They think now that unarmed, unprepared, you showed them a course of action.'
' If they go in there shooting then there has to be risk to the children, like the headmaster said, and he's right. What do they want? Another bloody Maalot?'
'Perhaps they consider the risk to the children less substantive than the risk that they will see another man brought to the door of the aircraft, and after him another, and another after that…'
'But that's not your opinion. You know and I know that perhaps they will kill one more, but they're human beings in there. They're not animals, they won't be able to go on chopping like a slaughterhouse foreman. They couldn't sustain it.'
'That's not what you said from the tarmac, Mr Webster.
They took great note of what you told them. They remember your every word,' Clitheroe speaking now in a tired, half- amused drawl. 'As I told you, I have offered my advice and it was not accepted.'
He passed Charlie a cigarette, expensive with a gold- papered covering for the filter. Charlie took it instinctively, leaned his head for the light, and blew the smoke into the murk of the room.
Without giving any particular thought to it, Charlie said, 'So how do we save them?'
' It depends on who you want to save. If it's the children I suppose they stand an equal chance, and it's a good one, whether Major Davies leads a heroic charge or whether we sit it out and people like myself give advice on a long- drawn-out stand-off. The children will be safe. Or is it the others, my friend? If the soldiers assault the plane then we can guarantee – I use your word – that they are unlikely to take time off for the niceties of capturing able-bodied prisoners. Shoot first, questions later is the doctrine of this type of operation. Is that what concerns you? Perhaps it should concern all of us, three young people who through a chain of circumstances stand condemned to die if the army take the plane. Whether they are evil people, or misguided, or those that in another context we would regard as courageous, they will not survive the visit of Major Davies. And I wouldn't criticize that: his men have wives and children, they too want to survive, and they deserve to. If you wish these three to live then you must persuade them to surrender, and unconditionally because then they will go before the courts," perhaps here, probably in the Soviet Union, and you must believe the words of the Ambassador that were carried on the radio, that they will be unlikely to face the death penalty if indeed they are returned. There can be no happy outcome, yet there was no reason to expect anything else from the moment that the aircraft landed. You've been very patient with me, Mr Webster. I'm not used to such attention.'
Charlie smiled, thanked him and moved without more comment back to the console.
Waste of time trying the radio unless someone was sitting in the cockpit with the earphones on and waiting. Seemed to know that his place was far from here, far from the green- carpeted floor, and the hum of the air-conditioner and the polite laughter, and the deference to seniority. Knew he should be on the tarmac again, sitting on his backside in the sunshine, flicking the flies from his nose and wanting a drink, waiting for something to happen. The pictures were still in front of him, where he'd pinned them in the early morning when the issues had been sharper and the grey fog hadn't blurred the outlines of his faith. Three young faces, ordinary to the point of boredom, and now trapped and vicious and being broken on an anvil by a force they could not combat, only strike against, bloodily and irrelevantly.
Too long on the outside, Charlie, too long living and winning without the back-up of name and rank and number, without legality and authority. As much a terrorist as these little bastards. Had a base camp, sure enough, to come to with the intelligence gained by deceit and stealth, but otherwise a man of his own whims, without a general to direct him and draw lines on his map. Easy for some to hate these three, right Charlie? Easy to label and catalogue them. Easier still if you had a chauffeur and a pennant and a chest of medal ribbons and a swagger stick. But harder if you knew the isolation, and the loneliness and the fear that makes the stomach coil, as you did, Charlie. Disowned if you're caught, that's what they said when he went to Dublin; don't expect the FO to bale you out if the Garda Siochana lifts you – and when you're caught don't cough, that way you'll keep the pension and well see your wife doesn't have to go out to work and the kids get new shoes when they need them. All for a job, all for a way to pay the mortgage. Less motivation than those three. 'Motivation', the fashionable word that meant damn-all, meant you were thick and hadn't thought it out, or too young to know what went on. 'Motivation', the great confidence trick, the public relations target, what they told all the men who formed the starched khaki ranks and lined up to have Herself pin a cross of dulled metal on their chests and went back to barracks to shiver in a corner and wonder how they'd been so bloody stupid.
Years since Charlie had been in uniform, despised it, sneered at the sameness and the identity and the mob instinct of men who needed polished shoes and short haircuts. What did these people know of the three on the plane? How could they understand them? Called them terrorists, murderers, fanatics… all the usual claptrap. But they don't care, not even Clitheroe.
Stuff it, Charlie, you're a raving old bore. You're not paid to think, to be the referee. Go back to counting the fag ends. Do something useful.
Charlie stood up to his chair and looked around him.
He attracted no attention, his moment of glory was past. The Assistant Chief Constable was cat-napping. Clitheroe reading, Home Secretary gone below. Nothing changed on the screen – David out of sight, Isaac and Rebecca at the forward entrance to the passenger cabin. Could read the defiance still fashioned on Isaac's face.
He walked out through the door and began to descend the stairs, slowly, carefully, aware of the fatigue he felt. He reckoned he would have about two hours at the plane before the military had satisfied themselves on the DC6. He realized his hand was out against the wall, steadying himself as he went down.
Didn't recognize him at first, the man he saw through the open door of the second landing.
Seemed shed of his earlier confidence and poise that had been on display in the control tower.
Charlie stopped at the entrance, hesitating.
' It's the Israeli, isn't it?… Benitz, Colonel Benitz? The one who thought our friends were about to surrender.'
'That was me. I remember you too. You were very kind…'
'Did they dump you in here?' Charlie glanced round the room. 'Looks like you've a plague or something. Not exactly in the centre of things, is it?'
'It is not the intention of people here that I should be in the centre…'
'What were you sent for?' Charlie said, casting off the small talk.
" I was sent to help you persuade these people to surrender.'
'Why you?'
'It was thought that an army man might appeal to them.'
'And they just left you sitting here, kicking your heels, our crowd I mean? They haven't talked to you since you were up in the tower first thing? Incredible.'