Eagle to Jade One.
Nothing but static.
29: 584
He came in at 02:12.
Jade One to Eagle.
There was still some static, but the lights of Seoul were crowding against the undernose perspex window and the distance was closing in towards zero.
I told him again: Cathay Pacific 584.
It's too late, he said.
Phone the airport, so forth.
His voice faded and came back. I suppose he meant it was too late to get there himself, from the Embassy.
We had six minutes. I tried to think we still had a chance, but we didn't. The security people wouldn't move that fast: they'd want to know what authority he'd got; anyone can ring up an airport and start a panic.
I swung the Mi2 into the approach path, watching the cluster of lights moving into the nose window.
Eagle to Jade One. Do what you can.
Then I checked the map and switched to the approach control channel at 1213 kHz and gave them my call sign. They came back immediately.
HK-9192: You will turn south-west and hold clear of the field.
I throttled back and crab-flew for thirty seconds to see what the situation was on the runways, acknowledging and switching to Landing Control.
HK-9192: You will make an immediate turn and keep clear of the field.
I didn't acknowledge yet.
Things didn't look normal down there. I could see a DC10 moving towards the main runway, but along one of the intermediary paths. Security control lights were flashing in half a dozen places as road vehicles crawled from the terminus towards the marker lights.
I tried the traffic channel and got voices.
… Are ordered to keep their distance. A burst of static as I trimmed the rotor and settled at a hundred feet over the perimeter road, then it cleared again… Repeat, are ordered to keep their distance. This is a hijack situation.
The jet was moving onto the runway and turning right, with the wind, its green-striped tail catching the light as one of the security vehicles closed in and then stopped at the edge of the runway.
Cathay Pacific.
The time was 02:27 and she was behind schedule but then the schedule had been wrecked anyway. I just began speaking, with no call sign.
Is that Flight 584 on the runway?
Landing Control came back. Yes. This is a hijack situation.
Are the passengers on board?
No passengers. Only the crew and the hijackers. Then a break came and a different voice said: This is Security. Who are you? Please give your call sign.
American accent. He said something else, but it wasn't to me: I could see a light aircraft towards the south, with its strobe pricking the dark. Below me the DC10 was turning at the end of the runway, against the windsock. Through the side window I caught a line of flashing light as more security vehicles moved in to the airport from the city.
I kept the Mi2 hovering at a hundred feet between the perimeter road and some hangars and watched the big DC 10 sitting at the end of the runway, facing into wind.
So Ferris had done something. I'd told him ultra priority and he'd known I'd meant it and he must have done the only thing he could have done to get Airport Security onto the KGB party coming through with their hostage: he'd gone direct to NATO's Military Emergency Centre with an alert signal and then told them what he wanted.
But Airport Security had been too late.
It must have been one of the crew the KGB had taken as their hostage. The captain. Or the whole crew, as they'd walked out to the aircraft.
I hit the radio again and got voices.
CP 584 to Tower: do I have clearance for take-off?
There was a wailing noise in the background, covering some of the speech. Sirens somewhere. I kept the machine steady, watching the red flashes moving past the main terminal as three vehicles cruised down past the fire station.
CP to Tower: do I have clearance?
His voice was tight.
Another voice now, coming through the wail of the sirens, Ukrainian accent. You will keep the runway clear. We are taking off.
Jesus Christ, someone said, then the set crackled.
I watched the big jet with its green-striped tail starting to roll as the brakes came off.
You will keep the runway clear. We are taking off.
I counted five emergency vehicles standing along the edge of the runway, none of them beginning to move. I looked up and watched the tower, but couldn't see anything behind the dark green glass. The telephones would be jammed in there, with Traffic Control trying to get authority to stop the Cathay Pacific and Airport Security trying to get an advisory from the Metropolitan Police.
I looked down again and watched the DC 10 gathering speed, the red splashes of light from the emergency vehicles staining its white fuselage.
I do not need to tell you, Tung Kuo-feng had said, what such a volte face would mean: the immediate destruction of the American-Chinese Japanese bloc and a massive Soviet-Chinese threat to the West. The next two actions I shall undertake on behalf of the Soviets will bring this about within a matter of days, unless you can prevent it.
The DC10 was rolling faster.
They didn't have the background data, in the tower. They saw this as nothing more than a hijack. Otherwise they'd block the runway, send every vehicle in, and stop the jet.
You could avert enormous danger, Tung Kuo-feng had told me as the tendril of smoke from the incense bowl had climbed past the face of the Buddha, for many people.
The wail of a siren came again above the steady chopping of the rotor above my head as another vehicle went swerving through the security gates and slowed towards the runway.
You must find my son, Tung Kuo-feng had said.
The emergency vehicle had stopped. They were all stopped, all of them, everywhere. The runway was clear, with the big jet rolling fast towards take-off.
The dead man behind me fell forward and hit the back of the seat as I shifted the stick and put the machine into a fast emergency dive from a hundred feet across the roofs of the hangars and the line of flashing red lights and along the rubber-scarred strip of the runway until the long white fuselage of the DC10 was sliding backwards across the perspex window below the nose and vanishing behind the Mi2 as I held it into the dive for another five seconds and then dragged the stick back and went for a dead-drop landing halfway down the runway and a hundred yards in front of the jet. The cabin shuddered as the nose came up and the blades of the rotor thrashed the air and three red lights began winking on the facia panel as I put the machine through a barrage of stress it hadn't been designed for; then it was down and rolling to a stop and I cut the turbo and sat watching the huge shape of the DC10 as it began closing in until its twin landing-lights came on and I had to jerk my head away from the glare.
I sat waiting, caught in a wash of frozen light and feeling the panic flooding into me as the roar of reverse thrust came slamming against the cabin and reverberated there until I was shouting against the onslaught of sound, trapped in a drum and hearing my own voice silenced as I went on shouting, some kind of reason coming back as the panic spent its force and I just sat watching the flood of dazzling light bringing everything into knife-edge relief: the instrument panel and the curved perspex and the breakaway hinges of the door and the dead arm lying across the other seat with its hand dangling and its fingers pointing nowhere.