Blood Rules Read online

  She was going in. Accepting tea. Listening to music that brought a kind of solace.

  She was lying across his knees on a sofa while he stroked her hair, and the soft mauve light of an Oxford evening leached away to silence and peace.

  20 JULY: 1530:

  BAHRAIN

  DURING the one-hour refueling stop, Simon Thorneycroft yielded command of NQ 033 to his replacement, Roger Morgan. The new captain ordered eighty tons of fuel for the flight to Kuala Lumpur, giving him a global takeoff weight of approximately two hundred and fifteen tons all told: a heavy mass to bring to takeoff speed in the gulf heat. He set his flaps to 10 degrees and elected to use the full length of runway thirty. He was two thirds of the way along it before they reached the critical V-one speed beyond which the takeoff could not be aborted. As Second Officer Adrian Ross called “Rotate” and Morgan palmed the yoke backward, a huge flock of gulls rose out of nowhere, circled, and flew straight toward the plane at an angle of 20 degrees.

  Morgan swore. The copilot and flight engineer held their breaths. Black shapes thudded against the windshield, and the crew ducked, cowering in the face of a potential disaster they were powerless to prevent. Just when they thought they were out of it, the port engine, engine number one, coughed and surged.

  “Airspeed?”

  “One-ninety, building…. Jesus!”

  Suddenly power drained away from engine one and the plane lurched sideways. Morgan wrestled with the yoke, pulling her up and out of trouble, desperate to do only one thing: increase his speed to the point where the loss of his port engine would not cause them to crash.

  “Peter, what have we got?”

  Flight Engineer Peter Hudson cast a swift eye down the bank of dials in front of him. “Power on one rising through seventy percent, increasing; two and three both at one hundred percent.”

  “Radio tower and report; we’ll climb while we work out a course of action. Get permission to stack.”

  While copilot Adrian Ross obeyed this order, Morgan allowed the TriStar to talk to him through the yoke in his hands. He knew the hideous devastation a bird strike could cause. A single animal, sucked into the front of one of the big jets, could break any number of fan blades before being minced into a porridge of blood, feather, and bone. Not all the damage occurred at once, not always. There was a real danger that they might climb to cruising altitude before a critical number of damaged fan blades finally gave way, causing the engine to fail. Then he would be forced either to continue on two-thirds power or seek an emergency landing. But if he turned back to Bahrain, only to find that damage was minimal and the plane was passed fit to fly, he would have cost his employers thousands of pounds in lost fuel, time, and passenger goodwill. It boiled down to a commercial decision, one that only the captain could take.

  “What readings?” he asked.

  “All three engines now producing one hundred percent power.”

  “We go on. Notify Bahrain and request resumption of filed flight plan.”

  Back in the passenger cabin, there had been a few white faces as the plane made its sudden lurch while still only a few hundred feet above the runway, but when nothing else happened the incident was soon forgotten. Leila unfastened her lap strap the moment the no smoking sign was extinguished. As the seat-belt sign went off she was already on her feet, moving down the aisle toward the port-side first class toilet. She clicked the bolt shut, placed her bag on the seat, and drew out the pistol her driver had handed over on the jetway: a Heckler & Koch P7 which she’d chosen for its easy squeeze-cocking grip.

  As she silently pulled back the door bolt her heartbeat was normal. She felt buoyant, alert. The only physiological change showed in her hands: they were tingling slightly, as if recently dipped in ice water.

  She came out of the toilet, keeping the pistol concealed in her palm, before turning right, into the galley area, and immediately left again. Now she was by the cockpit door. Two flight attendants, furiously loading trays, paid her scant attention. She picked up the handset lodged above the crew seat and punched in 31, the flight-deck extension.

  Second Officer Ross answered. “Yes?”

  “Coffee coming in.” She turned a dial on the handset’s rest to ANN, for Announcement, and spoke the single word “Medina.” It could be heard throughout the plane.

  She replaced the handset and turned swiftly to find the two flight attendants staring at her. One of them started to speak, saw the gun, and fell silent. At the same moment, the door to the flight deck swung open, unlocked from inside by the flight engineer.

  As soon as the seat-belt sign went off Raful moved forward, through the curtain separating business from first class. He kept to the starboard side of the plane. Stepmother’s seat was empty; she must have gone to the toilet, probably to collect weapons. He took up position in such a way that he could cover the galley area and cockpit. He was fingering the cigarette lighter that Yigal had given him, but for the moment he kept it concealed in his pocket.

  A flight attendant looked up impatiently. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “No, thanks. Waiting for the toilet.”

  She glanced at the warning light. The words toilets occupied remained unilluminated. “There shouldn’t be a holdup,” she said pointedly, but Sharett merely did a Raful, like the old rascal he was, and the girl could not but grin.

  Raful heard the lavatory door being unlocked and started across the galley. Before he reached the midway point Leila had spoken to the flight deck and issued her men the order to engage: “Medina.” Now she was turning, gun in hand. Raful had waited a long time for this moment. He was smiling for Esther and Sara, and for Ehud Chafets too; but mostly he was smiling for Sara.

  By now the aircraft was well out over the Gulf. It had reached 3500 feet and was climbing at an angle of seven degrees, speed up to 280 knots and increasing. Captain Roger Morgan flicked the stabilizer to retrim, noticing the reassuringly familiar feeling of sloppiness in his controls, and told himself that number one engine would hold. Five minutes after starting his roll, Bahrain Departure handed him over to Dubai ATC on the horn of Oman.

  “November Quebec zero-three-three, you are cleared for fifteen thousand feet. Await my word to leave zero nine-two degrees for a right turn onto vector one-one-eight degrees.”

  “November Quebec zero-three-three, awaiting your direction.”

  The handset beeped. Second Officer Ross picked it up. “Yes?… Ah, great, wait a second.”

  He replaced the receiver. “Coffee up, chaps. Let her in, would you, Peter?”

  The flight engineer reached back to unlock the cockpit door. As he turned the handle, something exploded in Roger Morgan’s left ear. His eyes shot to the red light flashing on his panel.

  “Compressor surge! Massive compressor surge.”

  The plane yawed violently to port and dropped straight through a hole in the sky.

  “Engine one out!”

  Ross tightened his grip on the yoke, fighting for control, while Morgan tersely reported the loss of his port engine to Dubai ATC. The aircraft went into a steep curve, turning on its left wing tip.

  The flight engineer, glued to his instruments as he tried to work out what had gone wrong, was vaguely aware of a commotion outside the cockpit: shouts, glass breaking, a scream. Panic, he thought. Damn!

  Morgan’s fingers went automatically to the engine start switches at the base of the central panel. He heard the APU force compressed air through the dead jet and knew a second of relief. Ross was getting ahead of the turn now; the left wing tip was coming up as he reduced power to the starboard engine and stabilized the aircraft on a new course heading.

  The dead port engine whined, failed, and fired. “Ten percent and climbing,” Hudson said. “Fifteen percent power and climbing steadily.”

  Then a new voice said, “I have the aircraft, Captain. Do not touch the radio. Prepare to adopt a new course.”

  A woman had spoken. As Morgan turned he registered, in a confused way, tha
t her voice was not quite English and not quite foreign either, but it was a hard voice, accustomed to command and be obeyed. He saw the gun held to his flight engineer’s neck, saw the face above the gun, knew at once he had a problem beyond the reach of the psychologists and their textbook solutions.

  His left hand strayed beneath the arm of his seat, where a black button was set flush with the panel. He pressed it quickly, knowing that the slightest delay could prove fatal. The button activated an emergency transponder. From now on it would send a “77” signal to the ground, causing NQ 033's image to blink on the radar screens. The world already knew that this plane had been hijacked.

  “I have the aircraft,” she repeated. She was looking at his left hand and had a secret smile on her face; Morgan realized that she knew about the transponder. She’d wanted him to activate it.

  A man appeared on the threshold of the cockpit. He was holding what looked at first like a grease gun; in fact, an American M3A1 submachine gun. Morgan’s gaze shied away from the woman to the weapon. He’d always secretly believed this could never happen to him, never on any aircraft he commanded.

  Now he was facing Adrian Ross across the central console. “Maintain present course, altitude, and speed. Engineer, continue to call engine performances.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The other two members of the flight crew spoke simultaneously in the flat, unemotional tones that hijack manuals demanded, deliberately ignoring the terrorists at their backs.

  Leila Hanif advanced to the front of the flight deck. From there, she had an unimpeded view of the Gulf through the windshield, while being able to cover both pilot and copilot.

  “You lost an engine,” she said matter-of-factly. “What happened?”

  Morgan told her, making no concessions to the layman. She appeared to understand his technical jargon, however, for when he had finished she asked him a question about the RB211 engine’s static thrust. That shook Morgan. Flight Engineer Hudson had to supply the answer.

  Leila listened carefully to his explanation, then said, “Reverse thrust will be unaffected?”

  “An engine is an engine. If it works in forward, it’ll work in reverse.”

  “Very well. Bring me your high and low altitude topographical charts. You! Copilot! Move slowly; make sure I can see your hands all the time. Any tricks and he"—a nod at Selim, guarding the doorway—"has orders to shoot out your windshield. We will all be sucked out to our deaths; the plane will crash; you can choose to murder two hundred passengers or you can obey me. This order stands until we are on the ground.”

  She spoke carefully, without passion or discernible fear. The three members of the flight crew looked at one another, searching for encouragement, finding none. Ross lifted his hands and slowly rose. He edged past Leila, forced so close to Selim that he could smell the man’s pungent sweat diluted by a sickly sweet cologne, and took the charts from the locker.

  “Which ones?”

  “Tactical pilotage chart, sheet TPC J-seven-D. South Yemen.”

  Captain Morgan knew then that his aircraft was in the hands of an expert, and all thought of staging a recovery left his mind.

  “Your target reference is XU three-one-one-zero.”

  She thrust the map at Morgan, who quickly folded it so that only the lowest sectors were visible. “You want me to put her down there?”

  “Yes.”

  He tried to make sense of the terrain. The point she had designated was to the north of Al Ghaydah, on Qamar Bay. “Flat rock,” said the map; “sea level.”

  “What’s there?” he asked sharply.

  “Nothing is there.”

  “What kind of surface?”

  “Volcanic rock: flat, but with some loose gravel. Let us see if you are a genuine pilot or merely a computer clerk.”

  “And the engines?” Morgan spoke quietly, trying by his manner to instill reason into her, knowing it was hopeless. “Do you realize what will happen to the jets if anything bigger than a pebble gets into them?”

  “The blades will buckle and break; the engine will fail. That is not a problem. Your ‘runway’ is over three miles long, and you will not be leaving Yemen under your own motive power. Contact Dubai ATC; tell them the new course that I read to you. I will be listening, Captain Morgan. Do not make requests; tell them your demands.”

  Morgan’s face was white. Sweat trickled down his forehead, stinging the corners of his eyes.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “Please listen to me.”

  Leila motioned angrily at Selim. He marched forward, raising his submachine gun level with the windshield, and snapped back the bolt.

  “Stop!” Morgan squeezed the yoke, fretfully trying to think of a way to stall, to save his passengers and crew. “I’ll… I’ll do it. Just… calm down.”

  “It is I who am calm, Captain Morgan. Now. The radio.” Behind them, the passenger cabin was almost totally silent. Almost: a baby cried ceaselessly, and every so often a teenage girl at the back of the economy cabin would utter a whimper before biting the back of her hand. Nobody else uttered a sound.

  They were watching the new officialdom.

  Like most people, the one hundred and eighty-four passengers aboard NQ 033 unconsciously recognized that their lives were ordered by others. Civil servants, policemen, judges, politicians, those who ran the big industrial conglomerates: they were the powers who conspired at one and the same time to deprive others of their freedom of action, while convincing them that they had never been more free. Free will, free choice: these were largely illusions, but they were cherished illusions. Now the passengers had come face-to-face with a very different reality.

  On hearing the single word “Medina” spoken over the loudspeaker, five men had risen simultaneously from their seats. Four others had followed suit so quickly that they seemed to be part of the same team, rather than the opposition. Despite their numerical inferiority the odds were on the Israeli side, because they knew what to expect and their enemies didn’t. If the port engine hadn’t failed, the odds would have favored an Israeli victory. But when the plane lurched, dropping several hundred feet, those odds evened themselves out on the floor of the plane, along with the nine men in whose hands the fate of the passengers now depended. The Arabs were milliseconds quicker, that’s all.

  The first class passengers were sent back to the economy cabin, along with the cabin crew. One gunman kept business class covered; two others stood by the toilets at the back of the plane, from where they could survey the whole of the economy cabin. Fouad was dealing with the four Israelis who had identified themselves by standing up in an attempt to frustrate the hijack. He found no firearms, just a selection of oddities: aerosols that didn’t seem to work, penknives with strangely tinted blades, cigarette lighters that refused to open. All these he pocketed, before forcing the Israelis to lie on the floor, hands clasped to their necks, until Selim came back down the aisle to help bind them fast.

  All except Dannie Neeman, in seat 24H. Dannie had not risen with his colleagues; he had obeyed orders and remained seated, for it had always been Raful’s intention to keep him in reserve. Now he sat staring stonily to the front, wondering if his false Kuwaiti passport would stand up, mentally practicing his Arabic, and praying with all the considerable passion at his command that Raful might yet be alive.

  Robbie, too, wished that Sharett would live.

  The hijackers had overpowered the Israeli and dumped him in the vacant seat next to the boy’s, where he lay like a shapeless sack of flour and of the same color. Blood ran down his cheeks, enhancing their pallor. Robbie wanted somebody to talk to, wanted comfort from his father, but all he had was this unconscious stranger whose blood-soaked head lolled on his chest with the pathetic helplessness of a broken doll’s.

  Robbie’s bag lay on the floor between his feet. He waited until the hijacker guarding their cabin was looking the other way, then rummaged around inside it until he found notepaper and a pen.

  Dear Ce
lestine, he wrote. We’re not going to make it. Maybe someone will find this. He swallowed. He could not think what to write. All he knew was that he should leave some testament to what was happening, draw a line under his short life. His pen hovered over the paper. I know I’m going to die.

  He was not alone: other passengers begged total strangers in nearby seats to pass on last words to loved ones, if they succeeded in getting out. As the minutes ticked away into eternity, the people on that plane discovered things they had not previously known about themselves. They learned how extreme fear sends adrenaline coursing through the system in overdrive, producing unendurable back pain. Their bladders distended to limits they’d never been meant to bear. Cold descended over them like an invisible blanket of snow, chilling their feet to the point where they could no longer feel them. Prayers, long forgotten, elbowed their way back into minds suddenly grown receptive. God revealed himself to many, collecting promises of better conduct hereafter, if only they could be given another chance. But once the initial shock diminished, for the most part the passengers simply focused on how best to ingratiate themselves with the ones who mattered.

  The light had started to go by the time NQ 033 arrived over South Yemen. Morgan was surprised that no fighters had come to intercept him.

  “What do I do if I’m attacked?” he asked.

  “You will not be attacked.”

  He believed her. He could smell sweat and gun oil, but these scents did not originate with the woman. She smelled as she looked: like something out of the Arabian Nights. She had planned this down to the last detail, and if she did not fear aerial attack then neither did he.

  He had plenty of other things to worry about.

  “There?”

  Morgan looked down through the windshield and his voice was hushed. Ross whistled softly through his teeth.

  “There,” the woman confirmed. “You can have contact with my men on the ground, if you wish. The frequency is eighty-nine decimal two. They will give you details of wind and visibility.” From his seat on the port side, Morgan saw an indigo sea lying almost dull in the late afternoon sunlight. Beyond that, a coast of white sand, with mountainous black cliffs to the west. He was steering magnetic north; far ahead the red Jabal Al Fatk stretched across his flight path like a ridged palate. The land below was flat, utterly featureless. What looked like a vast forked estuary narrowed into deep wadis at the foot of the mountain range, and by craning his neck he could see the small conurbation of Al Ghaydah. According to his charts, there was a minor airfield there, with a soft landing surface only, but nothing rose up out of the mauve twilight to intercept him, and his radio remained silent. Since communicating his new circumstances and course to Dubai ATC, no one had tried to contact him at all.