فصل

Chapter 14

The lights in the plane went out again. There were only eleven of them let now: Carl Sandberg and Harald, four crew, and five Americans. They sat together in the middle of the plane. The girl and the young man in the black shirt watched them.

Through the window, Carl saw the fuel tanker drive towards the plane. It stopped, and five men in white clothes got out. The pilot went to the front of the plane to work the controls, and the men starred to refuel the plane.

The he saw another man in a yellow raincoat come out of the airport building.

The bearded hijacker starred to talk very excitedly. ‘Is it him? Yes, it is! Our leader! My brother and sister, we have done it! Now, I must welcome him at the door. You, brother, watch the pilot in the cabin, and sister, watch the passengers.’ Carl Sandberg watched the man in the yellow coat walk nearer. He could only see one man at the back of the plane, refuelling it. He thought the others were under the plane somewhere, but he did not know where.

Harald put his hand on Carl’s arm. Carl looked at him. Harald did not speak, but he was looking at the girl, very carefully.

As the door opened, and the man with the yellow coat came in, the girl turned to look. Through the window, Carl saw a man in a white coat run out from under the plane with something that looked like a grenade in his hand. Two other men in white ran out behind him.

The man’s arm went up and he threw the grenade through the open door. There was a very loud BANG! at the front of the plane, and a flash of white light that burned Carl’s eyes.

Almost immediately there was an even louder BANG! BANG! and two more flashes of white light.

Carl could not move. The noise was so loud and the light so bright that he sat still as a stone. He saw the girl hijacker and the bearded man standing quiet still too, with their guns in their hands and their mouths open. Then a man in white ran through the door with a gun in his hand. He shot the girl and the bearded man before they could move. The hijacker in the black shirt came out of the Captain’s cabin behind the man in white came through the door and shot him too. The two prisoners, in their yellow raincoats, tried to get the door, but the men in white knocked them to the floor and handcuffed their behind their backs.

Carl looked down. The girl was lying on the floor of the aisle beside him. He though he saw her hand move towards her machine gun, but then one of the soldiers in white ran down the aisle and shot her again through the head. Another soldier pulled her away by her legs and her long hair left blood along the floor.