in their own thoughts.

Finally Gronquist broke the silence. "It seems the only thing we know

for certain is that we have a real mystery on our hands.

Shortly before midnight, the imposter began his practiced drill to

abandon the jetliner. The air was sparkling clear and the dim smudge

that was Iceland rose above the flat, black horizon line of the sea. The

small island country was outlined by a faint but eerie display of

greenish rays from the Aurora Borealis.

He was oblivious to the dead men around him. He had grown used to the

smell of blood and it no longer sickened him. Death and gore simply

went with the job. He was as indifferent to mutilated bodies as a

pathologist or the neighborhood butcher.

The imposter was quite clinical about killing. Numbers of dead were

merely mathematical sums. He was paid well; he was a mercenary, as well

as a religious fanatic who murdered for a cause. Oddly, the only part

of his work that offended him was being called an assassin or a

terrorist. He detested the words. They had a political ring about

them, and he nurtured a passionate dislike for politicians.

He was a man of a thousand identities, a perfectionist who rejected

random gunfire in crowds or sloppy car bombs, considering them tools for

juvenile idiots. His methods were far more subtle. He never left

anything to chance. International investigators found it difficult to

separate many of his hits from what appeared to be accidents.

The death of Hala Kamil was more than an assigned task. He considered it

a duty. His elaborate plan had taken five months to perfect, followed

by the patient wait for the opportune moment.

Almost a waste, he mused. Kamil was a beautiful woman. But she was a

threat that had to be nullified.

He gently eased back on the throttles and nudged the control column

forward, beginning a shallow rate of descent. To anyone but another

pilot the slight drop in speed and altitude was imperceptible.

The main cabin crew had not troubled him. By now the passengers were

dozing, attempting but failing to fall into the deep sleep so elusive on

long aircraft flights.

for the twentieth time he re-checked his heading and studied the

computer he had reprogrammed to indicate the time and distance to his

drop zone.

Fifteen minutes later the jetliner crossed over an uninhabited section

of Iceland's southern coastline and headed inland. The landscape below

became a montage of gray rock and white snow. He lowered the flaps and

reduced speed until the Boeing 720-B was flying at 352 kilometers an

hour.

He reengaged the auto pilot on a new radio frequency transmitted from a

beacon placed on the Hofsjokull, a glacier rising 1,737 meters from the

center of the island. Then he set the altitude so the aircraft would

impact 150 meters below the peak.

Methodically he smashed and disabled the communication and direction

indicators. He also began dumping fuel as a backup in case a flaw