'Wexford.' Drops of sweat fell from Zade's chin and his breathing sounded painful. 'You're alive because you offered to be the go-between. You'd better do everything right.'
On his way to the main door he stopped, listening to the faint whimpering noise from the toilet. The tap was running into the basin and I suppose Sassine had lost some teeth and was to some extent shocked back to normal cerebration. Zade moved again and swung the door open and pushed me on to the steps and for an instant I remember hoping that none of the FBI men out there was working himself up into a state of target-attraction: from the movements on the tarmac I estimated there were twenty or thirty marksmen with the main doorway of the Boeing in their sights.
'Hold her upright,' I 'heard Zade say behind me.
At the bottom of the steps I looked up and saw Pat Burdick in the doorway, supported by Dr Costa. She had a hand to her eyes because of the bright light but Zade pulled it away so that she could be recognized. Behind her was Ventura and the snout of the sub-machine-gun was pressed into her back.
I walked across the tarmac.
The main group of security people was a hundred yards from Boeing and as I neared it a big man with a two-way radio slung at toe shoulder came forward to meet me.
'Wexford?'
'Yes.'
'I'm Dwight Sorenson, heading the FBI team.'
'Good afternoon.'
Ferris was here and I was going to ask him how he'd managed it but it wasn't important: they must have flown him from Manaus into the nearest airfield from the base and used a helicopter, since they couldn't rely on Zade's allowing an emergency landing.
The man talking to Ferris was grey-faced with sleepless eyes.
'I'm James Burdick,' he said.
'Wexford, sir.'
'How is she?'
He was looking beyond me to the aircraft.
'Dr Costa would like her in a hospital as soon as it can be arranged. She's fully conscious and not under drugs.'
He looked down, then at Ferris.
What's the situation in there?' Ferris asked me.
Sorenson stood close, listening.
'I can only give you my opinion,' I said in a moment. 'I'd say they're prepared to kill their hostage out of hand, if we could show them we had the initiative.' I looked at Sorenson. 'If you kill them, you'll kill her. There are six of them in there so they can take turns to sleep.'
A voice sounded on Sorenson's radio and he listened for a second and then shut it down. 'You mean that so long as we feel obliged to supply food and water they're ready to hold out for just as long as they want?'
'For days, yes. Or weeks. Of course there's a breakoff point'
I didn't look at Burdick.
He was watching me.
That doctor hasn't indicated my daughter is in any immediate danger?'
'No. But if she's to remain in there much longer we'd have to set up what would amount to field medical facilities and in my opinion they wouldn't allow that.'
'There's no way,' the FBI man asked heavily, 'you can go back in there and drive those people out under our guns? I have fifty marksmen deployed.'
The Defence Secretary turned away slightly and I had the feeling they'd discussed this idea and couldn't agree on it.
'There'd be no point,' I said. They'd bring the girl with them and even if you picked off the six of them simultaneously without touching her, one of them at least would live long enough to shoot her at close range.'
Burdick was moving away from the group and Ferris gave me a signal and I followed both of them across the tarmac until we were out of earshot. The briefcase under the Defence Secretary's arm was a security model with four straps and a centre lock and provision for a wrist chain. This was the form I'd assumed the exchange material would take and that was why I'd talked to Kuznetski.
Burdick stopped,
'Are you willing to go back into the airplane, Mr Wexford?'
'Yes, sir.'
He held out the briefcase.
'This is the material they asked for.'
It was difficult to tell him.
'They've got a man there with a degree in atomic physics.'
His tired eyes went dead.
'Kuznetski?' Ferris asked.
'Yes.'
None of us spoke for a while.
From here I could see some of the marksmen ranged along the roof of the main building. Others were deployed in unmarked cars at regular intervals, their dark barrels poking towards the Boeing: these would fire last of all and only then if the situation became fluid and mobile. A dozen Air Force vehicles stood near the end of the main hangar and a group of uniformed officers were talking together, some of them with field glasses raised to watch the aircraft.
A Sheriff's Department helicopter stood just beyond the emergency bay with a pilot leaning against its door and an Air Force man talking to him, and I could see two DPS vehicles over by the tower, their lights still rotating.
There was very little noise. The sun was fitful behind high cloud patches and the ground wind sometimes whipped the lanyard of the flag against its pole, over the main building, making a ringing sound because the pole was metal.
Mentally I wasn't too occupied. I'd done all the thinking there was to be done and the situation hadn't changed because the Defence Secretary was carrying the material I'd expected him to be carrying: Zade had come here for nuclear arms and they were in this briefcase in the form of blueprints and equations. It was known that the PLO had the technical capability of producing medium-yield weapons and all they needed were the designs and that was what Zade had asked for and wasn't going to get: because Burdick couldn't let him have them.
They should have known that.
All Burdick had been able to do was to bring his daughter back on the soil of her homeland and close to him, and then hope for a miracle.
I didn't have one for him.
Nobody had.
'I was in signals,' Ferris told me, 'with London.' They'd taken their bloody time, I thought, finding out about Kuznetski. Not that it mattered; a man like Zade would know his operation depended on the expert evaluation of the material for exchange, and if he hadn't brought Kuznetski he'd have brought someone else.
'So what does London say?'
Ferris looked at his feet 'It's over to you.'
I was listening carefully. The final directive Ferris had given me from Manaus was to go out for the Kobra celclass="underline" the life of Patricia Burdick was an incidental factor. So the mission had ended here. Kobra had to be eliminated and that could now be done, as soon as someone gave the signal. It didn't have to be me. It would have, finally and perhaps after days of bitter and useless negotiation, to be James Burdick. He would be given the exclusive right, presumably, of condemning his daughter to death.
I glanced at him. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten us: he was just looking at the ground, his tired eyes narrowed, the wind moving a lock of his greying hair. I didn't think he had any constructive thoughts in his mind: he'd lived with this thing for days on end, and nights on end, and he must have considered every possible solution, and drawn blank.
I looked away from him to Ferris.
'London says I've got discretion?'
'Yes.'
'Total?'
'Yes.'
I turned back to Burdick.
This man Kuznetski,' I said, 'is probably quite good. How good are those designs?'
His head had 'come up and he hadn't immediately understood what was being said to him: he'd caught it about halfway.
'Oh.' He looked at the briefcase. 'Not good enough for an expert to read.' He raised his head to watch the Boeing. 'These people are terrorists, and terrorists aren't normally very intelligent. So I thought maybe they'd just-' he gave a slight shrug — 'accept this stuff without looking at it too hard. There wasn't anything else I could do, was there?'
'No,' I said.
'But we have to try. Don't we?.'
'Of course.'
He was looking at me steadily now. 'I'd like it right on the line, Mr Wexford. You've been in there with them and you know them better than we do. And you don't think there's a chance, do you?'