The Avis van rumbled to a halt. It would be a relief to leave the claustrophobic atmosphere of the rear stowage compartment. We grabbed our holdalls and bergens and jumped out. Our three vans were parked in a side-street east of Princes Gate. This really was the concrete jungle, a million miles away from the tall greenstuff.
9.30am, Friday 2 May. ‘I know what’s going on. Your British police have cut off the telex and the international telephone. Your secret police want total control over what the outside world knows about our demands. I am now forced to apply pressure. I must kill a hostage.’ Standing in the doorway of Room 9, Oan surveyed the male hostages. They looked devastated. ‘You, bring Dr Ezzatti to me,’ ordered Oan, pointing his submachine gun at journalist Mustapha Karkouti. Karkouti helped the unfortunate Cultural Attaché to his feet.
‘This could be a counter-productive move,’ said Lock, staring directly at Oan. ‘Why don’t we have another talk with the police negotiator?’
Oan hesitated. ‘OK. But no tricks or I will kill the hostages,’ and he brought his gun up to Ezzatti’s head to emphasize the point.
‘There is a hostage about to be killed unless you allow Oan full use of telephone and telex.’ Lock’s voice boomed out over the forecourt from the open window on the first floor.
‘Impossible,’ came the negotiator’s reply.
‘But a man is about to be killed,’ pleaded Lock.
‘What do they mean, impossible?’ cut in Oan, sensing a challenge to his authority. He forced the gun harder into the side of Ezzatti’s head. He stared fixedly at the terror-stricken man and then appeared to relent, pushing the Cultural Attaché to the rear of the room. ‘I want to talk to a man from your BBC, a man who knows Harris.’ Oan spoke slowly but could not veil the threats. ‘I set a new deadline in a few hours.’ And with that, all went quiet at the first-floor window.
3.00pm. The police had finally produced Tony Crabb, the managing editor of BBC TV News and a personal friend of Sim Harris. Crabb scribbled the hurried statement shouted by Harris from the first-floor window into an old notebook. Oan demanded a coach to take gunmen, hostages and an Arab ambassador to Heathrow. The non-Iranian hostages would be released at the airport. An aircraft would then take the remaining hostages, gunmen and ambassadors to an unspecified Middle Eastern country, where the last hostages would be released. Oan also wanted his aims and grievances broadcast by the BBC that night.
8.30pm. ‘The whole of the ground-floor and the first-floor windows are armour-plated. I know because I cleaned up after the contractors had finished. Behind the wooden door at the front there is an ornate steel security door.’ The caretaker’s voice cut through the silence of the briefing room like a chainsaw.
We were all sitting around a scale model of the Embassy which had been hastily constructed in quarter-inch plywood the day before. It had taken us twenty-four hours to locate the caretaker, who had been enjoying a day off when the siege began. And here he was giving us our best target brief to date. He knew every nook and cranny in the Embassy, every storeroom and broom cupboard. I could only speculate as to what he was feeling, suddenly catapulted into the limelight from the anonymity of his humble occupation. All eyes were on him. His was the last job anyone would have chosen if they had wanted to make an impact on the world scene. But from the security forces’ point of view, it was the ideal job to enable someone to give an intimate portrait of the structure of the building. Hell! What a stroke of luck locating this guy, I thought. Without his information, our initial response to the threatened slaughter of hostages could have turned into a real can of worms. The original plan had been to run out of No. 14 and batter in the ground-floor window and main door of No. 16 with sledgehammers. Christ! With the armour plating, the sledges would have bounced off. It would have been like trying to knock down a concrete wall with a toffee hammer.
There now followed a hectic period of replanning. Orders were rewritten, we were rebriefed, demolition equipment was issued. I began to get a feeling that this nut was going to be even tougher to crack than we’d anticipated.
11.30pm. The final outrage for Oan. He had sat right through the evening listening to the regular news bulletins, growing more and more frustrated as each successive broadcast drew a blank. He had become obsessed with hearing his aims and grievances broadcast. The BBC had indeed now transmitted a brief broadcast stating the new demands – but to Oan’s disbelief and anger they’d got it wrong. The BBC had stated that the British Government wanted the Arab ambassadors to negotiate with Iran. In fact, Oan had demanded that all negotiations be conducted through the British Government. He rose slowly to his feet, his eyes ablaze with fanaticism and hatred. A chill of fear swept through the hostages.
6.05am, Saturday 2 May. Beeeeeeeep. The single shrill tone of the field telephone penetrated the operations centre of Alpha Control, the police forward operation room situated in No. 25 Princes Gate – the Royal School of Needlework. A surreal setting if ever there was one! The duty negotiator, a tall, slim, refined man, rubbed his tired, gritty eyes and lifted the receiver. ‘Good morning. This is David,’ he said politely. ‘How…’
‘You are liars!’ Oan’s angry voice scythed into the attempt at exchanging pleasantries. ‘You have cheated and deceived me over my demands.’
It was a perfectly clear line. The duty negotiator sensed the extreme agitation in Oan’s voice. He tried again to calm him down, to divert his mind from the high tension. ‘Oan, what would you all like for breakfast?’
‘I’m not hungry. I want to talk to the Arab ambassador.’
‘Oan, we are doing our best, but this all takes time.’
‘I have no time left. You bring one of the ambassadors to the phone now.’
The negotiator gripped the telephone receiver tighter at the sound of the rising hysteria in Oan’s voice. ‘Oan. The Foreign Office are dealing with your demands right now, but it all takes time.’
‘You are not dealing with my demands at all. You are sitting on your fat bottoms in your warm offices doing nothing. I tell you now. Because of Britain’s deceit, your British people, your British police – they will be the last to be released. And if you do not send the BBC man back to talk to me, the one who was here yesterday, someone will have to die.’ With that, the phone went dead and silence descended on Alpha Control.
3.30pm. Tony Crabb, the managing editor of BBC TV News, finally turned up. He was bollocked by Harris for putting lives at risk by delaying the broadcast of the gunman’s statement and by not ensuring that the statement was correct in every detail. At this stage, the police negotiator, standing close to Crabb, decided to intervene. He agreed to take down Oan’s statement and personally ensure that it was correct. He took out his notebook and pencil and began recording Oan’s statement as it was shouted down from the first-floor window by Mustapha Karkouti. The final clause of the statement demanded a guarantee that the BBC put out the demands totally accurately and on the next news bulletin. This was another mistake. It gave the negotiator a bargaining point. He seized his opportunity. ‘OK, Oan. I will give you your guarantee if you show us some good faith and release some hostages.’
There was a pause, a movement by the curtains. The air was charged with tension.
‘We give you one,’ came Oan’s reply from within the room.
‘We need more,’ said the police negotiator impassively.
Another pause. Another tension-filled minute.