'Don't take too much notice of these buggers,' Jimmy said, for all the car to hear, 'they're all as shit-scared as you are. And will be till we've waved you on your way.'
Famy's whole being was riveted to the movement of the big jet. Three hundred and fifty tons of it, making the solemn progress from the end of Pier 7 toward the axis of the runways. Two Saracens came in front, where he could see them, dwarfed by the huge concentric lines of the nose.
Small cockpit windows, high above the ground, where the pilot and his crew were sitting. All of them able to see him, but not capable of recognizing the face of their enemy.
Remember Dani, remember Bouchi, remember McCoy.
Endless, indistinct, faces played through his vision, sometimes blotting out and obscuring the reality of the plane.
The faces of his friends, of those who believed in him.
The plane was waved inside the cordon of soldiers.
More armoured cars were awaiting it, policemen beginning to scurry, and the wind brought the talk of their radios, faint but recognizable. The soldiers faced out of their arc, stern-eyed now, keyed up, expectant. The nearest was barely twenty feet from Famy. A corporal, two blackened V-stripes on his tunic arm, self-loading rifle, water bottle, emergency field dressing strapped to his webbing belt.
Famy saw his hands as they cradled the rifle. Finger on the lip of the trigger guard, thumb for the safety catch, a movement of a second and the gun was armed, deadly.
The soldier did not return his stare, gazed through him, used to being looked at. The Guards always were. And his position, the square of concrete on which he stood, had chosen to stand, made him Famy's opponent. As inconsequential as that, where a man placed his feet. That decided whether he would kill or be killed.
'Juno turning into Hatton perimeter entrance, sir.'
Corporal on the Land-Rover radio set to his company commander. The major raised his hand in acknowledgement. Bloody stupid names they always gave these affairs.
'Sunray getting it on the net?' the major asked.
'All getting it, sir, not just the CO, the convoy's hooked into all stations.'
'Put out the Instant Readiness.'
'Roger, sir.'
The major saw beyond his cordon a line of civilian trucks and cars and lorries held back a quarter of a mile from the plane. Have to wait till the show was over. No non-involved persons inside his line, perfect field of fire around three-sixty degrees. Just about perfect, anyway.
Only the corner hangar of the British Airways cargo complex jutting in and breaking the geometry of his protective circle. Saw the loaders there, standing and sitting and watching, anything for a chance not to work.
Shouldn't have been there, but no harm done. The corporal dominating them. No need to throw his weight about, make a scene, have them shifted. Saw the turban, creased and clean. It stood out in the light, the sun playing on it.
He turned toward the VIP suite past which the convoy would come.
The cars came fast down the straight line of the inner perimeter road, motorcycles in front, and all oncoming traffic blocked far ahead. Sokarev saw the arrowed signs to the right marking the route to the VIP suite.
Jimmy said, 'Just about there now, sir. No farewells out on the tarmac. The car goes right up to the steps and you're to be straight on to them. Don't stop. Don't hesitate. Just go straight on up. Inside don't look out of the windows, just get into the seat. They're not going to hang about, you'll be straight off.'
Sokarev did not reply. Jimmy could see the nerves on his ageing face, wrinkles accentuated, eyes wide open, staring, but at nothing, and the lips clamped fractionally apart, breathing coming in irregular sucked heaves. Poor sod, not taking it well. Ten to bloody nothing his legs will freeze half-way and we'll have to carry him on.
The convoy swept past the low-built lounge with its decoration of hot-house plants. Marigolds and snapdra-gons and embryo rhododendrons. In front was the Jumbo.
'Goodbye, Elkin,' Jimmy leaned across Sokarev, hand outstretched. It was not taken. The Israeli's attention was outside his window, fingers clamped on his sub-machine-gun.
The cars spattered through the gap in the fencing and raced toward the jet. Jones found himself reflecting at the vulgarity of it all. Big men, hunched and crammed together on the seats. All so difficult to take seriously, just a game for grown-ups. Only Sokarev playing, though. We're all in with the spectators, thought Jones, it's only the old man who goes on to the field. No dignity in the moment, nothing of the third floor at the department, and Jimmy lording it over everybody. Intolerable, really, and he'd have to be spoken to. The plane was huge now in its silver closeness, dwarfing them, a fortress in its own right. And the steps were there, in position, waiting for them.
The stiffening of the soldiers, the way their hands quickly changed the grip on their rifles, fingers to the trigger guard, telegraphed to Famy the imminence of the arrival.
His right hand ferreted down inside the overalls for the safety mechanism of the M1. Already cocked, already a bullet nestled in the breach of the firing chamber. A hundred yards to the steps of the plane. Take twelve to thirteen seconds. The problems were fading, over everything a devastating simplicity. When the cars came into sight that was when to start running. Fast, but weaving, ducking low, and the shot when the man was at the base of the steps. Bank on chaos. However much they have prepared for you, they will never quite have expected the presence, that was what the men had told him in the camp.
There will always be confusion; it is the greatest weapon in your hand, they had said.
Three cars in the convoy, snouting round the corner, braking because of the angle they were negotiating. Famy was on his feet.
Without hesitation, a continuous rippling movement, he pulled the zip fastener down the length of his chest. The Guardsman was barely aware of his action that produced the rifle before the bullet hit him low in the muscle wall of his stomach, throwing him back and clear from the path of Famy's sprint.
In front of him, as if in slow motion, the doors of the car were opening, the men in their suits jumping out.
Unaware, they don't realize. The insane exhilaration that he had achieved surprise. Run, weave, duck, maintain the rhythm, give no one a clear sight. When do the bullets come? How long? The bundle in grey, half out of the car, helped by the darker suits, reluctant to come, slowing them down, impeding them. The first bullet spat into the ground close to his feet. Fools, idiots, crazy men, firing low. Half-way there. Sokarev in sight, his head clear, the body half-shielded by the men around him. The orange groves, upright, regimented, before the spring brings the sun of Palestine to make fertile their leaves and their fruit; merging together the fantasy of the trees and the sharpness of the men as he pounded his way forward.
More bullets now edging closer, the little puffs of nothing in the concrete and the hostile, honed whine of the ricochets off the concrete. And the ranging blast, wide but creeping, of the big machine-gun. Sokarev near the steps, wrestling with the men around him. They taking him toward the plane. Doesn't want to go, the little bastard, wants to crawl and hide and bury himself. The moment to shoot.
In full stride Famy flung himself, arching forward in a swallow dive, with a strange grace, on to the tarmac. His knees and elbows took the impact, ripping at the cloth that covered his body. The gun was at his eye, down the barrel, down the needle sight. Eyes smarting with the pain from the fall, blinking the moisture out. The man in the grey still struggling. He fired, finger released the trigger.
Knew with that deadening instinct that he was wide, high as well, knew it even as he felt the jolt in his shoulder, heard the empty clatter of the discarded shell case. A moment, breathtaking, of silence, then again the machine-gun.