The Delta Decision

or

Wild Justice

-----This is an unbelievable novel containing more excitement than 3 or 4 books by anyone else. The story is about a talented officer named Peter Stride and his obsession with destroying an organiztion that is trying to take over the world, codename CALIPH. The book starts out with the hijacking of flight 070 and Peter Stride is the commander of Thor, a crack team of anti-terrorism soldiers trained to alleviate this kind of situation.

-----Peter landed in balance an the carpeted aisle, and he killed the girl swiftly, and danced aside, clearing space for his number two to land.'

-----The next man in landed lightly in the space Peter had made for him, and the German in the red shirt jumped out from the angle of the rear gallery and hit him in the small of the back with a full charge of buckshot. It almost blew his body into two separate parts, and he seemed to break in the middle like a folding pen-knife as he collapsed against Peter's legs.'

-----Peter whirled at the shot, turning his back on Ingred as she crawled forward through the phosphorus smoke.'

-----Kurt was desperately trying to pull down the short, thick barrel of the pistol, for the recoil had thrown it high above his head. His scarlet shirt was open to the navel, shiny hard brown muscle and thick whorls of black body hair, mad glaring eyes through a greasy fringe of black hair, the scarred lip curled in a fixed snarl.'

-----Peter hit him in the chest, taking no chance, and as he reeled backwards still fighting to aim the pistol, Peter hit again, in the head through the temple just in front of the left ear; the eyelids closed tightly over those wild eyes, his features twisted out of shape like a rubber mask and he went down face first into the aisle.' (page 98)*

Though Peter succeeded in rescuing the passengers of flight 070, he had a long ways to go before he is able to corner the elusive man known only as CALIPH. He receives some more initiative as CALIPH tries to use Peter later in the novel by kidnapping his daughter and sending Stride a piece of her finger as proof. This is the ransom note sent to Peter Stride for his daughter's return:

-----A finger you have already, next you will have the hand, then another hand, then a foot, then the other foot - and at last the head.

-----The next package will arrive April 20th, and there will be another delivery every seven days.

-----To prevent this you must deliver a life for a life. The day Dr. Kingston Parker dies, your daughter will return to you immediately, alive and suffering no further harm.

-----Destroy the letter and tell nobody or the head will be delivered immediately. (pages 187-188)*

CALIPH

-----Rescuing his daughter is just one more of the many adventures you will have with Peter Stride as he closes in on the evil that threatens to strangle the world. I guarantee you wont guess who CALIPH is until the very end. Here again is another book that you better eat a big dinner before you start, because it may be awhile before you eat again.

The Delta Decision, Wilbur Smith. Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc. February 1982.