The hostages dozed and held hands most of the time. Francisco had thought about splitting them up and scattering them over the building, but in the end he’d decided that they’d just take more guarding that way, and he was probably right. Francisco was being right about quite a lot of things. Taking advice, too, which made a nice change. I suppose there aren’t many terrorists in the world who are so familiar with hostage situations that they can afford to be dogmatic, and say nah, the way you do it is this. Francisco was in uncharted waters just as much as the rest of us, and it made him nicer somehow.
It was just after four, and I had fixed it so that I was down in the lobby with Latifa when Francisco hobbled down the stairs with the statement for the press.
‘Lat,’ he said, with a charming smile, ‘go tell the world for us.’
Latifasmiled back at him, thrilled that the wise elder brother had conferred this honour upon her, but not wanting to show it too much. She took the envelope from him and watched, lovingly, as he limped back to the staircase.
‘They’re waiting for you now,’ he said, without turning round. ‘Give it to them, tell them it goes straight to CNN, nobody else, and if they don’t read it, word for word, they got dead Americans in here.’ He stopped as he reached the halflanding, and turned to us. ‘You cover her good, Ricky.’
I nodded and we watched him go, and then Latifa sighed. What a guy, she was thinking. My hero, and he chose me. The real reason Francisco had chosen Latifa, of course, was that he reckoned it might make an armed assault by the gallant Moroccans fractionally less likely if they knew we had women in the team. But I didn’t want to spoil her moment by saying that.
Latifaturned and looked out through the main doors, clutching the envelope and squinting into the bright lights of the television crews. She put a hand up to her hair.
‘Fame at last,’ I said, and she made a face at me.
She moved across to the reception desk and started to fiddle with her shirt in the reflection of the glass. I followed. ‘Here,’ I said, and I took the envelope from her and helped arrange the collar of the shirt in a cool way. I fluffed her hair out from behind her ears, and wiped a smudge of something off her cheek. She stood there and let me do it. Not as an intimacy. More like a boxer in his corner, getting set for the next round while the seconds squirt and rub and rinse and primp.
I reached into my pocket, took out the envelope, and handed it to her, while she took some deep breaths.
I gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘You’ll be okay,’ I said.
‘Never been on TV before,’ she said. Dawn.Sunrise. Daybreak. Whatever.
There is still a gloom over the horizon, but it has an orange smear to it. The night is shrinking back into the ground, as the sun scrabbles for a finger-hold on the edge of the skyline.
The hostages are mostly asleep. They have drawn closer together in the night, because it has been colder than anyone thought it would be, and legs are no longer lolling over the edge of the rug.
Francisco looks tired as he holds out the phone for me. He has his feet propped up on the side of Beamon’s desk, and he is watching CNN with the sound turned down, as a kindness to the sleeping Beamon.
I’m tired too, of course, but maybe I’ve got a little more adrenalin in my blood at this moment. I take the phone from Francisco.
‘Yeah.’
Some popping, electronic noises. Then Barnes.
‘Your five-thirty alarm call,’ he says, with a smile in his voice.
‘What do you want?’ And I realise immediately that I have said this with an English accent. I look across at Francisco, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. So I turn back to the window and listen to Barnes for a while, and when he’s finished I take a deep breath, hoping desperately and not caring at all, both at the same time.
‘When?’ I say.
Barnes chuckles. I laugh too, in no particular accent. ‘Fifty minutes,’ he says, and hangs up.
When I turn back from the window, Francisco is watching me. His eyelashes seem longer than ever.
Sarah is waiting for me.
‘They’re bringing us breakfast,’ I say, bending my Minnesotan vowels this time.
Francisco nods.
The sun is going to be clambering up soon, gradually heaving itself over the window sill. I leave the hostages, and Beamon, and Francisco, dozing in front of CNN. I walk out of the office and take the lift to the roof.
Three minutes later, forty-seven to go, and things are about as ready as they’re going to be. I take the stairs down to the lobby.
Empty corridor, empty stairwell, empty stomach. The blood in my ears is loud, much louder than the sound of my feet on the carpet. I stop at the second floor landing, and look out into the street.
Decent crowd, for this time of the morning.
I was thinking ahead, that’s why I forgot the present. The present hasn’t happened, isn’t happening, there is only the future. Life and death. Life or death. These, you see, are big things. Much bigger than footsteps. Footsteps are tiny things, compared to oblivion.
I had dropped down half a flight, just turned the corner on to the mezzanine, before I heard them and realised how wrong they were - wrong because they were running footsteps, and nobody should have been running in this building. Not now. Not with forty-six minutes to go.
Benjamin rounded the corner and stopped.
‘What’s up, Benj?’ I said, as coolly as I could. He stared at me for a moment. Breathing hard. ‘The fuck have you been?’ he said.
I frowned.
‘On the roof,’ I said. ‘I was…’
‘ Latifa’son the roof,’ he snapped.
We stared at each other. He was blowing through his mouth, partly from exertion, partly from anger.
‘Well, Benj, I told her to go down to the lobby. There’s going to be breakfast…’
And then, in a rush of angry movement, Benjamin lifted the Steyr to his shoulder and jammed his cheek against the stock, his fists clenching and unclenching around the grips. And the barrel of the weapon had disappeared.
Now, how could that be? I thought to myself. How could the barrel of a Steyr, four hundred and twenty millimetres long, six grooves, right hand twist - how could that just disappear?
Well of course it couldn’t, and it hadn’t. It was just my point of view.
‘You fucking shit bastard,’ says Benjamin. I stand there, staring into a black hole.
Forty-five minutes to go, and this, let’s face it, is about the worst possible time for Benjamin to bring up a subject as big, as broad, as many-headed as Betrayal. I suggest to him, politely I hope, that we might deal with it later; but Benjamin thinks now would be better.
‘You fucking shit bastard,’ is the way he puts it.
Part of the problem is that Benjamin has never trusted me. That’s really the gist of it. Benjamin has had his suspicions right from the start, and he wants me to know about them now, in case I feel like trying to argue with him.
It all began, he tells me, with my military training. Oh really, Benj?
Yes really.
Benjamin had lain awake at night, staring at the roof of his tent, wondering where and how a retarded Minnesotan had learnt to strip an M16, blindfold, in half the time it took everyone else. From there, apparently, he’d gone on to wonder about my accent, and my taste in clothes and music. And how come I put so many miles on the Land Rover when I was only going out for some beer?