luggage being loaded in the rear by the baggage handlers.

Lemk reached up and tugged the duffel bag down after him and switched on

the penlight. A glance at his watch told him he had about five minutes

before his flight crew arrived. In an exercise he had practiced nearly

fifty times, he retrieved the actuator arm from the bag and connected it

to a miniature device he had concealed in his flight cap.

He attached the assembled unit to the hinges of a small access door to

the outside used by ground/maintenance mechanics. Then he laid out the

parachute.

When his first and second officers arrived, Lemk was sitting in the

pilot's seat, his face buried in an information manual. They exchanged

casual greetings and began running through their preflight check

routine. Neither the co-pilot nor the engineer perceived that Lemk

seemed unusually quiet and withdrawn.

Their senses might have been sharper if they had known this was to be

their last night on earth.

Inside the crowded lounge, Hala Kamil faced a forest of microphones and

glaring camera lights. With seemingly inexhaustible patience, she

fielded the barrage of questions thrown at her by the mob of inquisitive

reporters.

Few asked about her sweep through Europe and the nonstop meetings with

heads of state. Most probed for insights on the imminent overthrow of

her Egyptian government by Moslem fundamentalists.

The extent of the turmoil was unclear to her. Fanatical mullahs, led by

Akhmad Yazid, an Islac law scholar, had ignited religious passions that

ran through the millions of destitute villagers of the Nile and the

impoverished masses in the slums of Cairo. High-ranking officers in the

army and air force were openly conspiring with the Islamic radicals to

remove the recently installed president, Nadav Hasan. The situation was

extremely volatile, but Hala had received no up-to-the-minute

intelligence from her government, and she was forced to keep her answers

vague and ambiguous.

On the surface Hala appeared infinitely poised and sphinxlike as she

replied calmly, without emotion. Inwardly she floated between confusion

and spiritual shock. She felt distant and alone, as though

uncontrollable events were swirling around someone else, someone beyond

help for whom she could only feel sorrow.

She could have posed for the painted portrait bust of Queen Nefertiti in

the Berlin museum. They both possessed the same long-stemmed neck,

delicate features and haunting look. Forty-two years old, slim, black

eyes, flawless tawny complexion and long jet-black silken hair brushed

straight and falling down to her shoulders. She stood five feet eleven

inches in heels, and her lithe, shapely body was enhanced by a designer

suit with pleated skirt.

Hala had enjoyed the attentions of four lovers over the years but had

never married. A husband and children seemed foreign to her. She

refused to spare the time for long-term attachments, and making love

held little more ecstasy for her than buying a ticket and attending the

ballet.

As a child in Cairo, where her mother was a teacher and her father a