Hostage

WASHINGTON, DC, USA

It is early evening as Flight 573 heads towards the USA. An endless network of runways stretches into the distance beyond the control tower where Bruce Johnson is waiting for news. The room is silent, and he scarcely notices that he is holding his breath. They still don’t know if the plane will be given permission to land.

Bruce can see police cars and other emergency vehicles lined up next to one of the runways. A whole fleet of ambulances and fire engines. No one knows how this drama will end. Whether the whole thing will go disastrously wrong. He can’t see the men from the armed-response unit, dressed all in black, but Bruce knows they are waiting in the darkness with their guns at the ready. A thought passes through his mind:

We shoot the hostage. That’s rule number one.

He doesn’t know where that thought just came from. Shooting the hostage has never been a rule. No one in the FBI would ever think or act according to such a counter-productive principle. Rule number one is that we never, under any circumstances, negotiate with terrorists.

And that applies right here and now. Their refusal to compromise has guided their actions ever since the plane took off from Arlanda airport just outside Stockholm, a city that Bruce has wanted to visit for a long time. But he doesn’t really believe he will ever get there. Why would someone like him ever travel to Sweden?

The plane is a 1989 jumbo jet. It is carrying over four hundred passengers. Now it has run out of fuel, and the pilot is begging for permission to land.

Bruce isn’t sure what is going to happen next. He is still waiting for instructions from his boss. In Sweden, it must be almost eleven thirty at night. Bruce knows what a lack of sleep can do to a person, and he is keeping that in mind. No doubt his colleagues in Stockholm are thinking along the same lines, but they have been left with no choice. During all the hours that have passed, he has been in touch with the same group of people in Sweden; it has been too intense to bring in replacements. Someone mentioned something about the light in Sweden, the fact that the sun is up for such a long time in the summer, and therefore, the Swedes sleep less, even when it is autumn, as it is now. Perhaps that’s true.

No other planes are using the airspace above the airport. All incoming flights have been diverted to other cities, and all outgoing fights have had to delay their departure times. The media have been banned from the complex, but Bruce knows that they will be on-site: far away, beyond the perimeter fence, using telephoto lenses that enable them to see all the way to China, snapping one blurred image after another.

The sound of the telephone ringing makes him jump. It’s his boss.

‘They’ve made a decision. It’s bad news.’

Bruce puts down the phone and reaches for another handset. He sits there, holding it in his hand for a few moments, before keying in the number he now knows by heart, then waits for Eden to pick up.

The sentence has been passed – the plane will not reach its destination.

They have opted for the rule that did not exist.

The hostage will die.