The phone I was using was at the end of a maintenance hangar, and I was watching the TWA Boeing as, I talked. A few minutes ago another mobile television unit had gone across the tarmac from the main gates, with a cameraman already at work on the roof.
'What's your local time?' Ferris wanted to know.
'08:55.'
It was an hour later here than at Manaus.
'Are you still locked on?'
'Yes,' I said.
The sound of sirens was coming in again from the highway, and I could see the intermittent light of an emergency vehicle. Everyone seemed rather excited, but I would have thought the South American countries were pretty used to this sort of thing.
'All right,' Ferris said.
He meant he wasn't going to put any more specific questions because he'd got the basic data and now he wanted information.
'They've struck some kind of problem,' I told him. 'From what I could put together in Lagofondo, I think they're making for the States, but I shouldn't mink they've got visas and they'll need some pretty authentic medical certificates. The thing is they've seized a TWA Boeing and a couple of minutes ago they ordered two aircrew to go aboard: presumably pilot and navigator.'
I stopped to let Ferris think about it for a while. It would also give me time to work something out if I could. I didn't think there was anything I could work out The whole thing looked terribly shut-ended and I stood here baking in the direct heat of the sun with the sweat running down and a lot of slow-burn angst in my soul, because I'd followed those bastards all the way here and now they were taking off again and I couldn't hope to pull the same trick again because I wouldn't get through the police lines and even if they let me through I couldn't get into a wheelbay unseen and even if I could get into a wheelbay I'd freeze to death at thirty thousand feet.
Ferris was quiet.
The whole of the Kobra cell is now on board,' I said, 'and they've got Pat Burdick with them. The police have got the aircraft cordoned off but they can't actually do anything useful. That's all I've got for you. Sorry there's no jam on it,'
In a couple of seconds he asked:
'Do you think they're going to take off?'
'Yes.'
'When?'
'Soon.'
He paused again.
'All right. Details.'
'TWA Flight 378 normally scheduled Belem to Miami. Boeing 707. Normal departure was 08:45 and the ETA is 11:15 Belem time, 09:15 Miami time.'
Ferris answered a little more quickly now. 'The aircraft is fuelled up and ready to leave, then?'
'Oh yes.'
'They didn't flush you, of course.'
'No.'
He paused again.
The siren was loud now and I saw the patrol car swing across the tarmac and pull up near the television unit. The man with the camera swung the thing half-circle to cover the people getting out of the patrol car in case they were official negotiators.
'What do you intend doing?' Ferris asked me.
I suppose it was a compliment, really, for him to assume I had any kind of answer to this one. There was of course an answer but it wasn't very subtle, and I didn't feel like spelling it out for him because he might order me not to do it, 'I think I'll have to go aboard,' I said.
From this distance I could see three people standing at the top of the flight steps but couldn't identify them for certain: the two outer figures were holding what looked like submachine-guns and the one in the middle would be Patricia Burdick. I didn't think they could have got any weapons that size through Manaus Airport: they must have a contact in Belem and they'd phoned him before they left. These people were internationals and if they'd decided to move to the United States they wouldn't have left anything to chance.
Ferris had been thinking it over. Now he said:.
'All right. I'll keep track of the plane.'
'Do that.'
He asked if there were anything else and I said no and we hung up and I stood there for a minute wiping die sweat off my face and feeling a bit queasy because this could get me killed.
Then I took off the overalls and put them on a bench with the ear-mufflers and walked across the tarmac till I reached the police cordon. I now recognized Satynovich Zade and Carlos Ramirez at the top of the steps with the girl between them. Ramirez was shouting to the group of police negotiators in Portuguese, asking again for a doctor to go aboard and look after the hostage. He promised repeatedly that the doctor would be regarded as a "brave humanitarian" and would come to no harm whatever happened.
I saw a small man pushing his way through the crowd with a bag on his hand, and decided I ought to start parleying.
I cupped my hands.
'Satynovich!'
I didn't want to talk to Ramirez because he might be limited to Spanish and Portuguese and if the police understood what I was saying they might take me for a friend of the terrorists and arrest me and that'd be strictly no go.
'Voce e medico?'
He was a captain of police and his hand had gone to his gun.
That's right, I told him, I was a doctor.
I cupped my hands again.
'Satynovich! I want to talk to you!
I used Polish and hoped none of the police understood.
Zade had turned his head and was looking straight at me.
He wouldn't expect anyone to speak to him in Belem in his own language: their contact would be Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking and Ramirez would be the go-between. Zade was turning to him and Ramirez now looked across at me.
In a moment he began calling to the police in Portuguese, ordering them to let me pass through the cordon.
They didn't want to. On principle they didn't want to do anything the terrorists told them, which was natural enough. A lot of shouting went on and I looked around for the nearest press group. A European was hanging from the side of a television van, trying to angle up a shot with the police captain in the foreground and the group on the flight steps beyond. I called out to him.
'Vous etes Francais ou quoi? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?'
He looked across at me.
'Bit of both, actually.'
'Listen, do you know who that girl is? The hostage?'
'American, isn't she?'
'She's the daughter of the US Secretary of Defence.'
'Jesus Christ! So that's — '
'Listen, get on a phone to Washington and tell him where she is and never mind about the bloody pictures.'
He was coming down from the side of the van.
'You're so right,' he said and got a quick shot of one in case he could use it later. 'Which side are you on?'
'Go and find a phone — you've got it exclusive.'
I wanted James Burdick to know the score because if that Boeing came down anywhere in the United States he'd want to be there. Forty-five minutes ago the Kobra operation had been running as a fully secret hostage-and-demand action and Pat Burdick had been insect-hunting along the Amazon with a group of friends but the situation had now changed radically: the girl's fever and Burdick's reaction to the news of it had either driven or panicked Kobra into the open and in seizing the Boeing they'd gone public and from this point onwards they'd be making their stand against the combined strength of the FBI, the CIA and whatever law-enforcement, counter-espionage and anti-terrorist organizations could be brought into the field.
That wouldn't make it more difficult for Kobra, as long as they held Pat Burdick. But it would infinitely increase her danger.
Ramirez was shouting again.
In thirty seconds, he announced in Portuguese, he and his companion would open fire on the crowd unless that man there were allowed through the cordon.
The police captain had been holding my arm. Now he released it.
He didn't believe I was a doctor.
'Urn dia,' he said, 'voce pagavr, voce e seus amigos? '