Clancy, Tom - Rainbow Six

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RAINBOW SIX
Tom Clancy
P R O L O G U E
SETTING UP
John Clark had more time in airplanes than most licensed pilots, and he knew the statistics as
well as any of them, but he still didn't like the idea of crossing the ocean on a twin-engine airliner.
Four was the right number of engines, he thought, because losing one meant losing only 25 percent
of the aircraft's available power, whereas on this United 777, it meant losing half. Maybe the
presence of his wife, one daughter, and a son-in-law made him a little itchier than usual. No, that
wasn't right. He wasn't itchy at all, not about flying anyway. It was just a lingering . . . what? he
asked himself. Next to him, in the window seat Sandy was immersed in the mystery she'd started
the day before, while he was trying to concentrate on the current issue of The Economist, and
wondering what was putting the cold-air feeling on the back of his neck. He started to look around
the cabin for a sign of danger but abruptly stopped himself. There wasn't anything wrong that he
could see, and he didn't want to seem like a nervous flyer to the cabin crew. He sipped at his glass
of white wine, shook his shoulders, and went back to the article on how peaceful the new world
was.
Right. He grimaced. Well, yes, he had to admit that things were a hell of a lot better than they'd
been for nearly all of his life. No more swimming out of a submarine to do a collection on a
Russian beach, or flying into Tehran to do something the Iranians wouldn't like much, or swimming
up a fetid river in North Vietnam to rescue a downed aviator. Someday maybe Bob Holtzman
would talk him into a book on his career. Problem was, who'd believe it and would CIA ever allow
him to tell his tales except on his own deathbed? He was not in a hurry for that, not with a
grandchild on the way. Damn. He grimaced, unwilling to contemplate that development. Patsy
must have caught a silver bullet on their wedding night, and Ding glowed more about it than she
did. John looked back to business class-the curtain wasn't in place yet-and there they were, holding
hands while the stewardess did the safety lecture. If the airplane hit the water at 400 knots, reach
under our seat for the life preserver and inflate it by pulling. . . he'd heard that one before. The
bright yellow life jackets would make it somewhat easier for search aircraft to find the crash site,
and that was about all they were good for.
Clark looked around the cabin again. He still felt that draft on his neck. Why? The flight
attendant made the rounds, removing his wineglass as the aircraft taxied out to the end of the
runway. Her last stop was by Alistair over on the left side of the first-class cabin. Clark caught his
eye and got a funny look back as the Brit put his seat back in the upright position. Him, too? Wasn't
that something? Neither of the two had ever been accused of nervousness.
Alistair Stanley had been a major in the Special Air Service before being permanently seconded
to the Secret Intelligence Service. His position had been much like John's-the one you called in to
take care of business when the gentler people in the field division got a little too skittish. Al and
John had hit it off right away on a job in Romania eight years before, and the American was
pleased to be working with him again on a more regular basis, even if they were both too old now
for the fun stuff. Administration wasn't exactly John's idea of what his job should be, but he had to
admit he wasn't twenty anymore . . . or thirty . . . or even forty. A little old to run down alleys and
jump over walls .... Ding had said that to him only a week before in John's office at Langley, rather
more respectfully than usual, since he was trying to make a logical point to the grandfather-
presumptive of his first child. What the hell, Clark told himself, it was remarkable enough that he
was still alive to gripe about being old no, not old, older. Not to mention he was respectable now as
Director of the new agency. Director. A polite term for a REMF. But you didn't say no to the
President, especially if he happened to be your friend.
The engine sounds increased. The airliner started moving The usual sensation came, like being
pressed back into the seat of a sports car jumping off a red light, but with more authority. Sandy,
who hardly traveled at all, didn't look up from the book. It must have been pretty good, though John
never bothered reading mysteries. He never could figure them out, and they made him feel stupid,
despite the fact that in his professional life he'd picked his way through real mysteries more than
once. A little voice in his head said rotate, and the floor came up under his feet. The body of the
aircraft followed the nose into the sky, and the flight began properly, the wheels rising up into the
wells. Instantly, those around him lowered their seats to get some sleep on the way to London
Heathrow. John lowered his, too, but not as far. He wanted dinner first.
"On our way, honey," Sandy said, taking a second away from the book.
"I hope you like it over there."
"I have three cookbooks for after I figure this one out."
John smiled. "Who done it?"
"Not sure yet, but probably the wife."
"Yeah, divorce lawyers are so expensive."
Sandy chuckled and went back to the story as the stews got up from their seats to resume drink
service. Clark finished The Economist and started Sports Illustrated. Damn, he'd be missing the end
of the football season. That was one thing he'd always tried to keep track of, even off on a mission.
The Bears were coming back, and he'd grown up with Papa Bear George Halas and the Monsters of
the Midway-had often wondered if he might have made it as a pro himself. He'd been a pretty good
linebacker in high school, and Indiana University had shown some interest in him (also for his
swimming). Then he'd decided to forgo college and join the Navy, as his father had before him,
though Clark had become a SEAL, rather than a skimmer-sailor on a tin can . . .
"Mr. Clark?" The stew delivered the dinner menu. "Mrs. Clark?"
One nice thing about first class. The flight crew pretended you had a name. John had gotten an
automatic upgrade - he had frequent flyer miles up the ying yang, and from now on he'd mainly fly
British Airways, which had a very comfortable understanding with the British government.
The menu, he saw, was pretty good, as it usually was on international flights, and so was the
wine list . . . but he decided to ask for bottled water instead of wine, thank you. Hmph. He
grumbled to himself, settled back, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. These damned flights
always seemed overheated to him.
The captain got on next, interrupting all the personal movies on their mini-screens. They were
taking a southerly routing to take advantage of the jet stream. That, Captain Will Garnet explained,
would cut their time to Heathrow by forty minutes. He didn't say that it would also make for a few
bumps. Airlines tried to conserve fuel, and forty-five minutes' worth would put a gold star in his
copybook . . . well, maybe just a silver one . . .
The usual sensations. The aircraft tilted; more to the right than the left, as it crossed over the
ocean at Sea Isle City in New Jersey for the three-thousand-mile flight to the next landfall,
somewhere on the Irish coast, which they'd reach in about five and a half hours, John thought. He
had to sleep for some of that time. At least the captain didn't bother them with the usual tour-
director crap-we are now at forty thousand feet, that's almost eight miles to fall if the wings come
off and... They started serving dinner. They'd be doing the same aft in tourist class, with the drink
and dinner carts blocking the aisles.
It started on the left side of the aircraft. The man was dressed properly, wearing a jacket-that was
what got John's attention. Most people took them off as soon as they sat down but it was a
Browning automatic, with a flat-black finish that said "military" to Clark, and, less than a second
later, to Alistair Stanley. A moment later, two more men appeared on the right side, walking right
next to Clark's seat.
"Oh, shit," he said so quietly that only Sandy heard him. She turned and looked, -but before she
could do or say anything, he grabbed her hand. That was enough to keep her quiet, but not quite
enough to keep the lady across the aisle from screaming-well, almost screaming. The woman with
her covered her mouth with a hand and stifled most of it. The stewardess looked at the two men in
front of her in total disbelief. This hadn't happened in years. How could it be happening now?
Clark was asking much the same question, followed by another: Why the hell had he packed his
sidearm in his carry-on and stowed it in the overhead? What was the point of having a gun on an
airplane, you idiot, if you couldn't get to it? What a dumb ass rookie mistake! He only had to look
to his left to see the same expression on Alistair's face. Two of the most experienced pros in the
business, their guns less than four feet away, but they might as well be in the luggage stored below
....
"John . . ."
"Just relax, Sandy," her husband replied quietly. More easily said than done, as he well knew.
John sat back, keeping his head still, but turned away from the window and toward the cabin. His
eyes moved free. Three of them. One, probably the leader, was taking a stew forward, where she
unlocked the door to the flight deck. John watched the two of them go through and close the door
behind them. Okay, now Captain William Garnet would find out what was going on. Hopefully he
would be a pro, and he'd be trained to say yes, sir no, sir-three bags full, sir to anybody who came
forward with a gun. At best he'd be Air Force- or Navy-trained, and therefore he'd know better than
to do anything stupid, like trying to be a goddamned hero. His mission would be to get the airplane
on the ground, somewhere, anywhere, because it was a hell of a lot harder to kill three hundred
people in an airplane when it was sitting still on the ramp with the wheels chocked.
Three of them, one forward in the flight deck. He'd stay there to keep an eye on the drivers and to
use the radio to tell whomever he wanted to talk to what his demands were. Two more in first class,
standing there, forward, where they could see down both aisles of the aircraft.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. I've got the seat-belt sign on. There's a little
chop in the air. Please stay in your seats for the time being. I'll be back to you in a few minutes.
Thank you."
Good, John thought, catching Alistair's eye. The captain sounded cool, and the bad guys weren't
acting crazy yet. The people in back probably didn't know anything was wrong yet. Also good.
People might panic . . . well, no, not necessarily, but so much the better for everyone if nobody
knew there was anything to panic about.
Three of them. Only three? Might there be a backup guy, disguised as a passenger? T hat was the
one who controlled the bomb, if there was a bomb, and a bomb was the worst thing there could be.
A pistol bullet might punch a hole in the skin of the aircraft, forcing a rapid descent, and that would
fill some barf bags and cause some soiled underwear, but nobody died from that. A bomb would
kill everyone aboard, probably . . . better than even money, Clark judged, and he hadn't gotten old
by taking that sort of chance when he didn't have to. Maybe just let the airplane go to wherever the
hell these three wanted to go, and let negotiations start, by which time people would know that
there were another three very special people inside. Word would be going out now. The bad guys
would have gotten onto the company radio frequency and passed along the bad news of the day,
and the Director of Security for United-Clark knew him, Pete Fleming, former Deputy Assistant
Director of the FBI-would call his former agency and get that ball rolling, to include notification of
CIA and State, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team in Quantico, and Little Willie Byron's Delta Force
down at Fort Bragg. Pete would also pass along the passenger list, with three of them circled in red,
and that would get Willie a little nervous, plus making the troops at Langley and Foggy Bottom
wonder about a security leak-John dismissed that. This was a random event that would just make
people spin wheels in the Operations Room in Langley's Old Headquarters Building. Probably.
It was time to move a little. Clark turned his head very slowly, toward Domingo Chavez, just
twenty feet away. When eye contact was established, he touched the tip of his nose, as though to
make an itch go away. Chavez did the same . . . and Ding was still wearing his jacket. He was more
used to hot weather, John thought, and probably felt fine on the airplane. Good. He'd still have his
Beretta 45 probably . . . Ding preferred the small of his back, and that was awkward for a guy
strapped into an airliner seat. Even so, Chavez knew what was going down, and had the good sense
to do nothing about it . .. yet. How might Ding react with his pregnant wife sitting next to him?
Domingo was smart and as cool under pressure as Clark could ever ask, but under that he was still
Latino, a man of no small passion-even John Clark, experienced as he was, saw flaws in others that
were perfectly natural to himself. He had his wife sitting next to him, and Sandy was frightened,
and Sandy wasn't supposed to be frightened about her own safety .... It was her husband's self
assigned job to make certain of that ....
One of the bad guys was going over the passenger list. Well, that would tell John if there had
been a security leak of some sort. But if there were, he couldn't do anything about it. Not yet. Not
until he knew what was going on. Sometimes you just had to sit and take it and
The guy at the head of the left-side aisle started moving, and fifteen feet later, he was looking
down at the woman in the window seat next to Alistair.
"Who are you?" he demanded in Spanish.
The lady replied with a name John didn't catch-it was a Spanish name, but from twenty feet away
he couldn't hear it clearly enough to identify it, mainly because her reply had been quiet, polite . . .
cultured, he thought. Diplomat's wife, maybe? Alistair was leaning back in his seat, staring with
wide blue eyes up at the guy with the gun and trying a little too hard not to show fear.
A scream came from the back of the aircraft. "Gun, that's a gun!" a man's voice shouted
Shit, John thought. Now everybody would know. The right aisle guy knocked on the cockpit
door and stuck his head in to announce this good news.
"Ladies and gentlemen . . . this is Captain Garnet . . . I, uh, am instructed to tell you that we are
deviating from our flight plan .... We, uh, have some guests aboard who have told me to fly to Lajes
in the Azores. They say that they have no desire to hurt anyone, but they are armed, and First
Officer Renford and I are going to do exactly what they say. Please remain calm, stay in your seats,
and just try to keep things under control. I will be back to you later." Good news. He had to be
military trained; his voice was as cool as the smoke off dry ice. Good.
Lajes in the Azores, Clark thought. Former U.S. Navy base . . . still active? Maybe just
caretakered for long overwater flights flying there-as a stop and refueling point for somewhere
else? Well, the left-side guy had spoken in Spanish, and been replied to in Spanish. Probably not
Middle Eastern bad guys. Spanish speakers . . . Basques? That was still perking over in Spain. The
woman, who was she? Clark looked over. Everyone was looking around now, and it was safe for
him to do so. Early fifties, well turned out. The Spanish ambassador to Washington was male.
Might this be his wife?
The left-side man shifted his gaze a seat. "Who are you?"
"Alistair Stanley" was the reply. There was no sense in Alistair's lying, Clark knew. They were
traveling openly. Nobody knew about their agency. They hadn't even started it up yet. Shit, Clark
thought. "I'm British," he added in a quaky voice. "My passport's in my bag up in t he" He reached
up and had his hand slapped down by the bad guy's gun.
Nice play, John thought, even if it hadn't worked. He might have gotten the bag down, produced
the passport, and then had his gun in his lap. Bad luck that the gunman didn't believed him. That
was the problem with accents. But Vistair was up to speed. The three wolves didn't know that the
sheep herd had three dogs in it. Big ones.
Willie would be on the phone now. Delta kept an advance team on round-the-clock standby, and
they'd be prepping for a possible deployment now. Colonel Byron would be with them. Little
Willie was that kind of soldier. He had an XO and staff to follow things up while he led from the
front. A lot of wheels were spinning now. All John and his fiends really had to do was sit tight . . .
so long as the bad guys kept their cool.
More Spanish from the left side. "Where is your husband?" he demanded. He was pretty mad.
Made sense, John thought. Ambassadors are good targets. But so were their wives. She was too
sharp-looking to be the wife of Just a diplomat, and Washington had to be a premier post. Senior
guy, probably aristocracy. Spain still had that. High-profile target, the better to put pressure on the
Spanish government.
Blown mission was the next thought. They wanted him, not her, and they would not be happy
about that. Bad intelligence, guys, Clark thought, looking at their faces and seeing their anger. Even
happens to me once in a while. Yeah, he thought, like about half the fucking time in a good year.
The two he could see were talking to each other . . . quietly, but the body language said it all. They
were pissed. So, he had three (or more?)angry terrorists with guns on a two-engine airplane over
the North Atlantic at night. Could have been worse, John told himself. Somehow. Yeah, they might
have had Semtex jackets with Primacord trim.
They were late twenties, Clark thought. Old enough to be technically competent, but young
enough to need adult supervision. Little operational experience, and not enough judgment. They'd
think they knew it all, think they were real clever. That was the problem with death. Trained
soldiers knew the reality of it better than terrorists did. These three would want to succeed, and
wouldn't really consider the alternative. Maybe a rogue mission. The Basque separatists hadn't ever
messed with foreign nationals, had they? Not Americans anyway, but this was an American
airliner, and that was a big black line to step over. Rogue mission? Probably. Bad news.
You wanted a degree of predictability in situations like this. Even terrorism had rules. There was
almost a liturgy to it, steps everyone had to take before something really bad happened, which gave
the good guys a chance to talk to the bad guys. Get a negotiator down to establish rapport with
them, negotiate the little stuff at first come on, let the children and their mothers off, okay? No big
deal, and it looks bad for you and your group on TV, right? Get them started giving things up. Then
the old people-who wants to whack grandma and grandpa? Then the food, maybe with some
Valium mixed in with it, while the response team's intel group started spiking the aircraft with
micro phones and miniature lenses whose fiber-optic cables fed to TV camera.
Idiots, Clark thought. This play just didn't work. It was almost as bad as kidnapping a child for
money. Cops were just too good at tracking those fools, and Little Willie was sure as hell boarding
a USAF transport at Pope Air Force Base right now. If they really landed at Lajes, the process
would start real soon, and the only variable was how many good guys would bite the big one before
the bad guys got to do the same. Clark had worked with Colonel Byron's boys and girls. If they
came into the aircraft, at least three people would not be leaving it alive. Problem was, how much
company would they have in the hereafter? Hitting an airliner was like having a shoot-out in a
grammar school, just more crowded.
They were talking more, up front, paying little attention to anything else, the rest of the aircraft.
In one sense, that was logical. The front office was the most important part, but you always wanted
to keep an eye on the rest. You never knew who might be aboard. Sky marshals were long in the
past, but cops traveled by air, and some of them carried guns . . . well, maybe not on international
flights, but you didn't get to retire from the terrorist business by being dumb. It was hard enough to
survive if you were smart. Amateurs. Rogue mission. Bad intelligence. Anger and frustration. This
was getting worse. One of them balled his left hand into a fist and shook it at the entire adverse
world they'd found aboard.
Great, John thought. He turned in the seat, again catching Ding's eye and shaking his head side to
side ever so slightly. His reply was a raised eyebrow. Domingo knew how to speak proper English
when he had to.
It was as though the air changed then, and not for the better. Number 2 went forward again into
the cockpit and stayed for several minutes, while John and Alistair watched the one on the left side,
staring down the aisle. After two minutes of frustrated attention, he switched sides as though in a
spasm, and looked aft, leaning his head forward as though to shorten the distance, peering down the
aisle while his face bounced between expressions of power and impotence. Then, just as quickly, he
headed back to port, pausing only to look at the cockpit door in anger.
There's only the three of them, John told himself then, just as #2 reappeared from the front office.
Number 3 was too hyped. Probably just the three? he wondered. Think through it, Clark told
himself. If so, that really made them amateurs. The Gong Show might be an amusing thought in
another context, but not at 500 knots, 37,000 feet over the North Atlantic. If they could just be cool
about everything, let the driver get the twin-engine beast on the ground, maybe some common
sense would break out. But they wouldn't be very cool, would they?
Instead of taking his post to cover the right-side aisle, #2 went back to #3 and they spoke in raspy
whispers which Clark understood in context if not content. It was when #2 pointed to the cockpit
door that things became worst of all - nobody's really in charge, John decided. That was just great,
three free-agents with guns in a friggin' airplane. It was time to start being afraid. Clark was not a
stranger to fear. He'd been in too many tight places for that, but in every other case he'd had an
element of control over the situation-or if not that, at least over his own actions, such as the ability
to run away, which was a far more comforting thought now than he'd ever realized. He closed his
eyes and took a deep breath.
Number 2 headed aft to look at the woman sitting next to Alistair. He just stood there for a few
seconds, staring at her, then looking at Alistair, who looked back in a subdued way.
"Yes?" the Brit said finally, in his most cultured accent.
"Who are you?" Number 2 demanded.
"I told your friend, old man, Alistair Stanley. I have my passport in my carry-on bag if you wish
to see it." The voice was just brittle enough to simulate a frightened man holding it together.
"Yes, show it to me!"
"Of course, sir." In elegantly slow movements, the former SAS major slipped out of his seat belt,
stood, opened the overhead bin, and extracted his black carry-on bag. "May I?" he asked. Number 2
replied with a nod.
Alistair unzipped the side compartment and pulled the passport out, handed it over, then sat
down, his trembling hands holding the bag in his lap.
Number 2 looked at the passport and tossed it back into the Brit's lap while John watched. Then
he said something in Spanish to the woman in 4A. "Where is your husband?" it sounded like. The
woman replied in the same cultured tones that she'd used just a few minutes earlier, and #2 stormed
away to speak with #3 again. Alistair let out a long breath and looked around the cabin, as though
for security, finally catching John's eye. There was no movement from his hands or face, but even
so John knew what he was thinking. Al was not happy with this situation either, and more to the
point, he'd seen both #2 and #3 close up, looked right in their eyes. John had to factor that into his
thought processes. Alistair Stanley was worried, too. The slightly junior officer reached up as
though to brush his hair back, and one finger tapped the skull above the ear twice. It might even be
worse than he'd feared.
Clark reached his hand forward, enough to shield it from the two in the front of the cabin, and
held up three fingers. Al nodded half an inch or so and turned away for a few seconds, allowing
John to digest the message. He agreed that there were only three of them. John nodded with
appreciation at the confirmation.
How much the better had they been smart terrorists, but the smart ones didn't try stuff like this
anymore. The odds were just too long, as the Israelis had proven in Uganda, and the Germans in
Somalia. You were safe doing this only so long as the aircraft was in the air, and they couldn't stay
up forever, and when they landed the entire civilized world could come crashing in on them with
the speed of a thunderbolt and the power of a Kansas tornado-and the real problem was that not all
that many people truly wanted to die before turning thirty. And those who did used bombs. So, the
smart ones did other things. For that reason they were more dangerous adversaries, but they were
also predictable. They didn't kill people for recreation, and they didn't get frustrated early on
because they planned their opening moves with skill.
These three were dumb. They had acted on bad intelligence, hadn't had an intel team in place to
give them a final mission check, to tell them that their primary target hadn't made the flight, and so
here they were, committed to a dumb mission that was already blown, contemplating death or life-
long imprisonment . . . for nothing. The only good news, if you could call it that, was that their
imprisonment would be in America.
But they didn't want to contemplate life in a steel cage any more than they wished to face death
in the next few days-but soon they'd start to realize that there was no third alternative. And that the
guns in their hands were the only power they had, and that they might as well start using them to
get their way . . . . . . and for John Clark, the choice was whether or not to wait for that to start ....
No. He couldn't just sit here and wait for them to start killing people.
Okay. He watched the two for another minute or so, the way they looked at each other while
trying to cover both aisles, as he figured out how to do it. With both the dumb ones and the smart
ones, the simple plans were usually the best.
It took five minutes more until #2 decided to talk some more with #3. When he did, John turned
enough to catch Ding's eye, swiping one finger across his upper lip, as though to stroke a mustache
he'd never grown. Chavez cocked his head as though to reply you sure? but took the sign. He
loosened his seatbelt and reached behind his back with his left hand, bringing his pistol out before
the alarmed eyes of his six-week wife. Domingo touched her right hand with his to reassure her,
covered the Beretta with a napkin in his lap, adopted a neutral expression, and waited for his senior
to make the play.
"You!" Number 2 called from forward.
"Yes?" Clark replied, looking studiously forward.
"Sit still!" The man's English wasn't bad. Well, European schools had good language programs.
"Hey, look, I, uh, had a few drinks, and-well, you know, how about it? Por favor, " John added
sheepishly.
"No, you will stay in your seat!"
"Hey, whatcha gonna do, shoot a guy who needs to take a leak? I don't know what your problem
is, okay, but I gotta go, okay? Please?"
Number 2 and #3 traded an oh-shit look that just confirmed their amateur status one last time.
The two stews, strapped in their seats forward, looked very worried indeed but didn't say anything.
John pressed the issue by unbuckling his seat belt and starting to stand. Number 2 raced aft then,
gun in front, stopping just short of pressing it against John's chest. Sandy's eyes were wide now.
She'd never seen her husband do anything the least bit dangerous, but she knew this wasn't the
husband who had slept next to her for twenty-five years-and if not that one, then he had to be the
other Clark, the one she knew about but had never seen.
"Look, I go there, I take a leak, and I come back, okay? Hell, you wanna watch," he said, his
voice slurred now from the half glass of wine he'd drunk alongside the terminal. "That's okay, too,
but please don't make me wet my pants, okay?"
What turned the trick was Clark's size. He was just under six two, and his forearms, visible with
the rolled-up sleeves, were powerful. Number 3 was smaller by four inches and thirty pounds, but
he had a gun, and making bigger people do one's wishes is always a treat for bullies. So #2 gripped
John by the left arm, spun him around and pushed him roughly aft toward the right side lavatory.
John cowered and went, his hands above his head.
"Hey, gracias, amigo, okay?" Clark opened the door. Dumb as ever, #2 actually allowed him to
close it. For his part, John did what he'd asked permission to do, then washed his hands and took a
brief look in the mirror.
Hey, Snake, you still got it? he asked himself, without so much as a breath.
Okay, let's find out.
John slid the locking bar loose, and pulled the folding door open with a grateful and thoroughly
cowed look on leis face.
"Hey, uh, thanks, y'know."
"Back to your seat."
"Wait. let me get you a cuppa coffee, okay, I-" John took a step aft, and #2 was dumb enough to
follow in order to cover him, then reached for Clark's shoulder and turned him around.
"Buenas noces, " Ding said quietly from less than ten feet away, his gun up and aimed at the side
of #2's head. The man's eyes caught the blue steel that had to be a gun, and the distraction was just
right. John's right hand came around, his forearm snapping up, and the back of his fist catching the
terrorist in the right temple. The blow was enough to stun.
"How you loaded?"
"Low-velocity," Ding whispered back. "We're on an airplane, 'mano," he reminded his director.
"Stay loose," John commanded quietly, getting a nod.
"Miguel!" Number 3 called loudly.
Clark moved to the left side, pausing on the way to get a cup of coffee from the machine,
complete with saucer and spoon. He then reappeared in the left-side aisle and moved forward.
"He said to bring you this. Thank you for allowing me to use the bathroom," John said, in a
shaky but grateful voice. "Here is your coffee, sir."
"Miguel!" Number 3 called again.
"He went back that way. Here's your coffee. I'm supposed to sit down now, okay?" John took a
few steps forward and stopped, hoping that this amateur would continue to act like one.
He did, coming toward him. John cowered a little, and allowed the cup and saucer to shake in his
hand, and just as #3 reached him, looking over to the right side of the aircraft for his colleague,
Clark dropped both of them on the floor and dove down to get them, about half a step behind
Alistair's seat. Number 3 automatically bent down as well. It would be his last mistake for the
evening.
John's hands grabbed the pistol and twisted it around and up into its owner's belly. It might have
gone off, but Alistair's own Browning Hi-Power crashed down on the back of the man's neck, just
below the skull, and #3 went limp as Raggedy Andy.
"You impatient bugger," Stanley rasped. "Bloody good acting, though." Then he turned, pointed
to the nearest stewardess, and snapped his fingers. She came out of her seat like a shot, fairly
running aft to them. "Rope, cord, anything to tie them up, quickly!"
John collected the pistol and immediately removed the magazine, then jacked the action to eject
the remaining round. In two more seconds, he'd field-stripped the weapon and tossed the pieces at
the feet of Alistair's traveling companion, whose brown eyes were wide and shocked.
"Sky marshals, ma'am. Please be at ease," Clark explained.
A few seconds after that, Ding appeared, dragging #2 with him. The stewardess returned with a
spool of twine.
"Ding, front office!" John ordered.
"Roge-o, Mr. C." Chavez moved forward, his Beretta in both hands, and stood by the cockpit
door. On the floor, Clark did the wrapping. His hands remembered the sailor knots from thirty
years earlier. Amazing, he thought, tying them off as tight as he could. If their hands turned black,
too damned bad.
"One more, John," Stanley breathed.
摘要:

RAINBOWSIXTomClancyPROLOGUESETTINGUPJohnClarkhadmoretimeinairplanesthanmostlicensedpilots,andheknewthestatisticsaswellasanyofthem,buthestilldidn'tliketheideaofcrossingtheoceanonatwin-engineairliner.Fourwastherightnumberofengines,hethought,becauselosingonemeantlosingonly25percentoftheaircraft'savaila...

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