By the Rivers of Babylon (10 page)

There was another piece of ordnance on board that none of the people in the airplanes knew about. In the tail of each Concorde was a half-kilo of plastic explosive stuck to the fuel trim tank, put there over a year before by two now-deceased Algerians, in faraway St. Nazaire and Toulouse. When the aircraft accelerated, fuel would be pumped into the empty tank in order to change the aircraft’s center of gravity, making supersonic flight possible. If and when the explosive was detonated, the aircraft would be blown out of the sky.

Teddy Laskov sat in the cockpit of his F-14 and played with a pocket calculator, figuring his flying range based on such variables as fuel consumption, gross weight, expected maneuvers, and air temperature. Laskov, the old dogfighter, wanted very much to keep his 20mm cannon rounds, but he had to concede that they were not only too heavy but redundant as well. Missiles. That’s what it was all about today. Maybe Richardson had been right about that. He called out of the open cockpit to the armorers. “Take out the twenty millimeters.”

When the cannon rounds had been removed from each craft, he looked to his left and right and spoke into his headset. “Start your engines.”

Twenty-four Pratt and Whitney engines, with over 9,000 kilograms of thrust each, exploded into a ground-shaking, ear-piercing wail.

A minute later, Laskov held up his thumb and shouted into his microphone.
“Zanek!”
Scramble.

The twelve fighters rolled toward the runway.

Tom Richardson realized too late that he hadn’t gotten Laskov’s alternate frequency. It wasn’t the kind of information he could solicit from The Citadel over the phone and, for some reason, his own office hadn’t gotten it yet. Also, the change in takeoff time, although he’d expected it, had caused him some inconvenience. He wondered if Laskov had taken his suggestion about not carrying the cannon rounds. It wasn’t that critical, one way or the other, he decided.

The Peace Delegation was filing out of the lounge, down the back stairs, and into the waiting buses. Richardson ducked into a phone booth near the bar and dialed a number in Jericho, in
the occupied West Bank. He didn’t trust telephones, but he had little choice and less time.

Jacob Hausner stuck his head into his outer office. “Did the French SDECE call back yet?”

His secretary looked up. “No, sir.”

“Damn it.” He looked past her toward the window. The buses were almost filled. “I have to go. I’ll probably fly back with one of the Concordes tomorrow. If anything important comes in while I’m in the air, call The Citadel and they’ll put it out to the Concorde over the scrambler. I’ll be on 02.”

“Have a good trip.
Shalom
.”

“That’s what this whole goddamned thing is all about.
Shalom.
” He walked quickly down the corridor.

Matti Yadin looked out the window of the bus that was going to Concorde 01. He saw Hausner hurrying by below him. “Boss!”

Hausner turned and looked up.

Yadin leaned out. “If you don’t want to ride with—you know—I’ll switch with you.”

Hausner shook his head. “No. That’s all right. It’s a short flight. Besides, it’s bad luck to change flight plans.” Hausner hesitated. He was still worried about something, but he didn’t know exactly what. He’d developed a bad feeling about this flight, all of a sudden, and he could see in Yadin’s eyes the same uneasiness. “Remember Ahmed Rish?”

“How could I forget him?” said Yadin.

“How, indeed? Just think about him and radio me if anything clicks. See you in New York.”

Yadin forced a smile.
“Shalom.”

Hausner reached up and grasped Yadin’s hand, something he had never done before.

Chaim Mazar stood in the control tower of Lod Airport with a pair of field glasses to his eyes and looked out at the buses approaching the Concordes. A glint of light from the roof of an apartment house in Lod caught his eye and he swung the glasses toward it. He grabbed for his field radio as he kept his glasses trained on the building. He spoke rapidly into the mouthpiece. “Chopper Control, this is Tower. I saw a flash of light in quadrant thirty-six. Pink stucco apartment house. The roof. Get somebody up there.”

Mazar watched as a Huey helicopter descended on the roof of the house within seconds. Four of his men jumped out with Uzi sub-machine guns before the helicopter landed. A few seconds later, a voice sounding out of breath came over his squawk box. “Tower, this is Huey seven-six.”

“Roger, seven-six. Go ahead.”

“No problem, Tower. Young lady with a sun reflector.” There was a pause. The voice sounded amused. “Sunbathing in the nude, over.”

Mazar wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead and sipped from a glass of water. “Roger. There’s supposed to be an air-raid drill in progress. Get her something to wear and place her under arrest. Keep her in the chopper until you can turn her over to the police.”

There was a long pause. “Roger, Tower.”

“Tower, out. Mazar slumped back into his chair next to the air traffic controllers. He turned to one of them. “That was a little rough, but it’s been a long day.”

Sabah Khabbani lay at the crest of the hill and looked hard through his field glasses. The day was bright and clear, but nine kilometers was a long distance. It appeared as though the Concordes were loading. This was as good a time as any. He raised his hand. He waited until a helicopter passed over.

Behind him, in the pines, the three men knelt a few meters from each other. They each held a mortar round poised above the small hole in the ground. Next to each man were three additional rounds. They would each alternate two high explosive rounds with two white phosphorus rounds. The twelve rounds should blanket the entire area between the terminal and the Concordes. If one piece of incendiary matter punctured a fuel tank—and there was no reason why that shouldn’t happen—no one would survive.

They watched Khabbani closely. His arm dropped. With shaking hands, each of the men let his round slip out of his fingers. They could hear the rounds slide down the long tubes. They covered their ears and opened their mouths to equalize the pressure of the impending blast.

Brigadier General Itzhak Talman stood in the Operations Room of The Citadel and looked at the radar and visual displays from the E-2D Hawkeye. He could see Laskov’s twelve F-14’s as
they maintained a holding pattern off the coast. Indicated on other display consoles were scheduled airline traffic, a few private planes, and ships at sea. A computer flashed several messages on various cathode ray tubes and printed readout tapes. Talman turned up the volume on one of the radios and heard Laskov speaking to his squadron. So far, so good. He poured a cup of coffee and took a seat. All he could do now was wait.

Captain Ephraim Dinitz waited until he heard the dull thud of the rounds striking the firing pins at the bottom of the tubes. That should satisfy the military court if there should be a question later concerning intent. He and his men ran out from the trees and rocks. Dinitz shouted in Arabic. “I arrest you under military law! Place your hands on your heads!”

The three Palestinian gunners stared alternately between the silent mortars and the closing Israeli soldiers. Slowly they rose to their feet and placed their hands over their heads.

Khabbani looked back over his shoulder and watched the whole scene unfold thirty yards behind him. His heart sank and a lump came to his throat. He saw himself in Ramla Prison staring vacantly through the barbed wire for the rest of his life. He would never touch his wife or children again except through that barbed wire. He got up and leaped from the crest of the hill. A soldier shouted. Khabbani ran stumbling over the rocks, the wildflowers going by in a blur beneath his feet. Another shout. The staccato report of an automatic weapon. He saw the bullets hit around him and it was several seconds before he realized he was no longer running but lying on the ground, bleeding quickly to death.

Chaim Mazar picked up his field radio. From the tower he could see the hills where it had all happened. He nodded. “All right, Dinitz. Interrogate them immediately and call me back.” He sat back in his chair. He realized that those miserable Palestinian peasants knew less than he did about who was behind that pathetic attempt. Those mortars had been spotted ten years before and left there to see who would come around and use them. The detonators had been removed from the rounds, of course. He’d had the spot watched more closely than usual for the last week. In addition, someone had tipped off one of his agents earlier in the day.

It was such a clumsy and foolhardy attempt that Mazar couldn’t believe it was meant to succeed. All he could think of was the English expression, red herring, or the Hebrew words, sacrificial lamb. That’s what those unfortunate Palestinians were. Everyone was supposed to relax their guard now that the great terrorist attempt had been foiled. But Mazar didn’t see it that way. If this
was
a red herring, then that could only mean that there must still be an undiscovered plot to sabotage this peace mission. But for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine what it could be. He shrugged.

The Air Traffic Controller looked up from his radio. “Concordes are ready to roll, sir.”

Mazar nodded. “Then give them clearance and get them the hell out of here.”

The flight crew of El Al Concorde 01 completed their checklist. The Concorde rolled out to the edge of the 4,000-meter runway. The radio crackled. “Cleared for takeoff, El Al 01 and 02. Two-minute intervals. Have a good flight.”

“Roger.” Avidar pushed the throttles forward and the big bird screamed down the runway.

David Becker sat in the left-hand seat and watched through the windshield as 01 lifted gently from the earth. He turned to Moses Hess. “Count off two minutes for me, will you, Moses?”

Hess nodded and looked at his watch.

Behind them, on the port side of the flight deck, Peter Kahn sat in front of the flight engineer’s long control console. The lights and gauge needles were all steady. He turned to Becker and said in English, “All systems still go.”

Becker smiled at the English idiom. “Right.”

“One minute.”

In the cabin, the passengers and flight attendants spoke in low voices. The manifest showed ten delegates and twenty-five support personnel. There were also two stewards and two stewardesses, plus the Chief Steward, Leiber. They sat in a group, immediately behind the flight deck. Scattered among the passengers were six security men with Jacob Hausner in charge. Tom Richardson had found a seat next to John McClure and was carrying on a one-sided conversation with the taciturn man. General Dobkin was reviewing the notes he would present to the Pentagon brass. Isaac Burg sat by himself, reading a newspaper
and sucking on his unlit pipe. Rabbi Levin had picked a religious argument with one of the delegates. The total manifest, with crew and flight attendants, numbered fifty-five. The extra baggage allowance had placed the Concorde very near its maximum takeoff weight, especially considering the existing air temperature.

Miriam Bernstein sat behind Abdel Jabari, who was sitting with Ibrahim Arif, the other Arab delegate on board 02. A nervous young Security man, Moshe Kaplan, stared at the two black and white checked
kheffiyahs
from across the aisle.

The cabin was small and the seats were two-and-two across, with barely enough room for a man 180 centimeters tall to stand. But the French had designed the interior with their typical flair for such things, and the appearance was one of luxury. The lack of space didn’t matter much because the Concorde was seldom airborne for more than three and a half hours at a time.

A final touch to the decor was provided by a large wall-mounted Machmeter which let the passengers see the aircraft’s speed. The red neon lights read MACH 0.00.

In the cockpit, Hess looked up from his watch. “Let’s go.”

Becker released the brakes and pushed the throttles forward. The aircraft began to move. It gathered speed as it rolled down the long, shimmering runway.

“Sixty knots,” Hess announced.

“Everything’s good,” called Kahn, as he ran his eyes across his panel.

Becker called for the afterburners.

The flight engineer moved his poised fingers to ignite the two outboard afterburners, then the inboard pair. “Afterburners— all four,” he called. Simultaneously, there was the sound and sensation of a two-phased thud that made the procedural words unnecessary.

“One hundred knots,” said Hess.

The runway was already half-gone and the undulating waves of heat that rose from the blacktop made the remaining length look even shorter than it was. Pools of mirage water formed and evaporated with increasing speed. Becker blinked his eyes.
Concentrate on the instruments. Forget the visual.
But he kept staring out of the windshield. The heat waves mesmerized him. They also distorted and foreshortened the end of the runway. It looked as though they had run out of blacktop. He felt beads of sweat form on his forehead and hoped Hess wouldn’t notice. He
pulled his eyes away from the sunlit windshield and stared down at the console. The air-spell needles were moving rapidly now. His left hand squeezed more tightly on the wheel as he nudged the column slightly rearward. Involuntarily, the muscles in his buttocks tightened and he rose imperceptibly from his seat.
Up,
up, damn you!

“V-one,” said Hess. His monotone masked the significance of his words as the air speed rose through 165 knots. They were now committed to fly, even if a blinking light or flickering gauge indicated otherwise. “V-R,” he said.

Becker began tugging more earnestly on the control column. The nose tire of the aircraft lifted off the hot blacktop. The Concorde’s wings canted themselves skyward, biting into the air flow at a greater angle. They were eating up runway at the rate of 75 meters a second, and for a brief moment Becker felt his nerve slip away. All the old demons of doubt that had haunted him since flight school began chattering in his brain.
Why should it
fly? There’s something wrong, Becker, and no one has the balls
to speak up. Why is the gauge over there flickering? Who built
this plane, anyway? Why do you think you can fly it? Becker!
Abort! Abort! You’re going to die, Becker! Abort!
He felt his neck muscles tighten and his hands and knees were shaking.