“I don’t dare give my masters the details. They’re political men—the least reliable of all. But I shall report that I consider the plan worth cooperating with.”
“Good. When do I get the observation reports on the Septembrists?”
“They’ll be here by courier this afternoon. You know, something occurs to me, Nicholai. Considering the character of your plan, you really don’t have to involve yourself at all. We could dispose of the Arabs ourselves, and you could return to France immediately.”
Hel looked at Sir Wilfred flatly for fully ten seconds. Then they both laughed at once.
“Ah well,” Sir Wilfred said, waving a hand, “you can’t blame me for trying. Let’s take a little lunch. And perhaps there’s time for a nap before the reports come in.”
“I hardly dare go to my room.”
“Oh? Did they also visit you last night?”
“Oh, yes, and I chucked them out.”
“Waste not, want not, I always say.”
Sir Wilfred dozed in his chair, warmed by the setting sun beyond the terrace. On the other side of the white metal table, Hel was scanning the observation reports on the PLO actives.
“There it is,” he said finally.
“What? Hm-m? There what is?”
“I was looking for something in the list of contacts and acquaintances the Septembrists have made since their arrival.”
“And?”
“On two occasions, they spent time with this man you have identified as ‘Pilgrim Y’. He works in a food-preparation service for the airlines.”
“Is that so? I really don’t know the file. I was only dragged into this—unwillingly, I might mention—when you got involved. What’s all this about food preparation?”
“Well, obviously the Septembrists are not going to try to smuggle their guns through your detection devices. They don’t know that they have the passive cooperation of your government. So I had to know how they were going to get their weapons aboard. They’ve gone to a well-worn method. The weapons will come aboard with the prepared dinners. The food trucks are never searched more than desultorily. You can run anything through them.”
“So now you know where their weapons will be. So what?”
“I know where they will have to come to collect them. And that’s where I’ll be.”
“And what about you? How are you going to get arms aboard for yourself, without leaving trace of our complicity in this?”
“I’ll carry my weapons right through the checkpoint.”
“Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about that for a moment. Naked/Kill and all that. Stab a man with a drinking straw. What a nuisance that’s been to us over the years.”
Hel closed the report. “We have two days until the plane departs. How shall we fill our time?”
“Loll about here, I suppose. Keep you out of sight.”
“Are you going up to dress for dinner?”
“No, I think I’ll not take dinner tonight. I should have followed your example and forsaken my midday lie by. Had to contend with both of them. Probably walk with a limp the rest of my life.”
Heathrow
The plane was almost full of passengers, all adults, most of them the sort who could afford the surcharge for flying Concorde. Couples chatted; stewards and stewardesses leaned over seats making the cooing noises of experienced nannies; businessmen asked one another what they sold; unacquainted pairs said those inane things calculated to lead to assignations in Montreal; the conspicuously busy kept their noses in documents and reports or fiddled ostentatiously with pocket recorders; the frightened babbled about how much they loved flying, and tried to appear casual as they scanned the information card designating procedures and exits in case of emergency.
A muscular young Arab and a well-dressed Arab woman sat together near the back, a curtain separating them from the service area, where food and drinks were stored. Beside the curtain stood a flight attendant who smiled down at the Arab couple, his bottle-green eyes vacant.
Two young Arabs, looking like rich students, entered the plane and sat together about halfway down. Just before the doors were closed, a fifth Arab, dressed as a businessman, rushed down the mobile access truck and aboard the plane, babbling to the receiving steward something about just making it and being delayed by business until the last moment. He came to the back of the plane and took a seat opposite the Arab couple, to whom he nodded in a friendly way.
With an incredible roar, the engines tugged the plane from the loading ramp, and soon the bent-nosed pterodactyl was airborne.
When the seat-belt sign flashed off, the pretty Arab woman undid her belt and rose. “It is this way to the ladies’ room?” she asked the green-eyed attendant, smiling shyly.
He had one hand behind the curtain. As he smiled back at her, he pressed the button on which his finger rested, and two soft gongs echoed through the passenger area. At this sound, each of the 136 passengers, except the PLO Arabs, lowered his head and stared at the back of the seat before him.
“Any one of these, Madam,” Hel said, holding the curtain aside for her to pass through.
At that instant, the Arab businessman addressed a muffled question to Hel, meaning to attract his attention while the girl got the weapons from the food container.
“Certainly, sir,” Hel said, seeming not to understand the question. “I’ll get you one.”
He slipped a comb from his pocket as he turned and followed the girl, snapping shut the curtain behind him.
“But wait!” the Arab businessman said—but Hel was gone.
Three seconds later he returned, a magazine in his hand. “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t seem to have a copy of Paris Match. Will this do?”
“Stupid fool!” muttered the businessman, staring at the drawn curtain in confusion. Had this grinning idiot not seen the girl? Had she stepped into the rest room upon his approach? Where was she?
Fully a minute passed. The four Arabs aboard were so concerned with the girl’s failure to emerge through the curtain, an automatic weapon in her hands, they failed to notice that everyone else on the plane was sitting with his head down, staring at the seat back before him.
Unable to control themselves longer, the two Arab students who had sat together in the waist of the plane rose and started back down the aisle. As they approached the smiling, daydreaming steward with the green eyes, they exchanged worried glances with the older businessman and the muscular lad who was the woman’s companion. The older man gestured with his head for the two to pass on behind the curtain.
“May I help you?” Hel asked, rolling up the magazine into a tight cylinder.
“Bathroom,” one of them muttered, as the other said, “Drink of water.”
“I’ll bring it to you, sir,” Hel said. “Not the bathroom, of course,” he joked with the taller one.
They passed him, and he followed them behind the curtain.
Four seconds later, he emerged, a harried expression on his face. “Sir,” he said confidentially to the older businessman, “you’re not a doctor by any chance?”
“Doctor? No. Why?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Not to worry. The gentleman’s had a little accident.”
“Accident?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get help from a member of the cabin crew. Nothing serious, I’m sure.” Hel had in his hand a plastic drinking cup, which he had crushed and creased down the center.
The businessman rose and stepped into the aisle.
“If you would just stay with him, sir, while I fetch someone,” Hel said, following the businessman into the service area.
Two seconds later, he was standing again at his station, looking over the passengers with that expression of vague compassion airline stewards affect. When his gaze fell on the worried muscular young man beside him, he winked and said, “It was nothing at all. Dizzy spell, I guess. First time in a supersonic plane, perhaps. The other gentleman is assisting him. I don’t speak Arabic, unfortunately.”