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THE DESTROYER: TERROR SQUAD
By
Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
PINNACLE BOOKS * NEW YORK
THE DESTROYER: TERROR SQUAD
Copyright (c) 1973 by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Pinnacle Books original, published for the first time anywhere.
ISBN: 0-523-41225-8
First printing, June 1973Second printing, July 1974 Third printing, October 1974 Fourth printing, April 1976 Fifth printing, February 1977 Sixth printing, April 1978 Seventh printing, January 1979 Eighth printing, July 1981
Printed in the United States of America
PINNACLE BOOKS, INC.
1430 Broadway
New York, New York 10018
TO:
Graces

CHAPTER ONE
As 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, unreinforceable 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
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of the hijacking, but the idea of it. Being defenseless."
"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."
"How can you say they're weak?"
"How can you say they're strong?"
"Very simply. They kill people. They murdered those athletes in Munich, those diplomats in whereverit-was. They shoot people from rooftops. They bomb stores. They snipe at innocent people from hotel rooms. I mean, that isn't weak."
The passenger in the next seat chuckled.
"That is the sign of weakness. Strength is irrigating a field. Strength is constructing a building. Strength is discovering a cure for a disease. The random lunatic killing of a few people here and there is not strength. The odds against getting hurt by those madmen are astronomical."
"But it can happen," said Kathy Miller. She felt strangely annoyed by the man's argument. Why did he take terrorism so lightly? Her fear was gone now. It had been replaced by annoyance.
"Many things can happen," he said. "But that's life. Landslides when you ski. Sharks when you swim. Accidents when you drive. But to live life, you must accept accidents as such, as inherent parts of living. You see, what bothers you is the fact that you are vulnerable to accidents, not that accidents exist. What bothers you is that these terrorists remind you of something you would like to keep hidden in some dark closet Your mortality.
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"The answer to these mad animals is to live. To love. Look, you have a beautiful baby. You are going to meet your husband in Athens. Your very Me and loving is a refutation, and a strong refutation, of every terrorist act every committed. You are taking an airplane today. That shows the terrorists are weak. They could not stop you."
"There's something wrong with that argument," said Kathy Miller. "I don't know how or why, but there's something wrong."
A stewardess leaned over the three-seat section and, with a plastic smile, asked if anyone wanted a beverage.
Mrs. Miller wanted a cola.
Her neighboring passenger shook his head.
"Pure sugar and caffeine," he said. "No good for you or for your baby whom you breastfeed."
"How do you know he's not on a bottle?"
"Just the way you hold him, Mrs. Miller. My wife also. I know. That's all."
"I love cola," she said.
Three men in business suits brushed quickly behind the stewardess, heading toward the front of the plane. The passenger, whose movements had been so slow and relaxed, looked up suddenly at the three men, watching them like a gazelle alert for a tiger.
"Do you have the cola now?" he asked the stewardess.
Kathy Miller blinked in puzzlement. What was going on?