There was no reply. The radio voice of Sabri Ramirez didn't come back.
"He's jumped." Peretz looked up and grinned a demented grin. "He's in
the air. Perfect. Now he'll get to watch."
He plugged in the device he had been carrying, a UHF transmitter. Then
he flicked it to transmit, checked the liquid crystals that told its
frequency, and reached for a red switch.
"No!" Vance lunged, trying to seize the Walther as he shoved Peretz
against the instruments. The crazy son of a bitch was actually going to
do it.
Peretz was strong, with the hidden strength of the terminally mad, and
after only a second, Vance realized he didn't have a chance; he was too
beat up and exhausted. Bill Bates, too, was suffering from absolute
fatigue, but he also leapt forward, grappling with Peretz and trying to
seize his automatic.
With Vance as a distraction, Bates managed to turn the pistol upward.
Peretz was still gripping it like a vise, however, and at that moment
it discharged, on automatic, sending a spray of rounds across the
ceiling. Vance tried to duck away, and as he did, Peretz kneed him,
shoving him to the floor. Bates, however, still had a grip on his right
wrist, holding the pistol out of range. Again it erupted, another hail
of automatic fire, but as it did, Bates managed to shove Peretz against
the desk, grabbing his right elbow and twisting.
The Walther came around, locked on full automatic, and caught Dore
Peretz in the side of his face. As blood splattered across the room,
Bates staggered back, while Peretz collapsed onto the desk with a
scream, then twisted directly across the transmitter.
He was dead instantly. And as he crumpled to the floor, almost by
magic, the background noise from the radio on the Sikorsky stopped,
replaced by a sterile hiss.
"Thank God," Bates whispered, breathless, and reached to help Vance up.
"Are you okay, Mike?"
"I think so," he mumbled, rising to one trembling knee. "At least we--"
The room shook as a blistering shock wave rolled over the island.
Outside, the distant sky above the eastern Mediterranean turned bright
as the midday sun. Fifteen thousand feet above the Aegean, a blinding
whiteness appeared unlike anything a living Greek had ever seen.