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Mullin smiled to himself as he thought how odd it was that his life had brought him here. In his life, he had had three loves and one great hate. He hated blacks and the thought almost made him laugh, because here he was, being paid by Jimbobwu Mkombu, the blackness of whose skin was matched only by the blackness of his heart. But Mkombu's money was very green and that was one of Mullin's three loves. Money, whisky and women. Right now, he had money in his pocket and fine Irish whisky in his canteen, so he thought back to the last woman he'd had. The African women in Mkombu's compound were all enthusiasm but no technique, willing to do anything Mullin wanted, but still poor replacement for an Irish lass. Or, for that matter, an Englishwoman.
The woman he was remembering was a red-haired, green-eyed woman with the biggest . . .
There it was.
His ears picked up the approaching plane even before he saw it. He got to his feet and called out: "Get ready, lads."
The four blacks got to their feet and held their breath to hear the plane. They soon spotted it, a tiny, faraway speck coming toward them, glinting golden in the sky where the morning sun reflected off it.
The first step in the slaughter of America's Olympic athletes was about to be taken.
Sammy Wanenko sat aboard the rented airplane, smiling. He had never had a night like that before and now he was ready for the Olympics. He was ready for any boxer the Russians or the Americans or the Cubans could send against him. He was ready for anyone or anything.
The plane had been rented, because Baruba did not have an air force or even an airplane, preferring until that very week to regard airplanes as manifesta-
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tions of the great island god Lotto. This had changed when a plane had arrived on the island to take the UN ambassador to New York. The ambassador, still miffed at having to give up the bone in his nose, was reluctant to get on the plane. He pleaded with the king to let him swim to New York. Finally, the king forced him aboard, the plane took off, and the air age had reached the People's Democratic Republic of Baruba.
For their athletes, they rented the plane and the services of an Australian pilot, Johnny Winters. Winters was in his mid-thirties, unmarried, and for the past ten years had eked out a living transporting cargo and/or people, legal or illegal, for whoever would pay the freight.
His assignment was to fly the Baruban team to Melbourne, Australia, where they would board the jetliner that would take them to Moscow. His takeoff had been delayed that morning as he waited for his young co-pilot, Bart Sands. Sands was twenty-two, married, and with a second child on the way. He had been trying to make enough money on the horses to pay all the hospital bills and as a result, he was into both the bookies and the loan sharks.
Sands had been with Winters for about a year and had not learned a thing. He had managed to bail out from under his debts once, with a huge score at the track. But he just ignored Winters when the older man told him that lightning very rarely struck at all, let alone twice, and he should quit gambling.
Sands ignored the advice. When he arrived at the plane, Winters said, "I thought I was going to have to leave you behind. What happened? You have to get in a bet on a hot horse?"
"Something like that," Sands said. "C'mon, let's get this crate off the ground." There was a look on his generally smiling face that jarred Winters. There was something wrong. He didn't know what it was.
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Sands hoped that Winters had not noticed anything strange about him. He also hoped that Winters didn't notice the bulge the .45 automatic was making under Sands's jacket.
Soon, he thought. Soon all my money .problems will be over and then I'll square it up with him. He'll understand it was the only way.
The DC-3 landed on the beach at Baruba and Sammy Wanenko came aboard, along with the other two athletes, brothers named Tonny and Tomas and their coach, Willem. They waved from the windows of the plane until they were airborne. At last, Sammy thought, I am on my way to win my gold medal.
After they were in the air for half an hour, Bart Sands knew it was time.
Think about your pregnant wife, he told himself. Think about what they said they'll do to Janie if you don't pay up. And the kids. It's quick money, he told himself. Quick money. That's all it is, with no one getting hurt.
He took the .45 from under his jacket and pointed it at his friend, Johnny Winters.
Winters couldn't believe what he saw, but then he realized why the strained look had been on his friend's face when he had boarded the plane.
"Bart . . ." he began to say.
"Please, Johnny, don't," Sands said. "I promise you. No one will get hurt. This is the only way. And I promise, we'll split right down the middle."
Sands was talking too fast. Winters had never seen him this nervous. His hand was shaking uncontrollably. Winters hoped that he could just keep the kid from killing somebody by accident.
Willem, the Baruban coach, chose that moment to come up to the cockpit. He saw the gun and asked, "What is wrong, please?"
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Sands got up from his seat, pushed Willem back into the passenger cabin, and waved the .45 at the four Barubans.
"Don't any of you move if you don't want to die," he said. Sammy Wanenko looked up into the barrel of the .45. He thought the man looked very nervous. Before he could think anymore, Willem, the coach, leaped from his seat at Sands.
Sammy saw the gun in the white man's hand jump. He saw Willem fall, clutching his stomach.
Sands could not speak for a moment. He was as surprised as anyone else when the gun in his hand went off. Could it possibly be that easy to kill a man?
Finally he found his voice. He told the three Barubans, "The same for you, if any of you move." He went back into the cockpit and told Winters: "Now you do what I say, if you want to live."
Winters realized the younger man suddenly sounded much more confident. He glanced over his shoulder and saw, with fright, that Bart Sands's gun hand had stopped shaking.
Sands recited from memory a new set of coordinates which would take them just slightly off theur present course and Winters was puzzled. He knew the charts for this area of the Pacific by heart.
"Bart, there's nothing there. What are we doing?"
"Just do it, Johnny," said Sands. He felt sweat pouring from under his arms, but he was as surprised as Winters to find that his gun hand no longer shook.
Winters changed the direction of the plane. He knew of no island that corresponded with the location given him by Bart Sands.
Jack Mullin did.
He had intentionally chosen the island because it did not appear on any existing commercial charts. And rather than trust to luck to find an accomplice like Bart Sands, he had, through an intermediary, ad-
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vanced the pilot more gambling money for more losses, and then had made him a proposition that would pay off all his debts and give him a nest egg besides.
Winters saw the uncharted island at the same time Bart Sands did.
"Land it there," Sands said. "On that stretch of beach."
The beach had been smoothed out and almost looked like a runway, Winters realized. Somebody had been there and somebody was expecting them. But who?
He nosed the plane down, and even though the wheels bit deeper into the wet sand than he expected, rolled it to a smooth stop.
"Get in the back with them," Sands said, waving his gun toward the Barubans in the back.
When Winters was seated, Sands warned them all to stay put. Then he opened the door between the cockpit and passenger cabin and climbed out.
There was a single shot.
Sammy Wanenko jumped to his feet and Winters, looking at Willem's body still sprawled in the aisle of the cabin, said "Take it easy, fella. We don't know what's out there."