He crossed to the cockpit door and turned the handle. The door was locked. That was now mandatory on commercial flights, but it struck him as being unusual procedure in a State Department executive jet engaged on official government business. He rapped sharply on the door and called out.
Sutter and Haig turned and eyed the locked door. ‘Sounds like someone didn’t do what he was told,’ Haig murmured.
Sutter nodded and undid his seat belt. ‘I’ll go sort it out. Level us at fifteen.’ They’d received further descent clearance less than a minute earlier. He removed the push-dagger from his jacket pocket, locked the blade in place and slid it into the rear waistband of his trousers. Then he released the bolt and opened the door.
Grant Hutchings was almost blocking the doorway. ‘There’s something wrong with the oxygen supply,’ he said. ‘Maybe the plane’s been sabotaged.’ He turned to indicate his three companions.
You got that right, Sutter thought, pulling out the dagger and stabbing it hard towards the CIA officer’s back, just as he moved away. But at that moment Hutchings turned back towards him, as if wanting to say something else.
Hutchings reacted instinctively when he saw the weapon, his basic unarmed-combat training taking over. He continued turning, swinging his left arm across to block the blow. He punched hard with his right fist, aiming for Sutter’s solar plexus, and if the blow had connected that would have been the end of it.
But while Hutchings had received basic training in self-defence, the other man was an expert. Sutter was skilled in karate and some half-dozen other forms of unarmed combat, so the punch got nowhere near him. He blocked it effortlessly, knocking Hutchings’s arm to one side, and at the same time dropping the dagger. He folded his fingers at the second joint, wedging his thumb firmly against his index finger and stiffened his right hand into a blade. He smashed his hand into Hutchings’s throat, delivering a short-arm jab that fatally crushed his windpipe.
The big CIA agent staggered backwards, lifting both hands to his neck, which just made Sutter’s job easier. He punched Hutchings twice in the stomach and he fell to the floor. Then Sutter stepped back to pick up the dagger and bent over the injured man.
Over the flaring agony of his ruined throat, Hutchings sensed his life ebbing away. The last thing he heard was his killer’s contemptuous remark, just before the dagger ripped through his rib-cage, its point slamming into his heart.
‘Why didn’t you just breathe through the fucking mask, you stupid bastard?’
For a few seconds, Sutter ignored the corpse in front of him and looked at the other three passengers. All appeared to be still unconscious, but unconscious wasn’t what he needed.
He moved quickly from one to another, replacing the oxygen masks on their faces, then turned back to Hutchings. He checked for a pulse but predictably found nothing, and there was surprisingly little blood from the fatal wound, because the heart had ceased pumping almost immediately the dagger had entered the chest cavity.
Leaving Hutchings where he was lying, Sutter made a final check of the other three men, then returned to the cockpit. The narcotic would be seeping slowly into the air, and he wanted to spend as little time as possible in the cabin.
‘OK now?’ Haig asked, as Sutter closed the cockpit door and refastened the bolt.
‘Should be. One of them didn’t put his mask on quickly enough, or maybe he smelt something. Anyway, he’s dead now. Another ten minutes should be enough for the others, then we can turn off the oxygen. We’ll stay down here at fifteen for a while, then ask for clearance back to high level. When you talk to the controller again, tell him we think the problem was instrumentation rather than an actual depressurization, but we’ll need to land at Cairo just to get it checked.’
Thirty minutes later the Gulfstream was back up at forty-one thousand feet on autopilot. Sutter and Haig were relaxing in the cockpit, sharing the sandwiches they’d found in one of the catering packs provided for the G450’s passengers, and Cairo Air Traffic Control had already been alerted to expect the unscheduled arrival.
O’Hagan and Petrucci had set their alarm for three. The two men made coffee — one of the few amenities the hotel possessed was coffee-making facilities in each room — and then sat waiting for the phone call that would determine exactly when they’d have to leave.
O’Hagan’s mobile rang just before three-thirty. He listened carefully for a few seconds. ‘Right, see you then.’ He turned to Petrucci. ‘They’ll arrive in about ninety minutes, so we need to be out of here soon. I’d better get Wilson moving.’
‘We’ll be mobile in fifteen,’ he announced when his call was answered. ‘Which hotel?’ He scribbled down the name and address. ‘We’ll be in a white Mercedes van.’
‘Right,’ Petrucci said. ‘I’ll go grab my stuff and get the Merc. I’ll see you outside in ten minutes.’
In his hotel room at Abbassia, Richard Wilson rang Dawson’s mobile. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Check yourself out right now.’
Twenty-five minutes later Petrucci pulled the Mercedes over to the kerb outside the hotel where Wilson was standing waiting with the cases beside him. O’Hagan opened the passenger door and stepped out, his face creasing into a smile as he extended his hand.
‘Hi, Dick. Good to see you. Is that it?’ He was pointing towards the larger of the suitcases sitting on the pavement.
‘That’s it.’
‘And where’s Ed?’
‘Ain Shams Hospital. They held him overnight for observation, but I gave him a call just after you reached me, so he should be out by now.’
Wilson and O’Hagan heaved the cases into the rear of the van as Petrucci got back behind the wheel, and the Mercedes eased away from the kerb. The hospital was nearby and when the van turned into the access road running past the admissions unit, they all saw the lone figure standing outside.
‘Everything OK?’ Wilson asked.
‘No problems,’ Dawson replied. ‘Once I told them I was feeling fine, they let me go as soon as I’d filled in a “you can’t sue us if you walk out of here” form. Is the plane here?’
O’Hagan glanced at his watch. ‘Not yet. They’re about an hour from touchdown, so we’re in good time. They’re in a Gulfstream G450. We’re technicians going to inspect the aircraft. We won’t need passports or anything, because we’re only going as far as the tech site. Once the G450 is down — and Roy will call me as soon as he’s parked it — we’ll talk our way in.’
‘And then?’ Wilson asked.
‘And then we’ll find out from them what the score is and what else we have to do before we can take off for Dubai.’
‘Cairo, November Two Six on handover and requesting airfield information.’
‘November Two Six is identified. Active runway is two three right, wind light and variable, altimeter one zero one eight. You’re number two in the pattern, no delays expected.’
Haig called out the pre-landing checks as Sutter disengaged the autopilot and lined up the Gulfstream with the extended-runway centreline. He progressively increased the angle of the flaps as Sutter reduced the throttle settings and brought the speed down, then he lowered the undercarriage. With final checks complete, he flared the aircraft as they passed over the piano keys, and waited for the main wheels to make contact with the runway.
‘Cairo Ground, November Two Six is down and requesting taxi instructions. Be advised we’re expecting a maintenance check because of a suspected depressurization problem en route. We don’t require a refuel or customs clearance and we won’t be leaving the aircraft.’