Алистер Маклин - Air Force One is Down

Philpott nodded.

The Brigadier shrugged: ‘Hundreds?’

‘Probably not,’ Philpott said. ‘But there are certainly enough to make the right one difficult to find without any other identification.’

A clerk brought in copies of the ransom note and, like Hemmingsway had done, Philpott whistled when he saw Smith’s demand for fifty million dollars’ worth of cut diamonds.

‘It’s a helluva lot of money,’ he mused.

‘What about the rest?’ Tomlin said shakily.

‘Rest?’ Philpott echoed.

Tomlin flourished the Associated Press tape, giving the full story, unlike the UNACO report, which had been split up into paragraphs with analysis, of which Philpott had only the first.

Tomlin paraphrased, ‘Unless the Arab nations – or someone … UNACO’s mentioned – meet Smith’s demands, he’ll kill one minister every three hours.’

‘My God,’ Tomlin whispered, ‘he must be mad. Do you think he means it?’

Philpott looked up from the UNACO report.

‘Oh, he’s serious all right,’ he said gravely. ‘And he may also be mad enough to carry it out.’

Sonya Kolchinsky compressed her lips into a line.

‘Is there a deadline, Brigadier?’

Tomlin glanced back down at the paper in his hand.

‘There is,’ he verified. ‘It’s one hour from–’ he looked at his watch ‘–about now. UNACO’s acceptance of Smith’s terms must be broadcast on the American Forces’ Network from Rome at precisely 1000 hours, local time.’ He looked levelly at Philpott. ‘Over to you, sir,’ he added.

Philpott drew a large breath and vented it as a sigh compounded as much of resignation as of frustration.

‘An hour …’ he muttered, ‘… just one hour and we could lose Hawley Hemmingsway.’

‘Why Hemmingsway?’ Sonya inquired.

Philpott smiled. ‘Can you see Smith executing a valuable Arab before a non-negotiable American?’

A stiff breeze ruffled Philpott’s hair, and the warm sunlight filling the Piazza Barberini caused him to shade his eyes and squint up at the waiter.

‘ Signore ?’ the waiter asked.

‘ Eh – capuccino ,’ Philpott replied.

Then he caught sight of the figure of a man crossing the road from the Metro station.

‘ Signore! ’ he called after the retreating waiter. The waiter turned, his newly-pressed white smock bristling with anticipation. ‘ Due capuccine ,’ Philpott ordered.

The waiter echoed ‘ Due. Prego, Signore ,’ and scuttled off.

The man from the Metro advanced and sat, uninvited and unsmiling, at Philpott’s table …

UNACO’s first priority after examining every aspect of the ransom demand had been to plan how to stall for time. Secondly, the ransom must be assembled. This had been the easier option. Sonya put through telephone calls at Philpott’s direction to the Johannesburg and Amsterdam Diamond Exchanges and to the chief executive of De Beers. On UNACO’s credit the sum was promised. Delivery of the equivalent in cut diamonds would be made from Amsterdam by the next flight from Schipol to Fiumicino.

Meanwhile, Philpott had anxiously probed the situation from every angle.

‘I must have time to find Smith,’ Philpott demanded, slapping the table in the NATO Ops room with his open palm. ‘He cannot be allowed to take command. Once we broadcast our agreement to his terms, he’ll follow up with the location of the ransom dropping point in double-quick time, and before we know it he’ll have got away with it.’

‘But you will make the broadcast?’ Tomlin asked cautiously. ‘I know it goes against the grain, sir, but I think you’ll agree that we dare not risk the lives of any of the OPEC ministers. Unless you feel Smith is simply bluffing.’

Philpott slowly passed a hand across his forehead and allowed the fingers to slide down his face. He looked out of the window and stared at the silent maelstrom of Rome’s traffic far below.

‘He may be bluffing in the sense that I don’t believe he will himself kill a minister,’ he finally replied. ‘Killing’s not Smith’s style. On the other hand, there will be by the nature of things unstable people with him … I have a sketchy outline of two of them. And apart from that, Smith is certainly not above staging an execution convincingly enough to persuade one of the other hostages to pass it on to us as a fact. I’ve no doubt Smith has radio facilities – and will use them to blackmail us, broadcasting in short bursts so that we are unable to track down the frequency.’

Tomlin nodded gloomily.

‘We wouldn’t know whether it was true or not,’ he agreed. ‘We would have to assume it had actually happened. It would be a bluff we could not call.’

The two men sat for a minute immersed in their separate thoughts, and then Philpott jerkily shifted to the front of his seat and scribbled on the notepad before him. He tore off the first page and handed it to Tomlin.

The Brigadier studied it and smiled bemusedly.

‘As easy as that?’ he inquired.

Philpott shrugged. ‘We have to buy time.’

‘But you have no idea how to contact Smith because we don’t know where he is,’ the Brigadier objected.

‘That’s what I’m trying to do,’ Philpott replied. ‘I must smoke him out. Have that message broadcast on AFN at nine-thirty, and again at ten, and Smith, I guarantee, will be in touch. By then, I’ll have found out the way to get through to him.’

‘And if you don’t?’

‘If I don’t, we lose Hemmingsway.’

Tomlin pursed his lips ruefully and said, ‘I’m glad it’s not me taking that kind of chance. Your President would not be best pleased at losing a friend as well as an aeroplane, if you’ll excuse the levity, sir.’

Philpott inclined his head.

‘We have to grab our chances where we can with Smith, Brigadier,’ he continued. ‘And rest easy,’ he assured Tomlin, ‘I have no intention of needlessly sacrificing Hawley Hemmingsway or any other oil minister, as President Wheeler knows full well. I think I can pull this off, but it’ll take time – and time is something we don’t have. Now if you could give me a couple of minutes?’

Tomlin nodded and walked to the far end of the operations centre. Philpott picked up the telephone and replied in Russian when the man at the Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics said, ‘ Buon giorno, Signore .’

Philpott was playing a hunch which, if he was wrong, not only would put them completely at Smith’s mercy, but also could lead to the murder of an American Secretary of State. He swallowed the touch of bile which had risen to his mouth, and said, ‘I wish to speak to General Alexis Nesterenko.’

There was the expected silence before the man gave the expected answer: there was no General Alexis Nesterenko at the embassy.

Philpott continued smoothly, ‘You may know him better by his code-name: Myshkin.’

He could hear the click as the resident KGB station commander cued in to the call.

‘We know of no one of that name, and we do not understand what you mean when you refer to a code-name,’ the operator said stolidly.

‘Very well,’ Philpott said, ‘I will have to assume that you do not wish to communicate to your superiors some information which it is crucial to their plans that they should receive. I will bid you goodbye, then.’

‘Eh, wait for just one moment, Signore ,’ the operator broke in, switching to Italian. ‘You – you did not–’ he was obviously trying to interpret instructions whispered to him across another line ‘–you did not give us your name.’

‘My name is Malcolm Philpott, and I am the Director of the United Nations Anti-Crime Organisation. I fail to see how that can interest you, since you claim to have no knowledge of the man to whom I wish to pass this information.’