Samarkand Hijack

by David Monnery

  All three voices were his, Nasruddin thought, just as Talib entered the room. He watched his cousin sit down opposite Akbar, carefully put two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into his tea and stir. Even doing something as ordinary as this, there was a stillness, a centredness, about his cousin which Nasruddin continued to find impressive. Sometimes he wondered why Talib deferred to him, what such a man could find to respect in a man like himself. Cleverness was the only thing that ever came to mind.

  Well, they certainly needed clarity of thought now. Nasruddin set out to prove himself worthy.

  ‘We are here to assess the options open to us,’ he said formally, ‘and to choose between them. But first I think we should discuss what response we should make to their action in cutting our access to the outside world. If any.’

  ‘We could demand its reinstatement,’ Akbar said.

  ‘Only by threatening to kill a hostage,’ Nasruddin argued. ‘And I think they might call our bluff.’

  ‘Would it be a bluff?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nasruddin admitted. ‘It seems to me that killing a hostage for such an unimportant reason would be seen as a sign of weakness.’

  ‘It would,’ Talib agreed. ‘Especially if we have no need of such access. And that will depend on which of the possible paths we take from this place.’

  ‘Then let us discuss that,’ Nasruddin said, looking first at Talib, then at Akbar.

  The latter spoke first. ‘God has given us this woman,’ he said, ‘and we must use the gift wisely.’

  ‘How?’ Nasruddin asked brusquely.

  Akbar was not disconcerted. ‘We are agreed that the British must have bribed the regime to accept our demands?’

  The other two nodded.

  ‘That shows how far they are prepared to go to save this woman,’ Akbar continued. ‘I think we must find out how much they are prepared to pay us.’

  There was a short silence, which Talib broke. ‘No,’ he said slowly, and looked straight at Akbar. ‘I agree that God has blessed us with a gift, but not to use in this way.’ He turned to include Nasruddin. ‘What more do we need that they can give us? Our leader is free,’ he said, his mind going back to their short exchange of words in the helicopter, the awe he had felt in Muhammad Khotali’s presence. ‘But not enough of the people will hear of his release. The papers and the television will not report it, and they will not print the speeches he will make in exile. The regime will not allow his books to be published, or his cassettes to be sold in our markets. He will be a leader and a guide to those who know him and love him, but these will be few’ – Talib smiled at them both – ‘unless we bring him to them.’

  ‘How do we do that?’ Akbar wanted to know.

  ‘It is simple. We turn this hostage-taking into a public seminar. In the name of the Imam we demand all those things which we know to be right, both from the British and the godless regime in Tashkent. It will not matter that such demands cannot be met – for a week or more we will fill the air with truth and light. I do not believe that Bakalev and his cronies can survive such an onslaught.’

  The other two looked at him, the eyes burning in their sockets above the hooked nose.

  ‘It is good,’ Akbar said.

  ‘And after the week?’ Nasruddin asked. ‘Won’t a public defeat undermine what we have achieved?’

  ‘Martyrdom is never a defeat,’ Akbar said.

  ‘I am ready to die,’ Talib agreed, ‘but while God has work for me here on earth I am also ready to live. After a week we can accept a compromise, release the hostages in the cause of mercy, and accept safe passage across the border, where the Imam will be waiting to welcome us. And our people will be talking only of things that matter once more, not wallowing in the corruption of the West.’

  ‘I am for it,’ Akbar said. His eyes were also shining at the prospect.

  Nasruddin understood why. Though his rational self found flaws in Talib’s programme, they seemed almost insignificant when compared with the potential harvest of souls. ‘What are our demands to be?’ he asked.

  The appointment by telephone with Tashkent was still almost an hour away when Sir Christopher Hanson was admitted to the Prime Minister’s Downing Street study. He found the PM working his way through the pile of briefings that had been prepared with the afternoon’s education debate in mind, and not too unhappy to be interrupted. If the new matter in hand had been anything else, Hanson reckoned, he would probably have thrown the briefings in the air and let out a wild whoop.

  Or maybe not. This Prime Minister was not noted for his spontaneity. In fact, Hanson couldn’t remember a single PM who had been, except perhaps for Harold Wilson, and he’d only used it as a means of keeping other people off balance.

  ‘There’s no fresh information,’ Hanson said. ‘The lid is still on, at least for the moment.’

  The PM ran a hand through his sparse hair. ‘But for how much longer?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘And now that we’re in the firing line, what are the Uzbeks going to do? Can we rely on them to carry on being discreet?’

  On their continued discretion, Hanson mentally corrected him. The PM’s way with words tended to falter under stress. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any profit to them in going public,’ the Intelligence chief replied.

  ‘Well, that’s something, I suppose.’ The PM scratched his head this time. ‘But the moment it goes public we have to play it by the book,’ he said. ‘Her book,’ he added as an afterthought.

  Hanson nodded.

  ‘Terrorism cannot be seen to pay,’ the PM said, as if he was trying to convince himself. Or perhaps he was just rehearsing for the TV cameras.

  ‘How is Alan Holcroft going to take it?’ Hanson asked.

  ‘God knows. How would you?’ The PM looked at his watch. ‘He’ll be here any minute. Perhaps I should have excluded him – it seems almost cruel to ask a man to share in decisions which could kill his daughter.’

  ‘But just as cruel to shut him out of a say in such decisions.’

  ‘I know.’

  Almost on cue, there was a rap on the door, followed swiftly by the appearance of the Foreign Minister. ‘Any news?’ he asked at once.

  ‘No,’ Hanson said. In one way Holcroft’s face looked the same as ever, but in some subtle way it also seemed to have collapsed. There were now two faces visible, Hanson decided: it was as if the human face was pressing up against the inside of the official mask.

  The PM waited until the Foreign Minister was seated, and then told him what he had just told Hanson, that in the event of the hijack becoming public knowledge it would not be possible to deviate from official government policy.

  ‘I realize that,’ Holcroft said tightly. He had just left an hysterical wife at home, and, had he but known it, every instinct in his body was urging him to go down on his knees and beg. But he had survived a lifetime in politics by severing the connections between brain and soul, and now all he could hear was the beating of blood in his temples and the mad racing of his heart.

  The three men sat there waiting for the call.

  It came through punctually, at 1400 hours GMT, and the laborious business of holding a conversation through translators began once more.

  President Bakalev seemed determined from the outset to placate those whom he was addressing. There was no mention of the British having concealed Sarah Holcroft’s identity from him, or of the fact that it had been a British journalist who had let the cat out of the bag. Instead there were expressions of gratitude for the men who had been sent, and confident predictions that the business could still be contained and resolved outside the spotlight of publicity. They would all know more in the morning when the terrorists passed on their new demands, but in the meantime joint planning was under way in case decisive action proved necessary. He sincerely hoped that such co-operation between the two countries would continue, though of course in less harrowing circumstances.

  The PM kept his own remarks to a minimum. After the call was over he let ou
t a deep breath and shared a look of resignation with the other two. All they could do was wait.

  They had been given no exercise that afternoon, and no reason why not. Perhaps the presence of the helicopter outside had something to do with it, but Isabel couldn’t see why. It seemed more likely that the terrorists were feeling less generous since the breakdown of their deal with the authorities.

  The women had been given a pretty good idea of what the alleged deceit had been. Twice that morning, eyes had appeared in the door hatch, and scanned the room before settling on the face of Sarah Holcroft. If they hadn’t known before, they knew now.

  Isabel put herself in the hijackers’ position, something she found alarmingly easy to do. With their new knowledge they would make new demands, and these would be either accepted or rejected. If it was the latter, then the hijackers faced their moment of truth – could they kill someone in cold blood?

  Of course, they might have killed someone already. She had always thought that if something happened to Docherty or the children she would know it, but maybe she was just fooling herself. Francisco had been dead for days before she found out for certain.

  ‘We ought to do something,’ Brenda Walker said, her face suddenly looming over the rim of Isabel’s upper bunk. ‘Play a game or something.’

  She was right, Isabel thought. They were all drifting off on their own. Like paper boats on a lake. She remembered a moment in the previous week, and her daughter catching her in mid-reverie. ‘You’re staring at nothing, Mama,’ Marie had said.

  ‘Good beer?’ James Pearson-Jones asked.

  He and Brierley were sitting on the balcony adjoining the former’s recently taken room at the Hotel Samarkand, watching the last embers of the sunset fade in the western sky. The Ambassador was nursing his second G&T, and Brierley was into his second bottle of a surprisingly fine beer.

  ‘Not bad at all,’ the SAS man said.

  ‘Probably German in origin,’ Pearson-Jones said. ‘During the First World War there were several camps for German POWs in this area. Then there was the revolution in Moscow, and Russia pulled out of the war, and of course all the POWs had to be released. Only problem was, they couldn’t get home. Russia was in chaos, with civil war and famine breaking out all over, so the Germans had to wait several years before they could leave. In the meantime, being Germans, several of them started breweries.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Brierley observed politely. And he supposed it was, though considerably less so than reconnaissance jaunts with beautiful majors. That bastard Stoneham! Still, at least he hadn’t been sent back to London with his tail between his legs, like that idiot Kennedy. ‘What’s happened to the woman journalist?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s still locked up,’ Pearson-Jones said. He grunted. ‘If I had my way they’d throw away the key.’

  ‘Her and the rest of the media,’ Brierley said sourly.

  ‘All right, let’s run through it once more,’ the Ambassador said, perhaps sensing something of Brierley’s mood. ‘I’ll go over the points, and you can correct me if I’m wrong.’

  ‘Right,’ Brierley agreed, with more enthusiasm than he felt.

  ‘Negotiating points,’ Pearson-Jones began, holding up a fist to raise fingers from. ‘One, try to keep the enemy in detail-coping mode. Overload him with decisions that don’t really matter.’

  One finger shot up. ‘Two, always ask open-ended questions, ones that can’t be answered just yes or no. Three, use their own rhetoric against them when possible. So if they keep going on about God, stress what a nice guy God was, and maybe they should try a bit harder to live up to him.’ He smiled at Brierley, who smiled back.

  ‘But?’

  ‘But four, avoid ideological confrontation. In fact don’t talk about God or sex or politics if you’re afraid you might enrage the enemy by doing so. This is a thin line, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very. What’s five?’

  ‘Play down the importance of the hostages. Let the enemy know that they are not the only factor you are taking into consideration. There are limits as to how far you can or will go to save their lives.’ A thumb joined the four raised fingers. ‘Christ, this is depressing.’

  ‘I know. Six?’

  ‘Try and divide the hostages into groups, so that you can ask for their release bit by bit. The children first, for example. And then the women.’

  ‘One more.’

  Pearson-Jones searched the sky. ‘Don’t tell me…I know, avoid completely negative responses. Even if he says he wants a night with the Queen tell him you’ll see what you can do.’

  Brierley grinned. ‘You can tell him it’s unlikely she’ll be in the mood, but don’t slam the door entirely. Now the three general points.’

  The fingers came back down again. ‘Right. One, if they set deadlines try and talk through them…’ He stopped. ‘Who are we trying to get off the hook by doing that – them or us?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Hmmm, I see. Right. Two, make sure that their access to the outside world is as much under our control as possible. Pity that wasn’t done two days ago. But it is under our control now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not completely. They could be talking to supporters by radio.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they could. Oh. Three, manipulate their environment…I’m still not clear about this.’

  ‘You don’t really need to be. It’s just that in the past people have found that shutting off water, electricity, things like that, can wear down the terrorists’ morale. One hostage-taker in the States actually surrendered rather than crap in front of his hostages, after the authorities cut off access to the toilet they were all using.’

  Pearson-Jones sipped at his G&T. ‘Sounds a bit like a two-edged sword,’ he observed. ‘Surely there’s just as much chance of provoking a violent reaction.’

  ‘Good point. You do have to play that one by ear.’

  Pearson-Jones beamed, like a little schoolboy with a gold star.

  Brierley looked at his watch. Stoneham and the Major would probably be on their way by now.

  A hand on his shoulder woke Stoneham from his few hours of catch-up sleep. For a few seconds the strange surroundings disoriented him, but then he remembered he was in one of the locals’ lorries. He stretched and groaned at the stiffness, and lay where he was for a few more moments, remembering the thoughts which had been spinning around in his head for what seemed like eternity as he tried to get to sleep. Bloody Jane! Even five thousand miles away she was still ruining his day. He had to talk to her, really talk to her, find out what had gone wrong.

  He couldn’t do that halfway up a mountain in the middle of Asia.

  Work, he told himself. Concentrate on the here and now.

  He edged himself the short distance to the open back of the vehicle, and found Major Ismatulayeva there waiting for him, dressed in what looked like a black boiler suit, her usually severe face looking softer in the pale light.

  Work, he told himself again. ‘Time to go?’ he asked.

  ‘It soon will be,’ Nurhan said. She felt nervous. It was all very well insisting on taking at least an equal part in this operation – national and gender pride demanded no less – but she didn’t want to end up making a fool of herself. Five years ago she would have seen no reason to worry, but over the last tumultuous few years the inferiority of just about all things Soviet had become painfully obvious. Specialist training might well turn out to be another case in point. She had done courses with the Spetsnaz special forces which had stretched her to the physical and mental limit, but who knew what these wretched English supermen could do?

  ‘Make-up?’ Stoneham asked her. He took a small canvas bag from his bergen, removed a handful of tubes from the bag, set up a mirror, and began spreading a dark cream across his face. ‘It’s not Helena Rubinstein,’ he added.

  ‘I’ll use the mirror after you,’ she said. ‘Let’s get some things straight. Like what we want to achieve from this.’

  ‘Who’s in which
room, accurate ident on weaponry, access points,’ Stoneham rattled off. ‘Maybe an astrology chart for each terrorist, if we can manage it.’ He daubed an artistic streak of lighter cream across the dark background. ‘But the one thing we have to know before we go busting in there with a full team is where the hostages are being held. Even if that’s the only thing we find out, then this little jaunt will still have been well worth taking. Your turn,’ he said, stepping away from the mirror.

  Nurhan stepped up to it, smelling the cream before applying it. In the good old Soviet days they had been told to find any dirt that was available. ‘We’ve got another problem,’ she said. ‘They’ve turned on the searchlight under the helicopter, and they must have placed a mirror directly underneath it, because the whole area seems flooded with light.’

  ‘Shit,’ Stoneham said in English.

  She understood the tone. ‘Exactly,’ she said in Russian. ‘There’s no way we can go in from behind – the whole rock-face is lit up.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘If most of the light is being reflected upwards then the ground must be in some sort of shadow, even if it’s not actually dark.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she agreed. ‘There’s no way to tell from here.’ She turned to face him. ‘How do I look?’ she asked.

  ‘Like Catwoman in Batman Two,’ he told her. ‘But I don’t suppose that’s reached Samarkand yet.’

  ‘It has,’ she said coldly. ‘Now what about signals?’

  They decided on a basic selection of hand signals, and agreed that sub-machine-guns, while decidedly useful when it came to a fire-fight, might well get in the way if silent climbing became necessary. They settled for silenced automatics, in his case a Browning High Power, in hers the German SIG-Sauer P226. Both would carry walkie-talkies, for reporting in to Sergeant Abalov if necessary, and for talking to each other if they had occasion to separate.