“The phone, that’s why you’re out here, isn’t it? Their phone is out of order. They asked me to have a look, but I think it’s something wrong with the line. Probably at the box out on the highway.”
“I’ll check it out.”
“Could I just get you to lend me a hand here? It’ll only take a minute. Maybe less.
I need someone to hold a pair of pliers while I tighten a bolt from the other side of the antenna case.”
Dubout hesitated a moment.
“It won’t take any time at all.”
“All right,” Dubout said, setting the parking brake and getting out.
“It’s in the back of my van,” Boorsch said. “Only take a few seconds.”
“Well, let’s get on with it.”
“Sure,” Boorsch said, letting the French cop come around the back of the van first.
He pulled out his pistol at the same time Dubout reared back.
“Mon Dieu.”
Boorsch shoved him forward with his left hand so that they would both be out of sight of anyone watching from the control tower, and shot the man three times in the back of the head.
Dubout fell forward onto the missile’s carrying case. Pocketing his gun, Boorsch shoved the man’s body the rest of the way into the van.
He grabbed the binoculars and studied the far end of the runway. The Airbus had nearly reached the end of the taxiway. It would be taking off within the next sixty to ninety seconds.
Laying down the glasses he snatched up the walkie-talkie. Ordinarily he was calm under pressure, but he’d never had a chance to shoot down an airliner filled with people before. He was getting excited, and nervous.
“One,” he keyed the transmitter.
“Clear.”
“Two.”
“Clear.”
“Three.”
“Clear. What about you?”
“It’s good here,” Boorsch said. The Airbus had turned onto the runway. “Stand by.”
Chapter 6
“Swissair one-four-five, you are cleared for immediate takeoff, runway two-six. Wind two-eight-zero at eight. Barometer two-niner-niner-seven. Switch to departure control at one-two-niner-point-zero-niner out of the pattern. Have a good day.”
“Roger, tower, thank you,” Captain Josef Elver said, advancing the throttles so that the big jetliner could make the turn onto the runway.
“The numbers are green,” his first officer, Claude Piaget, said.
“Roger,” Elver responded as the bird came around onto the runway’s centerline. “Here we go.” He advanced the throttles to the first position.
“Rolling,” Elver said as the A-320 started down the runway, ponderously at first, like a lumbering ox. Ridiculous to think that anything so huge, that weighed so much, could possibly fly.
“On the numbers,” Piaget said calmly.
The runway marker lights began to flash past them in a blur. Captain Elver quickly scanned the flight instruments in front of him, taking his eyes off the view outside the windscreen for only a moment.
“Vee-one,” Piaget warned to his right.
The Airbus was gathering speed rapidly now, and instead of sluggishly responding to his touch the rudder pedals and side-stick controller had come alive. They were flying, almost.
“Vee-R,” Piaget said.
“Rotate.” Elver eased back on the jet fighter-type stick to his left, and the jetliner’s nose came smoothly off the surface of the runway. With his right hand, he maintained the throttles all the way to their stops, and the plane seemed to surge forward.
“My numbers are green,” Piaget said.
The jetliner’s speed was approaching one hundred sixty knots, well into the partial flaps-down flying speed envelope for their weight. The runway markers were a complete blur.
“Vee-two,” Piaget announced.
“Lifting off,” Elver said, easing the stick back and the Airbus came off the runway, almost by itself, the bumpy ride instantly disappearing.
“On the numbers,” the first officer advised.
“Begin reducing flaps,” Elver ordered, and Piaget began retracting them. Their speed immediately started to increase and Elver eased the stick farther back, the plane barreling up into the cloudless sky.
Once out of the pattern, flaps up and landing gear retracted, Elver planned on turning over control to Piaget so that he could go back to the head. He was picking up a bug of some kind, and frankly, he felt like hell.
Boorsch’s stomach was tied in knots. He’d known excitement in his life, and he had been anticipating this moment ever since he’d gotten the call forty-eight hours ago.
But he’d never expected anything could give him such a lift, such intense pleasure as this.
The Stinger missile and launcher were comfortably heavy on his right shoulder where he stood behind the Air Service van. He could hear the roar of the huge Airbus, and he knew that it was off the ground now.
It was time.
Stepping away from the rear of the van, he raised the Stinger, finding and centering the jetliner’s bulk in the launcher’s sights. The plane was climbing directly toward him, impossibly loud and impossibly huge.
He no longer cared if he was visible from the tower. At this point no power on earth could prevent what was about to happen.
He lost the aircraft in the Stinger’s sights, but then got it again, centering the engine on the portside wing in the inner ring.
With his cheek on the conductance bar, he thumbed the missile’s activation switch and the launcher began to warble.
“A miss almost always comes from too early a shot,” the words of their instructor echoed in his ears. “In this business one must have the patience of Allah.”
Allah had nothing to do with it, but Boorsch did understand timing. The Stinger was a fine weapon, but it could not produce miracles.
“Give it a chance and it will perform for you as you wish.”
The jetliner was climbing now at an increasingly steep angle, its engines producing their maximum thrust and therefore their maximum heat.
He pushed the forward button, uncaging the missile’s infrared seeker head. Almost instantly the tone in his ear changed, rising to a high-pitched scream as the missile locked on to its target.
Still Boorsch waited, certain that by now someone in the tower must have spotted him and called security. Soon the airport and surrounding highways would be crawling with cops.
The Airbus passed directly overhead, and Boorsch led it perfectly.
At the last moment he raised the sights slightly, pulled the trigger, and the missile was off, the launcher bucking against his shoulder no harder than a 20-gauge shotgun.
Chapter 7
“Mori Dieul Raymond,” one of the tower operators shouted in alarm.
The moment they had spotted the lone figure emerging from behind the Air Service van, with what even at this distance was clearly recognizable as some sort of a missile, Flammarion had gotten on the phone to security with one hand and on the radio to flight 145 with the other.
The Swissair copilot came back first. “Swissair one-four-five.”
For an instant Flammarion stood with his mouth open, hardly believing what he was seeing with his own eyes. The missile had been fired.
“Abort! Abort!” he screamed into the microphone.
“Security, Bellus,” a voice on the telephone answered.
“Say again, tower?” the Swissair copilot answered calmly.
The missile’s exhaust trail was clearly visible in contrast against the perfectly blue sky. About one hundred feet above the ground it made a slight loop before it began its graceful curve up and to the west directly behind the departing jetliner.
In that short instant it struck Flammarion that the weapon was a live thing; a wild animal stalking its prey, which in effect it was.