Stalemate, Nunn thought. Damn. Of course, Major Trewin had merely been going through the motions, wanting to show up the Iraqi position. “May I see the telex?” he inquired.
Trewin brought a sheet of paper out of his briefcase and slid it across the table to him. “Sent to London head office,” he confirmed, in response to Nunn’s murmured question.
“From?”
“Ah, that’s the odd one. From an Iranian Vosper Mark Five frigate lying off Socotra Island. Know it, do you?”
Nunn shook his head.
Trewin got up and went across to the regional map pinned on one wall. “Here,” he said, pointing. “This big island you can see southeast of Al Mukalla.”
“Who owns Socotra?”
“South Yemen.”
“Why are we not in South Yemen now?” Nunn asked. “In my experience, gentlemen, the negotiating team dealing with a hijack resembles nothing so much as a swarm of wasps. It assembles itself and hovers, waiting for the situation to crystallize; then it descends on the nearest stronghold and gets stuck in. The plane’s in South Yemen; the demand’s coming from a ship just off South Yemeni territory; why aren’t we there too?”
Before Trewin could answer, another man, sitting at the far end of the table, portentously cleared his throat. This was a strange sound, midway between a grunt and the hoom of a Buddhist chant.
“Ah, yes.” Trewin sounded less than enthusiastic. “Dr. Milner’s our resident Arabist, perhaps the best man to—”
“Hoom. Have you been to South Yemen, Mr. Nunn?”
“No.”
“It’s the poorest of the Arabian countries. There’s no oil, nothing, literally nothing there. Only two percent of the land is arable. The politics are frightful. One party, communist system. Their National Liberation Front applauded the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Not amenable to reason. I know, I spent six years there.”
“I see.” Nunn tried to keep his voice soothing. “What, in your opinion, Dr. Milner, are they likely to do in this situation?”
“Well, in their time they’ve given support to the PLO and refuge to Arab terrorists of every hue. They’ve actually rewarded hijackers in the past, so I’d assume they were broadly sympathetic to this lot.”
Nunn stared at Milner’s cadaverous, pale face, trying to work out the reason for his tetchiness. Six years in Yemen had left their mark; it was obvious he didn’t want to be sent back there.
“Have they put out a statement yet?”
“Not officially. Unofficially, our ambassador here has been given to understand, by his opposite number in Aden, that they’re going to stick their heads in the sand and pretend nothing is happening. They’ve no resources for storming the plane, anyway.”
“They could cordon it off, at least? Offer to supply food?”
“Assuming they were sympathetic, which I’ve already advised is unlikely, they could cordon it off, but from what? There’s nothing there, except a few villagers and Bedouin tribesmen whom they can’t control. As for food, they have enough trouble feeding their own population from one year to the next. Just getting to the plane would tax the resources of better men than them.”
“Mm. What’s the terrain like?”
“Arid. Some rain; mostly it falls between July and September, so there’s a chance of that. Harif, they call it: the monsoon season.”
“Temperature?”
“During the harif? Minimum nightly temperatures of over eighty degrees Fahrenheit; maximum daily temperatures could rise to a hundred and four Fahrenheit. Humid, always. You get hot winds blowing fine sand inland from the seashore. One of the most inhospitable areas on God’s earth.”
“How long would it take to arrange visas?”
“Forever. Even for accredited diplomats like myself.”
Nunn grimaced. “You’re not painting a terribly attractive picture, Dr. Milner.”
“No,” Milner agreed emphatically. “The Yemenis have a saying that can roughly be translated as ‘When the old dog shits biscuits there’ll be change in Yemen.’ Do pardon my French,” he added, with plodding irony.
“What about setting up shop in Oman, next door?”
“I really wouldn’t advise it, Mr. Nunn.”
“Why not?”
“Because South Yemen supported guerrilla activity against the Oman government back in the late sixties. They patched it up, and now you won’t find Oman willing either to help the Yemenis or be seen to act against them.”
Nunn suddenly interpreted Dr. Milner’s real message; Don’t spoil it, that’s what he was saying; don’t rock my boat.
“What are conditions like on the plane?” he asked. “Anyone know?”
It was Trewin who answered. “They’d taken on food and water at Bahrain shortly before takeoff, but that won’t last long, of course. Every commercial aircraft carries emergency rations in the hold for just this eventuality, plus extra for the crew, but using it depends on the hijackers’ willingness to give access.”
“Any natural water sources in the region?”
“Wadis,” Trewin said, before Dr. Milner could interject. “But dry at this time of year, unless they’re lucky and it rains.”
“Air-conditioning?”
“Depends on how much fuel the pilot dumped before landing. He’s not allowed to tell us, of course; but he wouldn’t have reckoned on getting out again and he’d have been worried about fire, so my guess is that he’d have gotten rid of most of it.”
“So no air-con, or at least not for much longer … I see.”
Nunn fell silent, allowing the others to consider those things that had been left unsaid. The toilets, blocked with sanitary napkins and excrement. Hunger. Thirst. Quarrels breaking out among the passengers. Heatstroke. Boredom, fatigue, stress of every kind. Children crying incessantly, for food and water, for milk that was never forthcoming.
“What contact’s been had with the plane?” Nunn asked.
“A demand for one helicopter to be sent to monitor the hijack with TV equipment. No deadlines or threats, yet.”
Nunn sat forward and folded his hands on the table; his next quiet words were addressed to them. “Any Israeli passports?”
“We’re checking.”
“I … see.” So among all the many imponderables he was called upon to ponder was the chance of an Israeli Defense Force unit being dispatched on a rescue mission without reference to other interested parties, which would increase the danger factor by about a hundred million. I don’t know what I’m doing here, he told himself; I’ve absolutely no idea what I’m involved in. I’ll play my part and wing back to Jakarta, still blissfully ignorant of what they all really wanted from me, apart from the H page of my address book.
“Is the Hanif woman behind this hijack?” he asked aloud, “or merely officer in charge of front-line troops?”
“I would guess that she’s behind it,” Trewin replied.
Nunn was inclined to agree. He had a considerable file on Hanif, as on every other important terrorist. She’d come within an ace of murdering an Israeli ambassador to the United States; that was her principal claim to fame, but there had been much else since. She was far more of a general than an “other rank.”
“And this is a contract job? For Iran?”
“We think so. The Iranian frigate’s pretty conclusive, don’t you think?”
“We’ll know more when we’ve cracked the code,” the MI6 man said.
Nunn’s head jerked around. “What code?”
MI6 made a face. “They haven’t told you much, have they? The plane’s talking to the frigate on the radio, in code. Not much traffic. Some of it’s en clair; for instance, the helicopter they’re requesting—one chopper, very specific—that was en clair.”
“What would you like me to do?” Nunn asked.
“We were wondering if you had any ideas,” Trewin said, and there was a sharp edge to his normally bland voice.
We’re coming to it now, thought Nunn; they know I’ve dealt w
ith the Hanifs and they want to make use of the information but they can’t see how. I can’t see how. All I know is, I can’t afford to stand still and do nothing. Right across the northern hemisphere, governments are conferring while representatives of their armed forces liaise in an attempt to work out a military solution. Debts are being called in, old scores settled, everybody working in the dark, all pulling in different directions. So don’t just sit here, do something.
Make some phone calls, why not?
Feisal Hanif he rather fancied he could manage to contact; Halib might be a touch more difficult. What was that weird and wonderful old biddy called, Feisal’s mother, Sally, Sell-something, the one he’d run into at Nice?
So make phone calls, yes, but, before that, the hijackers were demanding the release of six Iranian prisoners of war who, according to Shehabi, did not exist. Nunn had to find out if those prisoners were anything more than shadow puppets: alive on a screen specially prepared for the audience, but nowhere else.
He had a sudden yearning to be back in Jakarta, where he knew his way around. He was never going to find his way around this mess, any more than he could have mastered Bahrain’s one-way road system.
“If you’ll excuse us,” he said, standing up, “it rather looks as if Selman and I have things to discuss.”
21 JULY: EVENING:
AL MAHRA, SOUTH YEMEN
TIM Campbell’s hands were shaking. His head throbbed. Panic harmed him far more than the chemical imbalance caused by lack of insulin. Everyone on the plane felt thirsty, but acute thirst was a symptom of untreated diabetes, and Tim was suffering terribly. He couldn’t ask for a larger ration. There’d already been clashes between the hostile groups that had sprung up. Because Tim was the only diabetic aboard, he had no group, no leverage.
He lay back as far as the seat would allow. He had cramps in both legs, and the base of his spine hurt from too many hours spent sitting in one position. Sometimes he felt that if he wasn’t allowed to stand up and stretch he’d die. But except when they went to the lavatory, with a gunman at their backs, all the passengers had to remain belted in like so many trussed chickens.
When they went to the toilet another guard waited nearby, with grenades in his hands. He held them so that you could see them as you went into the stinking cupboard, could see that the pins were out, so that if he dropped them …
Tim felt hungry. They had last been marched to the toilets at noon, when the heat was at its worst and the smell likewise; as they came out, the man with the grenades gestured them to pick up a tray from the pile in the galley. One of the stewards had been ordered to heat up the food. Most people, overcome by the stench behind them, refused a tray. Tim had made himself take one because he knew that without food his chances would halve. Swallowing was hell. He left most of the meal untouched.
The main cabin smelled overpoweringly of sweat, and quite close to where Tim sat there was another odor that he sucked down with every breath he drew. Somebody had vomited into a sick bag. Tim had heard it, behind him and to his left: a liquid splashing-and-retching, then a faint patting sound, as if somebody was trying to comfort the sick man.
That had been hours ago. Two-thirty. At eleven in the morning the captain had switched on the air-conditioning. The doors had been closed and a mighty wave of relief swept through the passengers as the collective thought took hold—We’re leaving!—only to be dashed moments later, when Ross came on the intercom to explain. But now the light was fading, the air-conditioning was off, and a smell of vomit poisoned the atmosphere.
Occasionally someone would sneeze or cough. Occasionally Tim would hear the sound of sobbing, or low voices. But what really amazed him, what frightened him, was the silence, this great, ominous, and never-ending silence of the sepulcher.
The man in the aisle seat of his row, 20C, was called Colin. They’d exchanged a few words earlier; he was nice. Tim envied Colin, because he could sleep. Suddenly Colin’s breathing quickened. Tim turned to see that his eyeballs were rolling around behind the closed lids. Rapid eye movement; that meant a dream. Colin’s mouth opened, saliva dribbled out, and he moaned something indistinct. Not a happy dream…
Colin looked down at his hand, nestling like a contented little bird in the larger brown one. It was so nice to be traveling with Daddy. He loved his daddy very, very much. Daddy was kind. He knew it was Daddy’s idea that he shouldn’t fly to Hong Kong straightaway, when the school hols began. Instead, Colin had flown all by himself to Singapore, where Daddy was waiting at the airport to meet him. His father’s name was Malcolm, and he was the director of something big and important, called a merchant bank.
They’d spent a week together in Singapore. Their hotel was called Raffles, and it seemed awfully grand. During the early part of the day, Malcolm left his son in the care of Beth, a nice English lady who worked in the hotel, while he went off to see to something called his “cables.” Beth was super; she took him swimming and laughed a lot. Then, once Daddy was back, they had lunch, and in the afternoons they went sightseeing. Singapore was terrifically sultry, but they stopped a lot for ice-creams and drinks, so the heat didn’t matter much. He liked it when they went for drives in the jungle or visited the villages on stilts. They were called “kampongs.”
Now they were on their way to Hong Kong, where Mother would be waiting. As the thought entered his mind he felt himself shrivel up inside, like a sick dog when you touched it. Not that he didn’t love Mother; of course he did. But she didn’t always have time to spare for Colin. Sometimes, when he wanted to talk to her, she would snap at him. Then at other times she would complain, “You never speak to your own mother!” But he had no means of knowing which times would turn out to be which.
He stared down at the big brown hand of his father, who was dozing in the seat beside him, and he knew a terrible fear that perhaps one day Daddy wouldn’t be here; there’d only be Mother. A huge, inarticulate swell of love swept him up and he leaned toward his father, resting his head on the dozing man’s shoulder, while he tried to find words to express his sense of pleasure, of joy at having Daddy by his side. He’d almost done it, all but found the words he wanted. That was when the first bullets hit. They blew holes in the hull of the DC-4 that were one and a half feet wide. Boom! they went. Boom, boom!
At first he had no idea what was happening. Everybody seemed to be shouting. His father woke up with a start. Colin heard a voice from the front of the plane, shouting “Mayday! Mayday! Losing altitude, engine on fire!” Rose, the nice stewardess, was crying. He tilted forward, as if on a swing, and he realized that the plane was diving like a bomber in one of those pictures in his Eagle comic. He could see more and more of the big holes; they were everywhere: in the ceiling above him, beside his seat….
The noise of their dive rose from a whine to a howl to a screech that blotted out all other sounds. Out of the corner of his eye he could see flames snatching at the wing. The plane was almost vertical now, plunging down toward the sea. He knew he would start to burn. He cried.
He was going to die. He was definitely going to die. Nothing could prevent it. For a flash of time, it occurred to him that he should pray to God, but in that same instant his father spoke. “When we get down, there may be a lot of noise.” His voice was calm; not by so much as a tremor did it reveal emotion. “Hold on to me, Colin, and don’t let go.”
It was as if they were in the Tiger Balm Gardens again. Everything would be all right. But then something dark and heavy rose up before Colin and he opened his mouth to scream, but the thing smothered his breath.
“Mayday! Mayday!” he heard the voice shout, even above the noise of their dive: “Ditching! Ditching! Ditching!”
As the black, heavy shape crushed him into his seat, Colin took a last breath and screamed his heart out. When he tried to open his eyes, they stung. Liquid, splashing over him
The plane skimmed along the surface of the sea for perhaps half a mile. There was a deafening crash as the starboard wing
was wrenched off by the force of the impact; then the nose went into an enormous wave and that was the end. Beside Colin’s head, the porthole smashed and water flooded in, washing away the horrible fluid that had flooded over him, washing away the horrible smothery black thing, too. Colin floated out of his seat. Beside and above him was light. He pushed his way toward it. Something sharp caught at his feet. He kicked. His ankle was snagged. He kicked again, this time managing to fight his way free. Then he was rising toward a fiercer light, and for the first time he knew he was cold, that he’d been ice-cold ever since they began to dive.
His head broke water. The sea was choppy; a wind heavy with salt and sickly warmth battered his face. He splashed about a bit. “Help,” he cried. The word came out as a pitiful wail, swallowed by wind and waves even between his mouth and his own ears, but “Help!” he mewed again.
Then hands grabbed him from behind by the collar and he rose up out of the sea before swinging backward over something hard; above him, the sky reeled like a film gone wrong, his head twisted to one side, and he saw a white bailer, a rope, legs...
“Wake up! Please wake up.”
Colin Raleigh fell into wakefulness through a hole in the floor of his dream. He opened his eyes to find Tim gazing at him anxiously.
“Please wake up,” the boy implored. “They’ve already heard you.”
Colin stared down at the pale hand on his own, surprised to find that this image at least had survived the transition from then to now. He wiped the dribble off his chin and shook his head in an attempt to clear the mess inside.
Tim’s agonized expression deepened to terror. Colin, seeing it, jerked his head around. One of the hijackers was standing in the aisle a couple of rows in front, submachine gun half raised. His face was clean of emotion, even of curiosity. But Colin knew he had summoned this man from the depths of his nightmare; he was responsible for the new layer of silence that now overlaid this section of the plane. Everyone nearby was holding his breath.
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