CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In the control tower the 'No Smoking' signs had long been ignored, and the fierce pall of smoke was unnoticed as the cigarette butts burned on the edges of tables and in saucers among the debris of coffee cartons and sandwich wrappings. Voices were subdued as if the men there were inside a great and famous cathedral where noise would be deemed irreverent The Home Secretary had alternated through the morning between his room below and the operational centre, but since Charlie Webster had walked out on the tarmac he had remained upstairs. Now he talked by telephone to the Prime Minister. Clarification was what he sought, suggested by his aides because they were employed to protect the reputation of their master.

Could there be any flexibility in the official stance the government had taken, now that a life was at immediate risk? Not possible, especially at this moment, not after the Soviet statement, not after the leaking by the press that an ultimatum was due to expire: there was to be no suggestion of compromise or weakness under threat. While he listened he pulled at his collar, as if his breathing were constricted, and those who looked to him for some indication of the burden of the conversation saw only anxiety and a slackness about his mouth that spelled dilemma and irresolution. He made his farewells to the Prime Minister, and put back the receiver with a circumspection before turning to those around him.

'The Prime Minister has said what I think we all expected him to say. There will be no alteration in our position. The fate of this unfortunate does not affect the decision that we have taken. He wants me to pass to you all that he has the greatest faith in our judgment He leaves it to us to decide whether the aircraft should be stormed before the expiry of the ultimatum. We do not have very long, gentlemen, and we need to know the options.' His voice tailed away, reflecting a mood that came as no surprise to those who knew him well. His reign at the Home Office had been characterized by a humanity and sympathy that was not always traditional. The newspaper columnists spoke of him as a man of compassion. His concern now was for the passenger they knew only as 'the headmaster', whom he had seen brought to the doorway of the aircraft set inside the squared television frame. A man in a grey suit about whom nothing else was known except that his chin shivered and his hands clenched and straightened again continuously.

'What are the options, gentlemen?'

Clitheroe rose from the stool on which he sat and paced slowly the length of the tower, a few feet only, but a space that gave him room to consider. There was a diffidence about him that they had not seen before.

'It's Webster's opinion – his opinion only on the killing of this man – it is just his assessment that they will go through with it, go to the limit of their threat. Webster is in a very exposed position, probably nervous, perhaps not the best judge. I don't wish to patronize the man, not in any way at all, but we have to remember where he is. He is unarmed, he is within clear range of their guns, he has been close to the intended victim. It is his judgment that they will shoot, but he may not…'

'Who is in a better position?' the Home Secretary said.

' I dont know-none of us, I think. All I am trying to do is to remind you of the circumstances that Webster finds himself in: we should not follow his judgment blindly.' But he too had seen the fish-eye pictures, the man pulled from his seat, the hands that rose to his help thrust aside. ' I just don't know. Perhaps they will kill, perhaps not. It is impossible to be certain. And if they kill once it does not follow that Webster is right and that they will begin a wholesale slaughter. The effect of one killing might be to break these three that has to be considered. We are dealing with the intangible. We cannot draw up a blueprint and say that because one thing has happened then a logical process will ensue. There is another aspect: these people are Jews, but not Israelis, and that may colour the will that they talk so much of.' Clitheroe sat down again, aware of his own limitations.

' If Mr Webster is right, and they intend to kill the man, is it possible to take physical action to pre-empt it? What is the feasibility of attacking the aircraft?' The Home Secretary directed the question without enthusiasm to the Assistant Chief Constable.

'The military would not be happy about it. There are obvious difficulties – open ground, the need to get ladders to the plane. The SAS estimate they would need a minimum of fifteen seconds from the time they leave the tanker till they are entering the cabin. Even with far side diversions it's dangerous, a risk to the troops and to the passengers. At night they could manage it, but by daylight… What it comes down to, sir, is this – do we endanger many lives at this stage in the hope of saving one?'

' It would be difficult to sit here and watch a man die and know we have so much strength and not utilize it.'

The politician had expressed the fear that swamped them all. It was a challenge to their virility, to their professions, that they should stand on the sidelines, acknowledge their inadequacy.

'The Dutch did it,' the policeman intoned, 'at the train siege at Beilen, when the Molluccan group took hostages. A passenger was executed and they took a decision not to storm because conditions were unfavourable. They backed off and relied on negotiations; and no more passengers were-'

'We are not the Dutch,' the Home Secretary rasped. 'Because they have taken a course of action it does not mean we follow. We cannot hide from responsibilities behind precedent.'

He paused, seemed to stumble in his words, losing track of his theme, and there was age and unhappiness on his face. He could not have held this high office twenty years earlier when capital punishment was still exercised; he would not have had the strength or the commitment to sign the final authorizations, would not have surmounted the mountain of conscience and refused to recommend that the monarch use her prerogative of reprieve.

'There has to be something that can be done. We cannot just sit here and idle the time away.'

'At times, sir, we are not given freedom of action. Options are not always open to us.' The policeman spoke With respect, understanding the sense of failure that pervaded the room. 'We just have to hope that Webster is wrong.'

The job of guarding the headmaster had been left to Rebecca.

He remained erect and tall, breathing coming fast and in slight gasps, but with his head still and his eyes stretching out beyond the middle distance towards the fields and trees, and the further perimeter fence, and the farm with the white- painted walls and the embossed and dark-stained beams, following the swooping movement of a bird that hunted for food among the migrating swarms of summer insects. When he looked straight ahead he could not see the girl and was only aware of her presence by the occasional shuffled movements as she eased her body into less contorted positions, leaning all the time against the coat cupboard beside him. His thoughts were of classrooms, clean and ordered and where his rule held sway. Of the management of his pupils. His work for the Party. The Party required of him a discipline that he welcomed, gave an outlet for the enthusiasms that he had harboured since his release from the army at the end of the war. The comradeship of the Party, the sense of achievement and accomplishment in his work. Frustrations, yes, but nothing when set against the successes that could be attained. Could take a pride in the way the children had behaved since the taking of the plane, a tribute to his responsibility, and he had not been betrayed by the little ones. Calm and collected and without panic, the children had been impeccable, even with the hunger in their bellies, their fear of the guns. Should be recognized, and reported back to those in authority, whatever became of him; should not be forgotten that they were children under his tutelage and they had not disgraced themselves. He knew what time the men would come for him, when he would pass out of the care of the girl and into their hands, but did not look to his watch. He could hear the two men, talking among themselves, but only faintly, and he could not make out their words. They were behind him and to the left, positioned where they could see past him and down the passenger cabin. Leaving him to what peace he might find.

He saw the man on the tarmac shift his body and settle on his toes with his legs bent out in front of him, squatting as if mounted on a flattened toilet. The man was of his own age, the one who had been sent to talk, and who had been rejected, and who showed now an emptiness of initiative. He had tried – discernible from his voice – to plead with all the reasonableness that he could muster, had tried to save him, and for that the headmaster was grateful; but he was not dealing with people that were reasonable. The stranger no longer looked about him, ranging the length of the plane, and the headmaster gradually became aware that the concentrated gaze of the man on the ground was directed at him. First the man's eyes strained for understanding and comprehension, but then the lips moved as if with a message. Seemed to say one word, one word alone, again and again from the rhythm of the way the mouth moved. The headmaster felt again the weakening of his legs, the trembling of his hands.

One word, one word only, shouted and deafening so that it split into his consciousness, an order, a demand. He fought to follow, struggled to relate the bellowed voice to his movements,

'Jump.'

The noise had been soaring inside Charlie for minutes before he could summon himself to howl the command. Fearful in the moment that his voice would desert him, that it would come as a feeble croak without the incision he needed. From deep in his lungs, far down, reaching for a depth and volume that would make the bastard up there react from instinct.

Charlie saw the headmaster lurch towards the open void of the Ilyushin's doorway, saw him move into the pitching fall with all the expertise of the trainee parachutist who leaves the balloon basket for the first time. Heard the single shot that was an age late. Charlie was on his feet and sprinting. A haze of confusion as the man landed. Awkwardly, agility destroyed by the years, Charlie saw his face rise from the concrete, eyes harrowed and frantic, desperate for new instructions.

'Run, you bugger, run!'

Crazy, slow motion, broken trot, and Charlie was closing with him, and then the first crescendo of gunfire. Ricochets impacting from the tarmac, and exploding pockets of dust to trace the bullets. Charlie turned and saw Isaac standing there, indecisive, then the gun at his shoulder again, steadying his aim. Stupid bastard, he must have fired from the hip the first time.

Charlie plunged forward, felt his chest buffet into the other man and sweep him to the right towards the shelter and haven of the wing structure. Had to push him when they were together on the ground, like a bloody sack and whimpering all the time, like he can't believe it, like he thinks they'll still come for him. Together they rolled across the ground, bucking and confused.

' It's all right,' Charlie whispered. 'It's over.' He checked himself, surprised that again he'd spoken in Russian. Spread- eagled over the man's body he could only see his head, pale and with the skin stretched drum-tight, and the reflection where the tears ran.

'You walk at my speed,' Charlie said, louder, and pulled the man up, arms round the flabbiness of his waist. He didn't know whether they'd made the dead ground of the wing or not. Hell of a weight the bugger was, had to carry him really, made him use muscles he'd forgotten. In step, an exhausted dance routine… just a few more seconds and they'd be clear, out of range. Charlie didn't look back, his eyes unwavering on the pole in the perimeter fence that he had chosen.

'Not long now,' he said. 'Just a few more yards. Then it's over.'

And endlessly beating through his mind the memory of the hunched and coiled figure in the doorway, the gun clamped to his shoulder, the saucer eyes expanded behind the sight. Be a bloody killing job now. Have to cut you down, Isaac, have to, won't we? Because you're not offering any other way.

Isaac had not fingered in the doorway.

One fierce and uncontrolled burst of gunfire with the barrel pulling high and left and he had realized that the opportunity to cut down the fugitive was lost. Perhaps he could have taken the Briton with an aimed shot, but it would have been a lucky one, and the wing was looming into his orbit. He realized his reactions had been slow, dulled by lack of sleep, but still slow, and sufficient to endanger them all. And the girl had again failed. Pity, really, because she was a part of them, from the same blood, but she had failed when they needed her. Not all her fault, partly his own, had underestimated the man who came, and had been tricked and would suffer for it. It was a calm evaluation that he made, stemming from the same calmness that immediately took him away from the open space, where the rifles that were trained on him could have exacted a revenge.

Could no longer rely on the girl. Obvious, and should have been seen earlier, but proven now.

So which of them could be relied on? Rebecca lay slumped on the carpet, the pistol still in her two hands as if the shock of firing it had toppled her. David, quiet and without comment, apart from them, taking refuge at the far end of the aircraft where he could make believe that his work was in watching the passengers. They have lost their faith, the two of them; they do not believe any more in escape.

He shouted to David, 'There is still time till ten o'clock and we will do then as we have promised.'

There was no reply, and he expected none. He did not even bother to gaze down the aisle to witness David's reaction. Like sheep they would follow him, and like sheep they would scatter if he faltered.

George Davies lay on his stomach beside the sniper behind the forward wheel of the central tanker.

'Could you have had him?'

'The one with 'the curly hair, with the SMG? No problem.'

'There was no instruction, you were right not to fire.'

'Three, four seconds I had him.'

"They haven't clarified on it yet. Up till now it's been not to shoot unless we can get the two men, both of them together. And I have to call in and ask.'

'Take a bloody light year that; they won't hang about for us.'

'Always the same when you bring a coach trip down from

London to handle it.'

'Any talk of us going in and busting it open?'

"Not at the moment. Can be done if they want it, but it's not ideal.'

'Make any difference, what the ciwie did, pulling that chap out?' The marksman spoke from the side of his mouth, conversationally and without deference to rank. Head never moving, steady on a line down the rifle barrel, searching the greyness of the door's opening.

'Shouldn't think so, there was nothing on the net about it first. Reckon he acted off his own bat, didn't think out the consequences, just couldn't sit there and watch it all in glorious technicolour.,

'Had a point there.'

'We'll have to see.'

All the years they'd trained for this, exercises and rehearsal runs, sometimes thinking it was for real, usually knowing it wasn't. All the alerts, all the false alarms. Living and sleeping the problem for four years since the squad was formed, and he didn't know the answers. 'Expert' he was supposed to be, and he didn't know. Nobody did for that matter, but it didn't make the pill any sweeter.

The television camera with the long lens showed the committee in the tower that Charlie Webster had reached the safety of the cropped grass at the side of the runway. He was on his knees beside the man that he had rescued. The episode was completed. They waited for him to call in on the radio, and when there had been no transmission presumed that the set was broken.

The Assistant Chief Constable gave rapid orders, content that he was again able to perform a function, and separated from the tiresome world of conjecture and interpretation. A civilian ambulance should be sent to the pair. Under no circumstances should they be allowed to take cover behind the petrol tankers some fifty yards to their left: those in the plane should not have the chance of even a glimpse of the troops, and should continue to believe that the vehicles were abandoned, untenanted. Clitheroe mentioned to any who cared to listen that a major breakthrough had been achieved: they now had in their possession an eyewitness from the aircraft who would be able to furnish an up-to-the-minute description of the state of mind of both hi-jacker and hostage. The Home Secretary remained by the monitor that showed the interior of the aircraft recorded by the fish-eye. Isaac occasionally obliged by coming into view, but David stayed at the far end of the aircraft and was not seen. The girl passed the length of the aisle as if communicating messages. Still no sound from the microphones that were serviced by sheepish and frustrated technicians.

'Has Mr Webster's action helped or hindered us?'

He spoke to the room in general, not turning from the set, his hands clamped on the sides of his cheeks, elbows firmly on the table, feeling the tiredness that was common to all who had spent the last five and a half hours in the tower; a tiredness that came not from lack of sleep but from the frustration of playing the part continuously of voyeurs, unable to alter significantly the course of events.

The Assistant Chief Constable had finished his delivery of instructions.

'It's not yet ten, seven minutes or so to go, and there's seventy more they can pick from. What Mr Webster did may have had the opposite effect to what we have been hoping for. In effect he may have warmed them up.' The policeman knew that his words were not welcome, but time he was heard out and his experience and knowledge realized. 'It's not the sort of thing that is likely to weaken them – quite the reverse. It's a slap in the face for them. I would expect them to try to hit back.'

' I think you're wrong,' said the Home Secretary quietly. 'I hope so. We were all prepared to sit here and watch that poor man die. We had reconciled ourselves to it, justified our non-interference in a way we would have done with an inter- ministerial memorandum. We had passed the buck. That man is now alive because a decisive step was taken. We have a little dignity now. Not much, because it was not we who authorized Mr Webster's action. But we have some, and dignity is important…'

'Minister, by the time the day's over we may have some dignity and we may have three or six dead passengers. The two don't equate on my scales.' The back of his neck, clipped and smooth, was reddening where it met with the white laundered shirt above the pressed collar of his tunic.

' I don't give a damn about dignity. I don't give a damn if the whole British cabinet has to crawl on its bended knees to that plane. I don't give a damn whether Mr Webster is the hero of the hour. I want those passengers out, and I want them out safely. When we've done that then we may be able to talk of dignity/

The Home Secretary came awkwardly to his feet, turned square to the policeman. ' I'm in your way, and you have work to do. I will be below if you need me.' He stopped, as if uncertain as to the wisdom of his gesture, then said quietly and without hurry. 'I apologize for wasting your time, gentlemen. It's an alien world to me, and not one that I relish, nor have any great understanding of. If you think there is need of my presence please do not hesitate to call for me.'

' I really don't think, Minister., „' the aides were round him, sidling forward, concerned.

'Minister, there is no need..

It would not be wise…'

He smiled to them all and made his way to the door, walked through, and closed it afterwards with care-that it should not bang.

'Dignity, my Christ,' muttered the policeman savagely. 'What does he think we're at, winning a bloody election?'

He crossed the room for support and found it lacking, faces averted, studying the monitors, drawing from the coffee urn, unparcelling the food. Made a mistake, hadn't he? But what did they want? Easy answers, everything's rosy, pound's doing well, balance of payments sensational, exports record- breaking? Did they want that? Or the truth? That we're in a new situation, and it's four minutes to bloody ten o'clock?

And they'd remember that, the smart little arse-lickers who burrowed in the files and said who was right for promotion to Chief Constable. They'd remember that and have a little titter behind their hands before they went out to lunch, and a damn good meal they'd have before coming back to pencil out his name.

Luigi Franconi had long been a dreamer.

Back at Party Headquarters, the drab poster-daubed redbrick block behind the Piazza Venezia where he occupied a third-floor room, the secretaries and his colleagues had become used to seeing his concentration drift away from their expositions and briefings. It was almost a joke to those that knew him well, the way he was present and then absent, merely moving his head in agreement or dissent whichever way the argument led. When he was corrected, exposed with much laughing, and irritation from those who were not his friends, then he would assume pained apology and shake himself and indicate that surely it was time for lunch in the trattoria that graced the small square close by. In truth Franconi was a private person, seldom willing to share his day-dreams and not convinced that the words of others conveyed any great importance. He worked from paper, from pile upon pile of mounting typed and printed paper. Only when confronted with the written word or figure did he produce evidence of the ability of which his superiors in the Party were convinced. They realized the value of this man, not a person to be influenced by suavity or glibness or fluency. The word and statistic had to sustain on its own, without extraneous support. They laughed about him in the office, but only to his face, never behind his back, and told him he must have the blood of the Germans in his veins, because no Italian could put such reliance on silence. Franconi would smile with them, and try to please, and think them fools, and relish their comradeship till the moment came to slip away.

No papers to read now. He had not brought a book with him, not a Garzanti classic, not even a pamphlet draft that needed tidying, nor a notebook in which to jot his more casual impressions of the Soviet Union for the report Which they would be awaiting back in Rome. Nothing in the pouch in front of him except a sick-bag and a folder that described the Ilyushin safety procedures, and which was not written in any language that he understood.

The choosing of the headmaster had made little impression on him, a brief flurry of excitement and apprehension as the man had disappeared from the doorway in the moment before the firing of the machine-gun. He had not aped the other passengers who had first stared through the windows and then subsided in their seats seeking anonymity as the eyes of Isaac had swept them; the mood of the moment had been quickly lost on him. He had not offended, he was divorced from their struggle, they had no quarrel with him. Before he had been nervous – he would admit that to himself – when they had separated him from his friend, from Aldo.

The same fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar that he had known in the hills thirty-five years earlier, and it had passed now as it had then. He had barely glanced from the aircraft porthole to discover the headmaster's fate.

He phased away the exterior world with the dreams of his home. When this was all over, and it would not take much time – the youth and desperation of his captors told him that -when they climbed down the ladder that would be brought, he would by-pass the television crews and the journalists. There were enough in the delegation who would be queueing, indeed, jumping forward, to satisfy the needs of the RAI interviewers or whoever else wanted their opinions. He would stand alone at the side, with a half-grin on his face, and shrug his shoulders and be polite and shake his head. Just wait till his colleagues had said their fill. They'd send them home by Alitalia; right to travel on the national airline, and an Italian ought to, a gesture to salve an infinitesimal percentage from the annual deficit. Over-manning, the central problem, always had been… No better at Party Headquarters where they preached organization and control of the work force and distribution of labour, but still suffered the same malady as the capitalists.

Adriana, Maria, Christina, all in the typing pool, all with time for knitting and gossip; any one of them could look af ter the needs of the section, but how to sack one? – it didn't bear thinking of, the squabbling, the arguing, the challenge over the pension rights. He'd go home on Alitalia. The wife would be there to meet him. Arms round his neck, lipstick on his collar, mascara on his cheek, sobbing in his ear. He'd have to endure all that. They'd drive out from Fiumicino and take the Reccordo Annulare and he'd see the girls beside the bushes and pretend he wasn't looking, and his wife would be firmly coping with the traffic. Be able to drink them in, the girls. Mini skirts and unbuttoned blouses, thighs and breasts and invitations, and he'd be left to his privacy to ponder on it while nodding and agreeing with all that his wife said. Often the cars pulled up sharply, a warning flash of brake lights and a man would jump from the driving-seat and the girls were already hurrying for the sanctuary of the undergrowth. Luigi had always wondered what it would be like, just what was said before the removal of the sparse strips of necessary clothing.

When did you pay, before or after? And what would there be afterwards – a thanks, an acknowledgment, a wordless wave, or just a grin? He had spent an adult lifetime travelling the Reccordo, seen them, wanted them, lusted in his way after them, his foot near the brake pedal, and never dared. His wife would drive him home, park the car expansively in the road, and he'd comment on it and she'd dismiss the matter and lead him like an exhibit, a celebrity brought back from the fair, to their fourth-floor home where the gathering would be waiting. Kisses and hugs and back slaps now, a multitude of voices, a swill of chilled wine, a pasta bowl of welcome. All would ask him to relate his experiences, but in concert so that even should he want to speak none would be listening and all talking, chattering, demanding, crying. They'd be there for hours, filling his home, taking up his time, impressing their friendship when all he would seek would be the solace of his wife's arms. Drawn curtains and extinguished lights, the cosmetics to make her no different to the girls still plying their trade by the road kerb. Moving, performing, functioning, that would be his bedroom task on the night of his return; have full run of his domain that night: later would come the denials and the tiredness and the excuses. Not the first night, though.

The hand sunk into the roof of his jacket collar, gripped at the well-woven material, and pulled him upright, splintering his reveries. It was an irrevocable strength that drew him from the seat, dragging him without explanation from the safety of his fellow passengers. Fleetingly he saw the faces around him, saw them twist and turn, aware of their shame and degradation.

The one with the curly hair, the short one, that was the one that held him, propelled him out into the aisle, and now there was the thrust of steel against his backbone. The dreams were losing ground, the warmth of the flesh receding, the softened arms on him no longer gave hope. A cry came, hoarse and splitting into his consciousness, his name shouted at the pitch of hysteria, and the voice was Aldo's. Just his name, and an agony in the voice, and the sound of it hammered at him till his knees buckled and his bowels weakened, till his eyes glazed to a mist and he was blinded by the flood and could not tell where he was going, only reacting to the pressure at the nape of his neck that drove him forward.

It came late, but there was a moment of total clarity before the brightness of the intruding sun through the opened aircraft door obliterated all images in front of him. And there was the memory of the face of the headmaster who had taken the similar path minutes before, as he had been led down the route that separated him from the rest, from the bovine accepting herd. Had Luigi Franconi looked like that? Had he showed the broken fear, the collapsed chin, the nerveless sagged cheeks, the faltering walk? Had he screamed inside without sound as the other must have done?

The power of the gun barrel was no longer at his back. Gone, lost for a moment, giving the fractional hope of salvation, before he found it again, found it where he knew he must, found its chill and symmetry against the gentle skin that slid back from his earlobe towards the base of his neck.

They all heard the single, echoing refrain of the shot.

The reverberations were fierce inside the aircraft, quieting the frenzied shouts from the remaining members of the PCI delegation; an empty hollowed thud where Charlie Webster lay on the shortened grass, that caused the man he still protected to shudder underneath him and squirm as if trying to bury himself in the hardened soil; a faint popping noise, a distant car door slammed to those immured inside the plate glass of the control tower windows.

Inside the press corral where the journalists were screened from the open door of the Ilyushin the solitary report was noted. Quizzical eyes, a margin of excitement, a switching- on of cameras, that their synchronized sound systems would record any further gunfire, a scribbling in notebooks.

'What time do you make it?' A man from the Agencies asked the reporter who stood next to him; he was required to log the day's events with accuracy.

The other kept his eyes fastened on that flank of the aircraft that was visible. 'Just on ten o'clock.'

'Not much we can say then. At ten o'clock a single shot was heard from the far side of Aeroflot 927. That's it. Nothing else we can say.'

With more powerful binoculars than they possessed the journalists and cameramen might have been able to distinguish the lifeless body of Luigi Franconi where it rested close to the starboard undercarriage wheels. But at the distance between where they stood and the Ilyushin the wheels only merged, shimmering in their stillness, with the unnoticed corpse.

A sound recordist, a large man who prided himself equally on his wit and the perfection of his trimmed beard, made a joke, weak to those that heard it, but his own chorus of laughter was picked up by all in the pen; a palliative to the suppressed tension carried by the unexplained shot.

The zephyr of laughter swept out across the scorched concrete, rippling its way towards the aircraft and the control tower till it settled on the far away ears of those who lay in the grass with their rifles and machine-guns.

There were a score of impotent obscenities from the troops who had watched the small Italian die.

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