If US protection policy for its diplomats had received a pasting from the press, the security arrangements on the ‘airside’ of Dubai International, normally an exemplary airport, fared worse.
The terrorists had been able to park their ambulance by the wheels of the Pan-Am jumbo and were not so much as challenged until they boarded the aircraft. Two air marshals mingling with the passengers had tried to resist, but were shot dead, their bodies thrown onto the tarmac.
The terrorists told the pilot to taxi out for takeoff. The leader of the group made it clear to the tower that any form of obstruction would result in the aircraft being blown up.
The 747 left the coastline of the United Arab Emirates at 0530 and headed north-west up the Persian Gulf. Ten minutes later, the police entered the PIA 747 through the forward wheel well and managed to deactivate the somewhat crude infra-red trigger linked to the explosives.
The New York Times established that a Royal Saudi Air Force E-3A AWACS — complete with US crew-members — had been scrambled to track the 747’s progress up the Gulf. The AWACS vectored F-14s from a carrier off the Straits of Hormuz to intercept the airliner and coerce the hijackers into turning back.
The 747 beat the F-14s to the coast. Low on fuel, the Navy planes were forced to turn back, to rendezvous with a tanker.
The airliner flew on, passing briefly through Jordanian and Syrian airspace. Above the wastes of the Syrian Desert the hijackers announced their intention to land at Beirut International. After frantic dialogue between the co-pilot and the tower, the 747 touched down in the Lebanon some four hours after it left Dubai.
Beirut, as ever, was perfect. The airport was in a state of chaos, as it had been for years. Though held by Amal guerrillas, no one was really in charge.
In the mayhem within the perimeter fence, no one noticed the group of commandos stealing across the tarmac until it was too late. Their strength boosted by reinforcements, the hijackers’ position began to appear unassailable. For the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington the rescue options were running out.
Since then, the Amal militia groups ‘guarding’ the jumbo had kept a respectable distance. Even they seemed to fear an unpredictable response by the terrorists.
In the three days that the 747 had been there, languishing in a desolate corner of the airport, there had been no end of rumour-mongering by the tabloids — as well as some of the more respectable papers — about the likelihood of a storming operation by Navy SEALs or Delta Force, the US Army’s elite antiterrorist unit.
This anticipation was heightened by the arrival of the Sixth Fleet’s carrier battle-group off Lebanese waters.
Just as awesome, even to the war-hardened Lebanese, was a small-scale invasion of Beirut’s suburbs by the more intrepid members of the world’s press corps. Even though regular flights had long ceased in and out of Beirut, there were established routes into the capital for those who knew them. Sensing safety in numbers, the press was lodged in an encampment of tents on the edge of the airfield. Through the miracle of satellite transmission, people were able to catch up on the hijack drama through snatched glances over cereal bowls, or in windows of TV rental shops. From Arkansas to Archangelsk. It was like Baghdad all over again.
Just about every nation in the region had its forces on readiness. The Middle East, for decades a tinder-box of prejudice and racial hatred, had become set to explode once again. In the twinkling of an eye, the crisis had moved from the Gulf to the Levant.
Girling stared hard at a newspaper photo of the 747, prominent against a background of desert scrub and the Mediterranean beyond. A hijacker’s masked face was visible at one of the windows.
‘Who in hell are you?’ he heard himself whisper.
In three days, no one had managed to make contact with the hijackers. Grainy pictures of shadowy faces, masks twisted by the distorting effects of the aircraft windows, were splashed across some of the newspapers. The tabloids ran headlines like ‘the face of terror’, or ‘the mask of death’ above them.
The terrorists had made no demands and had not issued the customary declaration of their identity or political aims. That alone set this incident apart.
Against his better judgement, Girling found himself taking notes.
Yesterday’s evening papers had carried the news of the biggest breakthrough. The terrorists, quite unannounced, had released all Arab nationals. These people were the first to give eyewitness accounts of conditions inside the aircraft.
Every hostage had a story of terror to tell, but it was the plight of Ambassador Franklin which touched Girling most. Separated from the rest of the hostages, he had borne his torture with courage and dignity. Girling, well hardened to stories of suffering, could not hide his revulsion at the accounts of the ambassador trussed to his seat. Artists’ impressions in some of the papers depicted the wire running across his neck that led to the grenade taped to the back of the chair.
In that morning’s press, no one was any closer to establishing the identity of the terrorists, although most ‘observers’ and ‘experts’ ‘ called upon by the media believed an Iranian-backed Shiite group to be responsible. Knowing something of Washington’s own confusion, Girling knew that the pundits were shooting in the dark.
He tilted his chair and stared at the ceiling. So what were the options for ending the incident? A negotiated settlement seemed unlikely — even attempts to deliver food and water to the aircraft had met with stony silence.
After the Arab exodus, there were still almost a hundred mouths to feed. Pretty soon, people would start dying of thirst.
Where were the demands for the release of political prisoners from Israeli jails, or fellow ‘freedom fighters’ from the cells of the West’s prisons?
The failure to negotiate was a worry to everyone. If these guys were Hizbollah, then they had every good reason to be concerned.
On October 23 1983, Hizbollah, the sprawling Iranian-backed terror organization, had issued no warnings, no demands to the French and American peace-keeping forces in Beirut. But by the end of that day two hundred and forty-one American marines, fifty-eight French paratroopers, and two more martyrs of Islam were dead.
The truck which struck the US Marines’ complex contained six tons of explosives. The detonation was the single largest non-nuclear blast since the Second World War.
Organizations with links to the Palestine Liberation Organization operated with a shade more method in their madness; but not much.
Girling closed the file and walked it back to the library. Others — people like Stansell in Cairo, for instance — could handle the story. He was best out of it.
By the time Girling was back at his desk, most of the staff had gone home. He raised his eyes to the TV, which remained on throughout the day in the corner of the newsroom, pumping out the usual diet of CNN news bulletins.
A jumbo jet was sitting in the glare of media and arc lights at an airport some two thousand miles away.
Yet another news bulletin, telling the same old story. The hijacking had been relegated to third place in the pecking order of world news.
At the next desk, Mallon shut his computer down. The reporter had put a nice story to bed. His investigations showed that passengers had been on Concorde, quite ignorant of the real purpose of its flight over the North Cape.
Furthermore, the UK’s billion-pound radar system, commissioned into service that year, had not been able to track the supersonic airliner until it was just off the Shetland Islands, north-east of the Scottish mainland. Girling shook his head. Britain would have to put its trust in the Russians instead. Given the persistent rumours of further coup attempts by Soviet hard-liners, that was not necessarily a comfortable thought.