The Gilgamesh Conspiracy (23 page)

Ryan Carson opened the flight deck door and disappeared inside. Stafford sat down in the rearward facing seats at the front of the aircraft and looked at her and Ali briefly. Gerry heard the engines being started. A couple of minutes later she felt the aircraft begin to move. After a few minutes taxying, it turned onto the runway and as it accelerated Gerry was pressed back into her seat and the gun pushing into her lower back seemed to give her a surge of adrenaline as the aircraft roared into the night sky.

Gerry forced herself not to act too quickly. She waited until the aircraft had reached its cruising altitude and another two hours had elapsed and Stafford had relaxed and stopped watching them closely. While keeping a careful eye on him she felt down inside her shoe and pulled out a metal shaft with some projections. She tried pushing it carefully into the harness buckle where it fitted neatly.

Next she called to Ali in Arabic. ‘Ali, how are you feeling?’

‘Er…I’m alright. I feel I’ve been drugged up for a couple of days. I have a headache but otherwise I’m not injured.’

‘I’m trying to see if that bastard speaks Arabic at all.’

‘I doubt it Gerry, he doesn’t seem to have been recruited for his intelligence.’

She watched Stafford; he was reading a magazine and did not appear to be taking in what was said.

‘Hey you ugly bastard!’ she said quietly in Arabic, ‘my harness has come undone and I’m about to come over and rip your head off.’

‘No reaction,’ said Ali, ‘I think we can assume he doesn’t understand, and he’s not paying attention.’

‘Ok Ali, now try not to react to what I tell you. I have a key to unlock the harness and a gun. I’m going to free myself and then when I tell you, I want you to have some sort of fit, so that Stafford comes over to you.’

‘What will you do then?’

‘I’m going to kill him.’

As she expected the pilots heard the sound of the shots. The flight deck door opened. It was not Carson, but the other pilot who stepped out. The first thing he saw was Gerry lying down on the floor with blood on her face and chest and her arms flung out. The gun was hidden under her head. He saw Stafford sitting in a seat next to Ali, and stepped over Gerry to talk to him. She climbed silently to her feet and hit him under his back ribs and he crashed to the floor. She knelt on top of him, ground the muzzle into his ear and snarled ‘You’re going to do exactly what I say or I’ll blow your brains out you piece of shit!’

‘Yuh..ok,’ he mumbled.

‘Ok what’s your name?’

‘Reece, Carl Reece.’

‘Ok Carl, the first thing you’re going to do is release Ali…ok? This key should probably work. And in case you’re wondering, before I killed him, Stafford handed me his gun, his knife and his Taser, so you behave yourself.’ 

She watched him unfasten Ali who grinned up at her.

‘Ok Carl, back to the cockpit, at the double.’

Carson turned round as the door opened. ‘Hey Carl, what the hell’s happened? What was the problem with…’ he broke off as he saw Gerry come into the flight deck behind Reece. ‘Fuck!’ he said.

‘Ok Carson, I want a headset so I can hear what’s going on,’ Gerry demanded.

‘Er… I don’t think there’s a spare one,’ he said.

‘Wrong answer. From now on for each wrong answer I’ll cut off one of your fingers,’ she replied.

‘Ok behind you there’s one on a hook. I think it’s already plugged in.’ She gave a quick glance, saw the headset and put it on.

‘Good,’ said Gerry. ‘Now you’ll carry on across the Atlantic as normal. Later on I’ll give you some new instructions. And I warn you, I’m in a hell of a bad temper. As you remember I’ve got a pilot’s licence and enough experience to know if you do something unusual with this aircraft.’ She waited until the atmosphere had settled down and the two pilots were looking less tense.

‘Good, now you’re going to fly me to Bermuda.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. We’ll fly out across the Atlantic until we get close to the island, and then you’ll turn off your transponder and descend to three thousand feet so the radar can’t see us. Then you’ll divert to Bermuda. When we get real close you can use the radio again and explain that you’ve had pressurisation problems or engine problems or maybe both and that you need to land. You’ll taxy to the edge of the airport and me and Ali will jump out. If I’m happy I won’t shoot you before I go. Is that straightforward enough for you?’

‘Ok, I guess you’re calling the shots.’

‘Yeah, definitely.’

Despite her display of self-confidence Gerry felt nervous within the confined space of the flight deck. Her assertion that she would know if things weren’t right had been somewhat hollow. She was in horribly close proximity to the two men, both of whom had detailed knowledge of the complex aircraft. All she had on her side apart from the gun was their knowledge that she would shoot them if she suspected that they were trying to deceive her.

She looked around the flight deck. The instruments were a mix of the old fashioned type to which she was accustomed from her own training and the large navigation screens which Harvey Wallis had introduced to her on the flight over. The route was on the screen underneath the main flight director. Her best chance was to say as little as possible and not to ask questions that might reveal her lack of confidence or knowledge. First of all she could use some of her experience supplemented by what Wallis had taught her.

‘Okay I want to see Bermuda on the screen? What’s the four letter ICAO code for it?’

‘TXKF,’ Reece replied, and she saw the sharp look that Carson gave him.

‘I want to see it on the screen,’ she repeated.

‘I can’t; it’s too far away,’ Carson replied.

Damn! One mark of credibility lost, but she had an answer. ‘Ok, show it as a diversion airport with bearing and distance,’ she replied. Neither man moved.

‘Now!’ she shouted and hit Reece across the side of the skull with the muzzle of the gun. He swore and clutched his head.

‘Ok, ok,’ Carson said with a note of resignation that did not fool her for a moment, but he entered TXKF into the alphanumeric keypad and she read 570 nautical miles.

‘Ok, this aircraft usually flies at about eight miles a minute, so allowing for the wind and adding a bit for flying at low level for a while, and approach and landing, give me a flight time.’

Carson entered some more data and turned round to look at her.

‘About one hour and forty minutes to landing at Bermuda,’ he reported.

That seemed reasonable, she decided. ‘Ok, now I’ll establish some rules. I’ll stand or sit at the back here, and you two will not look around at me unless I give you permission. I know that if I kill one of you, the other one can land the plane. My gun will always be trained on one of you, but you won’t know who. I also have a Taser which will be ready for whomever I don’t shoot. There’ll be no warning shots or wounding shots; I’ll shoot you through the back and into the heart. Any questions?’

‘November Two Seven Whisky, climb flight level 350 and route direct to two zero north, six zero west, continue with New York on HF’ came the voice of the air traffic controller.

‘Climb flight level 350 and direct two zero north, six zero west, continue on HF November Two Seven Whisky,’ Reece answered automatically and then he froze, expecting another outburst from the British agent.

‘That’s good,’ said Gerry. ‘Just take things normally until I say. Now just think of me as your Federal Aviation Authority check pilot not saying much but watching you very, very carefully.’

She spent the next fifty minutes in a state of high anxiety, not daring to relax her vigil for a moment. Fortunately at cruising altitude there was little for the pilots to do in terms of flying. The operation was carried out using the flight management computer that was coupled to the autopilot. She thanked her good fortune again that Wallis had shown her how to operate the Gulfstream jet. The system fitted to the Boeing was different but by careful observation she noted how the numeric information on the small computer screen related to the navigation display on the instrument panel and the occasional air traffic control communications. Soon the aircraft would be about 250 miles from Bermuda and it would be time to ask for a course to the island’s airport. Her bladder was becoming uncomfortably full, and she wondered if she could get Ali to hold the gun on them, then quickly dismissed the idea. If necessary she would just wet herself. She was becoming increasingly confident that she could pull this off.

‘Okay, turn off the transponder, descend to three thousand feet on this track and then turn towards Bermuda,’ she ordered.

Ryan Carson had spent the last fifty minutes scheming how he could turn the situation around. He had been careful to do exactly as bidden for as long as possible to lull the English bitch into a false sense of security. Without turning directly to look at her, he had made a surreptitious inspection of the flight deck, checking distances to miscellaneous items of equipment. He had slowly adjusted the lighting until he had a fairly clear reflection of her in the centre instrument screens. The most important thing being that he could see which way her gun was pointing. He had also chosen his moment to make his move.

  He sensed as much as heard Gerry Tate’s sigh of relief as the aircraft reached three thousand feet and he prepared to act. Unbeknownst to the British agent an eight inch steel crowbar was tucked into an alcove behind his seat, secured to the bulkhead by a pair of fabric tabs held by press studs. Its primary purpose was to lever open panels in case of an electrical fire on board the aircraft. Carson spent the next twenty minutes as the aircraft approached Bermuda planning his movements.

The symbol for Bermuda appeared three hundred miles away on the navigation display. ‘Look there’s the island,’ Carson declared and pointed at the screen. He saw Gerry automatically look in the direction he pointed. ‘Carl, get your Bermuda info out,’ he ordered. Reece turned to his right to retrieve the aerodrome reference booklets from their folder. Carson watched Gerry’s reflection and saw her follow the co-pilot’s movements and next in one rapid motion he reached round with his right hand, tugged the crowbar from its mounting and then he swung it backhanded towards her hand holding the gun.

Too late Gerry realised something was amiss. She realised that Carson was reaching for something out of her sight and his sudden change in body language showed that he was ready for action. She swung the gun round to point at him but just before she pulled the trigger the crowbar caught her with a numbing blow on the forearm just as she fired the gun. The bullet ricocheted off the centre console and hit Carl Reece. He shrieked and clutched at the wound in his neck from which blood was spurting. Her eyes met Carson’s as she tried to take aim again but in the pain that followed the numbness her hand lost its grip and she dropped the gun. She flung her arms up as he tried to hit her over the head with the crowbar and she shrieked as the metal rod caught her on the thigh just above the knee. She tried to ignore the pain and scrambled out of the flight deck, hoping to retrieve the taser from where she’d left it on the front seats but her leg gave way and she tripped over. Carson tried to follow her but his seat belt was still fastened. Then he saw the gun lying on the floor behind the centre console and he snatched it up, released his harness and followed her out. She was kneeling on the floor clutching at her leg. Just as he was about to shoot her, the dying co-pilot slumped over the controls and the auto pilot disconnected. When the warning horn sounded Carson instinctively swung round to look back in the flight deck and in that moment Gerry kicked the gun from his grasp. He snarled and swung the crowbar at her. She ducked under the sweep of the weapon and threw herself at him. The two of them rolled around on the floor in a hate-filled embrace as the aircraft plunged towards the sea. His superior strength was overcoming her fighting skills, rendered ineffective in the restricted space of the lurching fuselage. He struck her over the head again but the awkward blow lacked any force. Before he could hit her again she wriggled free snatched the gun up from the deck and shot him. Then she looked out through the flight deck window and realised the aircraft would soon crash into the sea.

Gerry sat up and gazed out over the sea. The crescent moon cast a slight silvery glow which enabled her dark adapted eye to see the life raft and the waves. The sky had cleared and she rolled over on to her back and considered the immensity of space.

She heard Ali groan and shift position. She looked over at him. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘My head aches a little,’ he replied, ‘but it’s not too bad. So you’re still awake then?’

‘Yes, I was just passing the time by doing some star gazing,’ said Gerry. ‘You fell asleep as you finished your story of how you became a senior translator for the Iraqi foreign ministry.’ She slumped back against the side of the raft, lifted her arm and sniffed. She carried a distinct odour of jet fuel.

‘Oh yes, I remember now,’ Ali murmured thoughtfully. ‘How long until dawn do you think?’

‘Probably another two hours or so.’ The raft struck a wave and some freakish combination of wind and water sent a sheet of spray that drenched her.

‘Oh crap!’ she shouted.

‘What happened?’ Ali asked, coming wide awake.

‘A wave splashed me; I’m soaked.’ She shivered. ‘And I’m cold.’

‘It’s getting lighter,’ said Ali. She realised that the moon had set and they were able to see by the light of the approaching dawn. Maybe just a few hours of warm sunshine in the morning followed by cloudy skies with occasional rain showers at convenient intervals to replenish their water supplies was what they needed, she decided to herself with a small smile at her exacting requirements. ‘First hint of the sun above the horizon and we should each drink a half litre of water,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow we will have a quarter litre.’

‘How much should we be drinking?’ Ali asked. ‘To stay alive, I mean.’

‘If it stays cool, and we don’t do any exercise, we should drink about three litres a day.’

He spent a few moments in quiet consideration. ‘So how long will we last after our water runs out?’

‘We may last three days. Then we’ll get headaches, lethargy and eventually fall into a coma.’

‘What day is it today?’

‘Friday, the twenty ninth of May, so we will probably both be dead by Tuesday evening.’

They fell silent, each trying to avoid a descent into despair as the raft rose and sank on the Atlantic rollers. Gradually, as the raft crested a wave, they watched the sky turn brighter to the east. A layer of cloud close to the horizon began to glow pink and then the first bright red glow of the rising sun crept into sight.

‘Time to celebrate the dawn,’ said Ali.

‘Are you ready for your water ration?’

‘I am ready, but first I must pray.’

As Ali attended to his devotions, Gerry considered her own agnosticism. ‘If I uttered a prayer now and we were rescued, would I become a believer? It will take a miracle to save us. Oh god, your conflicting religions have caused more wars, death and destruction for thousands of years than anything else and I for one think we’d all be a lot better off without you, but hear the prayer of Geraldine Mary Tate who doesn’t believe for a moment in your existence but nevertheless would like to get safely off this raft to wreak vengeance on the bastards who killed her partner, condemned her to years of misery in prison, and dumped her in the sea, so when I open my eyes now I expect to see a boat coming towards us.’ She gazed all around the raft, shook her head and muttered ‘Loser!’

She retrieved the water bottle from the corner and stared at the contents until Ali announced ‘I have finished.’

‘Ok. Do you agree that your half litre takes the level down to this place on the label? Then mine will take it to this rib on the bottle?’

‘Yes that seems fair.’

‘Ok go ahead and drink.’

He took the bottle from her and began a series of careful mouthfuls, gasping in relish as the water relieved the foul, sticky, salty taste in his mouth. Each time he held the bottle up for Gerry’s inspection, acutely aware of the feral gaze of the woman who was taller than him, heavier than him and had infinitely more capacity for violent behaviour than he did.

‘That’s about it, I think,’ he said holding up the bottle and inspecting the level once more. She nodded and held out her hand for the bottle.

‘Ah, that feels a little better,’ she said having drunk her half litre. ‘Tomorrow we have only half that much, and then we can drink that dodgy stuff.’ She placed the bottle back in the corner of the raft and then gazed around at the sky before resuming her seat opposite Ali.

He made no reply for a while, but gazed up at the sun that was beginning to emerge over a layer of distant hazy cloud on the horizon. ‘We’re going to get burnt out here; at least you are, I’m much darker than you but I still need some kind of shade.’

She looked up and then screwed up her eyes as the sun suddenly shone forcefully at her. ‘You’re right.’ She remembered the kit she had pulled out of the water. ‘There’s some kind of cover I think.’

She found the bag containing the waterproof book. It was an instruction manual that described the use of the items inside the pack, These turned out to be a repair clamp, a leak stopper, a sponge, a baler and a hand pump to keep the raft inflated. There was also the large sheet of heavy duty waterproof plasticised material to unfold and form a tent-like canopy, and there should be some folding rods to support it. Apparently they were in a pocket in the floor of the raft. She crawled along the raft until she found them. She also found that there was a lamp at each end of the raft and a rubber ring on the end of a length of line to throw out and pull back any swimmers. She took an inventory of her other possessions. In a pocket was her mobile phone. She tried to switch it on but the thorough soaking had rendered it useless. She flung it over the side. Her cheap but accurate black plastic Casio watch was waterproof to 50m and working perfectly, still set on USA Eastern time. In her other pocket she found a soggy card with the telephone number and e-mail address that Dan Hall had given her just legible. She memorised both of them and put the card back in her pocket.

She looked at the other item she had found dangling from the end of the raft. It was another fabric package fastened up into a bundle with press studs. The words “Sea Anchor” were stencilled on to it. She unfastened the studs and unfolded a large bag-like device. She threw it over the side and watched it slowly fill out with water. It was plainly designed to reduce the speed of the raft through the sea so that it remained close to the crash site. Did she want to stay close to the crash site? She would decide later. Gerry read through the manual again and with Ali’s assistance she eventually had the raft canopy rigged up according to the instructions. She picked up a cylindrical rubber object with a nozzle at the end which she readily identified as a hand pump. Obviously somewhere on the raft there was a receptacle where it could be plugged in so that the raft could be kept inflated. Next she began to bail out the sea water. When the raft was nearly dry she settled down in the shade and considered their situation.

They had little water and no food, but she knew they could survive for weeks without eating. She looked at the two bottles lying in the far corner. The two of them would not last many days on their meagre contents. She wedged them in the corner of the raft with the equipment pack.

Taking another look at the handbook she read that there was meant to be an emergency transmitter fitted to the slide raft which would send out a distress call on an international radio frequency. She studied the location diagram and then crawled off to the corner of the raft where it should be fitted. Sure enough there was a recess and some Velcro straps but there was no transmitter. She sank back down onto the floor of the raft and buried her face in her hands and swore a few times while she came to terms with the disappointment.

She was aroused from her despondency by a retching sound from Ali. She crawled over to him.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I feel like throwing up again, but my stomach’s empty.’

Gerry studied his bloodshot eyes. ‘Does your head hurt much there?’ she asked, pointing to the dried blood matting his hair.

‘It aches a bit, but not too bad.’ He felt carefully at the wound in his head and then looked for a moment at the blood smeared on his fingers before washing it off in the remaining water that sloshed back and forth across the raft.

‘You must have been barely conscious when you got out the aircraft,’ she said, ‘so maybe God was looking out for you.’ She frowned at the wound. ‘Your head doesn’t look so good. I can try and clean off the old blood and take a look.’

He stared at her for a moment and then gave a small smile. ‘You don’t look so good either. Your hair’s a great tangled mess; your mouth looks awful with a missing tooth and a split lip. You also have a black eye. You look dreadful, Gerry.’

‘Then it’s lucky I don’t have a mirror. But of course if I did it would be a good signalling device for any passing ships or aircraft,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘How much water do we have left?’ he asked.

‘About a litre and a half. We need to reduce our sweat loss. No moving around, try and stay as cool as possible.’

‘So if we’re not rescued in a few days, we’ll be dead,’ he sighed. ‘It will be God’s will.’

‘We need a ship to come by,’ Gerry said. ‘I wish we had some signal flares.’

‘Maybe an aircraft will fly overhead.’

‘I doubt they’d see us; we’d just be a tiny speck on the ocean.’

‘So there is nothing further to do but sit and wait, but perhaps my prayers will be answered.’

‘Perhaps, but it looks like it’s going to be a hot day today,’ she said.

‘Yes, but maybe we’ll get a rainstorm.

‘Did you pray for rain?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said.

‘Me too,’ she said, ‘and of course a ship. Did you see the film “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks?’

‘No, they didn’t show us many films in the camp.’

‘This one came out nearly ten years ago I think. Anyway Tom Hanks is trapped alone on a desert island for a couple of years, but he eventually escapes on a raft. He’s drifting alone on the Pacific Ocean when he’s picked up by a passing freighter.’

‘Was it based on a true story?’ Ali asked.

‘I don’t think so, but maybe life will imitate art.’

They sat in silence for a while, and then Ali asked ‘So while I’ve spent the last few years in Guantanamo Bay, what have you been doing?’

Gerry stared at him. ‘I’ve been locked up in prison,’ she said.

He was reduced to an open mouthed silence for a moment and then asked ‘Why?’

‘For the murder of Dean Furness.’

He stared at her, wide eyed. ‘Did you do it?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I was set up for it. And that’s why, if you’ve nothing else to do now, perhaps you could tell me about Gilgamesh? Because I think it might help me understand why this has happened to us. Do you remember when we were in that aircraft with Hakim Mansour flying back to Kuwait? Mansour was in the toilet and I was trying to have a look in his briefcase but you stopped me from reading any further, otherwise I might have learned something about it back then.’ She gazed across at Ali Hamsin now slumped in the corner of a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean, rather than enjoying the comfort of an executive jet and aged beyond his years by his incarceration in Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

‘I remember stopping you,’ he said, ‘but Hakim Mansour came out the aircraft toilet with his trousers down and if he had found you reading it then there would have been hell to pay, for me anyway and probably for you too.’

‘So what was it all about, that agreement? What were you hiding from me?’

Ali tilted his head back and sighed. ‘If it wasn’t for that agreement and my association with Hakim Mansour I could have sheltered in Baghdad with my wife, or perhaps we would have left for Amman, where her brother lives, but I wouldn’t have finished up in Guantanamo Bay.’ He suddenly gave Gerry an accusing stare. ‘Maybe Rashid would have stayed safe in England, and you wouldn’t have arranged for the abduction of my son.’

‘Oh crap!’ she said to herself, and then aloud ‘So you know that was me.’

‘Rashid explained that a tall attractive woman named Sandra who spoke excellent Arabic in the Gulf style befriended him, but at the end of the evening he was snatched away from his home by some Americans. He also mentioned that Sandra had a scar on her neck. Apart from the name, that’s a fair description of you.’

Gerry’s hand automatically reached for the scar that ran down the right side of her neck and across her collar bone, remembering how the blood had flowed down her chest and how lucky she was not to have been slashed across the face or had her artery cut. She stared out of the raft where the sun was hidden behind some shower clouds, giving the two of them a respite from the heat.

‘It was just a few weeks after that meeting in Frankfurt.’ She shrugged ‘Depending on your point of view I’m a conniving bitch or a loyal and patriotic member of my country’s security service…or at least I was back then...I was carrying out orders to abduct Rashid. It was shortly before the invasion. Of course I never told him that I’d already met you. I asked my boss what was going to happen to him. First of all he told me to mind my own business, but then he told me that there was a job for your son, but not to worry, he would be going to Baghdad to re-join his family.  Then a few days later I was given set a task in Oman, and planning that rather put him out of my mind.’ She paused. ‘Anyhow he arrived safely back at home with you.’