"Kimpo Airport, Seoul."
Sweat shone on his face. The glow of the flames was dying away now, leaving the greenish illumination of the facia panel; when I looked into the windscreen I saw him watching my reflection, and shook my head slowly, meaning don't try anything; then he tapped the fuel gauge and looked up at me with a shrug, so I got the map on its clipboard and slammed it across his knees and jabbed a finger at Seoul and then hit the median nerve of his left arm enough to warn him because the fuel gauge was at half full and that was ample for the run in to Kimpo and he knew it.
I got the headset off its hook behind the navigator's seat and started work on the radio panel, getting an answer in Korean from the Embassy and then losing it two or three times because there was a hell of a lot of static from the rotors. We'd gained a thousand feet by now and he'd got the thing on an even keel but I wasn't trusting him: he was a fanatic and he wanted to put this machine down near the monastery again, even if it had to be on the roof, because Sinitsin and his group were now cut off.
5051 kHz was answering again and the voice sounded English so I told them Eagle to, Jade One and repeated it but the static was appalling and I couldn't even tell whether it was Ferris responding or someone else.
The time was now 01:09 and I checked the airspeed indicator and gripped the pilot's fist, turning the throttle and telling him to stay at maximum speed, using words he didn't understand but a tone of voice that told him he'd got to do what I wanted. The floor shifted under my feet as the power came on, and I grabbed at the seat-back and then tried to raise the Embassy again. It was difficult to tell if they were getting my signal with any clarity so I left the set open and kept repeating what I wanted them to know.
Eagle to Jade One. Hostage Tung Chuan and KGB captors due to board Cathay Pacific Flight 584 from Seoul to Pyongyang ETD 02:18. You must stop them and take Tung Chuan alive. This is ultra priority, this is ultra priority, my voice probably unintelligible, reaching them in an ocean of static, while the red light came up on the facia panel and the reflection of the smoke-blackened pilot's face watched me impassively from the windscreen, Eagle to Jade One, can you hear me?
I bent over the map and read the call sign for Kimpo tower and switched to that wavelength and tried to raise them with the call sign for the aircraft but all I could get was slush, the red light beginning to worry me now so I looked at it and saw it wasn't on the facia panel, it was at the edge of the curving windscreen, the bastard had been turning full circle all the time and that was the fire down there, the one at the monastery -
"Turn this bloody — "
He'd been waiting for it and his bunched fist drove in at groin level and impacted on the thigh as I twisted in time and lost balance and hit the tubular metal along the back of the seats and found him rising against me with both his hands out and reaching for the throat. The deck was tilting badly and we both lurched sideways and the pilot's headset swung clear of its hook and struck my face, blinding me on one side before I could get my balance back and block him as he came in again while thunder broke out as the rotor tips went through the sound barrier and the whole machine started shuddering to the vibration.
Kaleidoscope of images in the glow from the facia lamps — his squat body frantic to get at me as the deck tilted again, tilted and swung down with the blades crackling and the seats shaking on their stanchions, his face suddenly looming as he got close with his hands hooking, catching my jacket and dragging me down across the cyclic column, and now the whole thing went wild as the deck came up and threw us both across the seat squabs with my shoulder crashing past the bulkhead and bouncing me the other way and straight into him, a chance in a thousand and I used a sword-hand and found his neck and did it again and saw him pitch back into the perspex window, did it again with the deck tilting me and lending me extra force till he wasn't there any more but somewhere below me as the cabin began spinning slowly under the rotor and the deck came up and then sank and went on sinking as I tried to find the controls and couldn't manage it because of the angle, tried to get a grip on something, on anything, finally found the cyclic and brought it upwards, twisting the throttle down a degree and feeling the sudden pause as the rotor steadied and the cabin stopped spinning and I slumped into the seat and trimmed the aircraft, locking the column on automatic and turning to see what had happened to the Korean.
He was watching me steadily, and I turned away and settled down in the pilot's seat, checking the compass and bringing the machine in a slow swing towards the north-west and then putting its nose down and going for maximum speed with the tips just this side of the barrier. After a minute the nerves in my spine began crawling, and I turned round and closed his eyelids and then faced forwards again, concentrating on the compass and feeling with one hand for the headset and putting it on.
5051 kHz.
Eagle to Jade One.
Nothing but static when I switched to receive.
Time was 01:17 and we'd lost eight minutes in turning back to the monastery and I doubted, I very much doubted now, that I could get this thing to Kimpo in time to do anything physically about the Cathay Pacific: I'd have to leave it to Ferris now, if I could raise him.
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.