Kingfisher

Assistant Chief Constable put it with the bluntness that was needed. 'They're threatening to start shooting passengers, executing their hostages, murdering…'

'That's about it,' said Charlie, matter of factly. 'And it's Isaac who's coming across as the hard boy. Moved on from the one we have as David.'

'Military wont want to be messing about,' the Assistant Chief Constable went on, as if in ignorance of the interruption, 'not in the light, and that's what we'll have in twenty minutes.

Wouldn't have mattered an hour ago when they had some cover. But they have to have cover, cover or it's bloody difficult for them and dangerous for the passengers. If we'd played it straight last night, said what we meant, and they'd reacted this way, then we could have put the military in

…' In full flow, the staff officer of Agin court, of Waterloo or Passchendaele, and back from the front with his gunpowder burns.

'The decision was taken by everybody.' Clitheroe rose to his own defence. 'We agreed that they would be more susceptible to the logical working out of their situation and position if they had had some sleep. The first one who spoke, David, he's obviously rested. But his sleep had to be paid for. Presumably the man Isaac has not slept, therefore he is exhausted and temporarily he is the irrational one, but there is much time for the others to work on him and for him to reflect on the measures that he has blurted out to us.'

It was not a new problem for Clitheroe. Early in his working life he had come to accept that the science of psychiatry was not an exact one, that the ill-informed were sceptical and dubious about his expertise.

'We should not take the threat too seriously, there is much time yet.'

Charlie, his attention away from the medical man, focused on the senior policeman, said: 'If it's not vulgar to ask, Sir, what's to happen to these people? Assuming we talk them out, or we storm and take them alive, what happens to them?'

The raw nerve. Stamped on it. Pinched it. Off-the-cuff question, and he hadn't thought it out beforehand. The civvies from London looked away. Colour at the Assistant Chief Constable's cheeks.

' I don't think it's been decided yet.'

'They could ship them back, that has to be one of the options?'

'That's only your assumption, Mr Webster.'

'Bad news if they get a wind of it. Not going to come waltzing down the bloody steps and into our own arms. Stands to reason they're going to try and push us about a bit first.'

'Outside your province, Mr Webster.' Putting the clamps down, hiding behind the medal ribbons, climbing on the silver of his epaulettes.

' If I can't put that one out of their minds then not much chance of it all ending in sweetness and light.'

'Don't extend yourself, Mr Webster. You do an excellent job as an intermediary. Quite excellent, and be so good as to confine yourself to those limits.' Bloody martinet, thought Charlie, why can't he come clean, take a dose of the honest johnnie, accept he's outside the confidential circle.

The sun was playing on the aircraft now, burnishing its sides, beating up from the tarmac.

Made Charlie squint his eyes together just to look at it. Lonely-looking now, sort of lost and strayed off its path, and doesn't know how to get in the air again. Didn't suit it as well, the daylight, not like the night with its magnification and the floodlights. Seemed to have become shrunken as the sun crept up on it. Didn't have the look of anything deadly, shorn of the melodrama, just another bloody plane sitting on its wheels, waiting for its orders. Blinds were up and some of those behind him had binoculars and gazed intently at the portholes and pointed and passed the glasses from hand to hand, but Charlie couldn't see anything beyond the darkened shapes of the windows – nothing living, nothing moving.

More movement at the back of the control area. Men with cables and a portable television set, the type used by industry with the innards gaping and uncased as the domestic set would be. It was placed on a bench close enough for Charlie to see the screen, far enough for others to watch without disturbing him from his communications on the radio. Further along the controller's work bench they fitted the tape recorders with their attendant headsets and the floor was a net of crazily inscribed wires and junction boxes.

Some twenty seconds of frosting and snow storm as they tuned the set before the clear image came. Not bad, not bad at all, and Charlie joined the others who pressed shoulder to shoulder to identify the greyed soft- shaded shapes of the heads of men and women and children, some lolled as if still in sleep, others alert and darting with their eyes around them. He could see some of the children, and across the aisle and in a single-tone suit a man who sat with them and whose face was set and steady and did not waver.

Behind Charlie someone asked, 'What's the sound quality?'

'Not good, very muzzy. We'd hear something loud, shouting or a shot, but ordinary voice levels won't be satisfactory. Might be better when we put the tapes through the cleaners, wash the backgrounds out a bit. But don't count on it.' They let the audio man get on with it – sound was second best. That the picture was sensational was the general consensus; a new toy, and they were revelling in its versatility.

'That's Isaac,' Charlie broke in. 'The one in the front. The girl's behind him – Rebecca.'

Total attention on the screen now, and hazy in the middle distance was the figure of Isaac, his chin low on his chest and his hair messed and tangled, shirt creased and floppy and the tail out of his trousers. Watchful and suspicious and minding his charges. Two hands on the gun – World War Two, and Charlie wondered where they'd dug that one up from. He didn't really look at the girl, didn't know anything about her to convince himself that she wasn't there just for the ride; saw she kept close, not more than half a pace behind the man, and that her dress was torn, and that her cheekbone showed the discolouration of bruising. A long way up the aisle the fish-eye followed them before they were lost, cut off by the thick lip of the window's casing.

'That's the one you have to concern yourselves with,' said Charlie to anyone who cared to listen. 'If you can convince him to walk out with his hands up when there's half a chance he'll be shipped back to Kiev, then it'll be champagne all round, and on me.'

Pushing your luck, Charlie, only a cog, and a little one at that, and it's a big wheel you're working in. Steady down, sunshine. Not that anyone was listening to you anyway.

The Foreign Secretary had not slept well. Never did in the Club beds. But the Party had been in office only four months, and the Prime Minister talked that frequently of the impossibility of continuing with so slight a majority and his wish for a snap election that it seemed pointless to make the expensive investment in a central London home. Better to wait and see whether the future was in the chauffeur-driven Foreign Office limousines or the wife- piloted Mini of Opposition. The Club was adequate and useful after the welter of official dinners that the Foreign Secretary was obliged to host, and at least it was quiet, with a code of ethics in the smoking lounge that would not tolerate him being accosted by other members and quizzed on government intentions.

In his pyjamas he ate the scrambled eggs that the venerable servant had brought him at five.

He glanced fitfully at the morning's screaming headlines. Milking it dry, pulling the udders down, but could hardly blame them. It was the height of the silly season, with parliament not sitting, damn-all going on and now a hi-jack in their back garden. Teams of reporters and teams of photographers, all with the credits above the stories and under the pictures. Even a photograph of himself leaving the Foreign Office by the side entrance that he favoured; shouldn't have smiled, wasn't right for the occasion, but the little devils were everywhere and you never saw them in the dark, only felt the flash against your face. Past midnight when he'd abandoned his desk. Three long telephone sessions with the Prime Minister and not much to chew on as a result of them. Usual story. 'You're the man Who knows the implications of it all, as far as foreigners go. You're the man in charge, Home Office will work to you. You act and we'll be behind you.' How far behind? Inside knifing range or out? How many years back was it that socialist chap had called his Ministry 'a bed of nails'? He'd only had Labour and Industrial Relations to worry about – should have tried Foreign Office for a week.

A barely audible knock, and the entry of the PPS. Shaved, suited, clean, and bringing more coffee. Thoughtful lad: good choice.

'Before your solicitations I slept damned badly, feel washed out and would give almost anything to exchange my desk today for a decent morning's fishing.' Smiles all round. 'What have you brought me?'

'Transcripts from the late night radio and television in Moscow. Going very hard. Meeting the Ambassador had with you last night, spelling out their demands; internal consumption stuff but still a very tough stance.'

'And the Israelis?' Mouthful of toast, and a smear of marmalade to go with it. Beds might be lumpy but the Club at least maintained a good standard with their breakfasts.

'Nothing direct from them, and no commentary on the tail of their bulletins. They're taking it very