Unwatched, unobserved, he dialled the London code.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The soldier inclined his rifle and stepped back for Charlie to pass. Out through the frosted glass door of the control tower, on to the tarmac. The heat saturated him from the moment he was clear of the protective air-conditioned blanket, warm enough to feel it wrap about him, carrying an instant clamminess to his chest and legs. The staircase had been darkened with Venetian blinds, and the brightness reflecting up from the open concrete wounded his eyes. He had left his jacket on the back of the seat, and forsaken his tie; Clitheroe had wanted that. 'Let them see from the start that you have nothing concealed on you' – those were the psychiatrist's instructions. Only the radio transmitter and receiver that bumped against his hip, swinging from the strap he had hooked over his shoulder. His shoes squelched as he moved, suffering from the time he'd worn them, and his toes were uncomfortable, irritated, so that he was reminded of the smell and the shave he had wanted. They'd given it to him very straight before they'd packed him off – just follow the line we've given, don't play hero games, don't go promising things that haven't been authorized or sanctioned.
Dont hurry it, they'd said. They will want to have a good look at you, size you up, know you're not a threat. We don't want them jumpy, not now, not with ten o'clock closing. Halfway there, getting closer, Charlie. Breathing faster, be panting by the time you arrive. Slow it. Remember the missus, what she says, no need to hurry, Charlie, we've all night, don't rush, don't speed up.
He was close enough now to see the outline of some of the faces at the windows – not the expressions, just the basics – eyes and ears and mouths. And how many behind them that were masked from him, and how many in the grass and the rain ditches beside the runway? Half a bloody army o u t there, and all that shows is a few armoured cars and the men sitting on them.
Hands a bit closer to the main armament than when you saw them from the tower, Charlie. All watching and wondering what the hell's going to happen. There'll be concentrated fire-power to support you, that's what they'd said, and he believed them, and he also believed it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference if Isaac or David didn't take a shine to him. Bad place not to be making friends, sonny boy.
Time to start putting it together. Walk round the nose and approach from the far side, with the petrol tankers behind you, where the heavies are, the SAS men. Still be able to see him from the tower, on the outside video camera, and the microphone button was permanently up so he could talk if he found anything to say. Colossal the plane looked, damn great predator, thirty tons of it, and the fools called it 'Kingfisher'. Like a great carrion crow. Near to the wing now that he should skirt, should begin to angle his approach so that he would move in front of the hulk and into the empty ground beyond. Charlie didn't look up, resisting the impulse to scan the windows: it might be taken as anxiety. Must walk as if out with the dog for a Sunday morninger down to the pub.
He wiped a smear of sweat from his forehead and with his fingers instinctively tidied his hair.
Thirty yards from the aircraft and level with the forward starboard door he stopped. Cockpit to the right, passenger cabin to the left. High above him, dominating and impersonal, was the Ilyushin, expression not known, mood uncertain. Difficult to see it that way, but that's how it was, with a mind and pulse of its own.
He shuffled his feet together waiting for a response to his presence. No point shouting, no way anyone inside would hear him through the pressure-resistant windows and doors. Charlie Webster waved, right hand high above his head; as if his wife was shopping on the other side of Woking High Street and he wanted to attract her attention.
Rebecca had spotted him first and called David from his favoured position between cockpit and the passenger cabin. He hurried to where she craned forward across the unprotest- ing lap of a passenger, her head rammed against the window. With a roughness that was calculated he pulled her back to clear the space and the vision for himself. One man walking towards them, a faint and distant figure, small against the building from which he came, coming with a directness and purpose, his shadow preceding him, running to the front. The man kept far from the armoured cars and chose a path that was not impeded by any obstacle.
'Will you wake Isaac now? Tell him that the man is coming?' Rebecca spoke from behind his head.
' I did not think he would come so fast. I wanted to let Isaac sleep on.' He did not turn from the window.
'You are afraid to wake him. It is because of fear-'
'There is no fear.' He hissed the words from close to the window. 'When I need to wake him, then I will-'
'But the man is coming now.'
' I have eyes, I can see.'
'But are you going to leave Isaac sleeping? Will you let him sleep while you talk with this man?'
This was a moment when both David and Rebecca could have been overpowered without difficulty, for both were so engrossed in Charlie Webster's approach that they had no thought for the passengers. Rebecca was close to David's back, pressing against the muscles beneath his shirt, trying to share the window with him, transfixed by the advance of the lone figure. Several of those who sat behind them were aware of the opportunity but none had the stomach to steel himself and rise out of his seat. The long hours had dulled their initiative and the threat of the guns that now seemed so casually held was too great to encourage those who were closest to take action. Luigi Franconi was within reach, but his courage had wasted since the time he was in the mountains with the partisans. Aldo Genti had the advantage of an aisle seat, but was further back.
The navigator considered the question for a few seconds and then rejected it. The headmaster was too far to the rear to be able to offer effective intervention, and the thought of it faded from his mind when he saw the tousled, shambling, sleep-laden Isaac silhouetted in the cockpit doorway.
Rebecca said again, with greater persistence, 'You will have to tell him, you have to wake him, now that their man is coming.'
'But it was you that asked for the contact to be made. It was you that posed the question that had to be answered. It was you that wanted to know what they would do if we surrendered…'
Nobody spoke in the control tower; all were gaping at the television monitor, the flickering twelve- inch grey-blue screen.
In the centre of the picture the back torsos of the ones they knew as David and Rebecca – predictable enough that they should be at the window to watch the coming of Charlie Webster. It had been the eyes of the hostages that had drawn attention to the extreme right-hand corner of the picture, as they switched from their two concentrating guards and took on the nervousness and hesitancy of people who have fear and are uncertain, looking only to the entrance from the corridor to the passenger cabin.
A small figure Isaac seemed to those in the control tower, and when they first saw him his face seemed wreathed in sadness, but the change was abrupt and the chin came forward, and the face muscles tightened as the submachine-gun rose to his shoulder. When the weapon was there he paused for a moment as if to adjust to the comfort and stability of the tubular, extended shoulder rest, then raised the barrel to the low ceiling. He seemed to jolt back fractionally and strangely because it was all enacted in complete silence, and the passengers flattened themselves in their seats while David and Rebecca catapulted back into the aisle.
'We should pull Webster off,' Clitheroe shouted.
'Leave him there'-the sharp response from the Assistant Chief Constable.
The noise of the single shot was ear-blasting inside the confines of the cabin. It burst through the inner thoughts of Rebecca and David, tearing them from their vision of the solitary man who approached across the tarmac; the screaming of the passengers dinned its way into their consciousness, and when they spun to face the centre aisle it took them time to adjust.