Aggressor

by Nick Cook

  CHAPTER 4

  Girling pulled the cuttings from their file in the library, took them back to his desk and started to read.

  The hijackers had boarded a Pakistan International Airlines flight at Karachi, bound for Paris. Some-where over the Arabian Sea they had made their move, storming into the 747’s flight deck and killing the co-pilot; there had been no time for the crew to send a distress signal.

  An hour from Dubai International Airport, the hijackers ordered the pilot to make an emergency descent. Dubai tower picked up a Mayday indicating the jumbo had suffered explosive decompression at thirty-two thousand feet. The tower was informed there were casualties on board.

  The pilot requested an immediate descent into the airport and called for ambulances to meet the aircraft as soon as it rolled to a stop.

  Once on the ground, the hijackers waited for the medics to board the plane, overpowered them, and donned their uniforms. The aircraft was then booby-trapped with explosive devices positioned around the cabin. The terrorists told the passengers and crew that the detonators were primed with infra-red sensing fuses and the slightest movement would set them off.

  The terrorists - witnesses later described them speaking Arabic - boarded the ambulances and moved across the airfield to the Pan-Am 747, on which the US Ambassador to Riyadh and his staff were sipping their champagne in the first- and business-class sections. In the cockpit of Clipper 497 the pilot was waiting to receive departure clearance from the tower.

  Predictably, the newspapers had been quick to chastise the US Administration for allowing so many of its diplomatic staff to travel on the same commercial flight. In fact, because of the flurry of diplomatic shuttle missions around the Gulf that week, all US Air Force VIP transport aircraft in the region were already in use.

  The flare-up in the Gulf the previous month, not for the first time, had taken everyone by surprise. The pace of diplomatic activity to halt hostilities had been breathtaking. Ambassador Franklin - as the USA’s chief legate in Riyadh his role in the initiative was pivotal - had been returning to Washington to brief the President on the Saudi Arabian peace proposals. The cease-fire, though precarious, had lasted five days. The way things had been going, the US President would have sanctioned another bombing mission against Iraq, until the Saudis came up with the goods. Franklin and his team of negotiators had spent two days in Riyadh getting to grips with the Saudi scheme. Reluctantly, Baghdad had said it would allow Saudis, not Americans, to dismantle its underground nuclear weapons facility outside Mosul - incredible, Girling thought, that every US intelligence asset had missed it. Now, instead of the Gulf, the media’s attention - always fickle - had shifted to the hijacking. For the moment, the crisis in the Gulf was on the back burner.

  If US protection policy for its diplomats had received a pasting from the press, the security arrangements on the ‘airside’ of Dubai International, normally an exemplary airport, fared worse.

  The terrorists had been able to park their ambulance by the wheels of the Pan-Am jumbo and were not so much as challenged until they boarded the aircraft. Two air marshals mingling with the passengers had tried to resist, but were shot dead, their bodies thrown onto the tarmac.

  The terrorists told the pilot to taxi out for takeoff. The leader of the group made it clear to the tower that any form of obstruction would result in the aircraft being blown up.

  The 747 left the coastline of the United Arab Emirates at 0530 and headed north-west up the Persian Gulf. Ten minutes later, the police entered the PIA 747 through the forward wheel well and managed to deactivate the somewhat crude infra-red trigger linked to the explosives.

  The New York Times established that a Royal Saudi Air Force E-3A AWACS - complete with US crew-members - had been scrambled to track the 747’s progress up the Gulf. The AWACS vectored F-14s from a carrier off the Straits of Hormuz to intercept the airliner and coerce the hijackers into turning back.

  The 747 beat the F-14s to the coast. Low on fuel, the Navy planes were forced to turn back, to rendezvous with a tanker.

  The airliner flew on, passing briefly through Jordanian and Syrian airspace. Above the wastes of the Syrian Desert the hijackers announced their intention to land at Beirut International. After frantic dialogue between the co-pilot and the tower, the 747 touched down in the Lebanon some four hours after it left Dubai.

  Beirut, as ever, was perfect. The airport was in a state of chaos, as it had been for years. Though held by Amal guerrillas, no one was really in charge.

  In the mayhem within the perimeter fence, no one noticed the group of commandos stealing across the tarmac until it was too late. Their strength boosted by reinforcements, the hijackers’ position began to appear unassailable. For the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington the rescue options were running out.

  Since then, the Amal militia groups ‘guarding’ the jumbo had kept a respectable distance. Even they seemed to fear an unpredictable response by the terrorists.

  In the three days that the 747 had been there, languishing in a desolate corner of the airport, there had been no end of rumour-mongering by the tabloids - as well as some of the more respectable papers - about the likelihood of a storming operation by Navy SEALs or Delta Force, the US Army’s elite antiterrorist unit.

  This anticipation was heightened by the arrival of the Sixth Fleet’s carrier battle-group off Lebanese waters.

  Just as awesome, even to the war-hardened Lebanese, was a small-scale invasion of Beirut’s suburbs by the more intrepid members of the world’s press corps. Even though regular flights had long ceased in and out of Beirut, there were established routes into the capital for those who knew them. Sensing safety in numbers, the press was lodged in an encampment of tents on the edge of the airfield. Through the miracle of satellite transmission, people were able to catch up on the hijack drama through snatched glances over cereal bowls, or in windows of TV rental shops. From Arkansas to Archangelsk. It was like Baghdad all over again.

  Just about every nation in the region had its forces on readiness. The Middle East, for decades a tinder-box of prejudice and racial hatred, had become set to explode once again. In the twinkling of an eye, the crisis had moved from the Gulf to the Levant.

  Girling stared hard at a newspaper photo of the 747, prominent against a background of desert scrub and the Mediterranean beyond. A hijacker’s masked face was visible at one of the windows.

  ‘Who in hell are you?’ he heard himself whisper.

  In three days, no one had managed to make contact with the hijackers. Grainy pictures of shadowy faces, masks twisted by the distorting effects of the aircraft windows, were splashed across some of the newspapers. The tabloids ran headlines like ‘the face of terror’, or ‘the mask of death’ above them.

  The terrorists had made no demands and had not issued the customary declaration of their identity or political aims. That alone set this incident apart.

  Against his better judgement, Girling found himself taking notes.

  Yesterday’s evening papers had carried the news of the biggest breakthrough. The terrorists, quite unannounced, had released all Arab nationals. These people were the first to give eyewitness accounts of conditions inside the aircraft.

  Every hostage had a story of terror to tell, but it was the plight of Ambassador Franklin which touched Girling most. Separated from the rest of the hostages, he had borne his torture with courage and dignity. Girling, well hardened to stories of suffering, could not hide his revulsion at the accounts of the ambassador trussed to his seat. Artists’ impressions in some of the papers depicted the wire running across his neck that led to the grenade taped to the back of the chair.

  In that morning’s press, no one was any closer to establishing the identity of the terrorists, although most ‘observers’ and ‘experts’ ‘ called upon by the media believed an Iranian-backed Shiite group to be responsible. Knowing something of Washington’s own confusion, Girling knew that the pundits were shooting in the dark.

&nbs
p; He tilted his chair and stared at the ceiling. So what were the options for ending the incident? A negotiated settlement seemed unlikely - even attempts to deliver food and water to the aircraft had met with stony silence.

  After the Arab exodus, there were still almost a hundred mouths to feed. Pretty soon, people would start dying of thirst.

  Where were the demands for the release of political prisoners from Israeli jails, or fellow ‘freedom fighters’ from the cells of the West’s prisons?

  The failure to negotiate was a worry to everyone. If these guys were Hizbollah, then they had every good reason to be concerned.

  On October 23 1983, Hizbollah, the sprawling Iranian-backed terror organization, had issued no warnings, no demands to the French and American peace-keeping forces in Beirut. But by the end of that day two hundred and forty-one American marines, fifty-eight French paratroopers, and two more martyrs of Islam were dead.

  The truck which struck the US Marines’ complex contained six tons of explosives. The detonation was the single largest non-nuclear blast since the Second World War.

  Organizations with links to the Palestine Liberation Organization operated with a shade more method in their madness; but not much.

  Girling closed the file and walked it back to the library. Others - people like Stansell in Cairo, for instance - could handle the story. He was best out of it.

  By the time Girling was back at his desk, most of the staff had gone home. He raised his eyes to the TV, which remained on throughout the day in the corner of the newsroom, pumping out the usual diet of CNN news bulletins.

  A jumbo jet was sitting in the glare of media and arc lights at an airport some two thousand miles away.

  Yet another news bulletin, telling the same old story. The hijacking had been relegated to third place in the pecking order of world news.

  At the next desk, Mallon shut his computer down. The reporter had put a nice story to bed. His investigations showed that passengers had been on Concorde, quite ignorant of the real purpose of its flight over the North Cape.

  Furthermore, the UK’s billion-pound radar system, commissioned into service that year, had not been able to track the supersonic airliner until it was just off the Shetland Islands, north-east of the Scottish mainland. Girling shook his head. Britain would have to put its trust in the Russians instead. Given the persistent rumours of further coup attempts by Soviet hard-liners, that was not necessarily a comfortable thought.

  ‘You got time for a drink?’ Mallon asked, getting to his feet. ‘I’m heading down to the Punch.’

  The Punch was the office watering hole a few blocks away.

  Girling looked at his watch. ‘Not tonight. Got to get back home.’ He’d promised he’d speak to Alia that evening and already it wasn’t far off her bedtime. She’d been with her grandparents for the best part of a week and he missed her terribly.

  Mallon pulled on a thick overcoat and turned up his collar against the icy temperature outside. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then. Big day.’

  The buzz surrounding a good exclusive made press day all the more frantic.

  Girling gave him a half wave. ‘Goodnight, Kieran.’

  There was no one left in the newsroom, except for the night editor, Joe Cornelius, an old hand from the days when the Street hummed with the presses of newspapers most people had never heard of. Cornelius sat in a stupor at his desk, his eyes raised to the TV.

  The box, perched on a shelf in the corner of the room, pulsed out its mute images, the volume turned too low for Girling to hear. In another corner, one of the wire machines jerked into life. Cornelius rose to inspect the message, glanced at it cursorily and moved back to his seat.

  On the TV, the chat-show host grinned into the camera, then turned back to his guest. Girling reached out and shut down his PC.

  It was only when he was on his feet that he noticed the package from the photo labs in his in-tray. He had not spotted it amongst the cuttings, press releases, and scrawled notes that lay strewn across his desk.

  He pulled the six glossy enlargements from their folder and began to leaf through them.

  He smiled to himself. His efforts to capture the 11-76 Candid at Machrihanish were somewhat haphazard. One of the pictures was wide of the hangar, but showed the hills and the stormy sky behind to advantage.

  Of the rest, one was reasonable enough to print. The guy with the walkie-talkie was screwing his eyes against the bright hangar lights behind the great white fuselage of the transport aircraft, his arm raised. The object of the man’s attention was hidden by the partially open cabin door.

  Girling reached for his coat, then hesitated. He might still catch someone at the Ministry of Defence.

  He dialled the number of the press office and waited. If any of them were working this late, it would be a miracle, but it was worth trying out just to establish the MOD’s line on the Candid’s presence at Machrihanish.

  The phone answered on its first ring. Girling recognized Peter Jarrett’s voice on the other end of the line. ‘What are you still doing there, Pete? This was supposed to be a long shot.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ The voice sounded tired and irritated.

  ‘Tom Girling, Dispatches.’

  ‘Tom, sorry, didn’t recognize you for a moment. Contrary to what you lot think, some of us do actually put in some hours here.’ Jarrett paused. ‘Well, if you must know, the wife’s coming up to town. We’re going to catch a show in the West End tonight. What can I do for you?’

  Girling pulled a notepad out from his top drawer and scribbled on a page to ensure his pen was working. ‘It’s about something I saw during Exercise Stalwart Divider. You know your boys arranged an exclusive facility for us to cover the story from the back seat of a Tornado...’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jarrett said. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Well, we had to divert to RAF Machrihanish with a technical problem.’

  ‘Did you now,’ Jarrett said. Girling could almost hear the alarm bells ringing in the press office at Whitehall. ‘I suppose we’re going to see this splashed over your lead page this week.’

  ‘The Tornado is not the reason I’m ringing.’

  ‘Go on,’ Jarrett said warily.

  ‘While I was on the ground at Machrihanish I saw a Soviet transport aircraft - an 11-76 Candid. Do you know the thing I mean? A big four-engined bugger.’

  ‘Yes, I know the type. It looks a bit like a British Aerospace 146. I bet that was what you saw. The Queen’s flight has 146s, you know.’

  ‘Come on, Pete, you know me better than that. This was a Candid. I’ve got pictures.’

  ‘There’s bound to be a very good reason for this, Tom. I doubt very much whether there’s a story in it for you,’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Girling said. He hated to be fed that line by press officers.

  ‘The Soviets come into the UK on a regular basis these days,’ Jarrett continued, getting into his stride. ‘It’s all to do with verification. CFE treaty and all that. We allow them to check our equipment levels, make sure they adhere to treaty rules, and they let us see theirs.’ Jarrett chuckled. ‘It’s bloody daft if you ask me, but you’d better not quote me on that.’

  ‘I’d appreciate if you’d check all the same,’ Girling said.

  His eyes started to roam around the room. The chat-show host was staring straight at him, laughing.

  ‘Perhaps this is a question for another department. I could try another desk tomorrow if you prefer.’

  Jarrett coughed. ‘No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll ask the right people, but I think I know what the answer will be. As I said- ’

  ‘Verification,’ Girling cut in. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Precisely, Tom. When do you close for press?’

  ‘Tomorrow night.’

  Girling was about to thank him and hang up, but Jarrett wanted to keep on talking. ‘How are things on the journal? I notice you’ve got a new staffer. Can’t remember the chap’s name, but he’s been ke
eping us damned busy today over this Concorde business.’

  ‘Kieran Mallon,’ Girling said distantly. ‘Yes, he’s good.’

  Girling’s attention was riveted to the TV screen. The picture had changed from the chat-show to a shaky view of bright lights against an inky backdrop. Girling caught a glimpse of an aircraft on the ground. It took him a second to realize it was the jumbo.

  ‘Tom, are you still there?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go,’ Girling said firmly. ‘Something’s going down in Beirut.’

  He hung up and sprinted across the newsroom, turning the volume up as soon as he reached the set. Cornelius’s expression of irritation changed the moment he saw the reason for the intrusion.

  The TV picture was still veering about the screen. There was the sharp crack of gunfire, followed by a burst of excited voices. The BBC’s Middle East correspondent, James Cramer, whom Girling knew well from the old days in Cairo, was doing his best to describe what was happening. But it sounded as if his view of events wasn’t any better than theirs. The cameraman focused shakily on the cockpit of the airliner. Girling could just make out a shadow on the flight deck.

  ‘... there were several shots, we heard them quite distinctly, one of the bullets ricocheted off the building behind me. I can see a hijacker in the cockpit. He’s pointing a machine-gun out of the window...’ There was another crack and the picture went haywire again. ‘That was extremely close. The gunmen appear to be firing indiscriminately around the airport.’

  The voice cracked. ‘Someone has been hit. I can see one of the newsmen to my right on the ground... his colleagues are dragging him across the tarmac to cover.’ There was a brief shot of a body being carted along the ground. Then more firing. The screen was filled with a blurred picture of sandbags five inches from the camera lens. The correspondent’s rapid breathing pounded over the TV’s loudspeaker.

  Despite the intensity of the drama, Girling sensed Kelso moving across the floor from his office to join him and Cornelius.

  The jumbo lurched into view again, its great white body irradiated by the glare of the arc lights. The intensity of the lights left ghostly traces across the video picture with each oscillation of the camera.