occupational hazard on this trip especially.'
'What on earth d'you mean?' Sabrina asked. Cooligan gave an embarrassed chuckle; 
it was nothing really, he muttered, trying to play it down. Sabrina persisted, 
sensing something that could be important to her. Finally Bert confessed, 'It's 
just that I had much the same sort of trouble with my boss, Colonel McCafferty, 
on the telephone back in Manama.'
Sabrina felt the skin of her cheeks and forehead tighten. 'On the phone? What - 
eh - what kind of trouble?' Cooligan replied that it had not been anything 
serious. 'I feel kind of silly talking about it now, but at the time it seemed, 
well, strange. He was so immersed in his thoughts that I might just as well have 
been talking to a brick wall.'
Sabrina weighed her words carefully. 'Did he, by any chance, not quite - sort of 
- recognise you?'
Cooligan looked at her in surprise, then nodded. 'That's right. For a moment, it 
was like he didn't know who he was talking to…'
On the flight deck, Colonel Fairman sat back in his seat and ordered Latimer to 
radio Naples for a position. The pilot spoke into his microphone. 'Naples 
Control. Air Force One calling Naples Control. We are crossing 24 degrees East 
at flight-level 280 and estimating 22 degrees East at 31.'
The voice of the controller at the Naples base came cradling back to them in 
measured, stilted English. 'Roger, Air Force One, I have you on my screen. Call 
at 22 degrees East.'
A few hundred miles away, another aeroplane sat at the furthest edge of a runway 
which pointed like a finger at the Adriatic Sea.
All was dark around the unlit bulk of the plane, made darker by lowering clouds. 
The aircraft was little more than the suggestion of a shadow on the ground.
Suddenly the lights of a dozen motor-vehicles - cars, jeeps and a small pick-up 
lorry - flooded the scarred runway with radiance, picking out the gravel and 
dust motes dancing lightly among the weeds in the stiff breeze.
The aircraft's engines boomed into life, and the Boeing taxied out into the pool 
of illumination.
CHAPTER SEVEN
There could be no mistaking the size, the conformation, the livery of the plane 
- the stars and stripes on the flag, the Presidential insignia, the "United 
States of America" legend - nor the white fuselage, the blue-black nose and 
pale-bjue underbelly and engine-cowlings, perched on the silver wings.
It was Air Force One. Or at least, as with Jagger's resemblance to Joe 
McCafferty, to all intents and purposes it was Air Force One.
Which was good enough for Mister Smith, seated in his car at the seaward end of 
the runway, watching the mighty liner speed towards him preparing to take off.
Finding the airstrip - miraculously built in 1944 to a length of 4500-plus feet 
for the newly launched German ME262 jet-fighters - had been the first vital 
contribution of the Russians when Smith had invited the KGB into a tenuous 
partnership. For the airstrip - long since abandoned and overgrown - was on the 
flat, low-lying Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia between Zadar and Sibenik, and 
Smith had become convinced early on in his planning that the theft of the 
President's Boeing could only be achieved from an Eastern bloc state. And even 
post-Tito Yugoslavia was closed territory to Smith.
But not to the Russians. They had been able both to locate the sort of runway he 
needed, and to provide the help he would require to clear it and man it. The 
vehicles on the runway, and the men in their driving-seats, plus the sentries 
who even now guarded the real Joe McCafferty in Bahrain -they were all recruited 
from the same ultra-Left partisan group whose headquarters were in the nearby 
mountains.
Set up and funded by the KGB, they were pledged to return Yugoslavia to the 
orthodox Communist fold. By infiltration, acts of terrorism and agit-prop, and 
intimidation in the classic pattern, they were some way along the road to 
success. They would also provide the troops Mister Smith would use to keep 
authority at bay while he carried out the final phase of his plan - the 
collection of the ransom for the OPEC ministers. Though there had been precious 
few signs of interference from the authorities so far, Smith thought. The KGB 
again?
The aircraft had been obtained by Smith legally. It was indeed a Boeing 707, but 
not what the USAF would call a stratoliner. Instead, he had searched for, and 
found, an old cargo-freighter, its useful life now almost at an end. She suited 
Smith's purpose to perfection; he had bought the plane cheaply and had her 
resprayed and painted, though not restructured.
The Boeing passed Smith's car dragging its gigantic shadow in its wake. The 
noise was horrendous, starting as a raucous whine and rising through a crescendo 
to a staccato rattle, then dying out over the water in a series of massive, 
reverberant booms as the liner left the ground and soared into the night.
Mister Smith stroked the knee of the girl beside him, his willing servant from 
the castle. 'Now,' he said in English, 'it's up to the Russians and their clever 
little friends in Italy. Why don't we return and await developments, my sweet
Branka?'
Apart from her name, the girl hadn't understood a single word, but she smiled 
and covered his hand with hers. His intentions were plain enough, anyway…
The man code-named Myshkin paced the radio room in the Soviet Union's Zurich 
embassy, listening intently to the running commentary from the operator, 
headphones clasped to his ears, who was translating from the Serbo-Croat of his 
informant in Belgrade.
Myshkin looked at his watch, and then met the eye of Axel Karilian, who had been 
bending over the radio operator, making notes on a pad. Karilian's thick lips 
parted in a vulpine smile. 'Congratulations, Comrade,' he said, 'every thing is 
going according to plan… our plan, that is, though Mister Smith is still 
convinced it's his.'
Myshkin's eyelids in their slightly epicanthic folds quivered in agreement. It 
was a gesture, Karilian had noted, that often passed for extreme enthusiasm in 
Myshkin. Where other men might practically dislocate their necks in nodding 
vigorous approval, Myshkin would merely compress his prissy lips and flutter his 
eyelids. It was an oddly menacing habit; not feminine, as it might sound, but 
serpentine and secretive.
'I must confess,' Karilian admitted,'that I don't much relish the idea of 
McCafferty being around a minute longer than is necessary for our purposes. He's 
a constant threat to us. His capacity for danger will cease only when he is 
dead.'
Myshkin frowned. 'I'm half inclined to agree with you,' he said, 'but McCafferty 
knows things which are important to us, both about UNACO, whom we can never 
really trust though we help support them, and most of all concerning the USAF, 
the Pentagon and Air Force One.
'Do you realise what we have done, Axel?' Myshkin said, his voice rising by a 
carefully adjusted semi-tone in something dangerously close to excitement. 'We 
have captured a full Colonel of the United States Air Force without their 
actually realising it. We can hold him and milk him dry, and they may never even 
know we have had him.
'After all, why should they? He'll still be with them, effectively, as the sole 
survivor and undoubted hero of the Air Force One hijack - the man who defeated 
the master criminal that UNACO couldn't catch.'
Karilian raised his bushy eyebrows at this. 'Huh?' he grunted. 'Since when did 
that become part of the plan?'
Myshkin smiled, and not for the first time Karilian felt prickles of fear 
probing his body like acupuncture needles.
'Moscow considers it advisable,' he replied. 'And why not? Should Smith get in 
our way, or prove to be an embarrassment, who says he necessarily has to 
survive? We don't need him,' Myshkin went on softly. 'Jagger will have plenty of 
assistance, provided by us and responsive to our direction, so that when Smith 
least expects treachery - at the moment of his seemingly complete triumph - how 
easy it will be for Jagger to - um - dispose of him, and hand over the ransom to 
us. I'm sure the KGB will find equally practical uses for it - wouldn't you say, 
Axel?' Axel would. He chuckled warmly. Not because he wanted to, but because he 
felt he had to.
During the hours he spent in the darkened room, McCafferty had been allowed out 
only twice: once to relieve himself, and again, as night fell, to walk in the 
garden, always under heavy escort. Not just human escort, either: the Arab Selim 
kept an unkempt, savage Alsatian on a thick chain, long enough to wind several 
times round the man's waist before clipping on to the collar of the fierce dog.
The villa, Mac saw, was a two-storey house set in its own defined plot of land 
within the palace grounds. Traffic noise indicated that it must be near a road, 
and he calculated that the high wall at the end of the garden formed the 
perimeter both of the villa and of the royal residence. His room - the only one 
with a barred window - was on the first floor, facing front.
McCafferty had spotted three other bedrooms and two bathrooms, and imagined the 
usual reception suite on the ground floor. The accommodation fitted the number 
of men guarding him: one on patrol in the garden, one outside his door - these 
were both as yet unidentified foreigners - plus Selim and his evil dog, and 
Dunkels. The guards, Mac thought, probably bunked in together.
However hard he tried, the American could see no way of escape. There were no 
unplugged loopholes, no weak links. Wearily, despondently, still nursing his 
cuts and bruises, Mac returned from his second excursion and heard the door of 
his room double-locked behind him.
Then came another sound - a familiar one but not, he was positive, previously 
heard by him since his arrival at the villa. The telephone rang in the hall 
downstairs.
After a few moments, the key grated in the lock and the door swung open. Dunkels 
followed the same routine as before, allowing the guard's torch to locate 
McCafferty, and then turning on the shaded light-bulb from the wall switch. Mac, 
for what the German called "security reasons", was forbidden to touch the 
switch. He deduced that the house could be seen from the road, and Dunkels would 
not risk the chance that the American could use the light to flash an appeal in 
Morse.
Dunkels seemed in good fettle. 'I have news for you, McCafferty,' he announced. 
'You'll be getting out of here shortly. Some - uh - "friends" of mine will come 
to take you away, by sea I gather, to a place which is, shall we say, more 
compatible to their interests. Also you're to lose a couple of your faithful 
attendants. I'm told by Mister Smith that they're needed back in - eh - back at 
our operational base, where someone's shorthanded.'
With a sweep of his hand, Dunkels indicated the two guards, who grinned 
uncomprehendingly. McCafferty replied, in Russian, that he would be glad to see 
the back of them, since they stank like pigs and put him off his food.
Before Dunkels could stop him, the younger of the two guards sprang forward, 
bawled obscenities at Mac in his native tongue, and crashed his rifle butt into 
the American's face.
Dunkels grabbed the man's arm and pulled him away roughly. Mac had swivelled his 
head at the last moment and the Kalashnikov caught him only a glancing blow, but 
it was enough to raise fresh blood from an old wound and set his head ringing 
with pain. Stars exploded before his eyes, and he dabbed at his raw cheek with a 
soiled handkerchief.
He grinned crookedly but triumphantly behind the rag, though, for his gamble had 
paid off. He had banked on the sentries understanding either Russian or German 
since, from their speech and appearance, they seemed more likely to be Central 
European than to belong to any more remote ethnic group. And while McCafferty 
was nowhere near even Dunkels' class as a linguist, he had long ago learned to 
swear succinctly in something like fifteen languages. For a constant 
world-traveller, it was convenient to know when foreigners were displeased with 
you.
The guard had played straight into his hands: the richly obscene oaths hurkd at 
Mac were the only half-dozen words of Serbo-Croat the American knew, but now he 
could be certain of a Yugoslav connection.
Yugoslavia fitted the Boeing's schedule, too, lying just off-course of the 
safest route Fairman would choose for Switzerland: overflying the friendlier 
states of Arabia into the Mediterranean, and up one side or the other of Italy 
to cross the Alps. If Smith wanted to snatch the President's plane, McCafferty 
reasoned, then Yugoslavia, with its crypto-Soviet presence, would make an ideal 
launch-pad for the hijack.
Dunkels smoothed the ruffled feelings of the guards and turned back to the 
American, his face a mask of barely controlled anger. 'That was smart, 
McCafferty,' he hissed, 'but whatever you've learned, the knowledge will do you 
no good. There's still no escape from here and, as I said, you'll be gone before 
long in any case.
'However, since you appear to want to play games, we'll leave you someone to 
play with. He's very friendly, I'm told - as long as you don't upset him.'
While Selim slowly unwound the heavy chain from his waist, one of the guards 
hammered a six-inch staple into the jamb of the door. Selim clipped the 
Alsatian's collar to the hook, and leered at McCafferty. 'The chain's long 
enough for him to reach all over the room,' the Arab said. 'I wouldn't move, if 
I were you. It's long past his dinner-time, and we don't seem to have any dog 
food left. I'll leave the light on; then at least you'll be able to see him 
coming.'
He slammed the door and locked it. The dog stood glowering at Mac, who lay rigid 
on his bed, fixing the animal with an unwavering stare. Finally the dog gave in, 
yawned prodigiously, and settled down on its stomach, chin resting on paws. Its 
eyes stayed open, and its tongue roamed over its sharp white teeth.
Mac heard the front door shut and a car start up. Dunkels' voice came to him 
through the little fanlight. 'Keep an eye on him, Selim,' the German said, 'I'll 
take these two to the airport, and be back in half an hour or so.'
One guard remained, then, Mac reflected: the Arab. And his friend the Alsatian. 
He stirred restlessly, and the dog was on its feet in a flash, baring its teeth 
in a warning snarl.
If Mac was going to make a bid for freedom, he had half an hour - no more. And 
first he must deal with Selim's dog.
Fairman fussed and fumed as the aircraft wound its undulating route to the west, 
following a wiggling snake trail which was anything but the arrow-straight path 
the Commander would have wished.
The Boeing was never forced to deviate outrageously, but when Fairman filed the 
flight plan he had been uncomfortably aware that he was permitted to overfly 
certain territories solely because of the passengers he carried, and denied 
others because of the plane he was flying. Indeed, if it had been merely the 
President of the United States on board, Air Force One would have had to follow 
a vastly different and even more complicated course.
The Boeing's Commander swore mildly in sheer relief as the plane crossed the 
frontier into friendly Egypt. Latimer, the pilot, let the sardonic smile which 
had been marring his Italianate Renaissance good looks since take-off, stay on 
his face. He adjusted course for Suez, spanned the Canal keeping Port Said to 
starboard and Cairo to port, and sailed out into the Mediterranean over 
Alexandria.
He saw the waters gleaming darkly below him, and heard Fairman broadcast a brief 
scene-set to the EDPs in the stateroom, who seemed to be drinking tea like it 
was going out of fashion.
Latimer spotted Crete looming up to starboard, and altered direction to follow 
the flight plan: proceeding not up the Adriatic past the Balkan states, but 
flying over Sicily and taking the Mediterranean sea-route all the way up the 
coast of Italy, entering Italian air-space at Genoa and traversing Piedmont to 
begin the descent to Geneva.
The "identikit" Air Force One, meanwhile, also had the hazy blur of Crete 
roughly in its sights to port as it sped down the Adriatic below the radar 
screen, on a course which would only briefly parallel that of the President's 
Boeing -but it would be long enough for Smith's master plan to work.
In a rest room cabin behind the flight deck of the genuine AF One, next to the 
forward galley on the starboard side of the plane, Cooligan, a brace of 
engineers and Jagger played five card draw poker for modest stakes. It was not 
something which McCafferty normally encouraged, yet - as Cooligan noted with 
surprise - the security chief himself had suggested the game. Another instance 
of untypical procedure by the Colonel to nag at the Secret Service agent's mind… 
still, what the hell, he thought; anyone can have an off day.
Jagger got to his feet on a winning streak, and excused himself from the next 
hand. 'Problems?' Bert asked sympathetically. 'Want me to join you?'
Jagger shook his head. 'No,' he replied, 'just count me out. I don't feel too 
easy about this one…' (a ploy which he hoped would cover up what he knew had 
been erratic behaviour on his part)'… I know nothing can go wrong, but I think 
I'll take a walk around, just to check up.'
'Looking for stowaways, Colonel?' ventured one of the engineers. The other 
comedian added, 'Perhaps somebody got on while we were over Saudi Arabia - or 
was it Syria? They all look the same to me.'
The four men laughed, and Jagger easily strolled out, not quickening his pace 
when he reached the stateroom, nodding affably to an aide, and arriving at the 
rest room complex at the rear of the Boeing without encountering any other crew 
member except Jeanie Fenstermaker. She was en route for the EDP lounge with 
smoked salmon and asparagus twists, encased in thinly sliced overcoats of fresh 
brown bread and butter. Jagger took one and ate it.
He locked himself in the tail-end toilet and stayed for five minutes for the 
sake of appearances, should he encounter Fenstermaker again too quickly. He slid 
the aerosol can into his pocket, flushed the toilet-bowl, washed his hands and 
stepped out through the door, almost cannoning off the busty blonde as she was 
making her way back to the rear galley, her tray empty.
'Big appetites, huh?' he grunted.
'Seems so, Colonel,' she responded. 'Mind you - ' blushing becomingly ' -I think 
they also like sort of seeing Sabrina and me as well. And there's an awful lot 
of "tea" being served, Colonel. Sergeant Wynanski can hardly keep up with 
demand.'
'Where's Wynanski?' Jagger asked casually.
Jeanie pointed behind her at the galley. 'In back, as always, slaving over a hot 
canape.'
Jagger grinned, glanced at his watch, and said, 'Off you go then, Airman. Won't 
do to keep the Ayrabs waiting, will it? Could flunk your chance of marrying a 
sheikh - or at least of joining a harem.'
'Huh,' Fenstermaker pouted, adding a disapproving sniff. Jagger waited for her 
to close the door, then tapped on it and said in a loud voice, 'Pete! You in 
there?'
'Who's that?' Wynanski queried. He shuffled over to the door and jerked it open, 
Jeanie at his elbow.
Jagger smiled with his teeth and said, 'Got a present for you.' Fenstermaker's 
mouth was already opening in anticipation, so she collected a deep lungful of 
the knockout gas spray, and slumped to join Master Sergeant Pete Wynanski on the 
floor.
McCafferty moved his head to steal a glance at his watch, and the dog squirmed 
threateningly on its belly. Eight minutes had passed. Mac could wait no longer; 
if he was to act at all, it must be soon.
He sat up on the bed, and the dog rose with him, neck hair bristling, mouth 
open, wet lips pressed back over its teeth.
Mac swung his legs to the floor and, in one continuous movement, stood with his 
back to the closet door, fingers groping behind him for the handle. The Alsatian 
padded noiselessly towards him, trailing its chain. The powerful body swayed 
fractionally from side to side like a suspension-bridge in a high wind. Its 
flecked eyes never left the man's face.
McCafferty found the knob handle of the closet -and yanked hard on it. The door 
shot open and struck him on the shoulder-blade. His fingers traced the 
fastening: it was a ball catch connecting to a socket in the jamb, and disuse 
had made it a pretty stiff fit.
He stepped aside and pulled the door ajar, praying that the closet was big 
enough to enter. His luck held: it was a walk-in, lined with empty shelves.
The dog followed him into the closet.
Mac stepped out again, more quickly. The Alsatian came after him, chain 
rattling, the dog panting, exuding a strong odour.
McCafferty backed once more into the closet, the dog at his heels.
The American jumped out this time. So did the dog, but turning in its own 
length, whereas Mac used one long stride, backwards and forwards.
In again. The dog spun round, brushing his leg.
And Mac leapt clear over its body, slamming the door on its muzzle just as the 
dog turned to follow him.
The Alsatian threw itself in fury against the door, but the rusty catch held. 
McCafferty dragged the bed in front of the closet and jammed it close to the 
wall.
Then he raced to the locked door of the room, and jerked frantically at the 
chain embedded in the woodwork. Already he could hear Selim pounding up the 
stairs to the landing and along the corridor, attracted by the hysterical baying 
of the Alsatian from its dark prison.
Sweat poured from Mac's brow as he leaned his muscles against the chain. With a 
rending screech the staple came loose. He wrenched out the collar fastener, tore 
over to the closet and stabbed the hook into the door over the catch, lifting 
his bunk and using the bed end to hammer the metal into the wood.
Selim was already at the door. Mac snapped off the light-switch and stood behind 
the door, holding the slack length of chain in his hands.
Expecting the light still to be on, Selim switched his gun to his left hand and 
jabbed the button of his torch with his thumb, directing the beam towards the 
source of the noise.
McCafferty's vicious kick broke Selim's wrist. He dropped the gun and howled in 
a discordant counterpoint to the ululation of the dog. Mac jumped him and looped 
the chain around his neck. Gradually the American brought the Arab to his knees, 
trapping the man's body with his legs. Selim coughed and gagged, and the scream 
died in his throat as McCafferty choked his life away.
Unbelievably, the dog had forced the closet door, and Mac saw the bed slide out 
into the room as the huge brute urged its body into the widening gap.
Then the Alsatian was clear, and its desperate barking changed to a snarl of 
rage. In the light of the torch, still incongruously gripped in Selim's dead 
hand, McCafferty saw the dog spring, streamers of foam hanging from its extended 
jaws.
He dropped to the floor, rolled over, grabbed Selim's Walther pistol and poured 
shot after shot into the flying body of the killer Alsatian. The dog crashed 
into the partly open door, whinnied, then lay still beside him, panting. Mac 
turned his head and forced himself to look into its dying eyes. The saliva 
congealed on its tongue and the rasping breath stopped.
He was free.
He staggered down the stairs and out into the night, dragging in great gulps of 
cool air. Then he collected his wits and searched for a second car.
He found one at the rear of the villa, but the vehicle was locked and there was 
no key in the ignition. Mac ran into the house and up the stairs. He kicked 
Selim's corpse on to its back, and snatched a bunch of keys from the trousers 
pocket.
It was only when he was well on his way to the American consulate at the wheel 
of the car that he fully appreciated the difficulties that still confronted him.
As he had half-jokingly reminded Dunkels an eternity ago, McCafferty had no 
means of proving his identity. He had been stripped of everything - wallet, 
credit cards, security passes, money. He owned nothing more than the clothes he 
stood up in: a pair of baggy pantaloons and a torn, soiled, blood-soaked 
djellaba.
Worse even than that, he must now try to convince a sceptical consul that he was 
in reality a man whom the consul himself had seen with his own eyes boarding the 
personal aircraft of the President of the United States not three hours before.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The three-handed draw game was still in progress when Jagger returned to the 
rest room cabin. He bent over the table and said to Cooligan, 'How's it going, 
Bert?'
Jagger drew out a handkerchief to dab at his face as Cooligan replied, 'Fine - 
since you left. Your going brought me luck.'
'Yeah?' Jagger queried. 'Is that a fact? Well, see what this brings you, then.' 
He clamped the linen square over his nose and mouth and sprayed all three men. 
One by one, the cards fell from their nerveless fingers and their heads slumped 
on to the green baize. The flimsy little table almost overturned, but Jagger 
caught it in time, steadying it and holding it upright. He could not afford too 
much noise penetrating in either direction.
Jagger relieved Cooligan of his gun and murmured, 'Sweet dreams.'
Next, the flight deck. Kowalski was saying to the Commander, 'There's a hell of 
a lot of mush up ahead on the screen. Think we ought to contact Naples?' Fairman 
turned to view the radar, and grunted noncommittally. Then he ordered Latimer to 
make the link with the control station.
'Naples Control, Air Force One to Naples Control,' the pilot intoned. Naples 
replied; still the same formal, robotic voice. 'There's a heavy radar return 
building up ahead, Naples,' Latimer continued. 'Request change in routing to 
Geneva.'
Naples considered the question, and radioed back, 'Roger, Air Force One. Change 
to a heading of two-seven-six. Do you copy?'
Naples got an affirmative, and Latimer signed off…
Bartolomeo Volpe had tucked his student books into his battered document case in 
the social sciences lecture theatre at the University of Bologna and left early 
with the permission of his tutor who, like Bartolomeo, was a cadre chieftain in 
the Red Brigades. At about the same time, Christina Patakeminos leaned back in 
her chair in the social sciences lecture theatre at the University of Athens, 
closed her eyes, and waited impatiently for the mid-morning break. Bartolomeo 
boarded a plane heading south, and arrived in Naples at the precise scheduled 
time passed on to him in the instructions from his local Communist cell. He 
queued for a bus to take him out of the city, and checked his watch and grinned 
as he imagined the dark-eyed Christina doing much the same thing from Athens' 
Egypt Square.
Neither the boy nor the girl - who had become lovers at a youth seminar in Sofia 
a bare six weeks earlier - knew from whom the Athens and Bologna Communists 
received their orders. The ignorance did not bother them; they bombed when and 
where they were told to bomb; killed whomever they were told to kill. They were 
admirable products of international terrorism.
No killing on this one, the Italian thought regretfully as the bus dropped him 
at the appointed spot on the coast road. Important, though, the cell had said: a 
strike at the very roots of capitalism.
The electricity cables feeding Naples Control radar station skirted the sea 
cliffs in a dark gully away from the main road. The supply to Athens Control was 
also strategically hidden near the cliffs dropping down to the Aegean Sea from 
the Plain of Marathon. Bartolomeo checked the time again, his eyes almost 
crossing on the second hand as it swept round to zero-minute.
He levered the lid off a junction box and clamped a small magnetic timing device 
to its metal side. Then he clipped through a pair of wires laid bare in the 
cable, and twisted their ends on to the twin terminals of the timer. The clock 
hands were set for thirty-five minutes.
Hundreds of miles away, Christina Patakeminos followed the same drill-sequence 
down to the last letter, smiling to herself as she thought of Bartolomeo 
duplicating her movements south of Naples. They pressed the switches on their 
timers barely half a second apart.
Bartolomeo screwed down the lid of the junction box, shinned off the pylon and 
walked away into the night, whistling an aria from Verdi's Luisa Miller. 
Christina hummed a catchy little number by Theodorakis and hitched a lift back 
to Athens…
Jagger was surprised to meet Sabrina Carver on his way to the flight deck of Air 
Force One. 'Trouble, Airman?' he queried.
Sabrina shook her head, and her mane of dark hair lifted off her shoulders and 
settled again. 'Just being diplomatic,' she replied. 'Feisal - you know, the 
Arab boy - wanted to see the works. Colonel Fairman said it'd be all right.'
Jagger nodded and brushed past her, scarcely noticing the contact, fingering the 
strap on the holster of his gun. Sabrina shrugged and murmured, 'Mac, you sure 
are one businesslike fella.'
Jagger rapped on the locked door of the flight deck and was admitted at the same 
instant as the Naples Controller said 'Christ Almighty!' when his radar screen 
blanked out.
'Hey, what the —?' exclaimed an operator.
'Where's everything gone?' screeched a supervisor.
'Everything including us, Athens and Air Force One,' the Controller returned 
grimly. He blinked rapidly and snorted his disbelief.
'Tried the hot line?' the supervisor asked.
'Dead.'
'Shee-it.'
'Quite.'
General Morwood, in the Pentagon Operations Room, was almost as tersely 
expressive when he took the call from Naples. 'Lost them?' His eyes went to the 
wall map, smaller than UNACO's but still showing the Boeing's tracer. 'How can 
you have lost them?' he demanded. 'We still have them on the inertial guidance 
track.'
'I mean we've lost all our radar, sir,' the Naples Controller said a shade 
desperately, 'and so have Athens. As far as we know, Air Force One is still 
there. And of course, General, if you say it is… well, that's good enough for 
me.'
Morwood motioned to his closest aide, a full Colonel. 'Tell Philpott at UNACO 
what's happening,' he whispered, covering the mouthpiece,'then listen in here. 
I'm gonna tear the heads off Naples and Athens.'
'Hi there, Mac,' carolled Latimer as Jagger climbed into the flight deck, 
'getting bored back there?' Fairman added a greeting and Kowalski gave the 
security chief a wry grin. Feisal's eyes were widening as he studied the 
instrumentation.
'Yeah,' Jagger returned, 'I thought you guys might need livening up a bit. Eh, 
sonny,' he drawled to the Arab boy, 'maybe you'd better get back to your seat, 
huh? You can come up here again later.'
Jagger's tone was light and casual, but Fairman looked at the security man's 
eyes and whispered, 'Something up?' Jagger nodded. Feisal hesitated, and 
appealed mutely to the Commander. Fairman patted his shoulder and said, 'Scoot, 
kid. Like the Colonel says, you can be our guest another time.' Reluctantly, the 
boy edged out through the door.
Fairman waited until the door closed, and then inquired, 'What the hell's wrong, 
Mac? Do you have problems we don't know about?'
Jagger grinned crookedly, shaking his head. 'Not exactly, Tom,' he said, 'it's 
you who have the problems.'
'Like what?'
'Like this.' Jagger pulled out his gun and rammed it into the back of the first 
flight engineer's neck. 'All of you,' he commanded, 'freeze.'
Basil Swann stuttered out the news that Morwood's operations room had reported 
radar blackouts from Naples and Athens.
Philpott slammed down his glass on the table, rose to his feet and crossed to 
the office door, Sonya just behind him. He strode into the UNACO Ops centre and 
stared at the map. The green snake was still inching across the Mediterranean.
'I was about to add, sir,' Swann said,'that General Morwood said not to panic, 
because his trace still shows AF One, and so does ours. He says it must be 
purely a localised fault.'
Philpott stared at him in amazement. 'Two localised faults?' he inquired acidly. 
'Naples and Athens going out at the same time is sheer coincidence? Nothing to 
worry about?' His face started to go red until Sonya squeezed his arm.
'We are not panicking, Basil,' she said, 'but we are concerned.'
'Too damned right we are,' Philpott snorted. 'Even if Morwood can convince 
himself that something like a widespread electrical storm can simultaneously 
knock out a pair of radar dishes hundreds of miles apart, he can't convince me.'
Swann gulped with difficulty and asked for instructions. Philpott pounded his 
fist with his palm, and his brow creased in concentration. 'It's got to be 
Smith,' he muttered, 'and even then he'd need some help.'
'Sir?' Swann inquired.
'Get this, Basil,' Philpott replied, pointing a rock-steady finger. 'I want a 
squadron of fighters from Naples Command scrambled. Do it now - and I mean NOW - 
and tell them to stand by. I want no questions from them, no arguments, just 
action.'
Swann nodded. 'And their orders, sir?'
'No direct orders yet. Get them on stand-by; instant readiness. Use my Red 
Priority; that should persuade them I'm serious.' He swore and slumped into a 
monitor's chair.
Basil Swann blinked behind the lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses and took small, 
neat steps to the console of UNACO's master computer…
Fairman's iron control stilled all thoughts of panic among the Air Force One 
flight crew. 'If this is a joke, Colonel,' he said slowly to /agger, 'I'll have 
your ass for it.'
'No joke, Colonel,' Cody replied. 'It's a stickup - for real.'
Fairman looked steadily at him, but could see no humour in his eyes, no smile on 
his lips. Nothing but the ugly snout of the gun denting the flesh of the 
engineer's shaven neck. 'You've been… you have been bought? he asked, 
soft-voiced, incredulously.
'Sort of,' Jagger gritted, 'but don't let it worry you. Just bear in mind that 
I'm a qualified and experienced pilot; that I know every alarm system and button 
in the plane. Reach for one and I blow Chuck's head off. And that's for real, 
too: soft-coned bullets, low-calibre, dum-dum variants. Used like this at close 
range, there's no damage to the fabric, no de-pressurising. No damage to 
anything or anyone but Chuck. And he'll be dead. You're next, Tom. So behave.'
The stunned crew heard another voice filtered through Latimer's headphones. 
'Naples Control calling Air Force One! Report your position! Report your 
position! Do you read?'
'No,' Jagger ordered, reaching out and jerking off the headset, 'you don't copy, 
Pat. Everybody, unplug.' They remained mute, not moving. Jagger pressed the 
muzzle of his gun more firmly still into the engineer's flesh and said quietly, 
'Unplug, guys. Don't play heroes -just do it.'
Tom Fairman's unwavering stare met Jagger's cold, flinty eyes. The Commander 
reached forward and ripped the plug of his headset from the control panel. 
Numbly, the other crew members followed suit…
Although Fairman had initially cursed his flight plan because of the need to 
avoid sensitive air-space, he had in fact been permitted to take the orthodox 
"Great Circle" route from the Persian Gulf to Switzerland, overflying Saudi 
Arabia and Egypt to emerge from Africa over the Mediterranean, and leaving 
Sicily to his left and the Italian coast to starboard as he made his way up to 
Genoa and across the Alps. That, anyway, was the original plan. It would have 
covered a distance of about 2600 miles in a flying time in the order of five 
hours, which was less than half of the Boeing 707's full endurance.
Air Force One had flown 1950 miles in three hours forty-five minutes when Jagger 
entered the flight deck just as Fairman was pointing out to Feisal the 
retreating blob of Crete and the still-distant coast of Greece.
Mister Smith's "identikit" Boeing freighter, now wearing the livery of the 
President's plane, had taken off from its abandoned wartime airstrip on the 
coastal belt of Yugoslavia. Its target - the rendezvous point with the real Air 
Force One - lay four hundred miles to the south at latitude 37 degrees North and 
19 degrees 15 minutes East, on the lower fringe of the Ionian Sea. Gradually, 
the two great aircraft began to converge…
The Air Force One navigator, Kowalski, studied the new course ordered by Jagger 
with an amused sneer on his lips. 'I see it,' he murmured, 'but I don't believe 
it. Where the hell are we supposed to be going? And why, for the love of God, do 
we have do go down from 28,000 feet to 250 feet in what I reckon to be no more 
than, say, ten minutes? It sure is going to stir things up behind.'
Jagger leaned forward and transferred the gun to a point somewhere between 
Kowalski's eyes. 'Then the quicker you set about it,' he whispered,'the sooner 
their discomfort will be over.'
He straightened up. Latimer mouthed an obscenity and fiddled moodily with the 
controls just as the crew of the fake Boeing - a pilot and co-pilot, mercenary 
fliers fresh out of Mozambique - started climbing at the rate of 2900 feet a 
minute…
'Repeat your new projected course,' Jagger ordered, and Latimer intoned, 'We'll 
be heading 350 degrees, diving to feet. Bang up the middle of the Strait of 
Otranto, as requested, sir,'
Jagger ignored the sarcasm and turned his attention to the bank of circuit 
breakers controlling the wireless and navigation aids of the aeroplane. 'Take 
'em out - all of 'em,' he rapped to the flight engineer, who glanced at Fairman 
for approval.
The Commander pursed his lips and sighed. 'He's got the gun,' Fairman 
snarled,'so do as he says.'
Jagger congratulated him on his common sense. Fairman looked balefully at the 
man he supposed to be his friend Joe McCafferty. 'I hope to Christ you know what 
you're doing, Mister,' he said, 'because when you wipe out that lot you leave us 
about as well equipped as the Wright brothers were on their first flight, and 
they weren't flying over water in darkness. You might as well ask me to crash 
this bird into the sea right now.'
Jagger switched the point of the gun to Fairman, but the Commander didn't 
flinch. 'I mean it, Mac…' he added, 'you know that, for God's sake. I don't have 
to tell you. You're a pilot yourself. We have to have eyes. Don't leave us 
blind, or we won't make it.'
'So you need… what?' Jagger asked, unsure of himself now. The sketchy 
introduction to basic flying in his briefing had in no sense prepared him for 
this; Smith's orders had been to take off McCafferty, not match his knowledge 
built from a lifetime's career.
'You know damned well what I need!' Fairman exploded. 'I want the radio 
altimeters, the weather radar and the flight system. That way we might just - 
and I mean just - get wherever you want to go, though landing will be something 
else - but something else, I promise you. Keep the communications locked up, OK, 
but give me eyes.'
Jagger's gaze ranged from face to face as though seeking confirmation of 
Fairman's words. The flight engineer -they were all now under the spell of the 
weaving gun -had paused within range of the circuit breakers which would cut the 
liner's communications - or most of them.
But now he tripped the switches, and then made the mistake of letting his eyes 
flicker nervously to a metal box fixed to the bulkhead.
'What's in there?' Jagger rapped, following the man's eye-line. 'Just some more 
circuit breakers,' the engineer replied in a tone which was a little too casual 
to be credible.
'Open it,' Jagger commanded, and the engineer rummaged in his bag for a 
screwdriver. 'You, Colonel,' Cody said turning to Fairman, 'can have your eyes, 
but get this aircraft down to sea-level.'
Fairman ordered Latimer to illuminate the "fasten seat-belts" sign, and then he 
set the new heading. Latimer confirmed that he had carried out the necessary 
checklist of procedures for the descent, and the flight system put the Boeing 
into a slow right-hand turn on to the course Jagger had directed.
Cody kept an eye on Latimer until his attention was distracted by a screw 
falling from the cover-plate of the mysterious box on the bulkhead. The engineer 
lifted the plate off to reveal more circuit breakers.
The hijacker gestured with his revolver. 'Those too,' he said,'trip them.'
The flight engineer looked helplessly in Fairman's direction, but Jagger 
transferred the gun to within six inches of his face and said, 'Now!'
Reaching up with a trembling hand, the engineer obeyed. The green light on 
Philpott's wall display twinkled out.
Philpott rubbed his eyes. He turned to Sonya, who said, 'My God, it's gone.'
The green snake was still somehow imprinted on Philpott's retina. He closed his 
eyes and creases gathered at the bridge of his nose. 'It was - turning,' he said 
slowly. 'Just before the track went out, the plane was definitely turning.' He 
opened his eyelids and glared at the wall map, as if willing the green trace to 
return. 'It was turning maybe forty-five degrees.'
Swann's voice, small but oddly consoling, came from the computer console. 'I can 
confirm that, sir,' he said, 'it appeared to be changing course to take it up 
the Adriatic Sea instead of the Mediterranean and Tyrrhenian Sea.'
'But why?' Philpott murmured. 'And why have we lost the trace? Or is this just 
another "localised difficulty"?'
The telephone rang, and Sonya, who was nearest the receiver, snatched it from 
its cradle. She identified herself and listened in silence, then said to 
Philpott, 'It's General Morwood, Malcolm. They've lost the trace as well.'
Philpott jumped to his feet. 'Tell him I'll be back to him shortly,' he said 
brusquely. 'Basil - those fighters. I want them airborne like thirty seconds 
ago, and out on the track of Air Force One.' Swann bent his head to the console 
and flexed his fingers. Then Sonya Kolchinsky shouted, 'Wait.'
Philpott turned to see her with a hand raised, listening intently to Morwood's 
operations centre. She covered the mouthpiece and said quickly, 'Morwood says 
Gibraltar Radar reports that AF One is still, repeat still, on track. They've 
picked her up on the fringe of their area, and they're certain of their 
identification. There's no other comparable traffic.'
The UNACO director cursed under his breath, and snapped, 'Basil, do as I said. 
Get the fighters off. I don't care what the Pentagon says, or Gibraltar Radar. 
Something's wrong out there, and it's not happening by accident. It's Smith. I 
know it's Smith.'
Sonya waved at him and pointed to the telephone. 'General Morwood,' she 
whispered, handing him the receiver.
'What the blue bloody blazes is happening, Philpott?' Morwood shouted. 'First we 
lose the track and then Gibraltar say they've got her all safe and sound. What 
does it mean, for God's sake?'
'It means that I've requisitioned an Eagle flight from Naples Command,' Philpott 
replied tersely. 'It means that I'm convinced something has gone wrong with the 
President's plane, and I'm not taking any chances.'
'You've done WHAT?' the General roared.
'You heard.'
Silence reigned in the Pentagon operations room. Then, from Morwood, 'Good 
thinking, Malcolm. I should have done it myself. Keep me posted. I'll ring you 
if anything comes up at this end.'
'There is, of course, one thing you can do, George,' Philpott continued airily. 
'Raise Air Force One through Andrews and get them to check that everything's 
A-OK on board. Tell them to confirm without any possibility of doubt that things 
are absolutely normal there, and as they should be.'
Morwood grunted, and snarled an order to his aide. The false Air Force One had 
long since finished her steep climb and was giving a passable imitation of an 
on-course flight to Gibraltar Radar when Andrews AFB finally raised the flight 
deck. Her speed had dropped to barely 150 miles per hour, and she was stealthily 
losing altitude as well.
'What's going on there?' Andrews demanded. 'Naples and Athens said they lost 
you, and your own communications are on the blink. The inertial guidance track 
has gone, too. Do you read?'
'Systems malfunctions at both ends, I suppose,' the skipper replied in a more 
than adequate imitation of Latimer's languid drawl, filtered to an 
indistinguishable metallic rasp by the communications equipment.
'Is that you, Pat?' Andrews asked.
'Who else?'
'Is Tom there?' Andrews pressed.
'Fairman here,' the co-pilot replied. 'What's all this about? We are on schedule 
and raring to make Geneva. McCafferty sends his love. Got something special 
lined up for tonight, I think.'
Andrews probed gently at other openings, but eventually retired satisfied. They 
passed the good news to Morwood, and Morwood informed Philpott, whose Eagle 
flight was by now airborne and beyond recall… even if Philpott had any intention 
of summoning them back to base, which he hadn't.
The skipper of the "identikit" Boeing checked his precisely calculated schedule 
and suggested to his co-pilot that it was time they were gone. They strapped on 
parachutes and made for the emergency exit. The plane was on autopilot, and at 
their greatly reduced speed and height, the two men would easily clear the 
freighter's slip-stream.
The skipper kept an ear cocked to the radio desk, waiting for a particular 
signal to pierce the fuzzy sound. It came, transmitted from a ship in the 
Mediterranean two miles below them. He turned to his colleague with a "thumbs 
up" sign, and crossed to join him at the exit door.
Then he reached up a hand, slid off the top of a black plastic box wired to the 
emergency exit sign, and pressed a switch.
The aircraft was plunged into darkness, and the two men jumped out into the 
swirling breeze…
In the stateroom of the real Air Force One, Sabrina saw the "fasten seat-belts" 
sign flash on, and felt the liner dip as it banked to starboard. 'Gentlemen,' 
she said, and then gave an experimental cough and tried again, a little more 
loudly. Heads turned and inquiring eyes fastened on her.
Sabrina indicated the sign and said, The Commander requests you to put on your 
seat-belts, please.' Hemmingsway looked at the electric wall clock and pointed 
out that they were still the better part of a thousand miles short of their 
destination.
'Probably a little turbulence?' Sheikh Dorani, the Libyan, asked.
'Something of the sort,' Sabrina replied.
'We appear to be going downwards,' Sheikh Zayed Farouk Zeidan observed.
'We are,' his grandson Feisal confirmed, 'at a rate of perhaps fifty feet a 
second, or thereabouts.' The news, coming as it did from a boy of twelve in 
precise and clipped Oxford English, sounded so incongruous that Hemmingsway 
started giggling.
He fell silent when the Iraqi, Sheikh Arbeid, addressing the room at large for 
the first time, since he was not gifted with the capacity for small-talk, said, 
'The young one is correct. We are diving.'
Eyes turned again on Sabrina, who flushed and said, 'I'll -uh - I'll try to find 
out what's happening. No doubt we're just getting under some bad weather or 
something.'
'No doubt,' Sheikh Zeidan commented urbanely.
'Unlikely, though,' Feisal ventured.
'Why?' Hemmingsway asked, curious, and then cursing himself for seeking an 
opinion on aeronautical practice from a lad younger than his own children, whose 
knowledge of anything beyond sex and pop music could be safely abandoned to the 
back of a small postage stamp.
'We would not need to dive as steeply,' Feisal replied, 'and we do not seem to 
be encountering turbulence or an air-pocket. We are, simply, descending.'
Hemmingsway pulled himself together. 'Now look here,' he said, 'I am your host 
aboard this aircraft in the absence of the President of the United States, and 
while I'm sure the opinions of our young friend are of consuming interest, I see 
no reason why we should not be told what is occurring, rather than having to 
guess. Airman,' he said to Sabrina, 'we will follow the Commander's orders and 
keep our seat-belts fastened. You will get a member of the flight crew to come 
out here now, and give us an explanation.'
Sabrina started to obey when the Boeing gave a sudden, violent lurch. Sheikh 
Dorani clutched the arms of his seat. Doctor Ibrahim Hamady, of Saudi Arabia, 
leaned forward to rescue a cup that was skating off the table, and Sabrina heard 
a noise from the rear of the plane, which she correctly identified as kettles 
and pots crashing to the floor. Sheikh Zeidan's imposing face registered 
startled apprehension when a gasping, retching sound came from the seat beside 
him. He bent over the boy, who was battling for breath, taking in huge gulps of 
air.
The Bahraini turned to Sabrina and snapped his fingers imperiously. 'His 
medication. Quickly, young lady,' he urged.
Fighting the angle of the aircraft to stay upright, Sabrina started for the rear 
galley where she had left the syringe and insulin capsules.
She encountered no one else along the route, which for some reason that she 
could not pinpoint worried her more than it should have done, and reached the 
galley. She jerked open the door, and her astonished gaze fell on the bodies of 
Master Sergeant Pete Wynanski and Airman Jeanie Fenstermaker…
One at each side, the two leading fighters in the Eagle flight drew abreast of 
the dark and sinister shape of the Boeing. The Eagle leader called the plane, 
but his only reply was an impenetrable buzz of static.
'There's not a single light showing on her,' the pilot of the second fighter 
reported. 'Anything visible your side?'
'Nothing,' Eagle leader replied. 'Drop back a bit, will you? Get as close in as 
you can. See if you can spot anything -anything. A movement, the flicker of a 
match. Any Goddamned thing you can see to convince me and Naples Control and 
UNACO that this isn't just a ghost, because that's how it looks to me, and I 
can't make a report like that without getting a free pass to the funny farm.'
The second plane peeled away and came up behind the Boeing again, adjusting his 
speed to that of the huge grey shape. The pilot, insofar as he was able, 
examined every inch of the liner, checking the external markings and 
scrutinising each window along the fuselage as the moonlight briefly caught her. 
He speeded up and peered into the darkened, empty flight deck.
The pilot dived and resumed a course parallel with his leader. 'Nothing,' he 
confirmed, 'absolutely one big fat zero. Not a sign of life anywhere. Something 
God-awful, unimaginable, must have happened. She's just been abandoned - crew, 
passengers, everybody.'
'Zilch!' his leader retorted, and then, more graphically, 'Balls! that's Air 
Force One there, baby, not some mystery joy-rider - and not the Marie Celeste, 
either. The crew of AF One don't just chuck the passengers overboard and jump 
out of a ship that's to all intents and purposes flying perfectly normally. Are 
you sure you didn't spot something, overlook something? It could have seemed 
unimportant, but it may be the clue we're after.'
There was silence, except for the crackle of static, and then the second pilot's 
voice, hesitant and confused, came over again. 'There was something - yeah… you 
know, that didn't seem quite, sort of, right, kosher, But I thought I was just 
seeing things - or not seeing them, even.'
'What was it?' Eagle leader demanded. 'For Christ's sake, tell me!' 'Well, it 
was the —'
The sky was lit by a blinding flash and a glare of orange, then crimson, light, 
shading to a fierce yellow. The shock-wave reached the two fighters fractionally 
before the huge blast of sound boomed in their ears. The two little planes 
bucked and leapt through the wispy clouds and screamed away to right and left, 
each performing tight circles to come round again and dive towards the wreckage 
of the Boeing as it dropped from the night sky.
The fiery cigar shape of the Boeing's fuselage was now starkly illuminated as 
the fighters chased it down to the sea. Eagle leader made his panic-stricken 
report to Naples base, where it was received with uncomprehending horror.
'Shot down?' Naples queried.
'No!' Eagle leader roared, 'not shot down. It just exploded. There was no 
missile. It must have been a bomb. A bomb - on an empty aircraft.'
'Empty?' from Naples.
'Positive. Empty, and in total darkness.'
'And it was Air Force One,' Naples pressed.
'Affirmative.' >
'You're sure?'
'Affirmative.'
'No.'
There was silence from Naples, then the robot voice said, 'Who was that?'
'Eagle Two,' the pilot of the second fighter confirmed.
'And you're saying — ' the Controller left the question hanging in the air.
'I'm saying I don't think it was Air Force One,' the airman rejoined.
This time Naples refused to break the silence, and the USAF pilot said, 'First, 
some information. What kind of main hatch, you know, the actual door, did Air 
Force One have?'
'What kind of door?' Naples echoed in bafflement. 'An ordinary one, as far as we 
know.'
'Dimension, say, four feet?'
A busy, almost frenetic, silence occupied Naples now. Then the Controller came 
back. 'We have the specification of the Boeing in front of us. It had a 
normal-sized hatch, built for average height and weight passengers. Why do you 
ask, Eagle Two?'
'Because this bird didn't,' the fighter pilot crowed triumphantly. 'I checked it 
in the air on the level, and again on the way down. This Air Force One's door 
measured all of seven feet wide.'
Then it was —' began Eagle leader.
'Then it couldn't have —-' put in Naples Control.
'No,' replied Eagle Two, 'it wasn't a VC-137C stratoliner nor any other kind of 
Boeing 707-320B airliner. My guess is that it was some old freighter tarted up 
to look like Air Force One'…
'…My guess, too,' murmured Malcolm Philpott, who had been patched through to the 
three-way, conversation. 'And what's more, I know who did it.'
Sonya Kolchinsky burst into his office, her face alive with strain and concern. 
'Is it true?' she asked, 'General Morwood says Air Force One has been shot down 
or bombed. Is it true?'
Philpott turned in his chair and chuckled up at her. 'Oh yes, it's true, my pet. 
But tell General Morwood not to worry: we've got another one.'
CHAPTER NINE
A crumbling outcrop of wartime ruins framed against the night sky above the 
remains of a concrete bunker lay just to the right of the runway where it ended 
in a sudden crevasse. Dirt ramps had been banked up to mark the very limit of 
usable track, but they would be frighteningly ineffective against the weight of 
a plunging jet.
Paraffin lamps, spluttering noisily, their flames dancing and weaving, 
paralleled each other down the entire length of the runway, with a battery of 
them at the end, but there was no disguising the fact that Mister Smith's Kosgo 
airstrip had not been designed to take a Boeing 707.
Smith lounged against a low concrete wall, directing the placement of the 
forty-strong reception committee - all in rough battle fatigues, all heavily 
armed.
'Why are we here?' the girl asked. Her elfin face peeped out from the hood of a 
sable fur coat; her hands were encased in a matching muff, and her feet in 
sable-lined grey leather boots.
'We wait,' Smith replied in Serbo-Croat.
'For what?'
Smith raised a finger to her lips and said, 'Hush, little one.' She followed his 
gaze as he peered into the sky.
Barely audible on the breeze, the throaty growl of a jet engine cut like an 
idling bandsaw through the thick, low cloud. Smith ran his fingers over the 
girl's lips and she licked the tip of each one…
'How long?' Fairman rasped.
'Most of five thousand feet,' Jagger confirmed.
'Most?'
'Uh-huh. The strip was built for jets, but not very big ones.'
'It's impossible,' Fairman protested.
Jagger shook his head. 'Good, old-fashioned airmanship, Tom. But mind the gully 
at the far end.'
'Gully!'
'Yeah. The runway sort of- well, peters out. It's quite a deep drop.'
'Jesus Christ.'
Jagger smiled and said, 'Maybe a prayer would help.'
Kowalski remarked that there was an island coming up to port.
'Well don't tell us,' Latimer remarked peevishly, 'you're the navigator. What is 
it?'
If they were on course, Kowalski explained, it would be the island of Vis. 'See 
any others?' he asked.
To where?'
'Starboard.'
Latimer probed the blackness, and identified two shapes looming on the right. He 
passed the news to the navigator. 'Spot on,' Kowalski said,'the first one's Hvar 
and the second Brae. It's dead straight now until landfall.'
'Gee, thanks,' Fairman said.
The Commander requested further details from Jagger of the landing strip. The 
runway itself, the ringer told him, would be marked by paraffin flares. 
Fairman's jaw dropped. 'You did say paraffin flares?'
'Sure. They're very effective in fog.'
'It isn't foggy,' Latimer pointed out.
'Don't bet on it,' Jagger replied,'they get funny weather around here.'
Fairman sighed and said, 'Go on.'
Jagger grinned and assured the Commander that the worst of the bad news was 
over. 'That was the primitive aspect,' he added. 'Beyond that they're quite well 
equipped. They have a transponder there which operates on your radar frequency, 
so you'll be able to pinpoint the exact position.
They've also got VHF radio - battery-powered, naturally - and they'll use that 
to keep you abreast of conditions on the ground.'
They speak English, then,' Fairman inquired acidly 'not ancient Sumerian or 
Stone Age grunt language?'
'One of them almost certainly speaks all three.'
Latimer asked if, assuming they were almost there, the plane could have back its 
VHF radio for tuning to the correct frequency. 'Sure, Pat,' Jagger replied, 'you 
can have the radio, but I'll do the tuning. The less you know the better.'
Holding a headset to his ear with his free hand, Jagger adjusted the frequency 
to 118-1 and made contact with the Kosgo base. He handed the communicator to 
Fairman. The Commander heard a precise and cultured English voice recite all the 
details he needed to know: the runway-heading, atmospheric pressure reading at 
aerodrome level, and the wind speed and direction.
'Do call again,' Smith added, 'when the transponder blip indicating the exact 
position of the airfield appears on your screen.' Fairman grunted and 
surrendered the headphones to Jagger, who signed off.
'Happier?' the ringer said.
Fairman ignored him and told Latimer, 'We'll drag her in low and slow. When the 
blip comes on I'll take the controls and try it at about 110 knots. Then we'll 
coast in and snatch it back to manual if- or, I hope, when - we spot the 
lights.'
The Boeing ran for a further twenty miles at 250 feet, straight as a die to 
Kowalski's immense satisfaction, when the green spot started glowing on the 
weather radar screen.
Tell your friends we have them on visual,' Fairman instructed Jagger, 
unconsciously treating him as part of the normal complement of Air Force One - 
which indeed, as far as Fairman was concerned, he was, although not on the 
flight deck. When Jagger had passed on the intelligence, Fairman added, without 
turning to look at the ringer, 'If you know what you're doing, you'll keep out 
of the way for the next ten, fifteen minutes.'
Jagger held on to the back of Fairman's seat as the plane bucked, and moved the 
point of his gun until the short hairs on the back of the Commander's neck 
erected of their own volition, though the metal had not touched him. 'Listen, 
Tom,' Jagger purred, 'if you don't land this aircraft, I will.'
That,' said Latimer, 'I should like to see.'
'But you wouldn't see it, Pat, that's the point,' Jagger replied smoothly. 
'You'd all be dead.'
Silence fell on the crew and they concentrated perhaps too minutely on the task 
in hand. Jagger had rammed the message home, and not one among them doubted that 
he meant what he said…
Sabrina closed the door of the galley after slipping the catch of the lock. At 
least Wynanski and Jeanie were still alive, though she calculated they would not 
regain consciousness for some time. But who had done it? And why? And what could 
she do about it?
Clutching every support - walls, furniture - that came to hand, she struggled 
back to the stateroom with the tooled leather first-aid kit in her hand. Dr 
Hamady, who had unbuckled his seat-belt and was crouching solicitously over the 
crippled Zeidan and his grandson, leapt to help her as she lost her balance and 
crashed against a table. They remained precariously rooted to the floor, until 
Hamady realised that they were no longer bending over to compensate for the 
steeply-inclined angle of the plane.
Sabrina straightened and gasped with relief. 'So,' said Dorani from his seat, 
'we have ceased to dive.'
Sheikh Arbeid, the taciturn Iraqi, placed a cup on the polished surface of the 
table before him. It rattled slightly, but stayed in position. He grunted 
confirmation.
Sabrina hurried to Sheikh Zeidan and gently released his hold on the boy, who 
was now almost unconscious. She loosened his seat-belt, then unzipped the 
trousers of Feisal's immaculate grey suit. Zeidan gripped the arm of his 
wheelchair with his left hand, and with the other took the boy's legs on his lap 
until he was fully stretched. Sabrina pulled down his trousers and underpants, 
pinched and swabbed a patch of flesh on the boy's small, taut buttock, and 
injected a dose of insulin.
Almost immediately, Feisal's feverish mutterings ceased and his breathing became 
calmer. Zeidan carefully patted the beads of perspiration from his grandson's 
face, and whispered in Arabic, 'Sleep, my jewel, my prince.'
All the OPEC ministers ,and their aides had now resumed their seats, and Hamady, 
who had courteously waited for the medication to be finished, fixed Hawley 
Hemmingsway with an angry glare.
'You mentioned some time ago, Minister,' he said,'that you would endeavour to 
discover why we have been put to this considerable danger, let alone discomfort. 
If you do not accept that we have been placed in peril, I would urge you to 
consider that His Excellency Sheikh Zeidan's grandson could still become gravely 
ill. I think you owe us an apology and a full explanation.
'I can speak only for the Monarch and Government of Saudi Arabia, but for my 
part I assure you that we shall feel inclined to accept neither the apology nor 
the explanation unless they are completely satisfactory, and the situation is 
restored immediately to normality. As for the oil accord, in the service of 
which we have undergone this humiliating experience… well, I leave that to your 
imagination, Mr Hemmingsway.'
The American Energy Secretary sat stunned and silent. Then he breathed a sigh 
and nodded his head slowly. 'Clearly, Dr Hamady, gentlemen,' he said, 'I have no 
more idea than you do what is going on. I now propose to find out.'
He rose from the seat, and his eyes met Sabrina Carver's. He read in them the 
clear message of warning and danger, reserved at the moment for him alone, 
though Zeidan, watchful as ever, had caught the interchange. 'Come with me, 
young lady,' Hemmingsway growled, and led the way towards the flight deck…
'Lights up ahead, I think,' Latimer exclaimed.
'Coastal lights,' Kowalski cautioned. 'We're approaching land now. Could be 
anything.'
The Commander called for flaps, and Latimer reached GUI his left hand to operate 
the lever mounted in the centre console. Position indicators on the right of the 
instrument panel registered his actions, which were monitored by Fairman and 
Kowalski - and, above all, by Jagger.
The aircraft's speed died rapidly and Fairman demanded more. Then he ordered the 
landing gear to be lowered. Latimer obeyed like an automaton, the tension and 
strain mirrored on his handsome face. A distant rumbling beneath the aircraft 
signalled the dropping of the landing gear. With the mild thump that always 
accompanies the final locking of the undercarriage, the jarring motion 
communicating itself through the floor to the soles of Jagger's feet, three 
green lights flashed on above the operating lever on Latimer's side of the 
flight deck.
The flight system was still controlling the aircraft, but the Boeing showed a 
tendency now to pitch and wallow, as all airliners do when they are operating 
close to their stalling speed. The eddies and currents and warm air thermals 
coming from the sea and the liberal scattering of tiny islands did nothing to 
help steady her progress…
With the stateroom door firmly closed behind them, Hemmingsway grabbed Sabrina's 
arm and whispered hoarsely, 'What the hell's going on here, Airman? You know 
something, don't you? Well, tell me!'
Sabrina wrenched her arm away and said, 'You're hurting me, sir. You have no 
need to. I'll tell you what I know - and I'd better warn you, it's all bad.'
The colour left Hemmingsway's big, florid face as Sabrina filled him in on the 
scene in the rear galley. He wanted to speak, but the words refused to come.
'If you're trying to ask me if we've been hijacked, sir,' Sabrina said,'the 
answer is: yes, I believe we have. Whatever's happening to us is being 
master-minded from the flight deck, which I'm sure will be locked against us. 
But I think there's a way to get more evidence that should convince everyone 
back there.'
She led the way to the rest room cabin, and pushed at the door. It met an 
immediate obstacle, giving them no more than a two-inch-wide aperture into the 
room. Hemmingsway lent his weight to hers, and the body of the fallen engineer 
rolled across the carpeted floor and folded itself around a leg of the 
card-table.
Sabrina's mouth set into a grim line. 'I was afraid of this most of all,' she 
said, indicating one of the three men.
'Who's that?' Hemmingsway asked.
The Secret Service agent, Bert Cooligan. And his gun's been taken,' she replied.
'And that means what?'
'It means,' Sabrina said,'that the security chief, Colonel McCafferty, must be 
up there - ' jerking her head towards the nose of the plane' - under arrest like 
the flight deck crew. We don't have anybody else who can help.'
Hemmingsway looked shrewdly into her eyes. 'Not even you, I suspect, young lady, 
because you're no ordinary stewardess, are you?'
Sabrina smiled and said, 'No, I'm not, but I'm on your side, like Joe 
McCaflerty. But the point is - I'm not armed, so we're still back where we 
were.'
Hemmingsway's tall frame had slumped as he realised the gravity of their 
position, then he pulled himself up with a visible effort. 'I'm not taking this 
lying down, Airman,' he snapped. 'I'm going up front now. I'm going to find out 
who's kidnapped us, why, and where they're taking us.'
'I wouldn't advise that, sir,' Sabrina returned anxiously. Hemmingsway fixed her 
with a fierce, but controlled stare. 'In a real sense, Airman,' he continued, 
'it's my plane, my responsibility, my job to do something about it. And I don't 
shirk my responsibilities. Ever.'
He led the way from the rest room cabin and halted before the flight deck, 
Sabrina at his elbow. Hemmingsway raised his hand to rap on the locked door, but 
a voice, sharp and incisive, came behind them.
'Freeze,' said Achmed Fayeed. They turned and saw the gun, pointing at the left 
lapel of Sabrina's blazer. Achmed stepped backwards and motioned them to follow. 
Hemmingsway opened the door and let Sabrina precede him into the stateroom, then 
stumbled through himself as the Arab brutally shoulder-charged him. Hemmingsway 
lurched into a table and fell to the floor, his head resting against the base of 
Zeidan's wheelchair.
Zeidan's piercing eyes fixed on the face of his aide, and he said, 'What is the 
meaning of this outrage, Achmed?'
Fayeed straightened up and sneered, 'Surely, you can see for yourself, cousin. 
This aircraft has been commandeered under my orders, and is now being flown to a 
place designated by myself and my friends.'
'And what happens next?' Dorani inquired, completely unruffled, like the other 
Arabs.
'You will be told that at the right time,' Achmed returned. 'For the moment, you 
are my prisoners. Remain in your seats, and fasten the belts.'
Hemmingsway climbed to his feet, breathing almost as heavily as Feisal had been 
a few moments before. 'You won't get away with it, damn you,' he hissed,'this 
plane belongs to the Presid—'
'I am aware,' Achmed cut in, 'who the aircraft belongs to. That is why we have 
stolen it. And you are wrong, Mr Hemmingsway, in any case. We have already got 
away with it. You are powerless to prevent us from accomplishing our purpose, 
and your people back in Washington, and yours, and yours - ' ranging around the 
room ' - do not, in fact, know what is happening, and would not believe it if 
they did.'
'Why not?' Zeidan asked curiously.
'Because they think you are dead,' Achmed replied.
Sabrina paled and clutched at the head of Arbeid's seat. Achmed said to her, 
'Your assistance as a stewardess is no longer needed, and your function as a 
secret agent has been nullified. Sit down with the rest, and fasten your 
seat-belt.'
Dumbly, Sabrina complied. Philpott's worst fears had been realised: a strike in 
the air had been launched at the President's Boeing.
And his words came back to her: 'If that happens, nobody can help you. You're on 
your own…'
Fairman was sweating, and he knew Latimer had spotted it. The Commander was 
finding it difficult to do no more than rest his hands and feet lightly on the 
controls, following the effect of the pulses sent out from the computer brain 
that was really flying the machine. His eyes kept flickering to the airspeed 
indicator, resolutely steady at 110 knots.
'Three miles or so, I reckon,' Latimer said. 'See anything?'
'Not a thing,' Fairman replied. His next words were cut short by Jagger.
'There!' Cody yelled, pointing ahead. They strained their eyes through the 
clouded night and saw, dimly, a signalling light a short distance away.
'Altimeter setting,' Fairman snapped.
'One-zero-zero-nine,' Jagger answered. 'Wind, three-seven-oh degrees at 
one-six.'
'Right on the nose, baby,' Fairman continued. 'OK, I have control.' As he spoke, 
he flicked the switch on the left of his control column to cancel the automatic 
system, and settled down to pilot the Boeing manually.
The aircraft juddered as they hit a patch of turbulence, and the starboard wing 
dropped sharply. Fairman righted it again in what was really a reflex action. 
The runway, picked out by the flickering dots of the paraffin lamps, was in 
sight. Fairman eased his hands forward to start the landing.
He muttered to himself, not caring whether anyone else heard, that it was like 
being back at flying school. When the end of the runway slid down the 
windshield, you were too high. When it slid up, too damned low. So far it 
remained dead centre, and Fairman hoped, prayed, that it would stay there.
It was a long, dangerously slow, descent. Air Force One shot out the searching 
beams of its own landing lights, and a hundred tons of aeroplane followed the 
twin rays as they raked the pitted track between the smoking paraffin lamps.
Fairman completed the run in, and the great silver airliner burst on to the 
runway in a squeal of tyres. Fairman's knuckles whitened as he gripped the 
steering column and fought to keep it under control.
'Reverse thrust!' he yelled. Latimer obeyed. The noise of the jets rose in an 
ear-splitting boom to a crescendo as all seventy-six thousand pounds of thrust 
were diverted to slow the liner's progress along the absurdly short landing 
strip.
Air Force One rattled and shook, and the plane's speed fell dramatically, 
throwing the stateroom passengers violently against their restraining belts. 
Crockery, personal articles, document cases, all flew off the tables and smashed 
against the bulkhead.
Outside, the girl's hand flew to her mouth and cut off a shriek of terror as the 
huge shape bore down on them. She pulled at Smith's arm, and he allowed himself 
to be dragged back behind the low wall, as if that afforded any ultimate 
protection from the racing jetliner.
Fairman watched the faint, flickering bank of lights at the end of the strip 
draw closer and closer. Then, suddenly, there was nothing in the windscreen but 
blackness.
Latimer, Kowalski and Jagger held on to anything that wouldn't move, and the 
Boeing slewed into a hard right turn, its tyres smoking. It came to rest nearly 
at a right angle to the gully, its port wing hanging out over the deep gash of 
the crevasse.
Latimer licked his dry lips and said, 'Hairy.'
'Cut engines,' Fairman breathed. The pilot chopped the switches and the whining 
jets died to a whimper.
'Excellent,' Smith purred. 'You see, my lovely Branka,' he said to the girl, 
'you can always rely on the United States Air Force in an emergency.'
Two Air Force Ones? Morwood queried. Definitely, Philpott explained: one 
hijacked and diverted, the other taking its place until the radar picked up the 
scent again. Then it would be seen cruising along the correct course at the 
correct altitude, and its crew would bail out at the appropriate time, probably 
when a ship was waiting at a prearranged signal to pick them up. The bomb on 
board the plane would throw the Pentagon and UNACO into total confusion while 
the real AF One was spirited away
'Like where?' Morwood demanded.
The angle of turn before the liner disappeared from the inertial guidance system 
trace would indicate Greece or Yugoslavia, Philpott surmised.
'No closer than that?' Morwood persisted.
'If you want me to guess,' Philpott replied, 'I'd say Yugoslavia. If it's Smith 
and he has help, which I believe he may, then it'll be Yugoslavia, because he 
could not operate with complete freedom in Greece, and neither could the sort of 
assistance I think he's getting.'
'Which is?'
The KGB.'
Morwood digested this information, and was tempted metaphorically to spit it out 
as inedible. Philpott broke the ensuing silence to round out the picture of 
Smith which was already forming in the General's shrewd mind. In the end, the 
catalogue of Smith's known previous crimes against humanity, against social 
systems and conventions, against established order and security, convinced the 
Pentagon that Smith must indeed be the man behind the hijack of the President's 
plane. And if Philpott said the criminal must have Soviet help, then Morwood 
accepted that as a running hypothesis.
'Makes it difficult for us, though, Malcolm,' he added.
'I get the point,' Philpott conceded. 'It's impossible for the USA to act in any 
role on Yugoslav soil. You might have got away with a presence in Greece, but 
not in Yugoslavia. I accept that. I also accept the unstated corollary to your 
premise: it's UNACO's baby. It can't be anyone else's.'
Morwood chuckled drily. So America was, for once, on the sidelines - and the 
opposition already had a head start on UNACO.
'How so?' Philpott asked.
Morwood's chuckle deepened to a belly laugh. 'Haven't you seen the latest tape 
from the United Nations? There's a special emergency debate on the assumed 
hijack, and the Russians are already stirring it for you to the limit of their 
capacity for troublemaking; which I assure you is considerable. You're 
practically on a no-win streak even before you get your first shots off, old 
boy. Let's see you wriggle out of this one.'
Philpott cursed his own forgetfulness in failing to keep a weather eye on his 
employers, and ordered Swann to cue in the General Assembly on the video. It 
became speedily apparent that, if anything, Morwood had understated the 
seriousness of UNACO's position.
Saudi Arabia had followed Iraq, Bahrain, Iran and every other combination of 
outraged OPEC dignity in attacking first the Americans, and then UNACO, for 
allowing terrorism to erupt under their very noses in the US President's 
personal and supposedly ultra-secure aeroplane.
'Are the lives of our leading citizens of so little consequence to our supposed 
allies that they are unable to ensure their safety on a five-hour plane trip?' 
thundered Libya.
'Never before have even the imperialist bandits of the Western world manifested 
so patent and brutal a contempt for the servants of Islam,' Iran echoed. 'Are we 
such dirt beneath their feet that we are to be trussed up and handed to the 
first criminal dog that comes along, yapping to do his masters' bidding and 
lining his pockets with a ransom which the Americans are clearly confident they 
will not have to furnish?'
Philpott winced before the TV monitors, knowing that worse was to come.
'And this pallid lackey of the United States, this "UNACO" - ' (the Bahraini 
ambassador invested the acronym with such withering scorn that Philpott feared 
the characters would melt on his office door) ' - this crypto-capitalist sore in 
the UN body politic, whose salaries we pay, whose staff we keep in sybaritic 
idleness, who actually made the security of this flight their particular 
responsibility… is it too invidious to suggest that doors may have been left 
open for this aerial highwayman, that palms were greased, souls corrupted - that 
Malcolm Gregory Philpott, defender of our freedoms, pillar of international 
rectitude, doughty champion of the oppressed and opponent of the malefactor… is 
it so unimaginable that Philpott himself might have a share in the complicity of 
this foul and dastardly act?'
Philpott reached for the switch, and before the monitor pictures faded he saw 
the Russian delegation unravel their folded arms and bang the table in cynical 
approbation…
Smith's guerillas coupled a tractor to Air Force One and towed her to the 
shelter of a dilapidated but roomy hangar. There, a busy little crane covered 
every visible inch of the Boeing in tarpaulin sheets, leaving only the main 
hatch uncovered. A flight of steps was wheeled up and Achmed Fayeed opened the 
door. Smith stalked into the building and stood at the foot of the stairway 
tapping a gloved hand with a silver-topped ebony stick. He was ringed by swarthy 
lieutenants, sub machine-guns at the port.
Achmed led the way, and stood before Smith, grinning widely, twirling the pistol 
on his finger, cowboy-style. Smith said nothing, but reached out his hand and 
placed it on the young Arab's left shoulder in an unmistakable gesture of 
approval and comradeship.
The hostages and crew members filed or were carried down the steps, Hemmingsway 
following the OPEC ministers, with Sabrina Carver behind him. To Sabrina's 
bewilderment, there was no sign of McCafferty, and hope sprang in her breast 
that even now he might still be at liberty, waiting for the right moment to gain 
the upper hand and free the prisoners. She also calculated that her Air Force 
One uniform and obvious anonymity would conceal her own identity, but she was 
wrong.
Smith's face now wore a smile of clear amusement as she tried to use Hemmingsway 
as a shield.'I must admit,' he said slowly,'that I did not expect to find you on 
board this aircraft. But why play the shrinking violet, my dear Sabrina? Modesty 
never suited you, as I recall from our brief sojourn at my chateau before the 
ill-fated venture on the Eiffel Tower.
'Can you conceivably, I wonder, have changed your vocation after - what is it - 
three and a half years? No longer the international jewel thief extraordinary, 
but abandoned to the monastic womb of Service life? It seems unlikely. Perhaps 
you would care to offer an explanation of your presence here.'
Achmed cut in, 'No need, Mister Smith. I can tell you about her. She's with 
UNACO.'
'Aaah,' Smith drawled,'so… one of Mr Philpott's eager little beaveresses. 
Doubtless you were prostituting yourself for him on our previous encounter, too? 
Yes, your silence and evident shame indicate that to be the case. Well, now, 
Miss Sabrina Carver, clearly I underestimated you then. Be assured that I shall 
not make the same mistake again. Achmed, I give her into your personal and 
special care. Do what you will with her - only make sure that she suffers… Make 
very sure of that, Achmed.'
Fayeed caught her wrist and pulled her to him, and Sabrina had to restrain 
herself from retaliation, but now was not the time, she told herself; she had to 
learn their location and get word to Philpott. And look after the boy, Feisal. 
Achmed could wait.
Smith continued, 'And one still not with us? Could he also be suffering from 
unaccustomed shyness?'
'No chance, Mister Smith,' Jagger called from the doorway of the plane.
'My dear Colonel,' Smith crowed, 'join us, please, and complete our pleasure.'
All eyes were on him as he descended the steps - on him, and on the gun which he 
still carried in his hand.
'Oh, my God, no,' Sabrina breathed, 'not you, Mac. Not you.'
'Oh, yes,' Mister Smith sneered. 'Indeed, I don't know how we should have 
managed without Colonel McCafferty's all-too-willing assistance.'
CHAPTER TEN
The US consul in Bahrain was neat, pedantic and obstinate, and called 
Mackie-Belton. He had been immediately prejudiced against the grimy, 
blood-streaked figure who had forcibly invaded his privacy and interrupted his 
dinner with an Arabian lady of enormous discretion but small reserves of 
patience. Now Mackie-Belton's own tolerance was approaching the end of its 
tether.
'Put yourself in my position,' he insisted, not for the first time, 'and give me 
one reason - not half a dozen or twenty -just one reason why I should believe 
you. You come bursting in here uninvited, wearing filthy Arab clothing and a 
USAF shirt, underwear and socks, obviously having fought your way out of some 
seedy drinking party, and without a shred of either evidence or identification 
to back you up, you insist you're someone whom I know from my own experience you 
cannot possibly be.
'When I clearly do not accept your story, you insult me, threaten me, bully me, 
try to cajole me into telephoning the Director of UNACO and the operations room 
at the Pentagon - and then you are outraged when I propose calling the police. 
Let me tell you - and do not come any closer, please - let me tell you that the 
only reason you are still here and the police are not, is that your story is so 
incredible, so fantastic, that it just might have a grain of truth in it.'
Mac sighed and slumped into a lumpy armchair, his legs outstretched, his fingers 
plucking disconsolately at the beading on the upholstery. He lifted his eyes 
wearily to Mackie-Belton, and saw scarcely a chink in the implacable hostility 
of the plump little man in the white tuxedo, thinning brown hair plastered down 
to cover his scalp, buck teeth gleaming in the tight mouth. The consul's 
bi-focals were suspended by the ear-pieces from a thin gold chain looped around 
the back of his neck, and falling to rest on his pleated white dinner-shirt like 
some extravagant Order from a Middle Eastern potentate.
'So what will you do, Mr Belton?' he muttered.
'Mackie-Belton, if you don't mind. Well, for a start, I will not contact either 
the Pentagon or UNACO, but I will endeavour to find someone on this island who 
might know you and could confirm that you bear at least a passing resemblance to 
Colonel Joseph McCafferty whom we know to be aboard Air Force One - which, by 
the way, in my opinion, you do not, although I have met the gentleman only 
once.'
Mac groaned and passed his hand over his face - then snatched it away and sat 
bolt upright in the chair, his blazing eyes and harsh breathing unsettling 
Mackie-Belton even more.
'Of course!' he hooted triumphantly, and Mackie-Belton winced anew, 'you're 
right, of course! Now shut up and listen, because I'm going to tell you 
something which you will believe!
'Ankara, wasn't it? Don't interrupt, don't move, don't even breathe…Ankara, 
yeah, three - no, four - years ago.
I'd had my wallet stolen and I was strapped for money. I came to you - ' his 
brow furrowed with the effort of remembrance ' - I came to you in a little green 
office…' (he shut his eyes and clenched his fists)'… with a damned great palm 
tree in the corner. The door was marked "Consulate: Documentation and Credit", 
or something like that.
'You let me have five hundred dollars, didn't you? Reluctantly, as I recall, but 
you were able to check my papers and everything figured. I sent it back by money 
order as soon as I got to London. For Christ's sake, there were only two of us 
in the room, Mr Mackie-Belton. No secretary, no aide. I couldn't possibly know 
this unless I'd been there. I even remember your last words: you said "Give my 
respects to Fortnum and Mason," and I replied that Selfridge's Food Hall was 
nearer my mark, which didn't seem to please you at all.
'Now then. God damn it - am I right? And if so, who am I?'
Mackie-Belton frowned, lifted the gold-rimmed bi-focals on their slim chain, 
breathed first on one lens, then the other, extracted a crisply folded white 
handkerchief from his top pocket and polished the glass with fastidious 
deliberation, then replied slowly, 'You are Colonel Joseph McCafferty.'
Mac leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs, grinned and said, 'Ole and 
yippee. So can we go to work? Because time, Mr Mackie-Belton, is of the essence. 
It's Air Force One I'm talking about - a hijack plot, OK? It's happening, 
Consul.' He rose to his feet, towering over his unwilling but benign host. 'Even 
now, it could be happening.'
For the next half-hour, McCafferty fretted, fumed and boiled while Mackie-Belton 
contacted the American embassies in Ankara and London, then Andrews Air Force 
Base, then his brother at Princeton University and finally, when he was 
convinced that he had enough personal cover to preserve his own career if Mac 
turned out to be an extremely gifted lunatic, slotted through a call to Basil 
Swann - who didn't believe him.
Mackie-Belton chewed his lip, hummed off-key and raised his plucked eyebrows as 
he handed the receiver to McCafferty, making a careful note of the duration of 
each call for the telephone bill which he would inevitably pass to UNACO. But if 
Mac had found the consul stubborn, the diplomat wasn't even in the same league 
as Basil Swann. He struggled in vain against Basil's adamantine logic, then 
changed his tack and switched to the form of personal recollection which had 
eventually persuaded Mackie-Belton.
Gradually, the doubt crept into Swann's voice, and Mac seized the opportunity to 
demand - in tones which Basil (who had had brushes with McCafferty before) could 
not fail to recognise - that he should be connected to Philpott.
An hour and fifty minutes after barging into the consul's thankfully secluded 
villa, where the Arabian lady's unstoical forbearance had passed breaking point, 
Mac talked at last to his chief. They pieced the story together from fragments 
of each other's intelligence or inspired guesswork: Mac had no direct knowledge 
of Smith's involvement, but was able to supply Dunkels, Achmed and the Yugoslav 
connection; Philpott knew nothing of the Bahrainian assault, but papered over 
the cracks with the radar incidents and the elimination of AF One's inertial 
guidance track, together with the explosion of the fake Boeing,
Philpott, at least, made his decision swiftly. While acknowledging that 
McCafferty's tale verged on the unbelievable, the two men were agreed that (a) 
the President's plane had been hijacked with the real or false McCafferty on 
board; and (b) that Smith was behind it, luring the aircraft by some means and 
for some as yet undisclosed purpose to Yugoslavia, where a Russian (almost 
certainly KGB) nexus had been established.
'Right,' Philpott said, 'we move - though not, I fear, to Yugoslavia. We have to 
play our cards very cleverly, Mac. Anything to do with that place, or any other 
member or of the Red camp, is such sensitive territory it's just not true. UNACO 
members they may be, but they spit like tigers if I suggest one of them may be 
directly implicated in something, even if it's unintentional.'
'So where do we go, and what do we do?' McCafferty asked.
'We go to Rome,' Philpott replied, 'and start from there. It's the best staging 
post in Europe, as you know. They're a joy to work with, the Italians; they're 
so used to duplicity they regularly double-cross themselves.'
'And what shall we do when we get there?' - 'With any luck, we'll pick up this 
guy Dunkels and hope he'll lead us to Air Force One.'
'Which is in Yugoslavia,' Mac pointed out reasonably.
'By then,' Philpott said warily, 'I'll have persuaded the Yugoslav Government to 
offer strictly limited co-operation to a strictly limited UNACO force.'
'You and me?'
•Right. Oh, eh, plus Sabrina Carver, who's on the plane.'
There was a pregnant silence from McCafferty's end. Then, with suspicion and 
something like anger slowly rising in him, he said, 'I didn't know Sabrina 
Carver was one of us, sir.'
'No,' Philpott agreed, 'you didn't, did you?'
To the right of the stone door-frame a tapestry dropped fully six feet to the 
floor. Like the dark, richly-coloured oil painting next to it, starting level 
with its top and running for about the same distance along the wall, the 
tapestry portrayed a hunting scene. Its frayed canvas showed, in dull browns, 
greens and blues, the sticking of a wild boar by a small army of hunters; it was 
an unequal battle, though the boar had matched tusk for spear to some effect. 
The oil painting was of a more usual scenario, a stag at bay in a glen, standing 
off the snarling dogs who were being encouraged by mounted huntsmen, bloodlust 
contorting their features. Only the stag retained a shred of dignity, its great 
brown eyes registering bewilderment rather than fear.
From the picture, the eye travelled almost by compulsion to the set piece which 
dominated the long, white-walled room: the head of a "royal" or "imperial" stag, 
mirror-image of the doomed giant in the oil painting, its twelve-point antlers 
casting shifting, spiky shadows on the wall in the lamplight. Below the deer 
king, but still above the door, processing around the room in a mournful frieze 
of sudden death, were smaller stags, an eagle or two, a peregrine falcon, a 
grimacing boar, some barn owls, a brace of obligatory foxes and a few pet 
hounds, interspersed with the brass funnels of hunting horns and non-functional 
guns by the rackful.
The furniture was of heavy, pitted wood, and the windows were cross-hatched with 
ironwork. The light, from two oil lanterns, was feeble, creating pools of shade, 
recesses, and places of uncertain passage. Sabrina thought it fitting that 
Mister Smith should immure his hostages in his trophy room. So, too, as it 
happened, did Smith.
The terror and desperation reflected by the mounted heads and corpses 
communicated themselves to Smith's captives. The crew members talked, aimlessly 
for the most part, in whispers, Jeanie Fenstermaker holding a handkerchief to 
her eyes and being comforted by the diminutive Wynanski; Cooligan lolling 
against a table apart from the engineers, tight-lipped and coldly enraged by 
McCafferty's treachery; Fairman, Kowalski and Latimer conversed in low tones 
about likely locations, for although they knew roughly whereabouts in Yugoslavia 
the airstrip lay, they had been blindfolded for the trip to the castle. Of the 
oil titans, Dorani endlessly smoked cheroots, to the disapproval of Hamady, who 
was discussing ransoms with him; and Hemmingsway poured words into the uncaring 
ear of Sheikh Arbeid. Only Zeidan, like the mighty stag, was impassive and 
alert, his smouldering eyes probing the furthest reaches of the room, seeking 
weaknesses, disadvantages…
The minibus, its windows darkened, had driven to a halt outside the hangar at 
Kosgo where Sheikh Zeidan asked the one question which Smith had permitted the 
hostages.
'Who are you, dog?' said the old Arab. Smith's fingers caressed the silver point 
of his cane, and he took three steps to stand over the crippled sheikh, his eyes 
narrowed, his mouth like a closed man-trap. Zeidan had not troubled even to meet 
his gaze.
'You may call me Mister Smith.'
'May I - Smith?'
Achmed bounded to the wheelchair and turned it roughly so that Zeidan faced him. 
'Mister Smith, cousin,' he grated,'do not forget that.'
Zeidan regarded him with intense distaste. 'I speak with the master, scum,' he 
replied contemptuously, 'not to his lick-spittle hyena.'
Achmed wrenched the chair round again, and Feisal leaped in to catch it. The boy 
steadied the chair, and said, low-voiced so that no one but Achmed and Zeidan 
could hear, 'You serpent. All of these curs will die, but for you I will reserve 
a death so terrible that the maggot you call your brain will be unable to 
encompass it.'
Achmed started to laugh, but then his lips stretched into a snarl and he 
back-handed Feisal across the face into Sabrina's waiting arms. 'What have I to 
fear from a senile cripple and a diabetic brat?' he yelled. 'It is you who will'
'Shut your mouth!' Smith commanded, his voice ripping through the young Arab's 
bravado like a chain-saw. 'All of you - keep silent! I will tell you when you 
can speak, and it is' not now! You - ' he gestured to the man in battle fatigues 
who had descended from the minibus' - get them under way. No more delays!'
Smith grasped Branka's arm and yanked her off towards his car. Fayeed, still 
furious, mimed to the guerillas to bind and blindfold the captives, and the 
hostages were pushed, reeling and helpless, to their transport.
The bus cut inland on the main road from Zadar on the coast as far as Masienica, 
then turned off on a minor route for Knin, and started the steep climb into the 
Dinaric Alps. The captives, frustrated in their blindness, could not see the 
countryside getting wilder and more rugged in the bright moonlight. The road 
wound up into the mountains, then gave way to a rougher track until they reached 
a stretch of level ground where the surface improved.
Flanked by a low, thick stone wall, the route hugged the side of a hill, whfch 
gradually fell away and flattened into a crater, a sculpted bowl in the ribs of 
the mountain. And in that hollow lay the castle of Windischgraetz.
It was an extraordinary sight by day, the road twisting and turning until the 
final lap, and suddenly the castle was there, grafted on to the mountainside 
like a lump of coal in a snowman's face. The narrow track widened to form a 
quadrangle and car-park, and facing Smith's visitors was a drawbridge over a 
leafy chasm. This led to a corridor and entrance hall, shut off from the world 
outside by a huge, arched doorway and carved double doors. The drawbridge and 
entrance portal occupied much of the width of that end-facing wall, for Castle 
Windischgraetz was long but slim of girth, bent round to fit the contours of the 
cliff.
The lofty walls supported peaked slate roofs, also built on to the rock face. 
The wooded cliff towered above the castle and, most impressive of all, outlined 
it against the gaping maw of a cave reaching into the heart of the mountain, its 
mouth curving like a black halo over the tallest point of the building. The roof 
slates rose in pyramid turrets, and under them sat rows of darkened windows in 
the rough-weathered stone of the walls.
The castle of Windischgraetz stood fifteen hundred feet above sea-level, the 
eyrie of an eagle, impregnable, almost unapproachable, since the days of 
Charlemagne.
Smith's hostages were marshalled across the drawbridge and into an interior 
courtyard where twin cannon guarded another stone entranceway. There Smith 
ordered the blindfolds and bonds removed, and the captives taken to the trophy 
room. Sheikh Zeidan was carried up the stairs by two burly crewmen, and his 
wheelchair slung in after him.
Smith stood outside with the big iron key in his hand. 'Go to the radio room,' 
he instructed Fayeed, 'and wait for a contact from Dunkels. He should be on his 
way by now. I'll entertain our guests for a while, but let me know as soon as 
you hear word of his movements.'
Achmed hurried away and Smith turned the key noiselessly in the lock. Two guards 
came up behind him, sub machine-guns once more at the port.
Hemmingsway remarked sourly that he hoped Smith had come to state his terms. 
Assuredly, Smith said, he had. Fairman asked how long Smith planned to hold 
them, and Smith assumed they would be freed once the ransom for their release 
was in his hands.
'Ah,' Hamady breathed,'so it is a ransom.'
'Naturally,' Smith said. 'Did you think I had you kidnapped merely for the 
pleasure of sharing your company?'
'We were wondering, perhaps, Zeidan observed heavily, 'whether it might not have 
something to do with our status as OPEC emissaries. That your motives could be, 
shall I say, more overtly political than merely mercenary.'
Smith, who was enjoying himself, took the insult without flinching. 'Your 
exalted positions, Sheikh, bear only commercial value for me,' he sneered. 'In 
some ways I detest what you stand for, your stranglehold over our Western oil 
supplies, your greed and primitive cruelty to your peoples… but I am neither 
politician nor moralist, Your Excellency. I regard you as medieval robber 
barons, ripe for plucking. That you should be relieved of some of your enormous 
wealth is, I suggest, long overdue. I regret the presence of a blameless 
American among you, and I regard the crew members of the President's toy as no 
more than passing nuisances. I have other plans for Miss Carver. From you 
gentlemen,' indicating the seated Arabs, 'I require nothing but money - in 
kind.'
'What kind of money in what kind of kind?' Hemmingsway demanded.
Smith studied him in surprise. 'Perhaps you do wish to speak for them - haggle 
for them, Mr Hemmingsway. So be it. The ransom is fifty million dollars.'
Hemmingsway swallowed with difficulty and licked his dry lips. 'And in what 
form?'
'In cut diamonds,' Smith replied firmly. They are so pretty - and so eminently 
negotiable, don't you think?'
Mackie-Belton prevailed upon a high-ranking and discreet Bahraini police officer 
to provide McCafferty with clothing suitable for what the American would only 
describe as "a somewhat colder climate". Swann phoned with the message that a 
jet was already en route for the Gulf island to pick him up and take him to 
Rome. 'With a few extras,' Basil explained. 'Passport, documentation; armaments 
for you and Miss Carver and the agent, Cooligan; field glasses, communicators - 
that sort of thing. Everything'll be stowed in a haversack on board the plane. 
All you have to do is walk off with it at Leonardo da Vinci, Rome. The jet'll be 
in Bahrain well before dawn. Good luck, Mac.'
Thanks, Basil,' McCafferty replied, and before Swann could hang up slipped in a 
request for money. 'Cleaned out, you see,' he explained.
Rarely for him, Swann chuckled. 'Why not try the consul?' he suggested, and 
broke the connection.
'This,' said Mackie-Belton later, returning from another ego-bruising session 
with the Arabian lady and brandishing five hundred dollars, 'is getting to be a 
nasty habit.'
At 0300, the consul ruefully said goodbye to the Arabian lady, and at 0330 
McCafferty received a call from the Bahraini police captain telling him that 
Siegfried Dunkels had left the island.
'Going where?' Mac asked hopefully.
He could almost hear the policeman smirk. 'First stop Athens - then Zagreb.'
Just at that time, Philpott was unavailable to give instructions, having 
received a summons to a distinctly acid meeting with the UN's dour and 
heavy-humoured Secretary General, so Mac was airborne when the order came from 
UNACO to divert his aircraft to Yugoslavia and lie in wait for the German…
When Smith next visited the hostages, he brought armed guards with him again, 
and three more guerillas hauling tripods and a large electric battery. 'I 
thought you needed a little more illumination,' he said cheerfully, 'and even if 
you don't, I do.'
The men rigged up the equipment, and poured photo-floodlight into the room. 
Fayeed sidled in behind them with a Polaroid camera, and Smith posed the 
hostages, OPEC men in front, crew members behind, against a totally neutral 
section of wall, removing trophies, pictures, furniture… anything which could 
lead to an identification of the locale.
After checking that no member of the group was making an unauthorised signal 
with fingers or eyes, Smith nodded to Achmed, who clicked away and produced 
several reasonable prints. Smith approved four pictures, and instructed Achmed 
to send them immediately by courier to Trieste and Dubrovnik. 'They must catch 
the first editions of the morning newspapers,' he emphasised, '- together with 
details of the ransom demands. And don't forget - one to the Associated Press 
agency as well. I want this to hit the States, too. It is, after all, their 
aeroplane.'
Fairman muttered something at this sally, and Smith inclined his ear with a 
sympathetic smile. 'If I caught what you said correctly, Colonel,' he said 
pleasantly, 'you were offering your opinion that Air Force One could be located 
by satellite sensing-devices. Am I right?' Fairman nodded grudgingly.
'I thought so,' Smith continued, 'and I'm sorry to disappoint you. The engines 
were covered in dry ice as soon as the tarpaulins were laid. They cooled off 
within a few moments. The aircraft cannot, I regret to say, be detected. Now - ' 
addressing all of them - 'you will doubtless be relieved to hear that I have no 
intention of compelling you to spend the night in these uncomfortable 
surroundings.
'Achmed will show you to the quarters which have been prepared for you. I am 
afraid some of you will be doubling up; I can only hope that the partners 
allocated to you are acceptable. Achmed?'
Once more the hostages were led out, and the only trouble Achmed encountered was 
when he tried to separate Sabrina and Feisal. He had wanted her for himself; the 
fate of the boy did not concern him.
'I must stay with him,' Sabrina appealed to Smith. 'He's ill. You surely can't 
want anything to happen to him. He isn't even on the ransom list.'
Zeidan reinforced her plea by pointing out that if Feisal suffered another 
attack, Sabrina alone could administer his medication. To Achmed's evident 
annoyance. Smith agreed, and Sabrina and Feisal were led up another flight of 
steps to a room which looked as if it had been hastily adapted for 
accommodation, containing as it did nothing but two beds, a table and a 
wash-basin, with an adjoining toilet. Its most conspicuous feature, however, was 
the long slit running the full length of the external wall, protected from the 
worst effects of the weather by an overhanging eave, jutting out like a peaked 
cap.
The vent was panelled in glass now, but Sabrina guessed that it had once been a 
lookout position, a sentry-room, affording as it must a panorama of the entire 
area, assuming they were up as high as the definite chill in the room suggested. 
There was no lighting in their cell, so they undressed, and Sabrina had just 
snuggled down into her bed when they heard the sound of a motor-cycle starting 
up in the courtyard below.
Pulling the bedspread off to wrap around her nakedness, Sabrina hurried to the 
slit window, and was joined by Feisal. A loud "clunk" came from somewhere to 
their left, and Feisal whispered, 'Must be a drawbridge.'
'Good thinking,' Sabrina said, shivering as the cold nipped at her body. The 
motor-cyclist roared away, and from their perch they were able to follow his 
lights for what seemed miles down the twisting road.
That was a Honda,' Sabrina said smugly. She knew motor-bikes almost as well as 
she knew cars, and was adept at driving both.
Feisal nodded in agreement. 'Hondamatic 400,' he confirmed. Sabrina stared at 
him. 'How could you tell that?' she asked.
This time Feisal snickered. 'He went for at least two hundred yards without 
changing gear. On a Hondamatic 400 you don't have to change up until you hit 55 
mph.'
Sabrina's eyes widened. 'I didn't know that,' she ventured.
'I am not at all surprised,' Feisal remarked. There would be no reason for a 
woman to possess such knowledge.'
Sabrina tried to hide her grin. 'Listen, you smart-alick, know-all kid —' she 
began, but Feisal cut her off.
That's what everyone says,' he assured her airily. 'And incidentally, your 
somewhat inadequate garment has slipped. May I be permitted to congratulate you 
on your magnificent breasts?'
He jumped back into bed and was fast asleep almost as soon as his head touched 
the pillow.
McCafferty's executive jet streamed through the night sky and deposited him at 
Zagreb well before the sun was high in the east. He passed easily enough through 
customs with his back-pack, which had been covered by UNACO's diplomatic 
immunity on a hastily forged laissez-passer that Mac had found, on Swann's 
instructions, among the aircraft's store of useful documents. The Yugoslav 
guards examined the form and cast suspicious eyes at the pack, but waved him on.
He used his newly acquired credit cards to hire a car, a small but powerful 
Polski Fiat with a formidable top speed on the speedometer. He didn't have long 
to wait. Dunkels' flight arrived on time and Mac, huddled down in the rear seat 
of his car, saw the German enact the same performance at the Avis desk. Just as 
Dunkels was completing the formalities, however, he was hailed from the 
roadside.
He turned, and both he and McCafferty saw a black Mercedes - with Swiss plates - 
moored at the kerb, Dr Stein's talkative chauffeur grinning at Dunkels' evident 
surprise. The German jumped into the front seat and the Mercedes pulled away - 
with the Fiat following at a discreet distance. McCafferty gritted his teeth as 
he stamped on the car's accelerator. He had a score to settle with Dunkels. And 
with Smith. He sensed that their chase marked the start of the last lap.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dunkels headed south from Zagreb on the M12a, which was signposted for Busevec, 
Lekenik and Zazina. The road was fairly deserted, and Mac had to keep the little 
Fiat well back to escape detection. After about nineteen miles, Dunkels' car 
swung to the right for Gora, and then turned left into a small private airfield. 
It was hardly more than a large stretch of grass, permitting a clear run of 
barely fifteen hundred feet in any direction. Standing near the group of rusty, 
corrugated iron sheds which passed for hangars was a Russian-built Kamov 
helicopter.
The helicopter's contra-rotating blades were already revolving for take-off, and 
the Mercedes drove straight up to it. Moments later McCafferty caught sight of 
Dunkels running crouched beneath the rotors to get on board. The door had not 
even closed when the engine revolutions started to rise, and a low, loud 
pulsating roar of sound heralded the Kamov's departure.
Mac cursed under his breath. He should have foreseen something of the kind, or 
waited for back-up. Now he was powerless to keep on the German's tail. He parked 
the Fiat on a grass verge behind a rubbish-filled metal skip as the Mercedes 
shot out of the airfield and skidded into a turn. Mac pulled up the hood of his 
anorak to hide his face but the chauffeur passed him without even a first look.
Then the Kamov's engine noise rose to a howl, and the helicopter passed over his 
head, its down-draught tearing the leaves from the trees and flattening the 
grass.
The American moodily started his own engine and drove up the narrow road just 
past the field, intending to reverse into its entrance for the trip back to 
Zagreb. He was looking over his shoulder to get the proper sighting when his eye 
fell on a small gaggle of light aircraft parked near the sheds. He whistled and 
said, 'Hey. Suddenly it's Christmas.'
Mac reversed all the way into the airfield and put the Fiat in the space between 
two of the sheds; then he got out to examine his unexpected presents. There was 
a twin-engined Cessna, an old Piper Tripacer, an Italian Marchetti, and what 
appeared to be several versions of the Yugoslav UTVA. He checked that no one 
else was about, and inspected the three leading Yugoslavian planes. He had never 
flown one, but he kept up to date with the technical journals, and knew that the 
UTVA had a low stalling speed, good short-field performance and, unusually, a 
surprising turn of speed.
McCafferty rubbed his chin and slipped a stick of chewing-gum into his mouth. 
'I'd say, at a rough guess, forty… forty-five miles an hour faster than the 
Kamov,' he mused. Another thought struck him: the UTVA could probably fly at 
least seven thousand feet higher than the helicopter. A grin split his face and 
he said, out loud, 'Now then. Let's see if someone has been careless enough to 
leave the keys in one of these babies.'
He chose the aircraft parked alongside the end of the first hangar, and 
immediately struck gold: the keys were there. He strolled casually back to the 
Fiat, still keeping his eyes peeled for signs of life. Mac took his haversack 
out of the car and locked the door. Then he scuttled back to the UTVA and threw 
himself into the cockpit, keeping his body below the window line while he 
carried out the pre-take-off checks.
Mac tested the master-switch, and the indicator showed he had a full tank of 
fuel. He checked that the electrical system was functioning, and then moved the 
stick and rudder pedals to ensure that there were no control locks on. 
Whispering a "good luck" message to himself, he operated the start-control.
This was the most crucial stage of the operation, because the engine noise would 
be a dead giveaway - though with any luck it would be too late by then to stop 
him. The engine fired at once, and his luck held: he looked out of the window, 
careless now whether anyone saw him or not. Mac had a gun in his hand and was 
prepared to make an issue of it… but still he had the field to himself. He 
shrugged, took a chance in opening the throttle wide (which was far from 
standard practice), and pointed the nose in the direction which seemed to give 
him the longest take-off run.
Within a hundred yards the tail had responded to the gentle forward pressure on 
the stick. Mac's view improved as the nose of the rather old-fashioned aircraft 
levelled, and fifty yards further on the airspeed indicator was showing 
forty-five knots. He wound the elevator trim to prepare for flight, and found 
himself smoothly airborne, and climbing steeply, without any conscious effort.
When he crossed the perimeter of the little airfield, the altimeter was already 
showing two hundred feet. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned back over the 
field to fly south after Dunkels. As he passed the group of rusting sheds, he 
peered out and again saw no one moving around. 'Where the hell's the resident 
mechanic?' he thought. 'There must be one. You can't leave the entire place 
unattended with all these planes lying about.' Then the penny dropped: Smith 
must have nobbled the mechanic to leave Dunkels a clear field for take-off.
McCafferty turned his attention back to Durikels, estimating the Kamov's course 
at about 190 degrees. Setting the same course for himself, he climbed four 
thousand feet to enlarge his view and compensate for the start the German had on 
him. He figured he could make up the leeway with the superior performance of the 
UTVA - particularly if he pushed it slightly beyond the recommended limit. He 
scanned the area below him on both sides, every inch of land and sky, not seeing 
the beauty of the rolling countryside nor the sunlit, tree-lined slopes… he 
looked only for the tell-tale signs which would betray the elusive helicopter: 
the glint of reflected light from the whirring blades; the fly-sized black speck 
against the bright blue; the dark shadow stealing across a green meadow. A road, 
a river and a railway line passed beneath his gaze.
To his left a small town nestled in a fold of the gentle hills. Mac fumbled for 
a crumpled, dog-eared chart left in the cockpit, and identified the town as 
Glina. He peered more closely at the chart: next stop, Topusko - to starboard.
He leaned to his right, looking out, searching for Topusko, and there was the 
Kamov, flying so low-that it appeared for one ludicrous moment to be covering 
the ground like a car. McCafferty chuckled and spat out the chewing-gum, which 
in any case had lost its flavour…
While rerouting McCafferty to Yugoslavia, Philpott decided that Sonya and he 
should stick to their original plan and make for Rome. Whisked through customs 
at Fiumicino as VIPs, they left the airport with their minimal luggage 
untouched, ignored the thieving con-men operating as unlicensed taxi-drivers, 
and the yellow cabs themselves, and made for a NATO staff-car sitting by the "No 
Parking" sign. The jaded high-ranking officer in British Army uniform standing 
by the car unlaced his arms and pasted on a welcoming beam.
The officer - tall, greying and keen-eyed, with a toothbrush moustache that 
ended precisely at the corners of his mouth - threw up a salute that was 
somewhere between a wave and a semaphore signal. 'Morning. Tomlin. Brigadier.'
Philpott replied, 'Morning. Philpott. UNACO.'
Tomlin said, 'I'm NATO. Naples. In charge of the local end.'
Philpott said, 'My associate, Mrs Kolchmsky. We're in charge of both ends.' He 
nodded towards Sonya and then they both shook hands with the soldier.
'We don't usually meet - ah - visiting firemen,' Tomlin continued earnestly, 
ignoring Philpott's darkening brow. 'However, I've been ordered to this time, so 
you must be pretty important.'
'Not really,' Philpott responded off-handedly, 'just an ordinary chap with some 
ordinary questions, Brigadier.'
'Oh, splendid,' Tomlin said, conducting them into the car and seating himself in 
a jump-seat. 'Jolly good show. Well then, fire away.'
Sonya's firm grip on his wrist was helping Philpott control his rising temper, 
though he found it difficult to fuel his anger in the face of Tomlin's complete 
insouciance. 'Well, to start with, is there any word on the wreckage of Air 
Force One?' he inquired.
'Ah,' Tomlin said, leaning forward conspiratorially, 'yes, there is.' He 
instructed the corporal at the wheel of the car to drive them away, then 
confided to Philpott that the wreckage of the plane had been located.
'But—' he added, and gaped when Philpott supplied, 'But it's not Air Force One.'
'Quite right,' Tomlin confirmed. 'But how on earth did you know?'
Philpott tapped the side of his nose. 'Fireman's secret,' he whispered. 'It was 
a Boeing 707,I take it?'
It was, Tomlin conceded, though as far as they could make out from the debris, 
it was a freighter, not an airliner. There was no registration mark, so the 
plane could take days to trace. '
Philpott digested the news; he had hoped to link Smith definitively with the 
hijack through an instant identification of the "look-alike" Boeing, but it 
seemed he would have to wait for his affirmative evidence. Not, though, for 
long.
A squawk from the front of the vehicle announced a radio message. Tomlin shot 
back the dividing partition and rapped, 'What did they say, Corporal?'
'Headquarters, sir,' the NCO replied. 'Ransom demand for the OPEC ministers 
received in Trieste and, I think, Dubrovnik. Something's gone out on one of the 
American news agencies, too.'
The Brigadier was all business now. 'HQ then, and step on it.' He preened 
himself as though he had been personally responsible for the invention of radio, 
and said to Philpott, 'Bit of a turn-up, no?'
'No,' Philpott said, 'I was expecting it.' The soldier arched an expressive 
eyebrow, but said nothing. Philpott moved in smoothly for the kill. 'What's 
more, Brigadier,' he said slyly, 'one gets you ten that the guy behind the 
ransom demand is called Smith.'
Tomlin sniffed. 'Bit, eh, sort of - commonplace, isn't it?'
Philpott chuckled. 'The name, maybe; not the man.'
In the operations room at NATO HQ, Philpott and Sonya studied blow-ups of the 
Polaroid pictures wired over on request from Trieste and from the AP bureau in 
Belgrade. Tomlin shot one of the prints under a desk magnifier and the image was 
thrown on to a wall screen. 'All present and correct, sir?' he inquired, 
suitably chastened since his discovery that the hijacker was indeed named as 
Mister Smith.
Philpott and Sonya mentally ticked off ministers and crew members, all of whose 
faces were on record at UNACO. Unobtrusively, they were intently scanning just 
one among the dozen or so faces - for Jagger, naturally, was in the group of 
captives.
'Unbelievable,' Philpott murmured. 'Uncanny,' Sonya said. 'It's the greatest 
surgery I've ever seen. Everything… even Mac's mother would swear —
'Brigadier - ' Philpott cut her off with a peremptory, though not unkind, 
gesture, 'have you formed any opinion about the background to the snapshot? '
The Brigadier said without hesitation that it was a castle. 'Flagstone floor,' 
he explained airily, 'roughcast walls. We've got a few of 'em in England, you 
know.'
'No, I didn't,' said Philpott interestedly, 'you must tell me some time.'
The sarcasm was lost on Tomlin, who merely nodded sagely and repeated, 'No doubt 
of it. A castle.'
Philpott agreed, and asked the Brigadier if he knew of any castles in 
Yugoslavia.
'Is that where it's supposed to be?' Tomlin bleated. Philpott nodded. The 
Brigadier shrugged: 'Hundreds?'
'Probably not,' Philpott said. 'But there are certainly enough to make the right 
one difficult to find without any other identification.'
A clerk brought in copies of the ransom note and, like Hemmingsway had done, 
Philpott whistled when he saw Smith's demand for fifty million dollars' worth of 
cut diamonds. 'It's a helluva lot of money,' he mused.
'What about the rest?' Tomlin said shakily.
'Rest?' Philpott echoed.
Tomlin flourished the Associated Press tape, giving the full story, unlike the 
UNACO report, which had been split up into paragraphs with analysis, of which 
Philpott had only the first.
Tomlin paraphrased, 'Unless the Arab nations - or someone… UNACO's mentioned - 
meet Smith's demands, he'll kill one minister every three hours.
'My God,' Tomlin whispered, 'he must be mad. Do you think he means it?'
Philpott looked up from the UNACO report. 'Oh, he's serious all right,' he said 
gravely. 'And he may also be mad enough to carry it out.'
Sonya Kolchinsky compressed her lips into a line. 'Is there a deadline, 
Brigadier?'
Tomlin glanced back down at the paper in his hand. There is,' he verified. 'It's 
one hour from -' he looked at his watch' - about now. UNACO's acceptance of 
Smith's terms must be broadcast on the American Forces' Network from Rome at 
precisely 1000 hours, local time.' He looked levelly at Philpott. 'Over to you, 
sir,' he added.
Philpott drew a large breath and vented it as a sigh compounded as much of 
resignation as of frustration. 'An hour…' he muttered,'… just one hour and we 
could lose Hawley Hemmingsway.'
'Why Hemmingsway?' Sonya inquired.
Philpott smiled. 'Can you see Smith executing a valuable Arab before a 
non-negotiable American?'
A stiff breeze ruffled Philpott's hair, and the warm sunlight filling the Piazza 
Barberini caused him to shade his eyes and squint up at the waiter. 'Signore ?' 
the waiter asked.
'Eh - capuccino,' Philpott replied. Then he caught sight of the figure of a man 
crossing the road from the Metro station.
'Signore!' he called after the retreating waiter. The waiter turned, his 
newly-pressed white smock bristling, with anticipation. 'Due capuccine' Philpott 
ordered. The waiter echoed 'Due. Prego, Signore,' and scuttled off. The man from 
the Metro advanced and sat, uninvited and unsmiling, at Philpott's table
UNACO's first priority after examining every aspect of the ransom demand had 
been to plan how to stall for time Secondly, the ransom must be assembled. This 
had been the easier option. Sonya put through telephone calls at Philpott's 
direction to the Johannesburg and Amsterdam Diamond Exchanges and to the chief 
executive of De Beers. On UNACO's credit the sum was promised. Delivery of the 
equivalent in cut diamonds would be made from Amsterdam by the next flight from 
Schipol to Fiumicino.
Meanwhile, Philpott had anxiously probed the situation from every angle. 'I must 
have time to find Smith,' Philpott demanded, slapping the table in the NATO Ops 
room with his open palm. 'He cannot be allowed to take command. Once we 
broadcast our agreement to his terms, he'll follow up with the location of the 
ransom dropping point in double-quick time, and before we know it he'll have got 
away with it.'
'But you will make the broadcast?' Tomlin asked cautiously. 'I know it goes 
against the grain, sir, but I think you'll agree that we dare not risk the lives 
of any of the OPEC ministers. Unless you feel Smith is simply bluffing.'
Philpott slowly passed a hand across his forehead and allowed the fingers to 
slide down his face. He looked out of the window and stared at the silent 
maelstrom of Rome's traffic far below. 'He may be bluffing in the sense that I 
don't believe he will himself kill a minister,' he finally replied. 'Killing's 
not Smith's style. On the other hand, there will be by the nature of things 
unstable people with him… I have a sketchy outline of two of them. And apart 
from that, Smith is certainly not above staging an execution convincingly enough 
to persuade one of the other hostages to pass it on to us as a fact. I've no 
doubt Smith has radio facilities - and will use them to blackmail us, 
broadcasting in short bursts so that we are unable to track down the frequency.'
Tomlin nodded gloomily. 'We wouldn't know whether it was true or not,' he 
agreed. 'We would have to assume it had actually happened. It would be a bluff 
we could not call.'
The two men sat for a minute immersed in their separate thoughts, and then 
Philpott jerkily shifted to the front of his seat and scribbled on the notepad 
before him. He tore off the first page and handed it to Tomlin.
The Brigadier studied it and smiled bemusedly. 'As easy as that?' he inquired. 
Philpott shrugged. 'We have to buy time.'
'But you have no idea how to contact Smith because we don't know where he is,' 
the Brigadier objected.
'That's what I'm trying to do,' Philpott replied. 'I must smoke him out. Have 
that message broadcast on AFN at nine-thirty, and again at ten, and Smith, I 
guarantee, will be in touch. By then, I'll have found out the way to get through 
to him.'
And if you don't?'
'If I don't, we lose Hemmingsway.'
Tomlin pursed his lips ruefully and said, 'I'm glad it's not me taking that kind 
of chance. Your President would not be best pleased at losing a friend as well 
as an aeroplane, if you'll excuse the levity, sir.'
Philpott inclined his head. 'We have to grab our chances where we can with 
Smith, Brigadier,' he continued. 'And rest easy,' he assured Tomlin, 'I have no 
intention of needlessly sacrificing Hawley Hemmingsway or any other oil 
minister, as President Wheeler knows full well. I think I can pull this off, but 
it'll take time - and time is something we don't have. Now if you could give me 
a couple of minutes?'
Tomlin nodded and walked to the far end of the operations centre. Philpott 
picked up the telephone and replied in Russian when the man at the Embassy of 
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics said, 'Buon giorno, Signore.'
Philpott was playing a hunch which, if he was wrong, not only would put them 
completely at Smith's mercy, but also could lead to the murder of an American 
Secretary of State. He swallowed the touch of bile which had risen to his mouth, 
and said, 'I wish to speak to General Alexis Nesterenko.'
There was the expected silence before the man gave the expected answer: there 
was no General Alexis Nesterenko at the embassy. Philpott continued smoothly, 
'You may know him better by his code-name: Myshkin.' He could hear the click as 
the resident KGB station commander cued in to the call.
'We know of no one of that name, and we do not understand what you mean when you 
refer to a code-name,' the operator said stolidly.
'Very well,' Philpott said, 'I will have to assume that you do not wish to 
communicate to your superiors some information which it is crucial to their 
plans that they should receive. I will bid you goodbye, then.'
'Eh, wait for just one moment. Signore,' the operator broke in, switching to 
Italian. 'You - you did not -' he was obviously trying to interpret instructions 
whispered to him across another line ' - you did not give us your name.'
'My name is Malcolm Philpott, and I am the Director of the United Nations 
Anti-Crime Organisation. I fail to see how that can interest you, since you 
claim to have no knowledge of the man to whom I wish to pass this information.'
Another delay, and Philpott could hear clicks multiplying on the line like 
mating grasshoppers. Then the operator came back on. 'It is as you say, Mr 
Philpott, we do not know the man you have spoken of, nor indeed the other name 
which you used. It might, however, be helpful if you could tell us your 
immediate movements.'
'For what purpose?' Philpott inquired innocently.
The operator had stumbled again over his words, then managed to get out the lame 
excuse that it could be of assistance to the matter in hand.
Philpott toyed with him for another minute, then said, with a touch of asperity, 
'Oh, very well. I shall be in the Ristorante Aurelio in Piazza Barberini in 
precisely ten minutes from now. I'll be drinking coffee at a sidewalk table. I 
may well enjoy a cigar as well. No doubt I shall insult the waiter and refuse to 
pay the bill. Piazza Barberini, as you may know, is quite close to the American 
Embassy in the Via Veneto.'
'We know where the American Embassy is, Signore,' the operator replied stiffly, 
and broke the connection.
'You must have been expecting my call,' Philpott observed pleasantly as the 
coffee arrived. Myshkin sniffed disapprovingly and changed the order for himself 
to caffe negro. Philpott apologised and slid the second cup of capuccino to his 
own side of the table.
'Say what you have to say, and please be quick about it,' Myshkin pronounced 
tartly.
'Aren't you interested in learning how I knew you were involved, or even that 
you were in Rome?' Philpott asked.
'You didn't,' Myshkin rejoined. 'It was a blind guess. You can also have no 
certain knowledge of any implication of myself or my country in the affair which 
at present occupies your attention.'
'Then why are you here?' Philpott pressed gently. He could not risk frightening 
off the Russian, though he surmised correctly that Myshkin had no intention of 
being intimidated.
Myshkin allowed an inchoate smile to illumine his wintry face. 'Curiosity, Mr 
Philpott, nothing more. Clearly my - eh - swift accession to a position of power 
in the Politburo has interested not merely the Western secret services but also 
UNACO, otherwise you would not be familiar with even my real name, let alone my 
code-name. Also, there…' he hesitated as if reluctant to admit a weakness,'… 
there may be ways in which we can help each other.'
'In too deep, Myshkin?' Philpott inquired ironically.
'By no means,' Myshkin protested. He lit a vile-smelling cigarette with a Dupont 
lighter and sipped his coffee. Then he examined his fingernails and glanced out 
appreciatively into the square; a party of four girls, beautiful and freshly 
groomed, young and enticing, was bound for the Via Veneto. 'An illicit 
rendezvous?' he whispered to Philpott. 'Meeting sugar daddies at one of those 
ruinously expensive hotels?'
'At this time of day?' Philpott queried, enjoying the Russian's dilemma. Then he 
glanced at his watch and realised that the charade must soon end. The KGB 
clearly could not take the initiative; so UNACO must.
He began slowly, after lighting a cigar and breathing a speculative wreath of 
smoke Myshkin's way, 'Since you mentioned the matter which is at present 
occupying my attention, as I believe you phrased it, would you consider it 
discourteous or outre if I referred to it directly?' Myshkin affected not to 
have heard him. Philpott grinned and tapped a corrosion of ash on to the 
pavement.
'UNACO's involvement is obvious,' Philpott went on. 'An attack on the personal 
aircraft of the US President is bad enough, but when the passengers include the 
leading lights of OPEC, this is something which surely the whole world must 
deprecate - or at least which it cannot ignore. The criminal Smith, whose name 
may not be unknown to you -' Myshkin considered the point, then shook his head' 
- this man Smith stands vilified at the bar of global opinion, from every 
quarter. It is an act of cynical brigandry, and must be condemned with all the 
force at the command of right-thinking nations with the security of civilised 
behaviour at heart.'
Myshkin nodded gravely and methodically stubbed out his cigarette. He looked 
inquiringly at Philpott and accepted a cigar from the American's handsome 
leather case, inscribed in ornate gold letters, "With affection and respect: 
Leonid Brezhnev".
'Naturally,' Philpott said, 'Smith must be acting alone, since it would be 
unthinkable that any nation - even more so should that state happen to be a 
client of UNACO's - might offer such a creature solace, let alone help.'
'Naturally,' Myshkin agreed.
'Such a nation, if it exists, would earn the enmity of every member of the UN, 
especially those countries with influence in sensitive areas such as the Middle 
East, places which could be crucially important to the state which was unwise 
enough to support a pirate like Smith, who has no political affiliation nor any 
conscience.'
'Indeed,' Myshkin commented, reading the bill for the coffee with studied 
concern. 'These fashionable ristoranti are not cheap, Mr Philpott.'
'Neither is international respect, General Nesterenko,' Philpott rejoined. 'To 
return to the subject under discussion - such a nation could be gravely mistaken 
if it assumed that America would take the entire blame for this unfortunate 
incident, which may well result in the deaths of one or more of the OPEC 
ministers.'
Myshkin looked sharply at him. 'What makes you say that?' he inquired brusquely. 
Philpott explained the terms of Smith's ransom demand and the threat that 
accompanied it.
'It looks very much as though America, at the moment anyway, is bearing the 
brunt of international excoriation,' the Russian observed.
'But that.' Philpott replied earnestly, 'will last only as long as the world 
doesn't know the identity of the nation which helped Smith to set up this 
hijacking. And once it is established that Smith has received active 
encouragement and assistance, even down to providing men and armaments for him 
and smoothing his passage in a hostile environment, the contempt of the injured 
nations will, without a shadow of doubt, be turned on the country which has made 
all this possible.'
The Russian grinned, almost admiringly. 'Your diet must be exclusively founded 
on carrots and fish, Mr Philpott,' he said drily. 'You are consummately adept at 
shooting in the dark.'
Philpott called the waiter over and paid the bill with a five thousand lire 
note, neither expecting nor receiving the change due to him. He laid a copy of 
the newspaper Messaggero carefully on the table between himself and the Russian.
'I know your countrymen pride themselves in keeping up to date with political 
thought in Italy,' he said. 'Tucked into the leader page is the text of a 
message which will be broadcast on the American Forces' Network in roughly three 
minutes from now. It will be repeated at 1000 hours. It is not the news Smith 
was expecting.
'It asks for a two-hour delay. As Director of UNACO I shall appreciate it, 
indeed I would consider it a favour, if some pressure can be brought upon Smith 
to accede to this request. Obviously, should any harm befall a minister, Smith 
will be hunted to the ends of the earth. Perhaps you would care to ponder, my 
dear Myshkin, as to how best this information can be passed to Mister Smith.'
Myshkin looked up at him benignly. 'I, Mr Philpott? What could conceivably 
persuade you that I might have some channel of contact with this monster?'
Philpott bowed his head. 'If I have conveyed that impression to you, General, 
you have my deepest apologies. No doubt we shall meet again soon.'
He stepped out into the Piazza Barberini, and a long, dark blue NATO staff-car, 
a flag fluttering from the apex of its bonnet, drew up alongside him. Philpott 
got in. and the car pulled away.
Myshkin took another careful pull at the Cuban cigar, deprived it of its 
nose-cone of ash, then dropped the still-light butt to the ground, and stepped 
on it as he walked out into the square. A black Zil limousine. Soviet flag 
fluttering at the apex of its bonnet, purred at his heels. He turned, and the 
door swung open…
At five minutes after ten, the telephone rang in the NATO Ops room, and Smith 
said, 'Two hours, Mr Philpott. not a second more.'
'You have my word,' Philpott replied, careful not to identify the caller with 
Tomlin at his shoulder. 'It merely allows for certain formalities to be 
completed.'
'No tricks, Philpott,' Smith warned. 'Not only the Americans and Arabs, but your 
estimable Sabrina Carver, are at my mercy, remember.'
'True,' Philpott conceded,'though I am confident you will not harm them. You 
must know by now - from Dunkels, I imagine - that my friend the erstwhile 
security chief of Air Force One has escaped from custody in Bahrain. He was the 
only card in your hand in which the Russians could be remotely interested. They 
will not, I know, look with any enthusiasm on your failure to hold him for their 
interrogators. No doubt you have concocted some story to mollify them in the 
meantime, but they would believe me if I told them he had escaped, Smith. I 
don't think you would wish them to know that.'
'Hence my agreement to your request for a delay,' Smith answered. 'Use the time 
wisely, Mr Director.' 'I intend to,' Philpott said, glancing up at Tomlin.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As far as McCafferty could judge, the Kamov pilot must be following orders in 
flying low to escape radar detection. Mac throttled back so he could more 
sensibly use his high vantage-point to monitor Dunkels' progress. Clearly, the 
helicopter was also intent on avoiding even the smallest village, let alone any 
larger centre of human habitation.
The American decided that, given all the precautions the Kamov pilot was taking, 
he would also be aware that the only source of danger to him must come from 
above, and would be keeping his eyes peeled. The place for anyone intent on 
secret pursuit was behind and below the helicopter, Mac thought.
Chopping the power in his own machine, Mac put on a bootful of rudder, pulled 
the stick over, and side-slipped towards the ground. He took up straight and 
level flight again at about fifty feet, and some quarter of a mile behind the 
little Kamov, which was literally skimming the treetops.
For the next hundred miles or so, McCafferty effectively saw nothing save the 
series of greens and browns which flashed across the periphery of his vision. He 
was concentrating on the steel-grey body of the Kamov as it flew up shallow 
valleys, danced over hilltops, flirted with the crests of tall forest trees, and 
buzzed the surfaces of a dozen sapphire-blue lakes.
An hour and a half went by with McCafferty fighting to balance elevator, rudder 
and aileron, opening and closing the throttle a thousand times in an effort to 
stay hidden while keeping contact with a target whose speed fluctuated between 
ninety miles per hour (which was easy for Mac to parallel) right down to under 
fifty miles per hour. This was a trickier proposition, for it brought the UTVA 
to the point of stall, where she wallowed with slack controls and insufficient 
height to recover from the effect of even a slight mistake by her pilot. The 
sweat coursed down his face, and his language matched the blue of the sky and 
waters.
Suddenly the ground started to rise steeply. Mac's altimeter showed twelve 
hundred feet more than the zero which he had set before his departure from the 
low-lying airfield near Gora. He looked anxiously ahead. Still in front of him 
were mountain peaks that seemed fifteen or sixteen hundred feet higher. He 
snatched a quick peep at the map crumpled over in front of him and identified 
the Dinaric Alps.
When he looked back the Kamov had vanished. McCafferty fought his momentary 
panic and quelled it. The helicopter, he reasoned, couldn't simply have 
disappeared from view, or sunk out of sight into the ground. His first instinct 
was to slam the throttle open and surge forward as fast as possible, but 
instinct and caution held him back. The Kamov was still there somewhere, he told 
himself; Mac's problem was that he couldn't see it.
He wound the UTVA into a steep, spiralling climb to overfly the ground before 
him without attracting attention. Four thousand feet of extra height registered 
on the dial in a little over three minutes, and then Mac resumed his original 
course. He peered to starboard, his eyes exploring the rocky terrain. Then he 
grinned and said, 'Hot diggety.'
The mystery was solved. The helicopter had vaulted the edge of a natural 
glacier-formation and slipped into the steep valley below it. The valley was a 
thumbprint amid the sharp, pointed mountains, and there was a grassy 
tree-fringed platform set into the hillside at the top of a winding road.
Facing this natural ledge, which started off as barely a smudge but grew to 
respectable proportions in Mac's view, was a castle, perched precariously 
against a dent in the mountain.
At a slightly lower level, a flat area had been gouged out of the rock and 
smoothed over. The Kamov rested on it, the rotor blades turning at no more than 
walking pace.
Siegfried Dunkels had arrived at his destination…
An aide bustled into the NATO computer complex and asked for Philpott. Directed 
with an irritable wave by a red-haired American major, the courier whispered, to 
the UNACO chief that transport was waiting to take him to Leonardo da Vinci for 
the Zagreb flight. Philpott was busy receiving Sonya's assurances that the 
diamonds were being assembled and dispatched in the care of a leading member of 
the Amsterdam Diamond Exchange, and at the same time coping with Tomlin's 
obvious keenness to impress UNACO with his obvious keenness.
'I've also scrambled a squadron of P-90s to square-search beaches, salt flats - 
any open ground that could take a 707,' the Brigadier expatiated.
'Yugoslavian beaches?' Philpott asked in astonishment. 'She's not a member of 
NATO, you know, Brigadier.'
Tomlin glared like a cornered schoolboy coming out of a strip club. 'I am aware 
of that, sir,' he snapped, 'and although we appear merely to be including 
Yugoslavia in the search area on a casual basis - taking it in along with Italy, 
Sicily, Greece and the islands, Corfu and the Albanian coast - I have at least 
established contact with the Yugoslav-authorities and explained the problem, of 
which, naturally, they are aware since the news broke in their own country. They 
also suspect that Air Force One and its captives are in Yugoslavia, and —'
'And so they think you're just wasting aviation fuel looking anywhere else, but 
at the same time they're not inviting you in. That it, Brigadier?'
'Something like that, sir,' Tomlin mumbled.
'So that's why I'm going to Zagreb,' Philpott supplied, 'because whereas they 
don't want NATO trampling all over their beautiful country, they'll accept - 
they're bound to, by their membership - a small UNACO contingent.'
Tomlin then confessed, with a sheepish grin, that his pilots had been instructed 
not to be over-conscientious in their search of areas outside Yugoslav 
air-space. 'We shan't be wasting too much fuel, sir,' he added, 'if only because 
we've no real idea where you could hide an aircraft that big.'
Philpott stopped putting papers into a brief-case and favoured the soldier with 
a sympathetic but knowing look. 'You won't find it, Brigadier. It can't be 
camouflaged, so Smith will have hidden it, and removed any possibility of 
tracing it with heat sensors by cooling it down, or something like that. If I 
know him, the plane'll be under cover and wrapped in tarpaulins by now.'
Tomlin nodded. 'I suppose you're right,' he sighed. 'I'll call off the hounds. 
Incidentally,' he added,'there's something else that's been bothering me.' He 
waited for an encouraging inclination of the head from the UNACO man, then said, 
'It's just that Trieste is well outside our radius. Why do you suppose Smith 
sent the ransom demand there?'
Philpott considered the question. 'You have a point there, Brigadier; a good 
point.' Tomlin flushed with gratification. 'I can only assume,' Philpott went 
on,'that it was intended to throw us off the scent. Now that you mention it, I'm 
inclined more and more to the opinion that Dubrovnik is nearer to our presumed 
centre of activity, so Zagreb will be a good place to start from. Keep thinking, 
you're actually very good at it, Brigadier.'
With that, Philpott leaned over to kiss Sonya, causing Tomlin's blush to deepen, 
and left the room trailing a covey of uniformed acolytes.
Three minutes after his flight was airborne, the telephone rang on Sonya 
Kolchinsky's desk, and a breathless voice said, 'Is the Chief there, Sonya? I've 
got to speak to him. It's Joe McCafferty. I've found Smith.'
Sonya crooked her finger at the red-haired major, who bounced over and skidded 
to a halt in front of her chair. 'I don't care what it costs or how difficult it 
is.' she said, 'but I want the call on this line -' she pointed at the receiver 
in her hand' - patched through to Mr Philoott's Plane. And I want it done now.'
'Yes, ma'am,' the major replied, 'oh yes. ma'am'; He shot off to the 
communications room as though preventing World War Three depended on it…
Sabrina and Feisal had refused breakfast, but Feisal had to have food at stated 
times, so they started toying with a mid-morning snack that Smith sent up to the 
attic room. It was a gruel of some kind, larded with greasy croutons, and they 
quickly found it unpalatable. 'I had no idea Yugoslav food was so bad,' Sabrina 
began, regretting it when Feisal launched into a dissertation on Central 
European culinary traditions.
Feisal dropped the subject when she raised her eyes to heaven in mock horror; 
and he followed her gaze when it stayed up, instead of coming back down. She had 
spotted something they had not noticed before - a small opening in the ceiling 
where it joined the bare rock of the mountain wall. Sabrina crossed to the 
corner and squinted into the hole. 'Hey,' she exclaimed, 'I can see daylight, 
Feisal.'
The Arab boy joined her and they ran their fingers over the rock wall. The 
junction was in fact a shallow fissure, going beyond the ceiling and showing, as 
Sabrina had remarked, a small chink of light at its very top.
'I don't think it's wide enough for me,' Sabrina said doubtfully, measuring the 
fissure against her body.
'All right for me, though,' Feisal insisted. 'We Arabs look after our bodies. 
It's our diet, you see.'
'Yeah, I get it,' Sabrina said hurriedly. 'Look, I know you mean well, Feisal, 
but I'm not sure I ought to let you take risks like going up that hole. Your 
grandfather would be furious with me if—'
'And he would be furious with me if I did not go,' Feisal bristled,'so that is 
settled. Now, if you would be so kind as to hoist me up there…'
As Sabrina stooped for him to climb on her back, they heard the scrape of the 
iron key in the lock. They were seated at the table when the door was flung open 
and Bert Cooligan stumbled into the room.
'He was foolish enough to make a run for it,' Achmed Fayeed, who appeared behind 
the agent, said. 'As you must all be aware, escape from the castle of 
Windischgraetz is not possible. For his pains, Mr Cooligan will join you up 
here.'
Cooligan sat on the bed and rubbed his bruised limbs. He had slipped his guard 
on a toilet visit, he told them, and managed to get as far as the courtyard, but 
Fayeed had raised the drawbridge in his face.
'It was brave of you, Bert,' Sabrina consoled him, 'but I think it really is 
useless, like that man said.'
Cooligan looked at them slyly. 'Don't you believe it, honey,' he whispered. 
'Having tried to escape once and been recaptured, I'm the last guy they'd expect 
to try again. And that's exactly what I'm going to do: try again.'
'Well done,' Feisal commended him, 'be assured that I shall offer you every 
assistance.'
Cooligan goggled at the boy and gasped, 'You don't say.' Sabrina grinned. 'He 
does say, I'm afraid,' she remarked, 'over and over again, all the time. But he 
has a point.' And she indicated the gap in the corner of the room.
The agent joined them, nodding approvingly and picking up Feisal all in one 
movement. At the full extent of his reach, he pushed the boy up into the hole. 
'Room enough?' he called out.
'More than sufficient,' Feisal called back, and squirmed up the fissure until he 
blotted out the tiny patch of light…
Mac sheered off and gave the castle a wide berth. He flew on down the valley, 
noting the rough, unmade track which cerved as a road. There didn't seem to be 
any other inhabited area, as the valley, deceptively small from the air, wound 
through a gorge and meandered out into a flat plain. From his new high altitude, 
the American could see as far as the Adriatic, with its shoals of tiny islands 
swimming off the coast.
His plan of action was comfortably clear: he must land the aircraft and make 
contact with Philpott, for he had no doubt whatsoever that he had located 
Smith's headquarters and the hostages' prison. The frying-pan-shaped area, Mac 
realised, was the valley's mouth, and he spotted just the sort of situation he 
had been seeking: a ruined house, the traces of its once fine and spacious 
formal gardens still visible from the air. Sheep and goats grazed where the 
great lawn had been, but it would suit his purpose, for it looked reasonably 
flat and smooth, and was all of three hundred yards long.
Mac completed his descent and made one quick pass at low level to check the 
surface and frighten the animals up to one end of the pasture. Then he turned 
tightly and prepared to land. The UTVA slipped over the crumbling stone 
boundary-wall at exactly forty-five knots, and the pilot made a perfect 
three-point touch-down, braking gently to a halt after using only two-thirds of 
the available space.
Seeing a large open barn next to a clump of tall trees near the ruin of the 
house, the American opened his throttle again and taxied towards it. The barn, 
though it looked dilapidated and sported a few holes in its roof, swallowed the 
little aeroplane without difficulty.
Moments later McCafferty, who had seen a village which, from the air, looked to 
be not too far away, was strolling along the rudimentary path, looking like a 
purposeful tourist off the beaten track. He wore the back-pack, his anorak was 
slung over his shoulder and he whistled, rather selfconsciously, The Happy 
Wanderer.
He traded dollars for dinars from Mackie-Belton's pile at a huge loss, tossed 
back a couple of beers at a cafe, and bribed his way into the village post 
office which, as far as he could ascertain, housed the only telephone for miles 
around.
A fairly agonising twenty minutes later, using the postman's sixteen-year-old 
daughter as an interpreter, Mac found himself magically connected with Philpott, 
cruising five miles overhead.
He gave the UNACO director the location of the castle -which he had learned from 
his new friends was called Castle Windischgraetz - and supplied directions to 
his village of Luka. Philpott set the time for their rendezvous in the early 
evening.
'I'll probably come alone,' Philpott warned him. 'I still have to case the scene 
in Yugoslavia. I've no idea what help or co-operation I'll get from the 
authorities, so I'd better not promise you an army of deliverance. The chances 
are it'll be just you and me, Joe.'
'You'd better be in good form, then,' Mac returned cheerfully, though he felt 
far from confident at the prospect ahead of them.
Philpott signed off, and while McCafferty set out by donkey and on foot to 
reconnoitre the castle of Win-dischgraetz, the UNACO director's plane commenced 
its descent to Zagreb…
Feisal eased his slim body out of the hole and found himself looking down the 
sheer side of the mountain. He gulped and withdrew his head, then glanced up, 
and to both sides. The fissure ran out in the mouth of the cave above the 
castle, and the boy scaled the remaining distance easily. He was now virtually 
on the castle roof, and he stepped gingerly on to one of the pyramid towers, 
from where he could see the cliff, the road and the valley beyond, and just 
caught sight of the sloping eave in front of the sentry-slit in his own room.
He edged round the other face of the pyramid and descended to a flatter part of 
the roof. Looking up, he saw a flag-pole projecting from the top of the tower, 
its fastening rope trailing from the bare stem.
The boy smiled, and was about to remount the tower when the sound of voices 
reached him from below. Feisal knelt and crept to the very rim of the castle. 
The voices came from a ventilation-port set high into the wall of what he judged 
to be the trophy room, where the hostages were imprisoned. Mister Smith was 
speaking.
'… so it would appear, gentlemen, that your respective governments care less for 
your lives than for the comparatively trifling sum it will cost to save them. At 
any rate, I can place no other construction on their request for a two-hour 
delay. I cannot believe they would be so foolish as to contemplate tracking us 
down at this place, since by so doing they will inevitably sacrifice all of you. 
Therefore, I repeat. I can only assume they are weighing your lives in the 
balance against a mere fifty million dollars in diamonds.'
Smith had separated the ministers from the crew, who were valueless to him. He 
had Dunkels at one shoulder. Jagger at the other, both armed with Schmeisser 
machine-pistols, and Fayeed leading a guerilla group which commanded the rest of 
the trophy room.
Hawley Hemmingsway, easily the tallest and strongest man in the room, folded his 
arms and said, with a disdainful sneer, 'Maybe they just don't relish having to 
deal with scum like you. Smith. That would at least be understandable.'
Smith regarded him with tolerant amusement, but the shaft had struck home. Smith 
never suffered criticism easily: it was part of the megalomaniac's armour that 
he must always be supremely right, above reproach, feted and admired for the 
aesthetic beauty of his crimes. Above all, though, he prided himself on his iron 
control, which rarely deserted him and which was needed now to suppress his 
rising anger. He was framing a suitably tart reply when Sheikh Zeidan saved him 
the trouble.
The old Arab raised a cautionary hand and growled to Hemmingsway, 'Easy, my 
friend, easy. Patience. You would not, would you, trade insults with a rabid 
dog? No. you keep your counsel and remove yourself from his solitary path.'
Smith's teeth clenched and his eyes bored into Zeidan's. but he could not hold 
the cripple's burning, scornful gaze. But Hemmingsway, the Boston aristocrat 
with six centuries of traceable English and colonial blood in his veins, had 
never needed to curb his temper with such creatures as he saw before him.
He unfolded his arms and let them swing easily at his side, breathing noisily 
through parted lips, his eyes wild, the very marrow of his culture and 
civilisation affronted. 'I thank you for your advice. Your Excellency,' he said, 
'but I have spent large portions of my life dealing with vermin such as these at 
various levels in war and politics. It is as well to make them completely aware 
that men such as you and I and your colleagues cannot, will not, be intimidated. 
We cannot and will not be used as pawns in the games of these sordid 
mercenaries, sold over their sleazy counter as merchandise to provide money for 
prolonging their disgusting lives, to give them —'
'Why don't you just button your lip, like the man says.' The dry, softly-spoken 
words from Cody Jagger, cut through Hemmingsway's outburst and laid an aura of 
menace over the room which had not been there before. Dr Hamady looked for the 
source of the sound and visibly quailed when he met Jagger's cold stare. Dorani 
plucked nervously at Hemmingsway's sleeve, but the American shook him off. 
Sheikh Arbeid tore his gaze away from Jagger's, then met other eyes everywhere 
he looked… dead eyes, of eagles, deer, boars, great fierce dogs; accusing and 
unforgiving eyes.
It was breaking-point for Hemmingsway, though. Where Smith possessed at least 
the responsibility and lustre of command, Jagger, the renegade American, the 
traitor for gain, was so far beneath Hemmingsway's contempt that what little 
control that was left to him snapped.
' You, McCafferty,' he breathed, 'you… without you none of this would have been 
possible. You sold yourself and your country and your honour to this pack of 
lice to line your pockets and crawl away into whatever sewer will have you.' 
Flecks of foam appeared at the corners of his mouth and he took one, two steps 
towards Jagger, until they were separated by no more than ten feet.
'Come back, Hemmingsway,' Dr Hamady pleaded.
'No nearer, pal,' Jagger said. 'I'm telling you.' But Hemmingsway did not even 
hear them. He was shaking now with fury, and his eyes and senses could only 
encompass the man standing before him.
That you should presume even to speak to me is so loathsome to me that I could 
vomit at the mere thought of you,' he stormed. 'Compared with you, Smith is a 
knight in shining armour. If it's the last thing I do, McCafferty, I will see 
that you suffer for your treachery. I will ensure that you pay for soiling the 
uniform you still wear. Because do you hear, you filth, you trash… do you? I'm 
going to tear your body apart with my own hands -' another step forward. 'I'm 
going to rip — '
Without aiming, without even moving, Jagger tightened his finger on the trigger 
of the machine-pistol and sent a stream of slugs into Hemmingsway, who was still 
coming at him, arms outstretched. One of the hands flew off, severed at the 
wrist; Hemmingsway's face disappeared, its contours and definition merging into 
a mash of blood and bone; his trunk was almost bisected as the bullets cut 
through him and the clamour and gunsmoke assaulted the senses of every man in 
the room.
Smith had made a feeble attempt to restrain his ringer, but it would have been 
unavailing, for Cody Jagger was a man of the jungle; he had no conscience, no 
finesse, no scruples. And no control, since he had never needed to exercise any. 
Hemmingsway had genuinely believed he had dealt with the worst kinds of men, but 
he had never encountered Jagger's type, the totally amoral creature of the 
twilight underworld.
When it was over, Smith laid his hand on Jagger's arm and kept it there, looking 
into the ringer's face with a calm, level gaze until the killing-light died in 
Cody's eyes.
'So, gentlemen,' Smith said gravely, turning his false and handsome face back to 
the Arabs, 'it has come to this. You have insulted my honour, and that of my 
men. I am, though you will not accept it, a man of honour. I did not plan this… 
you can have no conceivable doubt of that. Yet maybe it will serve as an 
indelible warning to you and to those governments who have so little regard for 
you that they have failed to take me seriously.
'As I have told you -' and his voice dropped so that they had to strain to hear 
him ' — as I told you I am a man of honour. I keep my word. I gave my pledge to 
Malcolm Philpott of UNACO that if your nations did not find the ransom due to me 
immediately and inform me of it. I would execute one of you every three hours.
'I should, perhaps, tell you now that it had been my intention to dispose of Mr 
Hawley Hemmingsway precisely at noon. By his own actions he has deprived himself 
of an hour of life. Such men are fools. You, I believe, are not.'
Smith swung on his heel and walked out leaving the hostages frozen in their 
horror like a ballet tableau trapped in ice
Feisal clung to his tower and fought back the tears as the enormity of what was 
happening in the trophy room floated up to him on the light breeze. Then he 
completed his mission and used elbows, arms and hands to ease himself back down 
the fissure.
His legs appeared through the gap in the ceiling, and Cooligan shouted, 'Drop, 
sonny. I'll catch you.' Feisal did as he was told. Bert carried him to the bed, 
and Sabrina bent over him anxiously. The boy's colour was high, and sweat dewed 
his brow. Sabrina gave him a further injection and forced him to eat some gruel 
and black bread. Gradually, as before, the fever subsided.
Cooligan had been waiting patiently for the boy to recover, for both he and 
Sabrina had heard the shooting, and guessed that Feisal might be able to fill in 
the details. The Arab gasped as he choked on the food, and Sabrina patted his 
back and wiped his mouth. 'Tell us, Feisal, if you can,' she said gently.
He sat up, holding on to Sabrina's arm. 'They killed him, Sabrina, they killed 
him,' he sobbed.
'Who?' asked Cooligan.
'Mr Hemmingsway, the American gentleman. There was a terrible quarrel between Mr 
Hemmingsway and Mister Smith, and Grandfather told Mr Hemmingsway to be quiet, 
and then someone else spoke, and Mr Hemmingsway t-turned on him, too, and called 
him things, and — ' his voice trailed off.
'And what?' Sabrina pressed.
'And - and the other man shot him. He must be dead, I know. There were a lot of 
bullets. It went on for so long, and there was a time when nobody spoke, and 
then Mister Smith said he had been going to kill Mr Hemmingsway anyway, but not 
y-yet.'
Cooligan let the boy lapse into snuffles in Sabrina's arms. Feisal sniffed and 
blinked and said, 'I know what you want me to tell you, Mr Cooligan. And I will, 
as far as I can. The man who killed Mr Hemmingsway was, I believe, Colonel 
McCafferty. I cannot be certain, but that's the way it came to me up there on 
t-top of the castle.'
The agent straightened up. 'It doesn't… it just doesn't… feel right. I know 
Mac's sold himself out, but God he's no killer; not from anger or revenge. It - 
it doesn't gel. Could you have been mistaken, Feisal?' The Arab boy shook his 
head. 'I don't think so.'
Cooligan pursed his lips and stroked his chin. 'That settles it then,' he 
continued slowly, 'when I get out of here, the first thing I'm going to do is 
put that hellhound where he belongs… six feet under with the man he murdered.'
Only then did Sabrina, still cradling Feisal in her arms, feel the rope coiled 
tightly around his body. She fingered it wonderingly, and he allowed her to 
unloose it.
Cooligan dashed to the bed and grabbed the rope. 'Where did you find it?'
Feisal explained that it had been attached to the flag-pole. He considered the 
rope would be long enough to permit Cooligan to drop to a lower level and make 
his escape. 'You can get through the viewing slit—' he pointed at the external 
wall. 'They have put no iron bars on the window here because they did not 
contemplate anyone being foolish enough to risk climbing out. But of course, if 
you have a rope?' Feisal had clearly recovered some of his aplomb, and was 
feeling in a didactic mood. Cooligan needed no second bidding.
He crossed to the wall-length window-slit. 'No time like the present,' he 
muttered, casting around for something to use to break the glass… 
At Zagreb Airport, Philpott was met by a cadre of anxious Yugoslav officials led 
by the Deputy Minister of the Interior. 'My government,' the politician 
announced, 'wishes to do everything in its power to bring this matter to a 
satisfactory conclusion. As a loyal member nation of UNACO, we are dedicated 
root-and-branch to the extermination of criminals such as this Smith, and the 
extinction of international terrorism.'
'Very decent of you, Minister,' Philpott replied, guessing that Myshkin had 
already been busy. 'I assume, then, that you will be prepared to offer me all 
the facilities I need to take Smith's stronghold by storm?'
'Eh - do you know where he is, Mr Philpott?' Philpott confirmed that he did. The 
Minister queried whether a large assault-force would be wise.
Philpott grinned, guessing that the Deputy Minister did not really wish to 
involve the Yugoslav armed forces in an action where they might possibly 
encounter Russians. He assured the politician that he, too, considered a small 
UNACO force would be able to penetrate Smith's lair while keeping a lower 
profile than a frontal-attack group could. 'May I have transportation, though?' 
he pressed.
'But assuredly,' the Deputy Minister cried, 'one of our most reliable 
helicopters is waiting for you at this very airport. It is yours to do with as 
you will.'
He pointed to a far corner of the field, where a reliable helicopter sat 
preening itself. Philpott learned that the pilot would have charts to cover the 
area of Smith's hideaway -wherever that might be - and any other location. 
Philpott expressed his thanks and began to make his way to the aircraft when he 
heard his name called. UNACO were on the telephone, the Deputy Minister said, 
with an urgent message.
As soon as Sonya came on the line, Philpott knew from the tone of her voice that 
she had unpleasant news. 'Smith's issued his instructions for the ransom 
collection,' she said when he had established his identity. 'I'll give them to 
you now, shall I?'
'No,' Philpott returned, 'let's have the bad news first.
'Bad news?' she echoed. 'Well, yes… there is some… Malcolm, he's killed Hawley 
Hemmingsway.'
'Oh my God,' Philpott groaned. 'I never thought he would actually do it. It's my 
fault, Sonya: I gambled with poor Hawley's life.'
She reproached him for blaming himself, making it clear that Hemmingsway had not 
been executed according to Smith's announced plan. 'He didn't do it personally. 
His radio message said Hemmingsway had been shot for being unco-operative and 
insulting Smith's integrity.'
'Who did the shooting?'
'They didn't reveal that.'
Philpott sighed grimly. 'Then Smith let it happen.' he pronounced, 'because I'm 
still willing to bet it was part of his scheme. He may not have been able to 
prevent it, but I doubt if he tried very hard. It must have fallen very nicely 
for him that one of his men went ape.'
Sonya let the comforting silence go on, then broke it to tell Philpott that 
Smith had now promised to kill all the hostages, Arabs and AF One crew members, 
if any rescue attempt was launched.
'I think he means it, Malcolm,' Sonya whispered. 'I think he knows somehow that 
we may be closing in on him. He's been told of McCafferty's escape from Bahrain, 
and he must suspect the truth: that Mac followed the German Dunkels to the 
castle. He knows you're in Zagreb - the Russians must have let on - and he 
probably imagines you're on your way to the castle with a large force. I believe 
he'd rather everyone died, himself included, before he'd consider surrender.'
Philpott chuckled drily, without a trace of humour 'Large force,' he muttered. 
'A middle-aged has-been and a knocked-about flier. I ask you!'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Branches flailed at the head of Philpott's knocked-about flier as he cursed for 
the hundredth time after falling for what seemed to be the thousandth time. If 
McCafferty had not been too drastically knocked about before, he was now 
receiving more than his fair share.
His plan, which he still followed, had been to approach the castle not from 
below or from the level of the road, but from above. As Mac had ruefully 
admitted to himself, bidding farewell to his sad-eyed donkey, that meant 
climbing the mountain. He had taken the lugubrious animal up as far as he dared 
if he was to avoid either being spotted from the castle or thrown off the 
donkey's back, for by now they were struggling up near-vertical slopes.
Finally the donkey snorted and brayed his refusal to go any further, and 
McCafferty could not altogether blame him. He watched the donkey slide and 
plunge back down the mountainside and hoped the animal would still be around 
when he needed it later for his rendezvous with Philpott. He was not burdened 
with his back-pack either, though he trusted that the now positively wealthy 
postman's daughter would not yield to temptation and search it.
So he had continued on foot, hanging for dear life on to the stunted shrubs, 
wiping dust motes from his streaming eyes, and being slowly flayed by the trees. 
He had brought a pair, of two-way radios and selected and assembled for 
armament, a sub machine-gun with a leather sling and as he climbed it began to 
weigh on his back like a Howitzer. At last he reached a ledge wide enough to 
allow him to lie at full length and get his breath back. He sat up, soothed his 
aching muscles, zipped his anorak against the sharper chill of the air, and 
looked down upon Castle Windischgraetz.
The castle was even more spectacular from his lofty perch which gave a true 
bird's eye view of it. He noted the twin courtyards and the chasm which the 
drawbridge would normally span, and the wooded country over to his left, the 
trees clustered thickly at the point where the hillside rose shallowly from the 
track, then thinning out a few hundred yards higher until, at his level, they 
were practically nonexistent.
Mac found that his ledge circumvented almost the entire mountain, and he decided 
to take the opportunity and oversee the castle and all its grounds. He followed 
the curve of the castle as it hugged the convex bulge of the mountain, and noted 
the Kamov still sitting on the jerry-built launch-pad, its rotors spinning. To 
the left of the castle from the American's viewpoint lay a large car-park 
reaching back to the mountainside. It was tree-shaded, and the trees then 
wandered up the gentle slope. It was there that McCaflerty first saw the running 
man.
He adjusted his field glasses and was so intent on focusing on the darting, 
crouching figure that the significance of the Kamov's whirling blades didn't 
strike him until the little helicopter had actually taken off and started to 
buzz the inclined woodland. At the same time, Mac became aware -and cursed 
himself fluently for not noticing before - that men were searching the lower 
slopes of the hill below the castle, with the helicopter snarling over them like 
an angry gnat.
But their quarry - and who could it be but the running man? - was above the 
castle. One up to the escapee, Mac thought, for the man must have got free from 
the castle… and now the hunt was up. McCafferty at last trained his binoculars 
on the fugitive, but even before identification became certain, he knew it was 
going to be Bert Cooligan…
The agent had tied the rope securely to the king-post of the eave and lowered 
himself to the next level-a balcony outside an unoccupied room. He signalled to 
Sabrina and she unhooked the line and threw it down to him. Cooligan smashed 
another window and repeated the trick until he dropped even lower, but still he 
was a full ten feet from the ground, and every second he remained visible on the 
castle wall he was in acute danger. He scanned the terrain beneath him, but 
could see nothing except, directly below, a tarpaulin shrouding a shape which 
seemed vaguely familiar.
Cooligan abandoned the rope and used footholds in the rock to make his final 
descent… and froze as an armed guard wandered out and dragged the covering from 
the courier's motor-cycle. Had he raised his eyes by even six inches he must 
have seen the agent, clinging motionless over his head. Bert hardly dared to 
breathe; he couldn't believe his luck would hold, and no one else would come.
But the sentry remained a lone voyeur until, shaking his head - for he would 
never be able to afford such a bike - he wandered off and took up his post at 
the main gate.
Cooligan dropped the last couple of yards, landing almost on the motor-cycle, 
and then he heard, coming from the eyrie above, the last sound he wanted to 
hear: a shout of warning.
He was protected to a degree by the natural bulge of the castle wall and the 
slight overhang at first floor level, which was why he hadn't spotted the bike 
at once. Bert got astride the machine, switched on the ignition and twisted the 
throttle until the engine roared its defiance at Achmed. who had discovered his 
absence from the attic room.
The Arab didn't have a clear sighting, only the noise of the motor-cycle giving 
him a sense of direction, but he loosed off a volley of bullets from his 
machine-pistol. They served to alert the guard at the entry arch, but by that 
time Bert had already passed through the inner courtyard, and was driving 
hell-bent for freedom.
The guard made the mistake of aiming his rifle at the swerving target and firing 
two single shots. He realised in time that he had no chance of hitting Cooligan. 
so he threw down the rifle and started to raise the drawbridge.
Bert could see the handle turning, and the thick slab of oak lurch off the 
ground on its rusty chains. He could hear, even above the engine noise, the 
aggrieved squeal of the mechanism, and when he passed the guard the drawbridge 
was already three feet up. But for Cooligan there could be no stopping.
As the Honda hit the drawbridge the guard let go of the wheel, and the bridge 
started an even more raucous and protesting descent. The motor-cycle shot off 
the end and bounced perhaps a dozen feet clear at the other side. Bert yelled 
and gunned the motor as he sped away from the castle under a hail of bullets 
from Fayeed, still at the smashed slit window, and from two more guards at the 
bridge. Cooligan swerved and then caught sight of the guard up ahead at the 
closed steel road barrier.
At the moment he spotted the guard, Bert was swaying to the right, and that was 
the way he elected to go, taking the air once more as the bike left the road and 
crashed through a screen of trees and shrubs. The guard at the barrier was still 
two hundred yards short of him, the bridge sentries the same distance behind him 
- but everyone had seen the direction he had taken.
He fleetingly considered using the machine as a scramble bike and taking it to 
the floor of the valley, but twisting to avoid a pair of saplings, he crashed 
full-pelt into a rotting tree stump.
Bert was catapulted off into a bush, but clawed himself clear and began to run 
along the side of the hill. He figured that if he could get beyond the barrier 
he might stand a chance of crossing the road and taking to the higher ground, 
which could throw off his pursuers.
He made it undetected, and was still running for cover when McCafferty saw him…
Sipping a long Scotch on the rocks, Philpott again scanned the notes he had 
taken at Sonya's dictation of Smith's plans to collect the ransom. He was 
waiting now for a picture to be wired from Rome to Zagreb, which the Yugoslav 
minister had promised would be brought straight out to the airport by dispatch 
rider, but first there was another visitor. The man carried a bulky bag of soft 
chamois leather and juggled meaningfully with it.
'I have brought what you want, Mr Philpott,' said the diamond merchant. He 
handed the bag to Philpott, who didn't even check its contents. A member of the 
Amsterdam Diamond Exchange was entirely trustworthy.
The dispatch rider was admitted with the wire photo, and Philpott studied the 
Polaroid with a magnifying glass. The picture showed a tiny island - Saucer 
Island, the caption said - accompanied by a map reference. The island appeared 
to jut no more than a few feet above sea-level; the map reference identified it 
as lying off the Dalmatian coast. The rock could have been anything from fifty 
to five hundred metres wide and looked flat and bare, except for the pole and 
cross-bar like a hangman's gibbet someone had constructed at its very tip.
'Is that a gibbet?' Philpott asked doubtfully.
The Deputy Minister bent over the picture. 'It looks like a gibbet, but logic 
dictates that it cannot possibly be that,' he said. 'Why bother to take someone 
all the way out there to hang him when you can shoot him comfortably in a 
prison-yard?'
The vertical post with the supported arm protruding out over the water was 
fastened to the island by a guy-rope attached to a bolt which had been driven 
firmly into the rock.
"Place the diamonds into a canvas sack secured at the top, and bearing at its 
fastening a steel ring precisely six inches in diameter," Philpott read out 
Smith's instructions disbelievingly. "Loop the ring over the projecting arm."
'Is that all?' the Deputy Minister asked.
'No,' Philpott replied. 'He goes on: "Do not set foot on the island. The 
operation must be carried out from a boat. Be warned that the island is mined. 
The ransom must be in position by 2000 hours this evening, or another life will 
immediately be forfeit. And heed well this injunction: any rescue bid will be 
met with fire, and the deaths of all, repeat all, captives.'
'Curious indeed,' commented the politician, inquiring what Philpott wished them 
to do.
'Do precisely as Smith says,' Philpott returned. Take a boat to the island, 
don't land on it, merely place the diamonds on the projecting arm of the 
whatever it is, exactly as per instructions. No tricks; no substitute package. I 
want fifty million dollars' worth of cut stones in that bag, and I want it to be 
where Smith expects it to be at the time he cites. I'll be able to give you 
further directions later, I trust.'
The Minister bowed. 'You are, sir, as I believe I have pointed out, in full 
charge of the operation. So that, should it go wrong…' he let the possible 
consequences hang in the air.
'I take the point,' Philpott said grimly.
'How do you think Smith is going to take possession of the diamonds?' the 
politician asked, halting Philpott's exit to the helicopter.
Philpott turned and said, 'If I knew that I'd know how to stop him. But I 
don't.' He stalked out to the airport's apron and made his way to the 
helicopter…
The sun cast a deep shadow on the mountainside, and McCafferty used the 
camouflage to sneak further along the ledge until he was above Cooligan. He 
risked a slow, careful descent, wishing neither to alarm Cooligan nor attract 
the attention of the helicopter pilot. When he was only a few yards short of the 
agent, he called out in an urgent voice, 'Bert! It's me. Mac!'
Cooligan spun round, and did the last thing McCafferty expected: his face 
darkened with fury, and he launched himself at his would-be rescuer.
Mac could have used the machine-gun to hold off the maddened agent, but he was 
so taken aback that he allowed Cooligan to close with him.
'Now, you filthy bastard, now here's where you get yours like you gave it to 
Hemmingsway!' Cooligan gasped, as his hands reached out for McCafferty's throat. 
Mac staggered, still unwilling to use either force or his own weapon against his 
friend.
'For Christ's sake, Bert, what the hel! are you saying?' he hissed. 'And keep 
the noise down or we'll both be caught.'
They grappled, and Cooligan fought like a berserk Viking, possessed with fury 
and hatred. He hit out blindly at Mac's face, and caught him a glancing blow on 
the cheek-bone. Mac stumbled backwards, then his foot caught in a tree root and 
he toppled to the ground. Cooligan's eyes blazed as he leapt forward to dash his 
booted foot into McCafferty's face. Mac rolled desperately to one side, babbling 
all the while that Cooligan was making a dreadful mistake, that he was his 
friend, the old Mac - that the other man was a ringer!
Cooligan missed him with the first onslaught, but spun on his heel and lashed 
out again with his other foot. Still refusing to unsling his gun, McCafferty 
caught the flying boot inches from his mouth, and twisted cruelly on it. With a 
cry of fear, Cooligan pivoted, trying to keep his balance with outflung arms, 
and failing. He fell awkwardly to land on his front, and the wind driven from 
his lungs. It was the chance Mac needed: he bunched his muscles and jumped from 
the ground to fall squarely on Cooligan's back. He twisted one of the agent's 
arms, and held it pressed between his shoulder-blades.
'Now will you listen! Say nothing -just listen! There are two of us, dummy! Two 
of us! That's how Smith managed to pull the trick on board AF One. They used a 
ringer - and he's out looking for you now! I got away from them in Bahrain and 
I'm here under Philpott's orders. I'm to meet him shortly down the valley! Now 
will you for Christ's sake stop fighting me and let me rescue you, asshole!'
All Cooligan's fury was spent in the struggle to get free. He lay on his face, 
exhausted, and for the first time heard what McCafferty was saying. 'Two of 
you?' he panted. 'Then you're - you're —'
'I'm Joe McCafferty, Bert. He's - I don't know, someone else. Someone Smith 
tricked up with plastic surgery to look like me, talk like me, act like me… well 
enough to fool everyone on board the plane and pull off this hijack. What we 
have to do now, Bert, is stop him. And I think I've an idea how we can make a 
start.'
He rolled off Cooligan but, to be absolutely safe, held him at gunpoint. 
Cooligan sat up and eyed the weapon suspiciously. 'I guess - I guess I have to 
believe you, Mac,' he said slowly. 'There seemed to be somethng not quite right 
about you -I mean him - at the hotel and on the aircraft, and I knew all along 
that, even if you'd sold out, you couldn't have done what they said you'd done 
back there.'
He related the details of Hemmingsway's murder, and McCafferty shook his head in 
grief; he had known Hemmingsway, and liked him for his unaffectedness and 
determination. Cooligan asked for the plan of action, and McCafferty inquired if 
the ringer was still wearing AF One uniform. Bert confirmed that he was.
'Then change clothes with me,' Mac urged. 'I'll go down the hill as the ringer, 
and tell them to call off the hunt. That'll take the heat away and give us time 
to think.
They swapped clothing swiftly, and McCafferty, keeping a wary eye open for his 
double in case the ringer had also joined the search, made contact with the 
guerillas and ordered them back to the castle. He separated from the task-force 
on a hastily contrived pretext, and had just rejoined Cooligan when their 
attention was distracted by a loud thump from below.
'That's the drawbridge,' Cooligan said,'something must be coming out.'
As they watched, the minibus clattered across the wooden bridge and took off 
down the road, followed by a lorry-load of men and two jeeps. McCafferty clapped 
the field glasses to his eyes, and counted off the passengers in the bus.
He turned to Cooligan. 'It's Smith and the hostages,' he said, 'I think they're 
all in the bus, except maybe one.'
'Which one?' Bert demanded.
Mac hesitated. 'I don't know if she was even among them, but she was supposed to 
join the flight.'
'Do you mean Sabrma Carver?' Bert asked.
'Yes. They were all there but for her.'
'Then she must still be back at the castle,' Cooligan said, 'and Mac - there's 
something you don't know. She's not just AF One crew: she's an agent of UNACO, 
your people. She'll be in deadly danger.'
'I do know, Bert,' McCafferty said, 'and that's why I'm going to get her out.'
McCafferty left one of the communicators with Cooligan and instructed him to 
stay under cover. 'I've got a plan,' he explained. 'It's worked once already, 
and I don't see why it shouldn't come good again. I'll keep your uniform on for 
the moment, if you don't mind.'
He trotted back to the castle, the gun still slung over his shoulder, and was 
challenged by the guards. McCafferty, who was now in the curious position of 
playing himself in the mad scenario mapped out by Smith, curtly told the 
sentries that one of the jeeps escorting the hostages' bus had broken down. Mac 
noted that many of the guerillas had already left the castle, and seized the 
opportunity to get rid of a few more to even up the odds. He ordered three 
sentries to help with the repairs to the jeep or, if it couldn't be fixed, to 
get it off the road.
The remaining two guerillas guarded the main entrance, and Mac left them as he 
made his way to the attic room where Sabrina was being held, following 
directions supplied by Bert Cooligan. He mounted the narrow steps and rapped on 
the door, expecting Sabrina to reply, but it was a man's voice that he heard, 
raised in a hoarse and chilling shout of triumph…
Sabrina had first of all feared that Cooligan would be captured or killed before 
he even reached the ground, so quickly was his escape discovered. It was sheer 
bad luck that Achmed Fayeed, inflamed by the brutal murder of Hemmingsway, had 
determined to follow Smith's suggestion that Sabrina Carver should be made to 
suffer for her deception aboard Air Force One: and suffer she would.
Achmed had brooded on the beautiful girl in the room at the top of the castle, 
and eventually reached a decision. He ran up the stairway, intending to isolate 
Sabrina and make her submit to him. He unlocked the door and threw it open:
Sabrina and Feisal were still at the window monitoring Cooligan's progress. 
Achmed, who had himself imprisoned the Secret Service agent in the attic, 
realised immediately what had happened. He called for a guard to join him and 
ran to the window, smashing the glass with the butt of his machine-pistol and 
loosing off a volley of shots at the hastily-glimpsed target.
Fayeed cursed when he saw Cooligan shoot the drawbridge on the stolen Honda. He 
shouted at the guerilla who answered his summons to take Feisal to the trophy 
room and inform either Smith or Dunkels that the agent had escaped. Sabrina was 
about to follow Feisal, but Achmed caught her arm and pulled her roughly back 
into the room. He backhanded her and she fell to the bed, her head ringing from 
the force of the blow.
The Arab kept his gun on Sabrina as the door closed behind the guerilla and the 
terrified boy. Achmed said, 'You have crossed us for the last time. I do not 
think Mister Smith will care too much what happens to you, and I know he shares 
my opinion that it would be a pity to waste your obvious talents, by killing you 
too quickly.
'You owe me your body, you Yankee bitch, and you're going to pay up. If you 
haven't known an Arab before, I can assure you that we're experts in our 
treatment of women. You'll never have another experience like it.' He laughed, 
but it was an ugly sound. 'You won't in any case, but your last love-making 
might just as well be your best.'
Achmed cradled the machine-pistol in the crook of his arm, leaving his other 
hand free to loosen the broad leather belt on his battledress trousers. 'Get 
your clothes off, slut,' he commanded, and when she stayed unmoving he drew from 
a sheath at his belt a long-bladed knife 'I said undress, or I'll cut you naked 
with this, and I don't care whether it's the clothes or your lovely fair skin 
that comes away.'
Sabrina continued to look at him with utter contempt in her blue eyes. Achmed 
stole towards her, his belt half-undone, the gun in one hand, the knife in the 
other. 'Which is it to be?' he whispered. 'Easy - or hard? Pleasure - or pain?
I'm going to have you whether you like it or not. whether you're willing or not, 
whether you fight me or not. I don't give a damn what state you're in when I 
finally get your legs open. I can use you just as well dead as alive.'
Sabrina's flesh crawled with fear and disgust as she saw how unmistakably ready 
he was for her, even beneath the rough material of his uniform. She had hoped 
her refusal even to answer him might infuriate him, goad him into hasty action; 
but he held the knife like a trained fighter, and the pistol pointed 
unwaveringly at her face.
Still with her lips compressed and her eyes blazing with hatred, she knelt on 
the bed and shrugged off her AF One blazer. Her fingers flicked through the 
buttons on her blouse, and unhooked the fastener of her skirt. She rose from her 
knees to her feet without using her hands for support, and towered over him on 
the bed. The sounds of vehicles leaving the castle nagged at the edges of her 
mind, but she ignored them. She slipped out of the blouse and pulled down the 
zip of the skirt. The garment fell to the counterpane, and she stepped away from 
it.
As a strip routine, it lacked even a scant suggestion of style or titillation. 
Hers were the actions of a woman who was about to be raped; her eyes never left 
his, and her teeth clenched in defiance. She would never, she swore to herself, 
go willingly to him; and Achmed would swiftly discover that Sabrina Carver had 
ways of defeating him even in the height of his lust.
Sabrina kicked the blouse and skirt off the bed, and stood looking down at him, 
her fingers laced before her, resting on her lightly tanned belly. 'The rest,' 
Achmed muttered hoarsely,'take off the rest.'
She made no move to obey. 'Kneel!' he ordered, and she allowed her body to sag 
and fold until it slumped before him. The rest,' he said, gesturing again at her 
brassiere and briefs with the point of the machine-pistol.
More quickly than his eyes could follow, her hand came up and wrenched at the 
barrel of the gun, twisting his ringer in the trigger-guard until he gave a howl 
of pain and yanked it out of her grasp. 'You will pay for that,' he panted 'by 
God you will pay for that.'
Sabrina's eyes were on the snout of the gun, and she did not see the knife as 
its point came up to slit through the front of her brassiere and hook it off her 
body, leaving a faint line of blood welling on the creamy skin of her naked 
breasts. Her hands flew to cover them, and Fayeed hooked two fingers in her 
silken briefs and ripped the wisp of cloth from her groin. She could not 
suppress the cry of pain and outrage, and now fear, that was the only sound so 
far to leave her lips.
Sabrina fell backwards and her legs parted. The Arab saw her open and 
unprotected, and tore off his belt to bare his own body. He spun the knife to 
lodge it quivering in a floorboard, and dropped the machine-pistol to the 
ground. He bellowed in his native tongue a cry of victory compounded with lust, 
knelt on the bed in front of her. spread her legs wide… and slumped sideways 
over her as McCafferty crashed the butt of his sub machine-gun into the back of 
his head.
Mac dragged the Arab off the bed and threw him to the floor, and Sabrina reached 
down for her clothing to hide her shame and humiliation, even greater revulsion 
flashing from her eyes.
'That's not a nice way to look at someone who's just saved you from a fate worse 
than death - and most probably death as well,' McCafferty said. 'You don't have 
to say "Thank you", but at least you needn't make me feel you'd rather I was 
down there on the floor and he was back on the bed having his evil way with 
you.'
'In some ways,' Sabrina spat at him, 'I'd prefer Achmed to you, if it's got to 
happen. He may have been an animal, but it was honest lust from a 
straightforward lecher. You're so tricky. Mister, so - polluted, I think I'd 
rather die than know you've touched me.'
Mac sighed. 'Jesus, this guy really made a mess of my life without knowing the 
slightest damned thing about me.'
Sabrina pulled the bedclothes up to cover herself, as much against the chill in 
the air as to cloak her nakedness. 'What do you mean?' she asked. 'Who are you 
talking about.'
McCafferty explained. Unsurprisingly, like Basil Swann and Bert Cooligan, she 
didn't believe him. But, again like her two colleagues, she came to be 
convinced, and was still avidly questioning him when Achmed seized the knife 
from the floor and struck at the American's stomach. Sabrina's warning 
half-scream alerted him, and he stepped back far enough to let the point of the 
blade pass through his shirt-front and scrape the skin.
Mac swung the machine-gun again, and Achmed, who had risen to his knees and was 
lunging forward once more with the knife, felt the gun barrel rake his face. He 
spat and sprang to his feet, blood leaking from his mouth. He sensed that Mac 
dared not fire the gun for fear of alerting a guard, and leapt at the American 
with the knife held high. Mac smashed the gun into the Arab's wrist and the 
blade flew across the room.
Mac's foot shot out and hooked around Achmed's bare leg. Fayeed swivelled and 
started to fall, and McCafferty, holding the sub machine-gun now in both hands, 
looped the sling around the Arab's neck twisting the gun until the knot was 
tight. Using the weapon like a straight arm in a Chinese stranglehold, he 
imprisoned the Arab's head and rammed his knee into the small of Achmed's back, 
the rifle a rigid bar on the Arab's throat. No other noise came from Achmed 
Fayeed, pseudo-princeling of Bahrain, and he died in less than a minute, his 
face suffused, his sight masked by bursting blood vessels, his mouth engorged by 
the swollen tongue.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Slinging the sub machine-gun once more across his back, and partially concealing 
it with his anorak in case anyone spotted it as American issue, McCafferty 
escorted Sabrina downstairs under cover of Fayeed's machine-pistol. He had 
noticed another jeep in the interior courtyard, loaded with supplies, and three 
more in the car-park.
The castle seemed empty, but Mac was treading warily in the event that the 
ringer was still around, for he had not been among the passengers. Neither could 
he chance meeting a guard who might be on first-name terms with the ringer. When 
he reached the courtyard, an orderly was packing the last of the supplies on the 
jeep. He glanced curiously at McCafferty and the girl, but made no comment.
Sabrina whispered, 'Where is everybody, for God's sake?'
'Gone,' Mac replied tersely. 'They left in a bus. Where to, I don't know. I only 
wish I did. What's more, I've no idea how we're going to find them.'
'The boy, Feisal, too,' Sabrina said, 'was he with them? I've got to know, 
because he's ill, and I'm the only one who can treat him.' Mac confirmed, 
low-voiced, that Feisal had been on the bus.
They made their way across the drawbridge, passing what seemed to be the only 
three remaining guards. One, who had been leaning against an entrance pillar, 
came upright and alert when he saw McCafferty. 'Back so soon?' he inquired in 
thick, heavily-accented English.
'Orders,' Mac said. The guard's round, pock-marked face took on a puzzled 
expression, and he murmured something in Serbo-Croat to one of the others. Then 
he fixed his eyes on Mac again and said, carefully, 'Orders from where? Mister 
Smith left long before you did.'
McCafferty glanced at the car-park and saw only two jeeps: the ringer must have 
used one to join the main party at wherever it was the hostages had been taken. 
He plucked the communicator from his belt and sneered, 'There are other ways of 
receiving orders than having somebody shout them at you, dummy. If you want to 
know, I was sent back to get her —' indicating Sabrina.
'Isn't the Arab looking after her?' the guerilla asked with a suggestive leer.
Mac grinned. 'He was. Now he's recovering.'
The guard laughed and translated for his friends. McCafferty said he had been 
told by Smith to bring Sabrina in immediately. Achmed and the other sentries 
were to wait a further half-hour, and follow in the last jeep.
'And the supply-truck?' the guerilla inquired, waving his machine-gun towards 
the internal yard.
'It's to go as soon as it's ready,' Mac ordered.
To the caves?'
'Where else?'
Mac prodded Sabrina towards the nearest jeep, and she drove it out of the 
car-park on to the road. 'Caves?' she mused.
'Seems like it. Anyway, it's the only clue we have. What we must do now is get 
behind the supply-truck and follow it, and we've got only this one vehicle. As I 
need it myself, I don't quite see how we're going to manage.'
They rounded a bend in the road and Mac could see in the distance the red and 
white cross-bar of the road barrier. A guerilla lounged indolently beside the 
weighted end.
'Damn it,' McCafferty cursed, 'I was afraid of this. We have to pick up Bert 
Cooligan at some stage, and I wanted everyone from the castle to think we'd gone 
straight to the caves.'
'What will you do?'
'What I have to.'
He motioned to her to stop by the barrier, and got out of the jeep just as the 
sentry started to press down on the leaded fulcrum 'Speak English?' Mac asked 
the guerilla. '
'A little.' the man replied unsurely.
Mac pointed at the guard's chest, and then in the direction of the castle.' You 
- go back there' he instructed.
The Yugoslav nodded cheerfully, slung his rifle, and turned to leave. As he did 
so, McCafferty threw an arm around his throat and drove Achmed Fayeed's knife 
into his back. The sentry slumped to the ground without a cry, and Mac dragged 
him to the downward slope and rolled the body into a patch of undergrowth.
'Now what?' Sabrina asked. McCafferty ditched the knife and said. 'I've just 
remembered that we do have more than one vehicle.'
'That's right.' Sabrina put in excitedly. 'Bert got away on a motor-cycle.'
Mac nodded. 'You take the jeep and follow the supply-truck, and I'll recover the 
bike and use it to link up with Philpott.'
'Why not the other way round?' she returned. 'I'd be less noticeable on the 
bike, with a crash-helmet, and Mr Philpott would have a more comfortable ride in 
the jeep.'
McCafferty shook his head wonderingly and replied. 'I might have known it. I 
suppose you were the High School scramble champion?'
Sabrina winked at him. 'Not quite, but I made him teach me how to ride.'
They squared the ground where Mac thought the motorcycle might be. and Sabrina 
found it. 'It's in one piece.' she shouted triumphantly, hauling it upright and 
jumping on the starter. 'And what's more it works.' They wheeled the Honda back 
up to the road, and concealed it and themselves behind a clump of trees. 
Presently the sound of an approaching vehicle caught their ears. Sabrina mounted 
the Honda, with Mac holding it upright, and started the engine.
The jeep, its swaying load tied down with ropes, passed them. Sabrina counted to 
ten. opened the throttle, and roared out on to the road. She had McCafferty's 
communicator in her belt, and banked on Bert Cooligan staying on high ground to 
receive her message when she had located Smith's new hideout. She had not, 
though, been able to find a crash-helmet.
McCafferty rejoined Cooligan up the mountain and gave him the details of the 
plan. They decided that when the coast was clear, Bert should return to the 
castle and await Sabrina's contact from there. He armed the agent with the dead 
sentry's rifle.
'Has Sabrina got a gun, too?' Cooligan asked, his voice worried.
Mac hesitated, then nodded. 'The Arab, Achmed, tried to rape her. I managed to 
stop him, but I had to kill him. She's got his machine-pistol. In any case, I've 
more guns back in the valley for when I pick up Philpott. We'll be a regular 
little army, huh?'
Cooligan grinned and wished McCafferty luck as he left to take the jeep down the 
hill into the village. The Secret Service agent squatted on his haunches holding 
the rifle, butt first, on the ground before him, and saw the still-tenanted 
castle bathed in the amber glow of the late afternoon sun. He settled down to 
wait.
The track straggled off the mountain to the town of Knin, where four major roads 
converged. Sabrina kept the guards' jeep in clear sight until the terrain 
flattened out on the coastal plain of Hrvatska. She thought the jeep might be 
bound for the resort of Sibenik, but from Knin it diverted on to a minor road 
heading for Benkovac and the coast, and then threaded through a maze of tracks 
until it reached a spot which she judged must be twenty to twenty-five 
kilometres from the castle, and about ten inland. What was more, she was back in 
hill country again, though it was no match for the Dinaric Alps.
She had now to exercise greater care, for they had the road more or less to 
themselves. Luckily it was as winding as the castle track had been, so she was 
able to lurk out of sight around bends, and then sprint to catch up with the 
receding jeep. The sun was only a blazing segment to the west, and
Sabrina mentally crossed her fingers that tney would find the caves before the 
light failed.
The jeep started to slow down, so Sabrina eased the Honda off the track into the 
shelter of a scattering of boulders. The jeep swung right and began climbing the 
rock-strewn hillside. Sabrina switched her gaze to higher ground, and saw a 
barred gate fronting a vast concrete abutment set into the flank of the hill. 
The jeep stopped at the gate, and an armed guerilla materialised to check the 
visitor. Behind the concrete slab she could just pick out the dark mouth of a 
cave.
Sabrina propped the Honda against a rock and scaled the hill at an oblique angle 
to take her above the cave entrance. Leaning out perilously far, she saw that 
the concrete deck was wide and deep enough to take the minibus and several more 
vehicles, while still leaving a large unfilled space. She shifted her position, 
and craned her neck even further to look into the cave itself. A battered 
signpost, uprooted and reclining forlornly against the entrance wall, bore a 
skull and crossbones and the German warning, "Achtung!" alongside a device that 
suggested explosives. A wartime ammunition dump? she wondered. It would have 
made an ideal site. She spotted the points of stalactites hanging from the 
vaulted roof of the cavern, but could make out nothing beyond that, though the 
space was well lit by electricity supplied from a generator humming away in the 
background.
Sabrina grimaced, and pulled back. She needed to know more of the geography of 
the caves and, if possible, the exact location of the captives.
Carefully, for the sentry was still at his post, she climbed on up the hill 
until she reached the crest. She could see now that the caves must extend 
further than she had imagined and that they were divided by a natural break.
The cavern which formed the entrance to the caves opened out on to a deep gorge 
over an unseen but audible river. A narrow bridge spanned the gorge, and the 
pathway at the other side disappeared into the mouth of yet another cave. The 
suspension-bridge was railed, but appeared none too safe. Sabrina grinned: she 
was sure she had located the hostages' hiding-place, for Smith would not neglect 
such a splendid opportunity to make either escape or rescue as difficult as 
possible.
She activated her two-way communicator, and within a few seconds was talking 
earnestly to Bert Cooligan at Castle Windischgraetz…
When the minibus arrived at the caves, Smith himself had unlocked the gate. The 
hostages were shooed unceremoniously off the bus, Feisal holding tightly to 
Zeidan's hand as the crippled sheikh was loaded into his wheelchair. A chatter 
of engine noise from above announced the arrival of Dunkels in the Kamov 
helicopter. One of Smith's guerillas activated the generator and pressed a 
switch to flood the gloomy cavern with light. The multi-hued limestone 
formations from ceiling and floor brought a gasp of admiration from Feisal.
Guards shepherded the captives through the cavern, and once more Sheikh Zeidan 
was hauled from the wheelchair when they reached the flimsy bridge. Dr Hamady 
took the first nervous step on to the bridge, clutching the rails and allowing 
himself to be led over with his eyes closed. Zeidan was next, chaired by two 
sentries and watched anxiously by Feisal in his wake. Dorani and Arbeid 
followed, with Fairman and Latimer heading the crocodile of Air Force One crew 
members.
Smith brought up the rear, but before commencing his crossing he ordered Dunkels 
to establish radio-contact with the castle. 'Check with Jagger whether they've 
caught Cooligan yet. If they haven't, get airborne again and give them a hand. 
At any event. I want the castle personnel here as soon us they've left 
everything safe. Tell Fayeed to get rid of the girl Carver any way he pleases.'
Dunkels hurried off. and Smith traversed the gorge to join the hostages, who 
were perched on an outcrop surrounded on three sides by a drop of a hundred 
feet, and under the watchful eyes of a pair of guards. Steps cut into the side 
of the cave descended to the ledge, and Smith negotiated them cautiously to 
stand before his captives. 'Not quite the Ritz,' he apologised, 'but at least 
you're under cover.'
Sheikh Dorani regarded him under beetling brows. 'When do you propose to release 
us?' he demanded.
'As soon as the ransom is in my possession,' Smith returned affably.
'And when will that be?' Zeidan growled.
Smith consulted his watch. 'By nightfall,' he said reflectively. 'Fifty million 
dollars in diamonds The largest ransom in history, I believe.'
'Kidnappers are notorious not for the size of their unlawful gains but the 
heinous nature of their crimes,' Zeidan intoned. 'If you are remembered at all, 
Smith, it will be as the common criminal you undoubtedly are.'
Smith turned to face the old Arab, who leaned back in his wheelchair as if it 
were a golden throne, and regarded his captor with abhorrence. Zeidan knew that 
of all the hostages, he alone possessed the ability to unsettle Smith's 
composure; it was a weapon he used sparingly, and always to great effect. Zeidan 
gambled that in these infrequent outbursts, when his dignity was affronted, 
Smith was inclined to tell the truth. That was what the sheikh was seeking now 
to learn.
Smith's voice was a silky threat. 'Would you rather I be remembered as a mass 
murderer, Your Excellency?'
'That is your prerogative,' Zeidan grunted, 'and could well be your epitaph.'
'If it is my epitaph, Sheikh Zeidan, I can promise you it will also be yours and 
that of your grandson.'
Latimer snapped from the darkening lip of the ledge, 'You must be certifiable, 
Smith, if you think you can get away with killing all of us, because that's what 
you'll have to do, and take the ransom as well.'
Smith looked across at him, his good humour and confidence restored. 
'Fortunately for you, Major, I am neither insane nor an instinctual killer. But… 
if you provoke me too much, any of you, or if you should attempt to escape, you 
have my promise that you will not leave this place alive.' He turned and 
remounted the stone steps, and left silence, doubt and terror behind him…
McCafferty had just been able to make out Sabrina's Honda in the distance as he 
spun the wheel of the jeep to take the opposite direction for his appointment 
with Philpott. He reached the village without meeting another vehicle, recovered 
his pack from the postman's daughter, and fortified himself with a few beers to 
while away the time. He didn't have long to wait: he saw the helicopter before 
its engine noise reached him, and made a bet with himself, which he won, that 
the pilot would land in the same field where he himself had parked the UTVA. Mac 
saw Philpott stoop unnecessarily as he ran under the rotors, and appreciated how 
truly alone they were when the helicopter promptly took off again.
Philpott listened to McCafferty's account, and questioned him closely on key 
points. When Mac had finished, Philpott said grimly, 'So we still don't know 
exactly where the hostages are, and we can't find out until we make contact with 
Cooligan.'
'That's the size of it,' Mac conceded.
'Or what Sabrina's doing, or whether she's in danger.'
'That, I must admit, is the part that worries me most,' McCafferty replied.
She was at that moment squirming back down the hillside, mostly on her bottom, 
to repossess the Honda. She got to it undetected, kicked the motor into life, 
and was wheeling the machine on to the track to take the same route back to the 
castle, when she looked up and saw the helicopter bearing down upon her.
Dunkel had been airborne before Sabrina arrived at the caves. His radio link 
with the castle had revealed not only that Cooligan had not been recaptured, but 
also that Fayeed had been strangled, and that Sabrina Carver was missing. The 
German had analysed the confused message about the mysterious reappearance of 
Jagger at a time when the ringer ought to have been at the caves with Smith and 
the hostages.
He reported to Smith, who quickly grasped that the genuine McCafferty was back 
on the scene to ring the changes on his alter ego by posing as himself.
'How can you be sure?' Dunkels asked.
Smith rounded on him, his control slipping, fury twisting his features. 'Jagger 
was here! he screamed,'so he couldn't have been up there, idiot. He's still 
here. Take the helicopter - now! Find Carver and bring her to me - alive. I must 
know Philpott's movements. Look for a motor-cycle… they'll have abandoned the 
jeep.
'McCafferty will have gone by now to join Philpott's force, but Carver will be 
around here somewhere, on the motorcycle Cooligan used. Get her, Dunkels.'
'How d'you know she'll be around here?' Dunkels asked unwisely as he turned to 
leave.
'Because she'll have followed the supply-jeep here,' Smith sneered, almost 
frantic with rage now. 'The timing fits, you fool. Get out! Now! And do not 
return without her.'
Sabrina ducked off the road and skidded to a halt under a sturdy beech tree. She 
could hear the Kamov circling overhead, and peered up into the branches. The sun 
was leaving the sky now, but the twilight air was crisp and clear, and she saw 
Dunkels at the controls ease the helicopter lower and lower until its blades 
threatened to decapitate her tree.
She undipped the machine-pistol, took careful aim, and fired a burst through the 
foliage at the grey, swooping shape. Dunkels jerked back on the stick as a stray 
bullet ricocheted off the fuselage of the Kamov. He rose above the little copse 
and flew out of range, then buzzed her hiding-place like an angry wasp. He 
sighted a clear space to his left, and gained height again, banking sharply at 
the end of his spiral to signal his obvious intention of landing.
Sabrina took the bait. While the Kamov hovered a few feet from the ground she 
remounted the Honda, throttled up and roared away from the concealment of the 
trees. It was only when she heard the rising engine whine of the helicopter that 
she realised she had been tricked: Dunkels had merely made a landing feint to 
flush her out of cover.
She swore fluently and skirted a tufted hillock to crash through a hedge which 
she hoped might lead to another coppice, only to find herself in an even bigger 
field. There was a wood at the other side, though, and she was streaking towards 
it when Dunkels caught up with her again. The first bullets from his own 
machine-gun tore red divots out of the bumpy ground.
The German played cat-and-mouse with her, and she could see him through the 
perspex awning of the cockpit, laughing as he brought the helicopter down to 
block her path and force her to swerve dangerously away. Then he backed off and 
she resumed her course, but wrenched at the handlebars again as the rushing 
blades of the Kamov fanned the air only a few yards from her face. Dunkels 
chased her this time, forcing her back the way she had come until she spun the 
Honda round and, ducking low in the saddle, drove it straight under his wheels.
But she had neither the speed nor the manoeuvrability to elude him, and the end 
was inevitable, for Dunkels had noticed something she could not have seen: 
between the field and the copse that was her target lay a small pond, sunk into 
a dip in the ground, and not visible from her vantage-point.
As a sheepdog would, he herded her across the pasture, and like a rabbit fleeing 
the teeth of a snapping hound, Sabrina scuttled in the direction he wanted her 
to go, lurching and weaving to avoid the helicopter and the constant stream of 
bullets. She had hated being chased as a child, and when she was cornered, her 
resolve to fight always gave way to hysteria. She was sobbing now, and close to 
total panic when the Honda left the ground and back-flipped her off to dump both 
of them in the middle of the pond.
Sabrina lay stunned and half-drowning in the murky water. She came to as Dunkels 
gripped her by the collar and hauled her to the muddy bank. He stood astride 
her, letting her lay there in her misery. Then he leaned down, grasped her hair, 
pulled up her head and smashed his fist into her face.
For the second time she lost consciousness, and when her brain again struggled 
through the mists of returning awareness, the noise of the Kamov's engine 
completed her disorientation. She collected her thoughts and flexed her arms and 
legs. Dunkels had not even considered it necessary to tie her.
Above the roar of the helicopter, Bert Cooligan caught the few words she managed 
to get out before Dunkels shot Sabrina's communicator to pieces.
'Bert!' she screamed,'they've got me! They're taking me to the caves!'
Sonya Kolchinsky felt oddly comforted by the presence of Brigadier Tornlin 
standing beside her in the prow of the motor launch, cutting through the 
Adriatic off the coast of Dalmatia. Since Philpott had been told he was in 
complete charge of the operation, Sonya had used UNACO's authority to browbeat 
the Yugoslavians into yielding every ounce of assistance she could squeeze from 
them. With a fair-sized naval task-force at her disposal, she had bludgeoned the 
Deputy Minister of the Interior into conceding a NATO commanding officer. Tomlin 
had needed no second bidding, and jetted over from Naples almost before the 
words were out of the politician's mouth.
Now he looked gloomily over his shoulder at the waning light, and snapped on his 
torch to study a sea-chart of the myriad of islands sprinkled around like 
seaweed between their embarkation port of Split and the Italian peninsula of 
Venezia Giulia.
Sonya sighed and looked for reassurance from the lights of Sibenik winking at 
them from the shoreline. The lights of the next coastal town of any size, Zadar, 
were more distant. She had been confident, based on the geographical 
relationship of the landing strip to the castle to the presumed location of the 
hostage caves, that Smith's ransom island would lie somewhere between Sibenik 
and Zadar which tied in with his necessarily generalised map reference. But they 
had covered the territory once, and it was coming up to seven o'clock, only an 
hour away from Smith's deadline for placing the diamonds on the gibbet.
'We obviously missed it first time,' Tomlin declared. 'We'll have another look
'But it's almost dark now,' she protested.
'Nonetheless, we go on searching,' Tomlin pronounced firmly. There were three 
other boats in his flotilla, and he was in touch with English speakers aboard 
each of them. 'Quarter the area again,' the brigadier ordered, 'and bear in mind 
that the island could be a hell of a lot smaller than it looks in the 
photograph. What we're seeking may not be an island at all - just a rock.'
Tomlin returned to his chart. They rounded the island of Kakan with Kaprije to 
starboard and the larger bulk of Kornati to port. Murter passed to starboard and 
Zut to port, and ahead of them, lying off the seaward coast of Pasman Island, 
was another islet which Tomlin immediately identified. He stabbed his finger on 
the chart and said 'Lighthouse,' with immense satisfaction. Just then the beam 
of the light flashed on and swept the sea before them. Sonya stammered 'It's 
th-there! Over there!'
On its return trip the light confirmed the fleeting impression she had gained. 
It picked out the flat bulge of Saucer Island, lying like an upturned dinner 
plate in the sea and washed by breakers. On the starboard rim of the island 
stood the gibbet.
The helmsman of their launch followed her pointing finger and steered the vessel 
through the chunky waves towards the little island. Tomlin held up the Polaroid 
and glanced from the snapshot to the islet, now transfixed in their lights and 
those of two other vessels in their fleet. 'Spot on,' he said, 'well done, Mrs 
Kolchinsky. First-class piece of observation.'
The launch made a complete circuit of the island before drawing up and backing 
in to take position next to the curious pole with the horizontal arm.
'Don't get too close,' Tomlin warned the cutter's crew, 'and no one, but no one, 
must make any attempt to land on the island. I don't want anybody slinging hooks 
near that pole or prodding it with guns or anything else We don't want to berth 
there; we just want to get far enough in to let me drop this bag over that 
projecting arm, and we can do that while we're still on the move. If we miss, 
we'll try until we succeed.'
As it turned out, they needed three passes before Tomlin found his range and 
encircled the arm with the metal ring. He rubbed his hands together briskly and 
his teeth gleamed under the pencil moustache as he favoured her with a glowing 
smile. 'Excellent,' he pronounced. 'Now we lay off and take posts.'
'Where do you suggest we go?' Sonya inquired, and Tomlin jerked his head at the 
neighbouring island. 'No sense in staying out here in the cold when we can be 
sitting down over a steaming mug of cocoa,' he chortled.
'Cocoa?' she echoed blankly.
'Quite so,' Tomlin replied. 'Never knew a lighthouse-keeper yet who didn't make 
jolly good cocoa. That'll be our headquarters, ma'am, if you agree/
Sonya grinned at him appreciatively and said, 'Spot on. Brigadier. With you all 
the way. Cocoa it is.'
Tomlin barked into his communicator, 'All units. Calling all units. Proceed to 
designated stations forthwith. Flagship will moor at the island 30 degrees to 
starboard, and the command post, offering a full view of the rock at all times, 
will be the lighthouse. If you read me, please acknowledge.'
Three Aldis lamps blinked in acquiescence, and Tomlin ordered his crew to 
proceed to the lighthouse while the flotilla, manned by armed marines, ringed 
Saucer Island and sat a quarter of a mile off like sharks waiting for 
dinner-time.
Smith received Sabrina with icy politeness, trusting she was none the worse for 
her encounters with Achmed at the castle and Dunkels in the helicopter.
'Not at all,' she said sweetly,'they behaved like the perfect gentlemen they 
obviously are.'
'Or were, in Achmed's case,' Smith pointed out. Sabrina tried to conceal her 
alarm at the news that he had learned of Fayeed's death.
Smith, however, forestalled any lies she might have invented. 'Of course I know 
Achmed is dead,' he said, 'and what is more I am aware that he was killed by 
Colonel McCafferty - the real Colonel McCafferty, if you follow me, not our 
ersatz and somewhat shop-soiled model.'
Again she wished she had a poker face, but what nature had not given her she 
found it impossible to assume. So she replied, evenly, 'All of which indicates 
that you're on the point of losing, doesn't it, Mister Smith?'
To the contrary,' Smith beamed, 'Philpott will be able to do nothing to prevent 
me from picking up the ransom, and I have prepared a little surprise to guard my 
back. I am beginning to find these Arabs decidedly tiresome. No, Sabrina, I have 
not lost; neither shall I. All Philpott is doing sitting off my island with a —'
'If you think that — ' she began, and bit her lip in anger.
'I didn't really,' Smith purred. 'Indeed, I imagine him to be much closer to my 
castle than to the seashore, since of course you were kind enough to supply him 
with the location of these caves through your communicator, and he would hardly 
have had time to get here yet, would he? No doubt he and Colonel McCafferty are 
at this very moment linking up with the agent Cooligan to plan how they can best 
launch their assault force on this stronghold.'
Once more she tried to keep her expression neutral, and for the third time 
failed. Smith laughed in genuine amusement.
'My dear Sabrina,' he chuckled,'there really is no point in submitting you to 
persuasion, when all one has to do is study your lovely face and get all the 
answers one needs. I have now learned that Philpott, possibly with McCafferty 
and Cooligan, are at or near my castle, and that far from possessing an army 
capable of defeating me, they may well be acting entirely alone. Probably they 
have some assistance at sea, where I would guess that the estimable Mrs 
Kolchinsky is holding the fort — '
Sabrina flushed and her lower lip quivered. 'Bull's eye again,' Smith chuckled. 
'There we are, then, the complete picture.' He beckoned to the grinning Dunkels. 
'Siegfried, give our beauteous "Brünhilde" some hot food, then take her to join 
the others, that they may all meet their Gotterdammüng together.'
He laughed full-bellied, and strode into the main cavern.
Philpott groaned and swore when Cooligan brought him and McCafferty up to date 
with the news of Sabrina's capture.
'How long ago did you get her message?' he rapped.
'Not ten minutes,' Cooligan replied.
'Damn, damn, damn,' Philpott said, with feeling.
'Why so gloomy, Chief?' McCafferty asked. 'Sabrina's a tough cookie, isn't she? 
Surely she'll be able to take care of herself?'
Philpott's response was a resigned sigh. '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.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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 Gotterdammerung - 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 my self.'
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.
The ringer pulled from his pocket a small flat box identical to Smith's, glanced 
at it, and stowed it away again.
The engine of the minibus stuttered into life, and when the vehicle negotiated 
the steep declivity to the road, Malcolm Philpott was clinging for dear life to 
the rear luggage rack—
One of the guerillas commanding the entrance to the caves relieved himself 
noisily against the rock wall, called out something undistinguishable to his 
friend, and disappeared inside. The other guard pulled the gate shut after 
Smith's bus had left, and locked it. He was strolling back to his post when 
McCafferty dropped from an overhanging boulder and flattened him. The guerilla 
squealed as the breath left his body, and Mac chopped him crisply behind the 
right ear. The American whistled, and Cooligan ran to join him. Together they 
trussed and gagged the guard. Cooligan pulled the body into the car-park and 
lodged it under a lorry.
'Now for Sabrina,' Mac whispered, for the second time that night; Miss Carver, 
he thought, was getting to be a problem.
'Yeah, I wonder what she's up to?' Cooligan echoed.
Seduction, that was what she was up to. She sauntered over to the Yugoslav 
sentry who unslung the machine-pistol from his arm and presented it to her 
barrel first so that she could see the rifling. His finger was on the trigger, 
and he said something to her in Serbo-Croat which, from the tone he used, 
Sabrina judged to be most unpleasant.
That's not friendly,' she murmured, 'I was only trying to get acquainted. It's 
pretty boring here, you know.'
His eyes showed he had not understood a word she was saying so she continued, in 
the same conversational tone, 'Up you go then, Feisal. This guy's so intent on 
keeping me under close surveillance that I think we could smuggle in a troupe of 
performing elephants and he wouldn't notice.
Feisal slipped from behind his grandfather's wheelchair and used the other Arabs 
as a screen to get out of the sentry's line of vision. At the wall, Fairman 
hoisted the boy up the first few feet and enabled him to get a toe-hold.
Sabrina moved closer to the guerilla until the gunpoint lodged in the valley 
between her breasts. She licked her lips and purred, 'Is that the best you can 
do?'
The guard flushed and backed away, but his eyes still held hers as, fleet and 
silent, Feisal gained height. The Yugoslav waved at her impatiently with the gun 
to keep her distance, and Sabrina pulled a face at him and wiggled over to the 
rim of the ledge. She stooped down - and the sentry's gun followed her. She 
looked back over her shoulder at him, grinned, and picked up a handful of 
pebbles.
She stood at the very edge of the rock face and peered down into the dark pit. 
Attractively oscillating her rear end, she tossed the stones, one at a time, 
into the void…
From his windy perch, Philpott saw the indicator-light of the minibus wink left, 
and as the bus pulled off the road and slowed to a halt, he dropped off and 
rolled behind a handy bush. He peered into the darkness, heard the crash of 
waves, and smelt the sea. Smith instructed the driver to take the bus back to 
Castle Windischgraetz, and in a moment he was alone with the noises of the night 
and the waters and the soughing breeze… and Malcolm Philpott.
Philpott cautiously raised his head and saw a lone cyclist pass Smith, respond 
warmly to a greeting in the local dialect, and continue on his way. Smith 
crossed the road and stood for a moment framed against the skyline in the bright 
light of the moon. Then he disappeared from view. Philpott rose stiffly to his 
feet and gave chase. From the opposite side he heard the sound of Smith 
scrambling down an incline. Philpott waited until he reached the bottom, then 
followed him.
A standing lantern came on, and Philpott shrank into the shade of a stunted 
tree. He saw Smith haul from a hiding place under a rock an Avon dinghy with an 
outboard motor at its stern. Smith carefully emptied the boat of sand and 
fragments of brushwood, then unscrewed the lid of the petrol tank and topped up 
the fuel-supply from a small can of gasoline. He pushed back the sleeve of his 
brand new anorak and glanced at the illuminated face of his watch. The deadline 
for the placing of the ransom had passed by a good half-hour, but Mister Smith 
was in no unseemly hurry. He smiled a satisfied smile, and looked calmly out to 
sea.
Ten minutes went by, and Philpott fidgeted uneasily, fighting the cramp that was 
stealing into his muscles. He held a gun in his left hand and clasped the tree 
with his right arm, but he was fast tiring of the crouching position he'd been 
forced to adopt.
Then Smith moved. He stooped and picked up from the sand a rope-line which 
Philpott hadn't spotted. He tugged on the line, and a row of bubbles erupted on 
the surface of the water and followed a straight course out from the shore.
Philpott half straightened and leaned forward to get a better view. The 
crumbling shale beneath his feet gave way, and with a manic shriek he pitched 
down the bank to fall practically at Smith's feet.
The gun flew from his grasp, and Philpott scuttled crab-wise to retrieve it 
until Smith planted a boot firmly on his outstretched hand.
Sabrina dropped the last pebble into the abyss and turned her head to wink at 
the Yugoslav, who couldn't take his eyes off her. That was the moment of 
secondary sexual communication which Feisal chose to shatter by losing his 
hand-grip on a sharp splinter of rock. He gave an involuntary cry and slithered 
down the rock face until he was suspended ten feet over the guard's head.
As the guard looked sharply up at the boy, Sabrina dived at the man's legs and 
tackled him. He lurched backwards and fell to the ground, but his finger still 
curled about the catch of the machine-pistol, and when Sabrina dived after him 
and grabbed the barrel, the sentry pressed down on the trigger.
A spray of bullets spattered against the wall and bounced around the cave like 
demented fireflies. Sheikh Dorani howled as a stray shot clipped his 
shoulder-bone, and Sabrina strove mightily to bend the pistol back against the 
guard's hand.
With the fingers of her other hand she clawed at the man's face and drew blood, 
but he closed his eyes to avert the worst of the damage. He brought his knee up 
into her crutch, and she gasped and heaved. The Air Force One crewmen stood by 
helpless, not daring to intervene while the Yugoslav held on to the gun. 
Finally, with a massive effort, the guard drove his elbow into her face and 
pulled himself to his feet, with Sabrina still clinging to the pistol.
The guerilla punched her savagely again and tore the gun from her grasp, then 
bellowed in pain and surprise as Feisal landed heavily on his back.
The man and the boy crashed to the rock floor together, and once more the 
machine-pistol stuttered and coughed. But it was Feisal who rose with his hands 
and shirt-front drenched in blood. The Yugoslav lay on his back, his face, 
throat and chest shot away, one sightless eye staring at the crystal mouldings 
on the roof of the cavern.
Sabrina threw her arms round the sobbing child and kissed his cheeks. Then she 
surrendered him to Dr Hamady and ordered Fairman to get to his knees. She 
clambered on his back and gritted her teeth and she began to scale the rock 
face, for the bomb had still to be neutralised…
Jagger and Dunkels heard the burst of firing while they were supervising the 
clear-up operation in the main cavern. Most of the guerillas had already left, 
deploying to their secret mountain bases. Jagger swore and grabbed a sub 
machine-gun, ordered Dunkels to guard the approach to the bridge, and ran to 
investigate.
Cooligan and McCafferty were lying low in the entrance cave planning their next 
move when the sound of the shooting reached them. Cooligan immediately drew the 
wrong conclusion. 'He's done it, the bastard,' Bert choked, and started for the 
tunnel leading to the bridge. McCafferty grabbed his arm and pulled him back, 
explaining that the ringer was unlikely to launch a shooting massacre when all 
he had to do was explode the bomb.
The two agents used rock-cover to get them to the tunnel, and it was sheer bad 
luck that Dunkels turned to look behind him just at the instant when a shaft of 
light glinted on the stock of McCafferty's gun.
Sabrina looked long and hard at the bomb. The detonator was wedged firmly into a 
crevice in the rock, and the wires, sunk into the viscous mass of pink 
plastique, might be delicately poised to resist dismantling. She dared not risk 
setting the explosives off accidentally, so she tried to saw-through the 
trailing yellow cable against a sharp edge of rock. Her head was bent to the 
task when Jagger's gun tickled the soft hairs behind her left ear and his voice 
said 'Drop the wire.'
She froze, and the cable slipped out of her hand. The ringer plucked the 
machine-pistol from her belt and motioned her inside.
Then Jagger himself froze as another fusillade of bullets crashed into the wall 
at his side. He spun round to see Siegfried Dunkels stagger out of the tunnel on 
to the bridge, clutching his torn stomach. Slowly, almost balletically. Dunkels 
folded and draped across the suspension-cable. He tried to right himself, but 
his head fell forward as he died, and his body toppled into the chasm.
McCafferty hurdled the corpse of the guard, brought down in the same burst as 
that which killed Dunkels, and at last came face to face with his other half - 
himself! across twenty feet of rickety bridge.
Mac raised his machine-pistol and caught his trigger-finger just in time when he 
saw, in the dim lighting of the second cave, that the ringer was using Sabrina 
Carver as a shield.
'Back, McCafferty,' Jagger shouted, 'or she gets it. You too, Cooligan.'
Mac waved Bert away and retreated himself, still keeping the ringer in his line 
of vision. Somehow, Jagger knew that the odds were stacked against him, and 
played his last lunatic card. Fear of the Russians, of Karilian, of what they 
could do to him if he failed to carry out their orders, governed his life to the 
last. He groped in his pocket and brought out the detonator.
'Three minutes,' he breathed, and pressed the time switch. 'Three minutes and 
you're all dead.'
He shoved Sabrina ahead of him to re-cross the bridge, and saw McCafferty and 
Cooligan withdraw further into the tunnel. When she and Jagger reached the other 
side, Sabrina rounded on Cody savagely and yelled, 'You can't, you mustn't, kill 
those people. They've done nothing to harm you. What kind of animal are you, 
Mister No-Name?'
The ringer exploded and lashed at her face. She took the blow on the chin and 
crumpled to the ground, striking her head on a rock. 'The name is Cody Jagger - 
do you hear! he screamed at her senseless body. 'Do you hear, McCafferty? I'm 
Cody Jagger, and I'm going to kill you and everyone else here!'
Mac's answer was a burst of pistol fire which sent Jagger reeling back unhurt 
into the darkness of the bridge. He snarled an obscenity when he saw that the 
detonator had fallen from his hand and was lying a yard from Sabrina's head. The 
timer showed two minutes before the bomb would explode.
Jagger began to crawl towards the detonator, but McCafferty had him in clear 
view now. 'You're covered. Jagger,' he shouted,'drop the gun.'
Cody rose and loosed off another salvo until the firing-mechanism jangled on the 
empty chamber.
The detonator's timing device clicked round to one minute,
Jagger threw the useless gun away and jerked out the machine-pistol he had taken 
from Sabrina. He never got to press the trigger: McCafferty shot him twice 
through the hand, and the gun clattered on to the bridge.
Mac advanced, and his eyes flickered to the ticking remote-control box, then 
back to Jagger's face… his own face, warped with hatred, licking the blood from 
his hand.
'You son of a bitch, McCafferty, I should have killed you back in Bahrain, but 
the Russians wanted you alive.'
'The Russians?' Mac cried. 'You work for…
Sabrina chose that second to moan and stir, and McCafferty's eyes left Jagger's 
long enough to search for her face. Cody heaved himself at the American and 
kicked out at his groin.
The electronic timer showed thirty-two, thirty-one, thirty seconds.
Mac took the kick on his thigh and rocked back as Jagger caught the gun in his 
wounded hand and crashed the other into Mac's face. But Jagger couldn't retain 
his hold on the pistol. Blood was pumping from his hand, and his fingers fell 
away. He tried to defend himself one-handed. Then McCafferty got a lock on him 
and splintered his cheek-bone with the butt of the gun.
Cody's head came up, his lips slid away from his teeth, and his eyes glazed 
over. Mac used the gun butt on him again, and Jagger keeled over against the 
rail. It broke under his weight, and his dying shriek lasted until his body hit 
the pointed rocks of the river-bed.
Sabrina screamed when Mac turned to her. Her mind strove to cope with the man 
standing before her. Who was he? Who had won the fight? She clasped her hands to 
her pounding head, then reached for the machine-pistol, and McCafferty cried, 
'It's me, you silly bitch.'
She let the gun go, and in the hiatus that followed they heard the remorseless 
ticking of the timer. They both dived for it, and she was nearer.
When she switched off the detonator, and disconnected the battery wires, the 
clock face showed two seconds to blastoff.
'You're not quite the last man in the world I expected to see, Philpott,' Smith 
remarked urbanely, 'but I honestly didn't imagine you'd suddenly drop in out of 
the blue in that vulgar manner.'
Smith removed his boot from Philpott's hand, and kicked the gun into the sea. 
'Get up,' he commanded. Philpott tried, but fell back grimacing with pain.
'I think I've hurt my foot,' he apologised.
'Serves you right,' said Smith. 'You must have had a pretty rough journey, too. 
I suppose you rode on top of the bus.'
'Something like that,' Philpott admitted.
Smith's eyes gleamed and he smiled broadly. Then you're alone. How convenient - 
for me. If you can make yourself comfortable on the sand, I would advise you to 
do so. You will not have long to wait, and I can promise you that what you see 
will be of consuming interest to you.'
Philpott moaned and lay back, clasping his hands behind his head. 'What were you 
doing,' he asked, 'when I inflicted myself upon you so rudely?'
Smith put a finger to his lips. 'Patience,' he said, 'and all will be revealed.' 
He took from his anorak pocket a small flat metal box.
Philpott recoiled in horror. 'Don't, Smith,' he pleaded, 'for God's sake don't 
do it. Those people are innocent. You'll get your ransom. They don't deserve to 
die.'
Smith smiled and juggled dexterously with the little box. 'As I thought,' he 
mused, 'you know far more than is good for you. But on this occasion, Philpott, 
you're wrong. This box -' pointing to the one in his hand' - is not the 
detonator for the explosives at the cave.'
He pulled another, seemingly identical, box from the same pocket. 'This one is.'
Philpott regarded him in amazement. 'Two detonators for the same job? Or rather 
- three?'
'Three?' Smith repeated. 'What are you talking about?'
It was Philpott's turn to smirk. 'Now there's something you don't know about, 
Mister Smith. Your pet doppelganger has one just like that,' he said, indicating 
the bomb timer.
Smith looked apprehensive, and impressed. 'How clever of you to find that out, 
Mr Philpott,' he murmured. 'So our Colonel McCafferty - whose name, 
incidentally, used to be Cody Jagger - has designs on the hostages too, has he?' 
He remained in silent thought for perhaps a minute, then turned his blank grey 
eyes on the UNACO chief.
'I would only have considered killing the captives in the event of the direst 
emergency, Philpott. I think you believe that. Jagger, on the other hand… Jagger 
is all beast. Clearly I must waste no more time.'
He dropped the detonator timer back into his pocket, and pressed a button on the 
second device. 'Look!' he directed, pointing dramatically out to sea.
Philpott followed his arm. In a blaze of fiery sparks, a rocket scorched into 
the air from Saucer Island and drew a comet's tail track in the night-sky.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Brigadier Tomlin stalked over to the tripod in the light room and jammed his 
eyes for the hundredth time into the socket of the telescope. 'This is getting 
ridiculous,' he barked, 'nothing's happening at all.'
'It's less than an hour since the deadline,' Sonya Kolchinsky pointed out 
reasonably, 'and Smith didn't guarantee to act immediately. Anyway, with all 
this hardware around, we may have succeeded merely in frightening him off. He's 
not to know, after all, that we're only here to have a look-see.'
Tomlin straightened up and bristled at her. 'It's not my job, ma'am,' he 
said,'to make life easier for a bounder like Smith.'
She was about to frame a suitably barbed reply when the lighthouse-keeper drew 
their attention to the rocket, which neither of them had seen leave the island, 
being too occupied in glaring at each other.
'Damn and blast it!' Tomlin roared,'so that's how he's doing it.'
He snatched a communicator from the table and snapped. 'All units, repeat, all 
units. Track that rocket. Don't lose sight of it. Mark where it falls and 
recover it. Move!'
Smith watched the performance, through powerful binoculars and chuckled as the 
watchdog ships peeled away. 'So splendidly predictable, the military.' he mused. 
'Do you not agree, Mr Philpott?'
'I take it that the little fireworks display had nothing to do with the 
collection of the ransom.' Philpott observed.
Smith wagged his head, and tut-tutted. 'But there you would be wrong, my dear 
fellow. True, it served admirably as a divertissement, but its principal 
objective is important, indeed crucial, to my plan for picking up the diamonds.'
Sonya Kolchinsky wasn't fooled, either. 'We're going to the island, Brigadier,' 
she announced firmly.
'We are not, Mrs Kolchinsky,' Tomlin replied, equally firmly.
Sonya bridled. 'You have more than sufficient units tracking that Roman Candle. 
We will take the command boat - the flagship, as I believe you call her - to the 
island.'
'And why, pray?'
'Mainly because I say so. I shouldn't need to remind you, Brigadier, that you 
are under UNACO command. I don't believe for a moment that the rocket has been 
magically oriented to pick up our bag of diamonds and transport them to Smith's 
current lair. We will investigate.'
Tomlin heaved a theatrical sigh and muttered, 'As you wish, ma'am.'
When the launch slowed to a halt at the gibbet end of the island, Tomlin pointed 
to where the pole had been and proclaimed, 'There! I told you - it's gone!'
Sonya frowned, then peered into the water where the strong searchlights of the 
boat were playing. 'It hasn't, Brigadier,' she cried, 'it's still there.'
Before Tomlin could prevent her, she stepped from the prow of the cutter and 
jumped on to the island. Tomlin shouted, 'It's mined! For God's sake, be 
careful!'
Sonya turned to him and waved. 'Don't be silly, of course it's not mined,' she 
called out. She trotted over to the centre of the rock slab and found the tube 
from which the rocket had been launched. A length of singed cord lay half out of 
the hole, and she examined it curiously. Then she returned to the edge of the 
island and searched for the pole - which, as she had reported to Tomlin, was 
indeed still there, only now it was lying horizontally on the surface of the 
sea, with the cross-bar projecting down into the water.
Tomlin followed her gaze. 'By Jove,' he mumbled incredulously,'the bag is still 
there, too. Shall I have it recovered, ma'am?'
'Please, Brigadier,' Sonya replied.
But as a crewman with a boathook leaned over to scoop up the leather bag, a 
dark, ghostly shape cleaved the water past the launch. Its nose speared the 
six-inch metal ring which Smith had insisted must be fastened to the end of the 
bag. The grey shadow swam away, and with it went fifty million dollars in cut 
diamonds.
Tomlin's eyes almost left his head. 'What - what the blue b-bloody blazes was 
that?' he spluttered.
Almost in a dream, and half to herself, Sonya Kolchinsky murmured, 'God 
Almighty, you've got to hand it to Smith, haven't you.'
'What was it? Tomlin demanded, his puce countenance turning purple in the garish 
light.
Sonya pulled herself together. 'What was it, Brigadier? A dolphin, of course. 
What on earth did you think it was - a submarine?'
McCafferty finished prodding the bruise on Sabrina's head and remarked, 
unfeelingly, 'I think you'll live.'
'Gee, thanks,' she replied. 'Are we ready, then?'
McCafferty bowed and conducted her into the cramped seat of the Kamov 
helicopter. 'Your carriage awaits, m'lady,' he joked.
They had collected the hostages and sent them back under Cooligan to the Kosgo 
airstrip, located for them by the Yugoslav Air Force. Mac suggested that the AF 
One crew should recover their aircraft and prepare it for take-off. If all 
turned out well, and Smith was either captured or at least prevented from 
snatching the diamonds. Philpott's party would join them later for the trip to 
Geneva. 'Anyway. Bert. I'll see you're kept informed.' he promised, as the small 
convoy pulled out of the car-park and descended to the floor of the hostage-cave 
valley.
'Which way, skip?' Sabrina inquired as they took off.
'The coast,' McCafferty answered matter-of-factly. That's where the ransom-drop 
is taking place.' They zoomed up into the starlit sky and Mac banked the Kamov 
sharply to bring it round for a nose-down straight run to the Adriatic…
'A what?' Philpott echoed faintly.
'A dolphin,' Smith said. That's what I was doing when I pulled on the rope-line 
just now. It released the end-wall of the dolphin's cage, and it was also the 
signal for her to start swimming.
'She needed to keep going for only three or four minutes, homing in on an 
ultrasonic direction-beacon built into the pole of what you called the gibbet, 
Which your considerable armada was frightened to examine in case the apparatus, 
or indeed the entire island, was mined.'
'Which of course it wasn't,' Philpott supplied drily.
'Which of course it wasn't.' Smith confirmed. He then explained at length how 
the dolphin had been purchased and trained at a dolphinarium in America until 
she could have made the pick-up blindfolded. The rocket also operated a device 
linked to a cord which uprooted the guy-rope supporting the pole, and tilted the 
gibbet down to sea-level. Smith added.
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.'
McCaiferty 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 resume 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.
Mac kept the position at Sabrina's insistence, and immediately regretted it, for 
Smith, holding the wheel with one hand and the leather bag between his knees, 
fired a machine-gun from the hip. McCafferty throttled back and screamed away as 
the shots ricocheted off his undercarriage.
'You've annoyed him now, my pet,' he said to Sabrina, who shouted back, 'So 
what!'
'Leave it to me,' McCafferty insisted at the top of his voice, 'I've got an idea 
that can't miss. Start shooting again when I tell you.'
He brought the Kamov in carefully to starboard of the boat, then opened up and 
dipped to the seaward side, yelling 'Now!' Sabrina pressed the trigger of the 
machine-pistol and kept her finger down until the gun was belching nothing but 
hot air.
Distracted, Smith yanked the wheel over and ploughed into a course for the 
shore. He fired back over his shoulder but his aim was erratic, and McCafferty, 
instead of beating a hasty retreat, managed to close until he was flying 
directly above the dinghy, knot for knot at Smith's speed.
Try as he might, Smith couldn't shake the Kamov loose, and Mac dropped the 
aircraft down until he was no more than a few feet over Smith's head. Lower and 
still lower he sank, while the down-draught from the helicopter's flailing 
rotors grew more violent.
Sheets of water strafed the boat, buffeting and blinding its driver. He could no 
longer use the gun, for he could not sight a target. He could no longer steer 
the dinghy, for he could not see where he was going.
He tugged and twisted the wheel this way and that, and each time he abandoned 
his course he somehow strayed back to it. He was an experienced sailor, but this 
was worse than the most awesome typhoon he had ever known. Smith shrieked his 
fury at the wind and the waves - and all the time, though he did not know it, he 
was sailing closer and closer to the rocky shore.
McCafferty looked ahead, peering through the spray, and saw the coastline 
looming up, now less than fifty yards away. Grimly he kept the Kamov at its 
post, tossed like a cork though it was in its own down-draught. At the last 
possible moment he pulled up and away and Smith could see - but it was too late. 
He spun the wheel frantically to avoid a rock, and instead struck a floating log 
a few feet offshore.
The sodden, splintering wood acted as a launching ramp, and Smith's dinghy took 
to the air. It spun like a dart and thudded into the beach. Smith was catapulted 
through the windscreen and flung to the wet sand like a rag doll. Fairy lights 
exploded before his eyes, and he was glad the torture was over. McCafferty 
spread the flats of both hands wide in a repeated sweeping gesture, and Sabrina 
got the message: there was no room to land the helicopter on Smith's beach. She 
jabbed her own finger towards his recumbent form on the sand, and Mac nodded 
vehemently. Sabrina checked that she had a full clip in the machine-pistol, 
slung it over her shoulder, and heaved herself out of the Kamov. Her feet found 
the landing skids, and she vaulted lightly to earth, sending Mac off with a 
cheery wave to find another landing place.
She bent over Smith's body: he was starting to come round. Mischievously, 
Sabrina picked up the ransom sack and put it under his head as a pillow. Then 
she checked the shattered Avon dinghy, retrieved Smith's gun, unloaded it and 
threw the magazine away. The lantern he had brought with him still worked, so 
she propped it on a rock and switched it on.
Smith opened his eyes, and saw her pale face, framed by the now quiescent halo 
of hair, cast in the light of the full moon and the rays of the red metal lamp. 
His gaze fell to the gun she held trained on him. She was kneeling about four 
feet from him, and when he levered himself up to support his body on his elbows, 
she relaxed and sat back on her heels.
'Game's up, Mister Smith,' Sabrina said laconically. Too bad. You're quite a guy 
in your own weird, perverted way.'
His head darted from side to side like a cobra's as he searched the beach for 
the bag of diamonds. Sabrina grinned and remarked, 'Maybe you're not so smart, 
huh?'
'What have you done with them?' Smith asked. 'Taken them back to Philpott? I 
can't believe you'd do that, Sabrina… you of all people. Your body would look so 
- exquisite picked out in diamonds.'
Sabrina gave an ironic chuckle. 'Mister,' she said. 'I've stolen more diamonds 
than you've had Lobster Thermidors. What's so special about these?'
They're mine,' Smith replied, 'by right of conquest, planning, superb execution. 
They're mine, and I want them… but I will share them with you. Fifty-fifty?'
She shook her head. 'It'd be no fun that way,' she mused. 'I get my kicks from 
stealing diamonds, not by being made a present of them. Besides, where would I 
spend them? I don't have your contacts, and Mr Philpott would be very 
displeased.'
Smith sat up, shaking off the last effects of his ordeal. Then come with me,' he 
urged. 'I don't have to tell you we'd make a superb team. I'll share everything 
with you, Sabrina… and I have so much. Great houses, chateaux, a ranch, an 
island in Micronesia —'
'Only one?'
Smith grinned. 'I know you're mocking me now, but just use that agile brain of 
yours and think. You're still young and quite appallingly beautiful. Do you want 
to waste your substance running from the police of a dozen countries, or risking 
your life for Malcolm Philpott's gratification?
'You're an odd girl, you know; very odd. You're quite splendidly amoral on one 
side of your existence, and I deeply admire you for your remarkable 
accomplishment as a jewel thief. And yet there's this grotesque puritanical 
streak in you that seemingly makes you want to deny to other people the pleasure 
you yourself derive from criminal activities. It's a disturbing mixture; and I 
am not sure I could easily accommodate to it.'
That's that then,' Sabrina returned briskly. 'I told you we'd never make it. 
Apart from anything else, what do I really know about you, Mister Smith? What 
does anyone know - you, even? Who are you, where are you from, what do you 
really look like? Oh, I know the face you've got now, but that's different from 
the one you wore when we last met. No - on reflection, I don't think I could 
ever "accommodate", as you put it, someone so desperately anonymous as you, 
Mister Smith. Master criminal you may be, but you're not a person in the 
accepted sense. You're a kind of-kaleidoscope And colour patterns bore me, 
buddy. I like cool, glittering sparkles - lots of them.'
Smith surveyed her with a sardonic grin. Too bad. But at least tell me what 
you've done with the ransom sack.'
She pointed behind him. The metal ring which you were so insistent we fastened 
to it, is at this moment about an inch and a half from the back of your right 
hand.'
Smith jerked his eyes down and murmured, 'Delightful, my pet. You are truly 
capricious. I like that.'
She waved the gun at him. 'That's as close as you're going to get to them, 
sweetheart. When McCafferty comes back, you return to the cooler, and the rocks, 
unfortunately, to the Amsterdam Diamond Exchange. In fact. I think I hear Mac's 
engine now.'
Smith cocked his ear and observed that she was probably right. Then he started a 
stream of aimless chatter, probing her about minor irrelevancies, praising her, 
praising Philpott, McCafferty, UNACO, the Savoy Hotel Grill Room… and by the 
time her suspicion that he was trying to distract her hardened into certainty, a 
boat had drawn up on the beach. A man clad in a black wet suit, holding a large 
torch in one hand and a gun in the other, stood behind her.
'You,' the man said in guttural English,'the girl. You. Up.' Sabrina 
straightened and swivelled on her knees to look into the barrel of his gun and 
seven others. A silent ring of men, wet-suited and anonymous, made it abundantly 
clear that if she fought them, she would die.
She climbed to her feet and tossed the machine-pistol into a bush. 
'Good,' said the man, and turned to Smith. 'You - into the boat.'
'My friend,' Smith cried. 'I don't know who you are, but you've come at the 
right moment. I want to - He reeled back as the leader of the group cuffed him 
sharply on the mouth. Blood dribbled from his split lip, and Smith's eyes grew 
large and frightened.
'Into the boat. No time for talk.'
Smith recovered some of his composure. 'Of course, of course,' he soothed. 'I 
take your point utterly.' He bent triumphantly to Sabrina. 'Well, my sweet,' he 
crowed, 'it appears that, after all, you have lost and I have won. It's a great 
pity you did not accept my offer. It is, of course, unrepeatable.'
'I'll live with the disappointment.' Sabrina said drily although she was 
inwardly boiling with rage and frustration. How could she have been so dumb as 
to mistake the noise of the launch for McCafferty's helicopter? And where the 
hell was Mac, anyway?
Smith bowed - then his eyes flashed again as two men roughly seized his arms and 
propelled him towards the boat. He protested loudly, but they picked him up and 
dumped him over the side, still clutching the ransom bag.
The launch revved, the sea churned in its wake, and the wind rose, and above the 
noise Sabrina could hear Smith's voice, screaming, pleading, commanding.
As the boat pulled away from the shore with its passenger and wordless 
sentinels, a dark object flew through the air in a graceful arc and landed at 
her feet.
She picked it up by the metal ring and opened the chamois leather bag.
Fifty million dollars in cut diamonds glinted warmly in her eyes.
Philpott had fashioned himself a rude crutch and was now stoking his fire more 
for the comfort it provided against the chill night air than for its value as a 
beacon. He was engrossed in the task, but his keen ears caught the soft footfall 
behind him. His senses flared and he looked for the gun McCafferty had left him. 
It was lying by the fire, after he had used it as a poker.
'You won't need the weapon, Mr Philpott,' came Myshkin's soft, sinister voice. 
'I am sorry to see that you are hurt. It is, I trust, nothing serious.'
Philpott turned to greet his visitor, the flames dancing merrily behind his 
head. 'Not too serious, General,' he replied. 'To what do I owe the pleasure of 
your company?'
Myshkin's lips tightened into a smile. 'Merely that I wished to offer you my 
congratulations, Mr Philpott. You have won at least half of your battle.'
'Won? What are you talking about?' Philpott gabbled.
Myshkin's mouth actually relaxed. 'You will soon learn everything, I am sure. 
Suffice it for the moment to say that your charming agent Miss Carver is in 
possession of the ransom money. Intact. No deductions for expenses.'
Philpott gaped at him. 'And Smith?'
Myshkin shrugged and spread his hands apologetically. 'There, I'm afraid, is the 
half of the battle you lost. Mister Smith has been, shall we say, removed from 
the scene for a while. If he had been captured by your forces, you would have 
put him back into prison, and that, my dear Philpott. would have been a criminal 
waste of an extraordinary criminal mind.'
Philpott let out a cynical chuckle. 'You mean you have him. General, and of 
course you want to make sure he keeps quiet about your own questionable role in 
this affair.'
Myshkin shrugged again, and observed that Smith would probably keep a low 
profile for an acceptably long period of time. 'Then - who knows?'
'Who indeed?' Philpott retorted. 'And when, pray, did all these miracles happen, 
Myshkin?'
The KGB man studied his watch and said, 'I think you will find my intelligence 
is accurate, Mr Philpott.'
Philpott inclined his head. 'It's good to see you acting in the capacity of a 
loyal and upright UNACO member state, General.'
Myshkin loosed an oily grin again. 'I thought you'd take that view, Mr Philpott. 
May I offer you a cigar?'
'You may.'
Myshkin produced a handsome leather cigar case inscribed, in ornate gold 
letters. "With affection and respect: Warren G. Wheeler." Philpott accepted a 
Havana and a light, and drew the smoke gratefully into his lungs.
'Isn't that your transport?' Myshkin asked suddenly, pointing at the skyline. 
Philpott peered after his finger, and picked out the winking lights of a 
helicopter.
'It is,' he confirmed, 'and Mac's guiding one of our launches in so that I can 
get a more comfortable ride.'
He turned back and began. 'Well. I must say. General, I'm greatly impressed
But he stopped in mid-sentence, for Myshkin had melted away into the night…
Philpott sat at a table in Air Force One, supporting his sprained ankle on a 
cushioned seat. He glowed expansively as Dr Hamady said, 'Naturally, I can only 
speak for the sovereign state of Saudi Arabia, but I think it likely, if only as 
a tribute to our departed and lamented colleague, Hawley Hemmingsway, that we 
shall consider the oil accord to bear every chance of success. What do you say, 
Your Excellency?' he asked of Sheikh Arbeid.
The Iraqi grunted agreement. The Libyan, Sheikh Dorani, followed suit. The 
Bahraini, Sheikh Zeidan, smiled gravely, and Feisal nodded enthusiastically.
'I am sure the American Government will be most grateful to you, gentlemen,' 
Philpott beamed.
'They should be grateful to you, and of course to UNACO and its agents,' Zeidan 
put in. 'Without you we should not have been saved, and neither would the 
ransom, although that is of small consequence.'
'Oh, quite,' said Philpott.
Zeidan leaned forward and whispered into Philpott's ear, 'Ought our gratitude 
not to be extended in perhaps another direction, too?'
'What do you mean?' Philpott whispered back.
Zeidan smiled knowingly. 'Do not imagine for a moment,' he continued,'that I, 
for one, believe Mister Smith could have mounted an operation on that scale 
without benevolent assistance, shall we say. His very presence in Yugoslavia, 
his access to men, armaments, machines, would have been impossible unless…'
'Unless?'
'Unless he had the help of - a big brother? A big red brother? In any case, 
where is Smith? You don't have him? Shall we ever see him again, Mr Philpott?'
'I suspect, Your Excellency,' Philpott replied glumly,'that we shall.' And he 
gave Sheikh Zeidan a broad wink.
Sabrina Carver arrived at the table with a teapotful of Scotch and the promise 
of an interesting night ahead with Joe McCafferty in Geneva.
'Now then, Your Excellency,' she said to Sheikh Arbeid, 'was that tea with milk 
and sugar, or coffee with cream and no sugar, or tea with cream and …
Chief Steward Master Sergeant Pete Wynanski groaned on the sidelines. 'That 
dame,' he confided to McCafferty, 'will never be anything but useless.'
THE END