to David – a foreign tongue, a foreign science. It was not possible for him to know that Stansted had been chosen as the airfield in Britain most suitable to receive a hi-jacked airliner – that the studies had been made by Security and Board of Trade a full three years earlier.
It was remote, could easily be sealed, and if it had to be shut down because of an alien presence on the runways then the disruption to the massive traffic using British airspace would be minimal.
As the Ilyushin headed away from London, its red indicator lights flashing the message of its traverse over the Essex countryside, three companies of the Third Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were beating a path down the country lanes from Colchester, the barracks town to which they had returned thirty-six hours earlier from four months' duty in Londonderry. Leave abruptly cancelled, and orders to the commanding officer to provide a military cordon. The Fusiliers travelled in the high-powered whining Saracen armoured cars and in the clumsy three-ton Bedfords; men disappointed in the cancellation of the reunions with their families, but for all that thrusting the adrenalin through their bodies at the prospect of seeing for themselves, watching, guarding over the plane that had come from Russia, the plane that dominated the television…
Further away, but closing with greater velocity on Stansted, were a formation of Puma troop-carrying helicopters, bringing a Special Air Service detachment from their distant camp on the Welsh borders. These were the men specifically trained in anti-hijack operations, and the lack of talk among the eighteen being ferried across Southern England reflected their frustration at being summoned late, due to arrive only minutes before the airliner, little time for reconnoitering, preparation, before they slipped to their planned and practised positions. I From divisional police stations in the county FN rifles and Smith and Wesson pistols were distributed to men of the Regional Crime Squad. Uniformed police were dispatched to set up road blocks on the approaches, on the roads from Saffron Walden and Thaxted and Great Dunmow and Bishop's Stortford. Keep the rubberneckers back, hasten the arrival of the various agencies, civilian and military, now speeding towards Stansited to greet the arrival of the Ilyushin.
David knew none of this, just watched the cold, unspeaking skills of Anna Tashova as she alternately cudgelled and caressed her controls, followed her instructions that came from over her shoulder. He knew nothing of the guns and the armour and the tensions that were amassing and that would await him.
Flaps moving again, change in the engine pitch, deep-throat rumble of the undercarriage dropping, and the passengers were craning at the cabin, windows searching out the lights on the ground.
Would take more than a blow from a gun barrel to depress the inherent cheerfulness of Edward R. Jones Jr, and besides his wife had managed a picture of his head and the bloodstained handkerchief, right after she'd attached it, when the blood was really red, before the wound dried out.
'Hey, Miss,' he said, turning again in his seat, looking back to Rebecca, 'and you don't have to get that gorilla to belt me this time, but is this it? Are we really going in this time?'
She did not understand the American with his bright plumage clothes and his bravado, could not come to terms with the man, and so said nothing.
'Have it your way, Miss. But I hope you know where the ball game goes from here. It could be awfully disappointing, Miss, awfully messy.'
Still no response, and he smiled at her, two-and-a-half thousand dollars of capped teeth, and turned back to the window.
The Italians, talking fast and excitedly among themselves, tightening their seat belts, leaning sometimes forward, sometimes backwards to spread their conversation among the whole group.
The children sat subdued in their seats. They were tired and hungry and had not been taught what their reaction should be to this situation. They had looked for a lead and received none, and were unable to digest the new noises of the engine and closing lights of the farmhouses and villages below.
Alone on the plane, bound in his own deep and introverted mood, was the headmaster. No one had spoken to him since his attempt to disarm the girl. He was shunned by those who had not matched his one unreasoned moment of courage.
And as the aircraft dipped and the pressure levels changed and the engines throttled their power so too increased the fevered screaming of the baby, unnoticed, irrelevant to all on board as the ground slipped and lurched towards them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Remember that she'll be close to exhaustion, nerves frayed on a hacksaw, that she doesn't understand English, that everything must go through the navigator. Nurse her down, not condescending, not patronizing, but take it ever so gently. Those were the instructions given by telephone from London to the air traffic controller in the Stansted tower who would talk Anna Tashova on to the runway. Encourage them to query anything, make it a hundred per cent certain, hundred and one. No risks, not at this stage. Policemen, army officers, airport manager, senior air traffic supervisor, all crowded into the dim-lit space behind the young man who was now in direct contact with the Ilyushin. Full runway lights blazing out in the half-gloom of the evening, marking the tarmac that stretched three thousand yards beyond the battery of red 'line-up' lights upon which she would straighten trim, make the final calculations.
'We'd like you to tell her that everyone here is with her, that everyone thinks she's done very well, that it's nearly over.'
'Roger, I will explain to her what you say.' Voice of the navigator booming inside the glass cased tower.
'About a hundred too high. She should drop 20 knots. Otherwise she's fine. We'd like to see her landing lights.'
'Roger. She is making the adjustments you require.' Pause.
'The pilot officer apologizes for the lights.'
Just like they are in the books you read, thought the Controller. Not an iota different. Formal, correct, like it's a training run, as though there isn't a submachine-gun six inches from her.
Apologizes for not having switched her lights on. Pilot dead beside her, or on the floor somewhere, planeload of people to think about, three mad bastards with guns, and she's saying she's sorry.
'Just tell her not to worry. She's doing fine. We're all with her.' Pause again. Silence in the tower, all eyes peering at the sky for the lights. 'No wind problems, surface westerly fifteen knots, you'll be landing right into them. There is no other traffic, nothing else to concern yourselves with. Still a little high, drop the speed down ten. Call at the outer marker.'
'Roger, thank you, 927 outer marker, inbound. Your instructions are very clear. We appreciate your help.'
'You're not going to need them, but there are emergency services ready. Everything is prepared.'
The Controller wondered what it must be like in the cockpit, checked the flight plan they'd given to him, saw the takeoff and mentally equated it with the British time difference. Five hours the girl had been flying the bloody thing now. He knew about the Migs, knew about Hanover and Schipol. Poor little bitch; must be like having a guardian angel all dolled up in halos and wings and white sheets hovering alongside to have a sympathetic voice talking from the control tower to her. Not that she'd know what he was saying, just get the feel, the togetherness… Could see the lights now, the men behind him pointing out to his right. He looked away from the green-tinted radar screen from which he had been working, turned for a moment from the bright grass- green blip that was the Ilyushin. Two huge and powerful beams scything into the night from the elevated angle of the aircraft's approach.
'927, we can see you, and you're doing very nicely. Take it calmly. No problems. Speed's right, height's right, line's right. Doing very well.'
Nothing more to say now. Time just to watch and pray that the tiredness of the girl did not force her into error. No reason why it should, only male chauvinism that made him worry, he thought. Chance of a woman flying a plane in the West was next to minus nil. One or two of them, of course, but so extraordinary that they had their pictures in the papers each week – nothing like the Russian system, where the girls had the same opportunities as the men.
Wondered what she'd look like. Funny not being able to talk to her, only the distant voice of the man who sat
