PROLOGUE
ENGLAND 1980
If Ben Drover had not been seduced by the Chief Constable’s wife, he would still be a detective, mixing it with the low life of Birmingham. If he had taken a flight to Luxor instead of travelling by train. And if Sophie Schreiber had not agreed to share his bunk…
A lot of ‘ifs’, but they rule our lives, which is how Ben found himself at ‘Wander World’, purveyor of exotic destinations. The travel industry had been changing fast, clients leaving their nests in accelerating numbers and demanding adventure. Adverts were popping up with visions of what you could discover; be a Marco Polo or Columbus. Explore, like Livingstone. And never travel by boring old boat, but take a passage to…
All this had to be accomplished without the slightest degree of risk, a strange notion, because the English milords, who’d launched the travel industry in the 1700s, knew that highwaymen, plagues and wars were part of the deal. Even at the start of the modern era, airliners could be relied on to spatter dead customers across hillsides with reasonable frequency.
But by the late 1970s, when Detective Inspector Drover became plain mister, people expected zero inconvenience and never death. If Shangri-La did not
2
come up to scratch, Mr Customer would be off to one of those legal chaps, who’d be only too pleased to sue the pants off his travel company. Hence the rise of the Security Consultant, a job tailor-made for cops who’d just hung up their handcuffs. Ex DI Drover’s beat was now global.
In Britain, the Bible for safe travel is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advisories, but these are only the basic Old Testament, not the complete works. If Ruritania is in the grip of civil war, where the Geneva convention is ignored and prisoners despatched in boiling oil, the FCO will tell you to steer clear. But most situations are more nuanced. Enter the New Testament in the shape of the company security department, tasked to determine which places are safe for their delicate clients.
If pressed to say when and where everything changed, the answer will usually be in 1970 at Dawson’s Field. Until then, hi-jacking had amounted to little more than a passenger waving a gun and demanding to fly to Cuba. Their plane would divert as requested, the hijacker disembark, and everyone could dine out on the lark.
But on September 6th 1970 the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hit the unsuspecting public with five almost simultaneous events. El Al, the only airline to so far have taken the threat seriously, managed to foil that attempt, but the rest finished up as pawns in a game lasting several weeks.
Attention quickly focussed on a strip of Middle East desert known as Dawson’s Field, where three of the planes, TWA, Swissair and BOAC, had been forced to land. When everyone had been evacuated
3
and the media primed with their phalanxes of cameras, the PFLP organised a scenic spectacular by blowing up the three airliners.
Before that, foreign travel had been an infant industry and terrorism almost gentlemanly, but from then on mass travel really got going and disaffected groups became increasingly violent. During the Dawson’s Field event, not a single passenger had died, but two years later came another grim milestone, when the PFLP, now trading as ‘Black September’, slaughtered eleven Israelis during the Munich Olympics.
The rest of the 1970s saw an increase in everything: more travellers, more violence and a decade total of 51 hijackings. Ben Drover, head of security at Wander World, was part of a small army dedicated to fighting this scourge.
4
1
EGYPT
SEPTEMBER 1981
Simon Thruxton, CEO of Wander World, was not the only one eyeing Egypt as a travel Eldorado. Its most obvious selling point had always been the best winter climate within spitting distance of Europe, but until now that potential had been held back by two factors: no beach facilities – these would come later – and stories from ex-servicemen, who had been there during the war: the ‘gippo’, they said, would sell his sister for a couple of piastres and then flog you a gold watch, which would stop and shed its gold as soon as you were round the corner. As for food, the phrase ‘gippy tummy’ said it all.
The generation peddling these prejudices was dying out, to be replaced by youngsters who rather fancied the land of the pharaohs. An unexpected bonus for the ever-hopeful Egyptian tourist industry had been the release of two blockbuster movies: 1977 saw Roger Moore’s James Bond chased through ancient temples by ‘Jaws’; a year later Peter Ustinov and David Niven took to the water in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.
5
The political scene had also taken a turn for the better. Ever since the birth of Israel in 1948, the one thing her neighbours were agreed on was that every son of Abraham should be hurled into the sea and Palestine returned to the Arabs. But in September 1978 President Jimmy Carter had persuaded Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin to sign the Camp David Accords. For the first time in thirty years the Middle East was not primed for war.
Like his colleagues across Europe, Simon Thruxton sniffed a nice new source of profit. Egypt’s miles of pristine beach might still lack hotels; and downtown Cairo could be a trifle intimidating. But a Nile cruise was perfect.
Flights and boats had been reserved for a series of tours from November 1981 through to late February the following year. Now, in September, it was time to tie up the loose ends, which included ensuring the venture was absolutely safe. Enter Ben Drover
