'Yes,' came the reply.
'Are you okay?-not wounded or anything, I mean,' the psychiatrist asked.
O'Neil wiped some blood from his face - the glass fragments in the van had made some minor cuts. 'We're all fine. Who are you?'
'I'm a physician. My name is Paul Bellow. What's yours?'
'Timothy will do for now.'
'Okay, fine. Timothy, uh, you need to think about your situation, okay?'
'I know what that is,' O'Neil responded, an edge on his voice.
Outside, things were gradually becoming organized. Ambulances were on the scene, plus medical orderlies from the British Army. The wounded were being moved now, to the base hospital at Hereford where surgeons were waiting to reat them, and coming in were SAS soldiers, thirty of hem, to assist the Rainbow troopers. Colonel Malloy 's helicopter set down on the pad at the base, and the two prisoners were taken to the military hospital for treatment.
'Tim, you will not be getting away from here. I think you know that,' Bellow observed, in as gentle a voice as he could manage.
'I can kill hostages if you don't let me leave,' O'Neil countered.
'Yes, you can do that, and then we can come in on you and try to stop that from happening, but in either case, you will not be getting away. But what do you gain by murdering people, Tim?'
'The freedom of my country!'
'That is happening already, isn't it?' Bellow asked.
'There are peace accords, Tim. And Tim, tell me, what country ever began on a foundation of the murder of innocent people? What will your countrymen think if you murder your hostages?'
'We are freedom fighters!'
'Okay, fine, you are revolutionary soldiers,' the doctor agreed. 'But soldiers, real soldiers, don't murder people. Okay, fine, earlier today you and your friends shot it out with soldiers, and that's not murder. But killing unarmed people is murder, Tim. I think you know that. Those people in there with you, are any of them armed? Do any of them wear uniforms?'
'So what? They are the enemy of my country!'
'What makes them enemies, Tim? Where they were born? Have any of them tried to hurt you? Have any of them hurt your country? Why don't you ask them?' he suggested next.
O'Neil shook his head. The purpose of this was to make him surrender. He knew that. He looked around at his comrades. It was hard for all of them to meet the eyes of the others. They were trapped, and all of them knew it. Their resistance was a thing of the mind rather than of arms, and all of their minds held doubts to which they had as yet not given voice, but the doubts were there, and they all knew it.
'We want a bus to take us away!'
'Take you away to where?' the doctor asked.
'Just get us the bloody bus!' O'Neil screamed.
'Okay, I can talk to people about that, but they have to know where the bus is going to, so that the police can clear the roads for you,' Bellow observed reasonably. It was just a matter of time now. Tim-it would have been useful to know if he'd been truthful in giving out his real name, though Bellow was confident that he had indeed done that-wasn't talking about killing, hadn't actually threatened it, hadn't given a deadline or tossed out a body yet. He wasn't a killer, at least not a murderer. He thought of himself as a soldier, and that was different from a criminal, to terrorists a very important difference. He didn't fear death, though he did fear failure, and he feared almost as much being remembered as a killer of the innocent. To kill soldiers was one thing. To murder ordinary women and children was something else. It was an old story for terrorists. The most vulnerable part of any person was his self-image. Those who cared what others thought of them, those who looked in mirrors when they shaved, those people could be worked. It was just a matter of time. They were different from the real fanatics. You could wear this sort down. 'Oh, Tim?'
'Yes?'
'Could you do something for me?'
'What?'
'Could you let me make sure the hostages are okay? That's something I have to do to keep my boss happy. Can I come around to see?'
O'Neil hesitated.
'Tim, come on, okay? You have the things you have to do, and I have the things I have to do, okay? I'm a physician. I don't carry a gun or anything. You have nothing to be afraid of.' Telling them that they had nothing to fear, and thus suggesting that they were unnecessarily afraid, was usually a good card to play. There followed the usual hesitation, confirming that they were indeed afraid-and that meant Tim was rational, and that was good news for Rainbow's psychiatrist.'No, Tim, don't!' Peter Barry urged. 'Give them nothing.'
'But how will we get out of here, get the bus, if we don't cooperate on something?' O'Neil looked around at the other three. Sam Barry nodded. So did Dan McCorley.
'All right,' O'Neil called. 'Come back to us.'
'Thank you,' Bellow called. He looked at Vega, the senior soldier present.
'Watch your ass, doc,' the first sergeant suggested. To go unarmed into the lair of armed bad guys was, he thought, not very bright. He'd never thought that the doc had such stuff in him.
'Always,' Paul Bellow assured him. Then he took a deep breath and walked the ten feet to the corner, and turned, disappearing from the view of the Rainbow troopers.
It always struck Bellow as strange, to the point of being comical, that the difference between safety and danger was a distance of a few feet and the turning of one corner. Yet he looked up with genuine interest. He'd rarely met a criminal under these circumstances. So much the better that they were armed and he was not. They would need the comfortable feelings that came with the perception of power to balance the fact that, armed or not, they were in a cage from which there was no escape.
'You're hurt,' Bellow said on seeing Timothy's face.
'It's nothing, just a few scratches.'
'Why not have somebody work on it for you?'
'It's nothing,' Tim O'Neil said again.
'Okay, it's your face,' Bellow said, looking and counting four of them, all armed with the same sort of weapon, AKMS, his memory told him. Only then did he count the hostages. He recognized Sandy Clark. There were seven others, all very frightened, by the look of them, but that was to be expected. 'So, what exactly do you want?'
'We want a bus, and we want it quickly,' O'Neil replied.
'Okay, I can work on that, but it'll take time to get things organized, and we'll need something in return.'
'What's that?' Timothy asked.
'Some hostages to be released,' the psychiatrist answered.
'No, we only have eight.'
'Look, Tim, when I deal with the people I have to go to-to get the bus you want, okay?-I have to offer them something, or why else should they give me anything to give you?' Bellow asked reasonably. 'It's how the game is played, Tim. The game has rules. Come on, you know that. You trade some of what you have for some of what you want.'
'So?'
'So, as a sign of good faith, you give me a couple hostages-women and kids, usually, because that looks better.' Bellow looked again. Four women, four men. It would be good to get Sandy Clark out.
'And then?'
'And then I tell my superiors that you want a bus and that you've shown good faith. I have to represent you to them, right?'
'Ah, and you're on our side?' another man asked. Bellow looked and saw that he was a twin, with a brother standing only a few feet away. Twin terrorists. Wasn't that interesting?
'No, I won't say that. Look, I am not going to insult your intelligence. You people know the fix you're in. But if you want to get things, you have to deal for them. That's the rule, and it's a rule I didn't make. I have to be the go
