'Get in and shut up,' Charlie said.
' In the war there were endless columns of men who went to their deaths, with no hope of rescue, nothing to help them beyond the comradeship of dying together.'
Charlie opened the doors, pushed him into the interior, so that he stumbled and tripped forward across a red-blanketed stretcher bed.
'Shut up, forget it.'
The ambulance swung through one hundred and eighty degrees, causing Charlie to grab at a wall-attached oxygen cylinder, then he leaned out to pull together the two flapping doors. Before he fastened them he saw again the bright and unsullied lines of the Ilyushin, the neatness of its airframe broken only by the opened hatch. In the half light of the ambulance interior, shaded by the smoked glass, he held out his hand.
' I'm Charlie Webster.'
'Dovrobyn, Nikita Dovrobyn, and I am grateful.' Their hands locked together, and Charlie could feel the bony, clasping pressure of the grip.
'Like I said, forget it. Cant ever be as bad again.' They spoke no more on the brief journey to the control tower.
When the ambulance stopped he unfastened the doors and helped the Russian back down into the sunlight. There were other hands now to help and uniformed arms that linked under Dovrobyn's armpits, and one that carried a rug to drape over his back. Bloody stupid, that, thought Charlie, with the temperature where it was. All getting in on the act, fussing round the star turn of the day. Cat with the cream satisfaction on the driver's face, the man who had driven out to the aircraft, who'd done nothing and who would revel his way through a line of pints in the canteen bar at lunch- time on the strength of it.
There was a quiet voice in Charlie's ear.
'What sort of condition is he in, Mr Webster?' Bit of bloody deference there, and not before time.
'He's fine,' Charlie said, looking at the pink-faced, cleanshaven police inspector with his uniform and neatly knotted half-Windsor black tie.
'Will he be able to sustain a de-brief? They're anxious..
'God's sake, how do I know? He's not dead, is he? Not been shot?'
Kill it, Charlie, you're shouting and they're staring at you. Doesn't fit the proper image, not of a hero. Supposed to be calm and collected and organized, and above all modest. Not yelling because an earnest little prig asks a sensible question.
'He'll be fine, just find him some tea and a drop of brandy.'
'There's a great deal of admiration for what you did, Mr Webster.'
Charlie nodded. Would they only leave him alone, stop humiliating him? What did they think it was, a conscious decision? Didn't they know, any of these people, that there weren't risk appraisals and evaluations? You just jumped off your backside and ran. If you were lucky you were a hero, if you were unlucky they'd be scraping you up and wondering how you could be so bloody stupid.
They formed a little cavalcade up the stairs, the Russian in his ridiculous blanket at the front with the retinue around him, Charlie at the tail. As they climbed he leaned forward and tapped the inspector on the shoulder and said, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout.'
That's all right, Mr Webster,' said the policeman. 'I know how you must feel.'
A grey transit van brought George Davies to the control tower. It had driven slowly round the outer road in full view of the aircraft, maintaining a regular speed so that those who watched it from the cockpit and tie passenger cabin would not be concerned at its progress. For a few seconds it disappeared behind the barricade of tankers, and it was during those moments that the back doors were flung open and the SAS commander had boarded. When the van emerged again there was nothing to indicate to those on the plane that it had added a passenger to its load, nothing to tell them of the army presence still hidden near the Ilyushin.
As he sat on the metal floor of the van Davies could reflect that there could be only one reason why he had been summoned for conference. The decision must have been taken: the politicians were steeling themselves for the military option.
Inside the control tower there had formed a reception line of grave-faced men with whom Nikita Dovrobyn shook hands.
The Home Secretary had emerged from his lower-floor office to greet the Russian with a public smile and a word of congratulation that was lost on the survivor because Charlie was still trapped by the throng in the doorway and unable to translate the remark. The tight grip of the Assistant Chief Constable, the unwavering gaze into his eyes, the impression of the medal ribbons, all caused Dovrobyn to flinch away, his instinctive reaction to security force authority.
By contrast, Clitheroe took the proffered hand with a limpness and led the Russian to a chair that was functional and not comfortable and for which he apologized. Others called the Russian 'sir', some lightly slapped his back, and he wondered why they presumed that he had of his own volition achieved something that made him so worthy of attention. Then, in their impatience, they were all talking to him, a tower of voices that were strange and unknown, and he looked past their heads for the one called Charlie Webster and strained to see him beyond the scrubbed faces and the buttoned collars and the uniforms and the city suits. He just wanted to sleep, to escape from these people. The voice of Charlie Webster cut through his confusion, the same voice of authority that had demanded he jump when his legs were leaden and which he had obeyed.
'Leave the man alone. He doesn't understand a word you're saying. Pack it in, and give him some room to breathe.'
There was a parting of the seas around the chair and Dovrobyn found the one face, the familiar face, that he sought.
Charlie spoke in Russian, gently and without haste, as if there were suddenly time, as if the panic for speed was forgotten. 'We're going to get you some coffee, then we have to talk to you.
You must understand that we have to know as much as you can tell us about the interior of the aircraft. We have to know everything that you can remember, every detail. If we are to save other people's lives then you must tell us all you can. We'll hold the questions till we have the coffee, give you time to think and to remember.. Charlie broke off and spoke again in English. 'We should get him some coffee. He's dead tired, scared out of his mind and totally disorientated. It's worth waiting.'
They stood in a circle round the Russian, staring, peering, stripping the man, so that he avoided them and focused on his hands that he held together lest they should see the trembling of his fingers. Once when he looked up he saw a soldier in camouflage denims with a webbing belt at his waist and a pistol holster fastened to it, who had not been present when he had first come, and he knew from the murmur of their voices and the way they softened till he turned his head that he was the subject of their talk.
Arrival of the coffee. A single cup set in a chipped white saucer with an alloy spoon and paper sachet of sugar. Carried to him by a woman who wore black with a little white cloth fixed in her hair and a white apron that showed stains. A panic consumed him as she stretched forward with the cup and saucer – would the shaking of his hands betray him, would he spill and slop the drink? Then Charlie Webster was speaking to her, and taking it from her, holding the saucer himself and shielding him from the gaze of the crowd so that he could grasp the cup with both hands, so they would not see how much dribbled to the floor and fell across his shirt. When he had finished Webster took the cup and with his other hand fiddled in a trouser pocket for a handkerchief and neatly wiped the Russian's chin and coat.
'We need to start now, Nikita. I'll translate the questions for you. If you do not know the answers, then say so. Don't make anything up, just to please us. You must be very exact. That's important, terribly important.'
For ninety minutes Dovrobyn answered their questions. Pausing every few seconds for Charlie to speak, while he found himself all the time growing in confidence. First the narrative of the hi-jacking, then to his own action, through to his assessment of the personality of the Jews.