He'd done it well.
' I can assure you – and you may pass this on to your government and to the Comrade Secretary General – that it is not the intention of the British security forces and officials who are currently at Stansted that the aircraft should leave there except as a free flight and without passengers and crew being held at gunpoint. There is no question while the plane is under the command of armed men that it will be refuelled for an onward flight to Israel. That is a solemn guarantee.' The easy section, obvious and would satisfy nobody. The next leg was harder, 'I am advised by the British government's legal officers that the hi-jackers have already contravened various sections of the British criminal code, certainly illegal possession of firearms, possibly kidnapping, and it is likely that should they surrender they would be required to face the due process of United Kingdom law…'
' I do not wish to have to report to my government that in my opinion the British would use minor charges to protect these three criminals from the Soviet courts. Perhaps I have not made myself clear, Excellency: we want these people back. We want them quickly. We would take procrastination on this point as a most serious matter.'
'Threats will not be conducive to settling our problems.' It was quietly said by the Foreign Secretary, but with the acting and the politeness vanishing from the soft-lit room.
'It is not a threat.'
'Then I misunderstood your choice of words. We must be most careful in the choice of words that we use, otherwise we will have misunderstandings, which would be unfortunate.'
'What then should I inform my government concerning the extradition of these people?' A fractional retreat, but tactical only, and the Foreign Secretary knew it would mean as little at the end of the day as his answer.
'You should tell your government that the British Foreign Secretary has undertaken to pass on the details of this conversation personally to the Prime Minister. You should also say that the first priority of the British government is to ensure the safe release of all the passengers and crew of the plane. In the short term we regard that as the more important issue.'
The Soviet Ambassador rose, smile back on his face, firm grip in his handshake, a word about future meetings and he was through the door and into the ante-room. He had time as he walked across the Isfahan carpet to recognize the short and stubbed presence, buried in an easy chair, of the Israeli Ambassador, now waiting for his appointment.
There was no greeting, no acknowledgment from either.
From where he sat Charlie Webster had as good a view as any of the Ilyushin.
Static and immobilized, it was swathed in light from the portable floodlights that the military had put in place within a hundred yards of its towering, crab-like form.
Behind Charlie were the Emergency Committee who would dictate his replies once the hi-jackers chose to begin transmissions. The Home Secretary, there at the Prime Minister's request to assume overall political control of the affair, with the convoy of civil servants hovering near to him, to advise and to caution. The Assistant Chief Constable, spruced and neat and boasting the thin multi-coloured ribbons of war service and police work on his chest. Two army officers who had made a separate journey from London, coming from Ministry of Defence.
One civilian, as different from the rest of them in his own right as was Charlie; check shirt and the collar stiffeners bent in too many washes so that they rode up his sports coat lapels, a tie that had shields on it that were lost and disfigured by the many times it had been knotted, hair that was long and had not known the benefit of comb and water and that hung loosely from the body of his head, rounded brown corduroy trousers and scuffed brown shoes: not a man who was kept, not a man who owed allegiance to conformity, stiff bold cheekbones and a ferret nose that poked and pried into the conversations around him. Not somebody who was accepted but tolerated, because he was the psychiatrist in the team, with a special role to play: the man with experience of psychopaths, of the deranged, who had advised on the siege at Balcombe Street, and the Spaghetti House stake-out in London's West End. The Dutch with their knowledge of the prison and train hostage-taking operations had proved the value of a medical man in the team, and the Home Office had drafted Anthony Clitheroe into their plans, placing him on call so that he could be summoned from his Wimpole Street practice whenever the need arose.
Later the group would disperse to the offices of the airport management but at that moment all of them wanted to witness the initial contact, sought to hear the timbre of the voices of the opposition still hidden from them by the sleek, wind-wiped walls of the Dyushin's fuselage.
In front of him Charlie had placed the three photographs he had been given in London: he could see the faces, study them, learn from them. Further to his right, as if denoting its lesser importance, he had laid the diagram of the interior of the 11-18. He felt nervous, tense in his stomach, waiting for them to begin, longing for them to do so. But had to let them take the initiative, that was the procedure; the young people should not be hurried, all the privileges of the bride.
It was the girl who spoke first.
"To the authorities, do you hear u s… do you hear us?'
'We hear you veiy clearly.'
'Do you hear us…' The girl had forgotten, or never known, that she had to take her finger off the depress switch when she'd finished speaking, otherwise she couldn't hear the replies. Stupid cow.
'We hear you very clearly.'
Her memory of the technicalities jolted, or someone had told her, but now she had mastered the equipment. 'We call ourselves the Kingfisher group. We wish to talk to the responsible persons. Have they come yet?'
Not bad English, out of the classroom – like your Russian, Charlie. She was speaking too close to the microphone so that she distorted and he could not gauge the strength of her spirits, her morale.
'Hello, Kingfisher group.' Where had they dug that one up? Out of the norm-Black September, Black June, First of April movement, Struggle group of any wet November Thursday, that was what they'd come to expect. 'My name is Webster, Charlie Webster. We can talk in Russian or English, whichever you prefer. If you want to talk in Russian you must accept that there will be pauses while I translate to the people that are with me what you are saying.'
Silence, while they worked it out. Decide whether the big man in the group wants to do the talking for himself, which means Russian, or whether they delegate to the girl. A handwritten note was passed in front of him. Charlie should not let it be known the Emergency Committee had already assembled at the airport. Going for the stall game and delay; Clitheroe's advice was clear on this, adamant.
In Russian, and a man speaking. Sounded an age away, more distant than the girl, subdued, unsure; perhaps just the angle to the microphone.
'My name is David. I wish to speak to the persons in charge.'
Charlie in Russian too. Couldn't match his dialect, softer, less cruel to the ear than the harsher speech of the north, of Moscow. Wouldn't try to ape him, just speak the way he had been taught, the way they were all taught in T Corps where it was assumed that any Russian they would need to interrogate had done his secondary school in the Kremlin's shadows. Not easy, not at first. Seemed a long time since he'd spoken the language conversationally. One thing to read newspapers and official reports, even to write it, but quite another to chat in the tongue and summon up the persuasiveness to win confidence.
'Webster, Charlie Webster here. I'm the Russian language speaker, but as I explained to your colleague there will be delays while I tell my colleagues what you are saying, and what I am telling you.' Take all night at this rate. He flicked the transmission button to 'off' on the console in front of him, told the men who stood behind what he had said. Back to 'on'. Live again.