ADAM HALL - The Kobra Manifesto

'I'm okay.'

She was lying back on the tilted seat looking up at me with dulled eyes, but managed to smile.

'You know I'm here to look after you, for your father?'

'I didn't know.'

Her eyes showed a flicker of interest now.

'I've talked a lot to these people, and they've told me that whatever happens they've no intention of harming you. We're going to reach a working agreement with your father, some time today, and then you'll be free to go home.'

She went on looking up at me, frowning a little against the reflected light on the ceiling.

'Are you just kidding me along?'

'No, I'm not. You don't need any false reassurance — you're too tough for that.'

Dr Costa took the pad off her forehead and dipped it into the bucket of ice and squeezed it out and put it back.

'I don't feel very tough. I feel really spaced out, over all this. Do you know what they want from my Dad?'

'Yes.' Because Shadia was listening. 'And it's nothing he's not ready to give them, in exchange for you.'

I pressed her 'hand and straightened up and looked at Costa and he came back along the aisle to talk to me.

'How bad is she?' I asked him.

Shadia hadn't followed us. I think she didn't like to come too close to me, possibly because she was superstitious: with part of her mind she saw me as someone who'd come back from the dead.

'She needs to be in a hospital,' Costa said.

He was short and rumpled with soulful brown eyes that spoke of devotion to a dozen gods, whichever could get his attention first. He smelt faintly of herbs.

'What's your diagnosis?'

He shrugged.

'It could be blackwater fever, or it could be yellow fever; the symptoms are much the same in the early stages.' He looked up at me dolefully. 'Do these people mean what they say?'

'It depends what they say.'

He looked along the aisle.

'Poor child. They say they will show humanity. Where will they find humanity?'

I turned round a little so that I had my back to Shadia:, this wasn't an intelligence cell but she might have had training in lip-reading somewhere along the line.

'Dr Costa, have you given any sedation?'

'Sedation? Oh no, she-'

'Don't give her any. If you can give her stimulants without doing any harm, you should do that.' He broke in but I stopped him. 'I might not have long to talk. I don't know what's going to happen but I want to get the girl out alive if it's possible. She might have to run, or look after herself in an emergency. If I can give you any warning, I'll do that.' I moved again, walking back with him along the aisle. 'I'm quite sure we can all reach a peaceful agreement as soon as contact is made with the other party.'

'But of course.'

The aircraft was still settling and when I looked through the windows I could see a control tower and the roofs of buildings and then a whole row of military jets with US Air Force markings: the pilot had obviously put the fear of Christ into Zade and persuaded him there was an emergency and this was the nearest airport that could take us. I suppose he thought the best place to land a bunch of terrorists was at an Air Force base and that was a logical thought: the moment the Boeing touched down it'd be surrounded by enough fire power to blow an aircraft-carrier out of the sea. But I wasn't too happy because the thing we'd all have to avoid was a shoot-out because in a shoot-out there wouldn't be many survivors.

10:34.

Timing was now important. I didn't know if Ferris could do anything for us at this stage: there might be a short-wave transmitter at the airbase he could use for talking to London but I didn't know if London could do anything for us either. This was the end-phase and in the end-phase of a typical penetration job it's usually the executive hi the field who has to complete the mission without anyone's help: it's in the nature of the operation because he goes in alone and he's got to get out alone for the simple reason that that is what he's for.

Ferris would be 'here in two hours: I'd worked with him before and I knew his style. The minute we'd stopped talking on the phone when I'd called him from Belem he would have got on to the Secretary of Defence direct and asked for a pick-up in Manaus, and Burdick was capable of ordering a unmarked military aircraft to go and get him. This Boeing had been on the plot tables ever since it had taken off and Burdick would know it was now landing.

He would be here sooner than Ferris.

We were reversing thrust and I leaned against the bulkhead between the coach and first-class sections until the deceleration eased off; then I went forward and spoke to Kuznetski.

Zade had said that the bomb was the key to international power politics and of course he was right but he was here for more than one of the bloody things and they couldn't expect to get away with a shipment.

'I hear you studied at Prague,' I said to Kuznetski.

He turned to look at me. He was holding himself hi a lot, and only his eyes showed his nerves; he didn't look a typical terrorist, if there is such an animal: he'd set up the Simplon Tunnel operation and shot his way out of gaol and all that sort of thing but he didn't look like a dedicated revolutionary; he looked as if he liked the technicalities of violence as distinct from its political excuses.

'Yes,' he said. 'I was in Prague.'

'In '69?'

He watched me quietly with his nerves in his eyes.

'No.'

'I was there in '70, on one of those exchange things. You've got a doctorate in physics, haven't you?'

His shoulder hit the edge of the bulkhead as the Boeing swung off the runway and gunned up a little, but he didn't take his eyes from my face.

'No. I have a degree.'

'What were you doing?'

'When?'

'In Prague.'

He hesitated, wondering whether to answer.

I heard voices from the flight deck now, and radio static.

'I did some revision techniques on deuterium moderators,' Kuznetski said. 'I was with Dr Schwarz.'

He seemed to be waiting for some kind of answer.

'Are you going after your doctorate?'

Again he waited, watching me.

'Perhaps.'

We could hear the pilot clearly now.

'-and if you think you're going to get me to take this goddam bird up again on three engines you're crazy!'

I now noticed that Kuznetski was slowly going pale.

'Satynovich,' he murmured, 'is a wild man. He makes me afraid.'

'You should choose your friends more carefully,' I said, and went back along the aisle, hitting a seat-squab as the Boeing swung again and slowed under the brakes.

Then we stopped, and the long wait began, as it had to, This was at 10:41.

Zade stood with one booted foot on the navigator's seat, staring through the windscreen.

In the last few minutes a nervous tic had started to jerk at the corner of his mouth. His physical control was adequate but he lacked the nerves to back it up and when he spoke mere was a tremor of rage in his voice.

He was listening now to the distorted tones from the radio.

'I repeat my offer to replace your hostage personally. '

James K. Burdick, US Secretary of Defence.

He had arrived by military helicopter ten minutes ago and was speaking direct from the control tower. When Zade replied his voice was hoarse and the sibilants were accentuated.

'The hostage remains with us.'

His psychology was sound: he knew that Burdick would do more for his daughter's safety than he'd do for his own.

Half an hour ago at 11.04 the FBI had opened up communications via the tower and two-way radio: they were headed by a small group of men standing on the tarmac below the tower and I could see the glint of the chrome aerials as they moved about. The man in charge had announced himself as Dwight Sorenson and he had opened the exchange with an immediate demand for surrender and this had provoked Zade into expressing his anxiety in the form of rage.