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* Title : #010 : TERROR SQUAD *

* Series : The Destroyer *

* Author(s) : Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir *

* Location : Gillian Archives *

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CHAPTER ONE

An airplane is an unsupportable outpost. You cannot reinforce it. You cannot resupply it.

Mrs. Kathay Miller listened to this description on a flight from New York City to Athens, Greece. The man beside her was fascinating, a gentle person in his late thirties with soft brown eyes and a craggy face honed by wind and sun. He spoke with a slightly guttural accent she could not place, and he was attempting, unsuccessfully, to calm her fears about skyjacking.

"Airplane travel today is far safer than going from one small village to another during the Middle Ages." he said. "And for the hijacker, it is becoming almost impossible today to successfully achieve the capture of a plane. It is a vulnerable, un-reinforceable outpost in the air. It has to land."

He smiled. Mrs. Miller hugged her infant son Kevin closer to her breast. She was not reassured.

"If worse comes to worst, we will all fly around and In perhaps Libya or Cairo and then be returned. Even the most militant governments today are tired of hijackers. So, I do not know how horrible a delay would be for you, but for me it would be delightful. I have you and your adorable child for company. Americans are such good people, really."

"I hate the idea of hijacking. Even the thought of it makes me... well, mad and frightened."

"Ah, so we have it, Mrs. Miller. You are not afraid of the hijacking, but the idea of it. Being defenceless."

"Yes. I guess so. I mean, what right do those people have to endanger my life? I never did anything to anyone."

"A mad dog, Mrs. Miller, does not dispense justice. Let us be grateful that their fangs are weak."