'Ryderbeit, get away from me!' Grant's voice was almost a scream, muted only by the flat intonation of the R/T. But Ryderbeit - perhaps out of some obscure gallantry or a mere natural show of heroics - persisted in his almost impossible feat. He continued to carry Grant's plane at a steady height of 500 feet. 'Thurgood! Come on down, you crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Let's see what the b.l.o.o.d.y RAF taught you!'

But there was no answering call from Thurgood. At that moment, Rawcliff, in a kind of numbed trance, as though reacting like a man drunk, all inhibitions dispelled, lowered the flaps and pushed the nose down. He felt the soft thump of air and heard the scream of the screws churning downwards, the cargo creaking under its straps behind him.

His gloved hands were pressed stiff against the controls, bringing the plane down in a howling dive, tensing himself just as he got almost level with Grant's starboard wing: then he used all his force, throttle full-back, all flaps up, dragging with the whole weight of his body against the 'stick'.

He could feel the sweat all over his body, and could hear Peters' voice somewhere through the singing in his ears, "Get back into line, Rawcliff!

That's an order!' then Ryderbeit's cackle, 'Holy Moses, it's BEA to the rescue!'

At that moment both Rawcliff's port engines lost all power. He now felt himself being dragged violently down, in the wake of Grant. He got one engine started again, saw the other one coughing black smoke; while Ryderbeit, hidden by the vast bulk of Grant's plane, was still issuing calm instructions, only to be interrupted by Grant's voice, in a rushed furious whisper, 'Get off me, Ryderbeit! And you, Rawcliff! What the f.u.c.k are you both trying to do? Tip me into the f.u.c.king sea!'

Rawcliff's second port engine had ignited at last, and he steadied the wing under Grant's, feeling the perilous weight of that mighty stricken aircraft, as both he and Ryderbeit struggled to give Grant more time - time to regain control of himself, to fight to get his flaps up.

Ryderbeit was talking to him again, but Grant was now. more interested in a strip of grey beach less than 500 feet below, on his right, and coming up fast. It looked smooth and clear, and Grant was either fool enough, or desperate enough, to think that he could judge terrain, even from that height.

Peters' voice cut in, 'Ryderbeit - Rawcliff - regain, alt.i.tude. That's an order! At once!'

Something in his cold, prim voice may have jolted Gram, more than Ryderbeit's patient persuasion: for at the last moment, as the tail of his great Hercules began to rise again, with his speed still holding at less than 150 knots, he appeared to make one final, frantic effort to lift his nose.

Rawcliff felt the lurch, as his wing was almost torn off Grant was flying for himself,and for no one else. Rawcliff heard a familiar obscenity from Ryderbeit, and saw the Rhodesian's aircraft drop skilfully below Grant's, out of range. Grant had now totally lost control.

Everything that happened in the air, Rawcliff reflected, is either very long, gradual - a leaking fuel-tank, freezing up of the wings - or it happens very fast, often so fast that you have no chance to react or make a judgement. In this case. Grant had already made the judgement for them. He had refused their help, and was once again set on his own downward course to disaster.

He must already have seen how hopeless the beach was. He still had his R/Topen and said, 'Oh f.u.c.k'. It was sloping rock-gnarled ropes of dead lava running steeply down into the sea, each one forming a broad hump that would be like trying to land on a vast sheet of corrugated iron.

His nose-wheel snapped off and sprang upwards, tearing a gash in the aircraft's belly. Some of the cargo began to sag out, like some horrid mechanical hernia: and Rawcliff had difficulty concentrating on his own controls, as he watched, with the same numb fascination. The black nose of Grant's Hercules crumpled, its mighty wings flopping down with exhaustion, three of the engines wrenched from their [housings, while the great tail began to rise - very slowly, it [seemed, like some grey monument to the Red Cross being [ erected in this ma.s.sive wilderness.

A slow swelling cauliflower of flame now began rippling up the body of the Hercules, whose skin shrivelled and peeled away, showing the white-hot bones of the fuselage, while all around rivers of burning fuel spilled out, spitting and crawling between the ropes of dead lava.

Rawcliff felt the thud of hot air, as he banked steeply, struggling round rapidly to regain height. There were two dull explosions as Grant's external tanks went up, and now an oily black smoke was coiling round the buckled wings, rising from the bubbling flames in a single column, straight and steady into the still air - a beacon that would be visible for fifty, perhaps a hundred miles. And all as a result of four half-empty tanks, plus a payload of harmless medical supplies. He tried not to think of what Grant's last moments would have been. The man would probably have been crushed under the weight of the controls, strapped helplessly in as the tanks exploded. His arms and legs would have lifted up, with the tension of his roasting muscles, his sweaty face charred while to his grinning teeth; while the rest of his body shrank, except for his belly which would have swollen up and burst, its residue boiled out of existence by the intense heat.

Rawcliff drew back into formation, leaving s.p.a.ce where Grant had been flying.

He had never seen a man die in a crash before. In that moment all the flavour and excitement of flying was gone.

Peters was ordering Ryderbeit back into line. The Rhodesian seemed reluctant to leave Grant's resting place -almost as though, on some crazy impulse, he wished to go down and somehow drag his remains free from what was left of the burning Hercules.

'Prepare to dump cargo and return,' Peters ordered.

Ryderbeit's voice came back, 'We're two minutes from the drop-zone!'

'And risk a few MiGs up our a.r.s.es?' Peters snapped back, with uncharacteristic coa.r.s.eness.

Rawcliff joined in, 'These people in Eritrea are starving The stuff we're carrying is life-blood to them!'

Peters had already banked his plane round in a wide south-westerly circle, beginning to head out towards the Dhalak Islands. His only response to Rawcliff was to read out the new flight-course. 'When you're steady, go on to auto-pilot and cut loose the cargo-bindings. Then prepare to climb.'

Rawcliff yelled into his transceiver, 'But this is blood-, insane! We've come all this way, then we dump the stuff in the p.i.s.s - like b.l.o.o.d.y murder in reverse! There are women and children down there, for Christ sake!' 'He's right, hero,' Ryderbeit came in. 'We farted back there - or rather, Granty did. First rule when you fart, get out of the area!'

The smoke had now risen several thousand feet, its stem thick and black above the still boiling orange roots, at its full height beginning to drift and spread out like a Roman pine It would signal every Ethiopian look-out in the whole war-zone: but with any luck, and with their inexperience and confused communications, they would think it was the result of one of their own air-strikes.

Bitterly, cursing Peters and the miserable Grant, Rawcliff switched on to auto-pilot, then went back and snapped off the belts. He could hear the canvas-covered cargo alread shifting on its rollers. He stood gripping the parachute-lines, waiting for Peters to give the order. The formation had now closed into a blunt 'U', with Ryderbeit pulling up to port of Peters.

Peters gave the order to spread out, each aircraft at 500 metres from the one in front; then he gave the signal to climb.

Rawcliff strained back hard and felt the weight lift from him with a sense of physical release; the shrill scream of the rollers, even above the engines, as the cargo went b.u.mping and trundling down the steep floor; then the sudden uplift, jerking forward as the whole plane put on at least 40 knots airspeed, and for a moment he had difficulty controlling her, holding down the flaps so that she didn't roll over and go into a downward spin.

He watched the cargoes spew obscenely out of the rear end let Peters' and Ryderbeit's aircraft, then the tiny splashes of [haphazard foam as the loads of milk and medicines and tents [and stretchers and surgical equipment scattered and [smashed into the rocky shallows of the Red Sea. Whoever [was financing this little caper must have a fine sense of how I to balance his accounts.

Peters gave the order to head back to Cyprus.

With their increased speed, they came in sight of Larnaca just before noon.

The return flight had been mercifully without incident: and as Serge talked them down, Rawcliff's main worry was once again his frustrated phone-call to Judith. She must be frantic with worry by now.

As soon as he had switched off the engines and climbed out, he was aware of a sense of urgency. The Beachcraft Duke had been brought out of the hangar; and besides Serge, Matt Nugent-Ross was there to meet them, together with the full complement of the local ground-crew.

Serge now gathered them round in the hangar, and demanded a full debriefing - concentrating on the incident at Jeddah and the death of Guy Grant - again using Rawcliff as interpreter. He listened impa.s.sively, interrupting only to elucidate some small point. He was an experienced commander, not given to venting his feelings. He would know the right time at which to apportion blame. Peters made a meal out of Thurgood's performance, and was clearly disappointed by the Frenchman's apparent lack of response.

Serge then ordered them to check their watches and to return to their hotels for some rest. The five of them -excluding Jo - were to be back at the airfield at 20.00 hours. Final take-off 01.00 hours, weather permitting - which left five clear hours for the refuelling and loading of the five deadly cargoes.

Before they left the field, Rawcliff noticed that some of the ground-staff hadbegun bringing out the loudspeaker equipment from the end of the hangar. He also guessed that at least five of those precious boxes, in the locked office at the back, would be produced in due course.

He already saw, as he drove away, that Matt Nugent-Ross was remaining with Serge on the airfield. The American's expression was detached, enigmatic; he gave no gesture, not the least intimation of sharing a secret with Rawcliff, let alone an incubating conspiracy; and Rawcliff, having nothing to report, made no overtures of his own.

He rode back into town with Ryderbeit. The Rhodesian, with his hooked nose sniffing the wind, said, 'Tonight's the big one, soldier! I'm going to have a few stiff drinks first You've got to keep your wits about you, one step ahead - or you finish up like Granty.'

'Matt's got his computers out.'

'Yeah. That confirms that the poor b.l.o.o.d.y Eritreans can kiss goodbye to our next few loads of goodies. From now on we drop the mask and start earning our money!' He sat with a long cigar jammed between his white teeth, his single yellow eye squinting down the dusty road ahead.

Several times Rawcliff checked behind them for a glimpse of an Innocent! Mini, or a brown sedan driven by a young man called Klein who was staying at the Sun Hall Hotel.

'What's the matter?' Ryderbeit said. 'You got a worm up your a.r.s.e?'

Rawcliff again wanted to tell him - about Ritchie and Jo and the meeting outs We the Post Office, even about the cynical, dispirited Matt Nugent-Ross, and about his own call to Judith - but while Ryderbeit still appeared, in his loose, independent way, to be perhaps the straightest, even the most honourable, of them all, Rawcliff's capacity for trust was now badly corroded.

He trusted no one except his wife, and she was more than two thousand miles away.

Eight.

Rawcliff had had nearly forty-eight hours, since his call to Judith on Tuesday afternoon, in which to make his plan. It had a pathetic simplicity: he would take a taxi to the capital, Nicosia, and if anyone followed him, he would at least know where he stood.

He waited until Ryderbeit was busy with his third ouzo, before slipping out to the cab-rank at the corner of Athens Street. The shops were already closing for the afternoon. He felt uncomfortably conspicuous.

The drivers were all dozing, curled up in front of their stifling, ramshackle Mercedes diesels. He had to haggle for the price, which would include waiting-time and the return journey, but he was too tired to extract a decent bargain. The taxi was sweating hot, full of flies, the seats of humped cracked leather with broken springs; and his driver treated the road with the dumb abandon of someone playing Russian roulette with the rest of the traffic, which at this hour consisted mostly of very old trucks and donkey-carts, goats and sheep.

Rawcliff sprawled out and closed his eyes; it would be a comic irony if hewere to be wiped out now, in a squalid car accident on a lonely road in Cyprus.

He woke up instead outside the Nicosia Hilton. The hotel was quiet in the hush of the afternoon, the interior cool and discreet, full of the mewing of musak and officiously polite liveried personnel; while a few locals - heavy black-chested men and their overfed spouses - lolled around the swimming pool.

There appeared to be no other foreigners, and for the moment, no suspicious faces.

The girl at the desk got his call through to London almost immediately - just before one o'clock English time, so that he should catch Judith before she went to lunch - exactly sixteen hours later than he had promised her.

He stood in the sound-proofed alcove and once again endured listening to the artificial Mayfair voice of his wife'5 secretary telling him that Judith was in conference. And once again he told her who he was, and that he was calling from abroad and that it was urgent; and she replied, with patronizing satisfaction, that Mrs Rawcliff was in conference with Mr Reynolds, and that Mr Reynolds must never be disturbed. Rawcliff said something to her which she probably hadn't heard outside the bus-queue home or in the local disco - certainly not on a long-distance business call to a reputable multi-national - and for an instant he thought he heard the quick hiss of her indrawn breath.

She told him to wait. He half turned, glancing out of the alcove, down the pa.s.sage to the corner of the lobby beyond Business was not brisk at this outpost of the Hilton empire. A porter appeared,' carrying what looked like a small bulk vanity-case of soft white leather with gold fittings. He was followed, several paces behind, by an immensely fat mar. with a little beard, in a flapping oyster-white suit and an old-fashioned Panama hat. He waddled along until he reached a group of empty chairs, then dropped into one and began fanning his great balding head with his hat, while the porter put down the case beside him and pocketed a bundle of local currency, with a reverentbow.

Judith's voice cut in, clear and breathless: 'Charles' Charles, is thai you?'

As before he wanted to be brief - as brief as decently possible - but for all his wife's normal self-control, he realized that she was nearly 'hysterical with anxiety and relief. He spent a couple of valuable minutes explaining about Jeddah.

He tried feebly to reason with her, appease her, to point out that he was now so deep in, he couldn't draw back; but the words were no comfort to her. They served only to exasperate her, to drive her back now into a confusion of impotent rage and misery. She told him that he was totally selfish, that he was a foolish greedy man and that he had no thought for those he left behind.

She dismissed herself, but held up his infant son Tom as a hostage to his better judgement. He began to regret that he had ever called her: her words were both wounding and fearsome - far worse than the most deadly confrontation with either Peters or Serge.

They had been talking for some minutes now, and in a moment she would start making ultimatums - giving him the alternatives of either coming home or of losing her and his son. He tried to distract her. 'Did you find out anything?

About that computer survey? The route? The destination? h.e.l.lo, love! - are you still there?'

His term of endearment only exacerbated her further. Her tone was now one of pa.s.sionless fury, deadened by the anonymity of the telephone. 'I did what youasked. I spent the whole day doing it.'

'What did you find out?' His hand was shaking, growing moist again round the receiver, although it was cool in the little alcove. The fat man down the pa.s.sage was drinking a half-bottle of champagne.

Her voice was now brisk, matter-of-fact, drained of all emotion. 'All right, Charles, if you want to be an international hero now's your chance. I got your destination - and I was able to check it with that old hack-friend of yours, Smollett. It's all over today's papers - I'm surprised you haven't seen it.'

'We don't get any English papers in Larnaca,' he replied lamely.

'Larnaca?' she repeated. Pause. Out in the lobby the fat man sat watching a waiter top up his gla.s.s of champagne.

'It's a new Soviet nuclear base in South Yemen,' she went on: 'And you're obviously supposed to go in and bomb the s.h.i.t out of it. Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Charles!'Forget about the money, we don't need it! We can manage without it! - get the next plane - come back!'

'Judith - take a hold of yourself. Where is it - exactly?'

She told him to. get out pen and paper, then spelled the target out to him: 'Sa'al, Kaur el Audhilla, Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen. It's either a missile site or a plutonium processing plant - which is why there's such an almighty flap on.' Her voice broke, 'No wonder they're paying you so much - it's blood money, Charles! They're using you! Don't you realize it, you poor b.l.o.o.d.y fool They're sending you in as a suicide-squad! For G.o.d's sake get out - !'.

Rawcliff was too distracted to hear the soft step behind him. A hand closed round the wrist that was holding the receiver; and at the same time something hard pressed into his kidney. Peters' voice said quietly, 'Replace the receiver Mr Rawcliff.'

He heard Judith say, 'Charles, are you there? Charles!'

His arm had gone limp. He did nothing to prevent Peters replacing the phone for him. In his free hand he was still holding the piece of paper on which he had scrawled his wife's message. Peters took it and nodded.

'Mr Rawcliff,' put both your hands in your pockets and turn round slowly. I have in my hand a small-calibre Magnum automatic. You will now walk a little in front of me - this way.'

They moved down the marble pa.s.sage, past the telephonist clerk who smiled and told him that the charge would be 630 Cypriot pounds for eleven minutes to London which included the one hundred per cent hotel charge Rawcliff saw the opportunity to play for time, if for nothing else. He would have to change more English money, if he were going to pay for the telephone.

Peters said to the girl, in his prim, steel voice, 'The gentleman will pay later.' And without pausing, he guided Rawcliff on towards the lobby where the fat man sat sipping his champagne. Rawcliff knew that if he were a true hero, this would be the moment to act: Peters was still slightly dragging his left foot and his neck was still braced in its hideous pink collar. If Rawcliff chose both spots with care, and moved quickly enough, Peters would spend more than just a few hours being patched up in the local hospital. But would the man use the gun first? It was pressed hard, unflinchingly, into Rawcliffs back, close to his spine. A .22 he guessed: a nasty little weapon, impossible to miss at point-blank range, with no kick and very little noise.

Above the musak and the sleepy hum of the hotel, it might even go unnoticed - except, perhaps, by the fat man. The hotel management wouldn't be very happy, "but the police were surely well used to people being gunned down in cold blood the middle of Nicosia? They'd worry about him being a foreigner, of course, but those worries would come later, and they wouldn't help Rawcliff, or his wife and son.

The moment pa.s.sed. The fat man was smiling up at him. Peters murmured something and handed down Rawcliff's note. The fat man unfolded it and made a little clucking noise. 'Sit down, Monsieur. You speak French? Bien! Then we can behave in a civilized manner.' He made a quick gesture to Peters, who slipped the gun almost unseen into his side pocket.

'Your arrival is timely,' the Frenchman continued. 'Monsieur Peters here does not speak French, and my English is abominable. You will have some champagne?'

He had already signalled for the waiter.

'I'll have brandy,' Rawcliff said, sinking down opposite him. Peters remained standing. The fat man gave the order for a large cognac, the best the hotel had.

He beamed at Rawcliff, 'I regret that I cannot introduce myself, Monsieur. I would find it inconvenient at this stage -for reasons which you will no doubt appreciate? As for Monsieur Peters here, he is merely doing his duty. Security is such a vital element - I'm sure we all agree?'

Rawcliff nodded, and even managed to share a desperate grin with the fat man.

He had no doubt at all that this was Ryderbeit's master and mentor, Monsieur Pol. There was about the man's size, his whole revolting demeanour, a hint of the freak: but it was a freakishness that had to be taken seriously. There was also something about him that was permanent, ageless; one of those men whom it was impossible to imagine having been a child, or even young. Something immutable, menacing. Even his ease and good humour carried with it the threat of false rea.s.surance.

Pol also had an aroma - more than just a whiff of sweat and expensive scent.

It was, quite simply, Rawcliff decided, the smell of power - of a man inseparable from all the forces that power both requires and generates.

Riches, influence greed and gluttony, a relaxed ruthlessness - wilful, cunning, and merciless, when necessity dictated; and necessity would be no more than what Pol happened to want at any given time The one thing that Rawcliff could not determine was whether his knowledge of Pol's ident.i.ty gave him some obscure advantage over the man, or made him an even greater hostage to fortune.

Pol looked down at his enormous marsupial lap, where he was holding the scrawled message which Rawcliff had taken down on the telephone. The fat man giggled. 'I must congratulate you, monsieur! - your sources of intelligence are remarkable!' He drank some champagne and licked his soft red lips. 'You are Monsieur Rawcliff, n'est-ce-pas?' And he raised his hand, like a freshly-peeled shrimp, the finger nails pink, trim and shiny, 'Ah. you see there are no secret from me and my organization: You are the last one to have been recruited - hein? The civil airline pilot, I believe? Such a pity the way they treated you! These big national organizations, they have no sense of humour, no pity - no largesse1. However -' he stroked his beard and gave another giggle - 'You have been very naughty, man ami - tres mechant! This' - he tapped the piece of paper - 'is a very dangerous piece of information. Yourealize that?'

Rawcliff said nothing. The fat man sighed. He looked at Peters. 'Telephone - pay and check details, plees!' His English had a sing-song c.o.c.kney ring.

Peters frowned, then turned and moved away again towards the pa.s.sage. He was obviously unhappy at leaving Rawcliff alone with his employer.

Pol deduced Rawcliff's thoughts and cooed happily, 'That man Peters is a good employee. But a bad man. He has no emotions, no compa.s.sion - above all, no imagination. He would have made a good policeman. And I despise policemen.' He nodded as the waiter put down Rawcliff's balloon gla.s.s of cognac, and lifted his own gla.s.s of champagne.

'I hope we understand each other, Monsieur Rawcliff? You are naturally suspicious of our little operation. I do not blame you - I am a very suspicious man myself. I would not hold the position I have had I been otherwise. Your health!'

Peters returned and handed the Frenchman a second slip of paper. 'A London number, Monsieur Rawcliff?' The fat man nodded. 'But not, I perceive, that of your home address?' Then added, with a chilling little smile, 'So I must understand that it belongs to the organization for which your wife has the good fortune to work?'

Rawcliff noticed Peters' hand move casually down to his side pocket. 'Just try me, Peters. I'll kill this fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d first! I'll kill you both. You just leave my wife out of this!'

Pol gave his mischievous grin. 'But, my dear friend, I would gladly do so! It is you, however, who appear to have been so unwise as to involve the good lady. So it is not my responsibility - it is entirely yours.' He raised his gla.s.s and drank.

Rawcliff emptied his cognac in a gulp.

'You are a poker player?' Pol asked. 'Then you will appreciate that while the game is one of supreme skill, there is also that element of luck involved - which includes bad luck. It was bad luck for you to have chosen the Nicosia Hilton at the precise moment at which I arrived, on my very brief visit.' He leant down and tapped the bulky white case beside his chair. 'My cards, Monsieur Rawcliff - I have diem in here. Hidden, ready for the final hand. But for the moment I must concede a small victory to you. The ultimate objective of the operation, for which you have been hired, has been deliberately kept secret, for security reasons. It was my intention to reveal the true nature of the target only at the last moment, before final take-off. You will, of course, appreciate the desire for secrecy? Some greedy, or even stupid member of the team' - he used the sporting word l'equipe - 'might have been tempted to sell the information to an unscrupulous dealer.'

He sat back, his fat pink fingers holding the stem of his gla.s.s. 'The RDPY, I think your wife told you? What is agreeably known, man ami, as La Republique Democratique Populaire du Yemen.' He grinned hugely, 'Your wife must be an admirable woman! I should enjoy making her acquaintance. A woman who can work so fast, with such apt.i.tude, is indeed rare, in my experience.'