However, she found their frequent arrogance considerably less appealing. It sometimes made them very difficult to work with, which in turn could lead to a less than satisfactory conclusion.
‘I want names,’ Eden said.
‘Names? What names?’
‘The names of the internees held at Tennyson Cottage.’
She was being deliberately polite. Saying ‘held’ rather than ‘imprisoned’ was generous.
She waited. She was aware of Sebastian’s presence at her side, but she didn’t look at him. He knew better than to try to join in the discussion.
‘No,’ said one of the CIA agents, ‘that’s not possible. And as we said before – you don’t need them.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ Eden said. ‘I need a whole lot of information. I absolutely refuse to accept that shooting down the plane is a solution.’
‘It’s not a good solution, but it’s still a solution. We would be killing four hundred people in order to save thousands more. We have to have the courage to make these decisions in our job.’
Really? Eden wasn’t in the mood for that kind of crap. Not now, not ever.
‘Not if there’s an alternative,’ she said. ‘And there is.’
She was conscious of the fact that she was repeating herself. Her own children had taught her the value of that particular tactic. If one of them said ‘ice cream’ often enough, they usually got their ice cream.
It worked this time too.
‘Why do you want the names?’
‘To see if any of them fits into our enquiries. We have the names of several suspects.’
Adam Mortaji.
The Americans came to life.
‘Like who?’
‘You first.’
She could see that they were shocked at her boldness, but they didn’t say no. She knew she was going to win.
‘Okay,’ said the agent who had said very little so far. ‘This is what we’re going to do. We’ll give you the names of the two who were released, but that’s it. Sorry, but that’s as far as I can go.’
Damn. It was nowhere near as much as she had hoped for, but it would have to do.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Let’s have them.’
The American on the left gave her the name of the first man, who had been allowed to return home after his internment.
‘An Iraqi who somehow ended up in Pakistan. Clearly of no interest to us. He was able to give us a small amount of information on various training camps in Waziristan, but otherwise he was worthless. We know that he didn’t go back to Iraq, but went to stay with relatives in Jordan.’
Eden made notes.
‘Thank you. And the other?’
‘North African, originally from Morocco. He’d also lived in the UK and in Germany. We picked him up in Pakistan, where he and his pal were busy planning a terrorist attack on a military target in Afghanistan.’
Germany. Again.
‘Germany seems to keep on coming up,’ she said.
‘Yes, but this guy didn’t live there for very long. We let him go in August; he headed straight back to Germany, but he didn’t stay there. In May, he went home to Morocco. It was his father who was interviewed by the press and made sure Tennyson Cottage was mentioned in the article.’
‘A mistake he didn’t repeat,’ said the CIA agent in the middle.
‘Why his father rather than him?’
‘Unfortunately, the guy is no longer with us. He killed himself last summer, shortly after he returned to Morocco.’
‘Could I have a picture of him?’ Eden said.
The answer came after a brief hesitation:
‘We can send one across. If you want to read about him, the article is online.’
Eden had already seen the article. It was quite badly written, and she hadn’t paid much attention to it.
‘And what was the name of this guy?’
‘His name was Adam Mortaji.’
60 FLIGHT 573
By this stage, the rumour had spread. The passengers realised that the crew had lied. There was some kind of major problem with the plane, and for some reason the co-pilot was locked out of the cockpit.
However, not many people knew about the man who was lying on the floor at the front of the plane with his hands tied behind his back, and that was the only thing Erik Recht was grateful for. The fear of what could happen if he didn’t manage to get into the cockpit was mixed with the fear of what would happen if they couldn’t persuade the passengers to remain calm. There were too many of them to deal with if mass panic took over. The stewardesses just kept on moving up and down, talking to anxious individuals.
Erik had gathered the crew together for a short meeting, to bring them up to date. He told them he suspected that Karim was involved in the hijacking, that the police seemed to be thinking the same thing, and that Erik was going to do his very best to try to get into the cockpit. Several of his colleagues had been horrified, and had demanded to know more. Surely Karim couldn’t be involved? How could something like this happen? The opposition gave Erik an unexpected injection of strength. He had stated loudly and clearly that if they didn’t believe him, then they should at least believe the police. Karim wasn’t the man they had thought he was. He had placed them all in mortal danger, and right now he was probably holding Fatima prisoner in the cockpit. That silenced the crew, who were now giving him their full co-operation.
Erik hadn’t called his father; he didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily. But as the minutes passed and he still hadn’t accomplished his goal, he realised that Alex must be beside himself with worry. It was more than two hours since they had spoken. Two hours outside the cockpit was a dangerously long time. Karim could have done anything, set course in whatever direction he wanted.
Erik was used to overcoming the difficulties he faced, but this time it seemed to be utterly impossible. He had tried everything, first of all as discreetly as possible in order to avoid alarming the passengers, but then with increasingly drastic methods. The fucking door refused to give way, as he had known it would. Ironically, it was impossible to force the door – for security reasons. The very reasons that now drove him to work with the frenzy of a madman to try to gain access.
Erik sat down on the floor with his back against the door. Fatima. The stewardess he had left behind in the cockpit. Why wasn’t she helping him? What had Karim done to her? Erik didn’t want to think about that right now; he pushed away the images of the fate that might have befallen Fatima.
He noticed that he had become disorientated, that his imagination lacked any kind of filter. He pictured the plane plunging from the sky and exploding as it hit the hard surface of the Atlantic Ocean. At other times, he could see the plane breaking in two as it hit the water, hurling the passengers to an equally violent death.
The man on the floor moved, groaning faintly.
Who was he?
And how could he have known?
He had realised what was wrong before anyone else. Could he have managed to pick up a text from family or friends?
There is something else going on here.
Erik got up and crouched down beside him. At first, he hesitated, but then that barrier came down too. With movements that felt frighteningly natural he patted the outside of the man’s jacket, then his trousers. He didn’t know what he was looking for or what he expected to find, but he knew he had to keep going. His hands slipped inside the jacket, feeling the rough surface of the shirt. There was a wallet in the inside jacket pocket; without thinking twice, Erik pulled it out and opened it. Various bank cards, American Express, a driving licence.