The lights swung in an arc and a flash of pain shot into my right shoulder as I crashed down on it.

Chapter 24: FIREBALL

In the dream I heard a voice.

It was screaming at me.

Heat in my shoulder, white heat. It didn't bother me. I listened to the dream, because that was all it was, a voice. It was screaming at me, but I didn't understand the words.

I went on pushing.

The lights were beautiful, circling above my head, red, green, amber, white, circling around the starfields in the windscreen, went on pushing, running down my arm, there was something running down my arm – Oh mother of God this is -

Screaming at me about Hassan, I could hear the name Hassan.

I pushed harder. I wasn't going to let him do this. He had a knife, a long knife with red on the blade.

Come in, please. Come in.

That was in English.

London.

Hassan, Khatami was screaming, then he seemed to remember and switched to French – You killed Hassan… and went on screaming, something about Le Grand Satan, he would die, the Great Satan, yes, a 70° turn from the river – Jesus Christ I've got to -

Pushed very hard, but my hand was slipping because of the blood, it was dripping against my face.

Come in, please, come in.

London, waiting.

I had things to tell London, very important things: This aircraft must not be allowed to approach the eastern seaboard of the United States. It must not be allowed to approach land at all.

Tried – tried to shout it out so they'd hear, nothing happened.

His face was above me, Khatami's, dark, enraged, in the centre of the swirling vortex of lights, one clear thought burning in my head, one clear thought, If I don't tell London, this whole bloody thing is going to hit the target, the one thought burning in my head.

Come in, please. Come in.

Calm – his voice sounded very calm, but they knew what was going on, they could hear this bastard screaming, could understand his French.

Come in, please.

Blood in one of my eyes.

You killed my brother Hassan.

Tried shouting again and got a word or two out but then the blood was in my mouth and I began choking on it and that was going to make things worse so I pushed very hard indeed and felt his arm swing away as I twisted from under him, choking, choking for breath and hanging there like a bloody dog but the adrenalin was firing the muscles and I reared and smashed my head into his face and the screaming stopped, felt for his knife hand and reached it and got my feet braced against the bulkhead and lurched forward, lunged forward and smashed my head into him again and did it again and turned the knife, turned it, pushing it through the dark, the red roaring dark, pushing it into the softness, deeper and deeper, pushed it as far as the hilt, coughing up the blood that had got into my mouth, choking for breath but it had stopped, the screaming had stopped and I lurched forward again and hit the bulkhead near the radio console and heard something break, a panel, making a brittle sound but it seemed all right because they were talking again.

Come in, please. Come in.

Choking, still, but I could breathe now, things much, things much better, he wasn't moving, I could see him with one eye, the knife sticking up like a bloodied erection, went on choking again and got the last of it out of my throat, leaned against the console, the sweetness of air in my lungs.

Come in -

'Listen – this is – this is my situation.'

No need to tell them now that this aircraft must not be allowed, so forth, because this aircraft wasn't going anywhere after all, he was dead, I believed, Khatami, or if he wasn't dead he wouldn't be able to get at the controls again, there was a lot of blood coming out of his groin, creeping towards the smashed coffee cup that was lying there on the floor, I did some more coughing and it helped.

'This aircraft is loaded with explosive but I am in control.' Odd, an odd way to put things, in control of what exactly, a flying coffin, yes. 'What I mean is, I'm going to have to ditch, and blow it all up, you got that, have you got -'

Yes, we have that. Then another voice came on, and I recognised Shatner. Control. Let me have your position.

My left eye was streaming with tears and the blood was getting washed away, but I couldn't see the instrument display very clearly yet. 'I can't tell you. Not accurately. West of the Moroccan coast, south-east of the Azores, possibly more like due south by now -' broke off to do some more coughing, but things were much better now and I could breathe quite well between bouts. It was my wrist, where the blood had come from, he'd sliced a vein. 'The target was the White House, but listen, the passengers of Flight 907 are being held in the Sahara desert and this is their position:, 26°03' north by 02°01' west. Need to get them out of there. Terrorists guarding them with assault rifles, need to be careful.'

Gave myself a short rest, needed more air in my lungs, they felt constricted. But the tapes were running in London and there'd be signals going out already to alert people – the British Ambassador in Algiers and through him the Algerian Air Force and Army Desert Reconnaissance, GSG- 9 in Germany because Klaus was out there – 'Listen,' I said, 'Dieter Klaus may still be there when the rescue aircraft reach those people or he may fly out before they arrive. If he's still there, I advise the use of utmost caution. He is vicious, ruthless and determined, and I suggest they shoot him on sight, have you got – have you -'

I have that, Shatner said. That position you gave me – is it an airfield?

I told him it was a dry lake bed, had a flarepath, told him its distance from the nearest town, Adrar, gave him the whole thing while the starfields crept across the dark of the windscreen as we headed west through the night, I was beginning to feel lonely.

Are there other aircraft there in the desert?

Said yes. Told him what kind they were. I knew now from what I'd found in the briefcase why Klaus hadn't used a cargo plane for this operation: Washington National wouldn't have let it land there. They would have told it to go the extra distance into Dulles. But a Pan Am carrier with a full complement of passengers would make a difference: the potential loss of life would have been far greater if the situation had been genuine.

Beginning to feel lonely, yes. The night-black ocean was below me, its crests touched with silver by the moon. This huge aircraft was like a mote of dust compared with the vastness of the Atlantic. I'd thought, when I'd made the drop into the Sahara, that it was like going down into an ocean, but that had been an illusion. This time it was real.

When you can give us your exact position, do that.

I leaned away from the console, overdid things and lost my balance and had to throw out a hand to save myself. I think I stayed like that, swaying on my feet, for a long time, quite a few seconds.

What is your condition?

'I'm. trying to see. Give me a -'

– Your condition. How much strength have you got left?

'Oh. Enough to ditch this thing, I mean it can do that for itself, but I've got to get it off auto-pilot and then we've got to steer clear of the Azores and the African land-mass. I don't -'

Have you lost blood?

It wasn't wholly telepathy. In the final hours of the end-phase there's often a bit of blood drawn by someone or other. This place looked like an abattoir.

'Yes. But I don't need long.'

I worked my way round to the front of the lefthand seat and dropped into it and buckled the harness on and the instrument array swung into an arc and I blacked out, gradually came back.