Ventura turned his eyes slowly to look at Dr Costa.
'We don't know how it works,' he said.
Dr Costa went away.
At 12:51 James Burdick came on the air again.
The material for exchange will shortly arrive and we need your permission for the aircraft to land.
Zade gave it.
He had been leaning 'his head against the panelling behind him for the past few minutes, but was still watching the group on the tarmac. I could see something like fifteen unmarked vehicles in the immediate area, most of them carrying antennae.
We listened to the radio exchange between the tower and the pilot of the USAF interceptor aircraft as it lowered into its approach path and touched down on the main runway with the roar of its jets slamming back in echoes from the line of hangars.
So Ferris wouldn't be here. The base commander had reserved his right to receive emergency traffic but I didn't think Zade would allow it: the effort he was making to keep control of himself was increasing his tension, paradoxically, and I didn't think it would take a lot to drive him over the edge. I was now certain that this was his first experience of running a hostage operation and he was having to do it in the presence of massive armament that could blow his entire cell to shreds if he made a mistake.
The Secretary of Defence came in again.
'We have the exchange material.'
Zade leaned away from the panelling, his face loosening slightly as he looked through the windscreen to the group below the tower. Perhaps he'd been preparing himself for difficulties, for a series of deliberate delaying actions that might take away his initiative and force him on to the defensive. I don't think he'd believed he would be so successful.
Sassine and Ramirez had come into the staff area to listen.
Burdick was speaking again.
No problem is now envisaged. You have Paul Wexford on board with you, and he has my permission to fetch the material and deliver it to you personally.
Sassine had heard the message and came on to the flight deck.
'Let me go and get it,' he said. His eyes were shining.
Zade knocked him down and I noticed how fast Sassine went for his gun: it was in his hand as he crashed to the floor. He wouldn't have used it against Zade: it was just his instinctive reaction to attack. I noted this point because when the time came to do something it'd be dangerous to underestimate anyone.
'Get the flight steps,' Zade said over the radio.
He was looking calmer: the tension had been mounting in him over the last hours and Sassine's behaviour had been getting on his nerves.
We heard the motorized trolley nearing the aircraft on the port side, bringing the steps.
'Get the girl up here,' Zade said.
Ventura moved past me.
'Wexford.' Drops of sweat fell from Zade's chin and his breathing sounded painful. 'You're alive because you offered to be the go-between. You'd better do everything right.'
On his way to the main door he stopped, listening to the faint whimpering noise from the toilet. The tap was running into the basin and I suppose Sassine had lost some teeth and was to some extent shocked back to normal cerebration. Zade moved again and swung the door open and pushed me on to the steps and for an instant I remember hoping that none of the FBI men out there was working himself up into a state of target-attraction: from the movements on the tarmac I estimated there were twenty or thirty marksmen with the main doorway of the Boeing in their sights.
'Hold her upright,' I 'heard Zade say behind me.
At the bottom of the steps I looked up and saw Pat Burdick in the doorway, supported by Dr Costa. She had a hand to her eyes because of the bright light but Zade pulled it away so that she could be recognized. Behind her was Ventura and the snout of the sub-machine-gun was pressed into her back.
I walked across the tarmac.
The main group of security people was a hundred yards from Boeing and as I neared it a big man with a two-way radio slung at toe shoulder came forward to meet me.
'Wexford?'
'Yes.'
'I'm Dwight Sorenson, heading the FBI team.'
'Good afternoon.'
Ferris was here and I was going to ask him how he'd managed it but it wasn't important: they must have flown him from Manaus into the nearest airfield from the base and used a helicopter, since they couldn't rely on Zade's allowing an emergency landing.
The man talking to Ferris was grey-faced with sleepless eyes.
'I'm James Burdick,' he said.
'Wexford, sir.'
'How is she?'
He was looking beyond me to the aircraft.
'Dr Costa would like her in a hospital as soon as it can be arranged. She's fully conscious and not under drugs.'
He looked down, then at Ferris.
What's the situation in there?' Ferris asked me.
Sorenson stood close, listening.
'I can only give you my opinion,' I said in a moment. 'I'd say they're prepared to kill their hostage out of hand, if we could show them we had the initiative.' I looked at Sorenson. 'If you kill them, you'll kill her. There are six of them in there so they can take turns to sleep.'
A voice sounded on Sorenson's radio and he listened for a second and then shut it down. 'You mean that so long as we feel obliged to supply food and water they're ready to hold out for just as long as they want?'
'For days, yes. Or weeks. Of course there's a breakoff point'
I didn't look at Burdick.
He was watching me.
That doctor hasn't indicated my daughter is in any immediate danger?'
'No. But if she's to remain in there much longer we'd have to set up what would amount to field medical facilities and in my opinion they wouldn't allow that.'
'There's no way,' the FBI man asked heavily, 'you can go back in there and drive those people out under our guns? I have fifty marksmen deployed.'
The Defence Secretary turned away slightly and I had the feeling they'd discussed this idea and couldn't agree on it.
'There'd be no point,' I said. They'd bring the girl with them and even if you picked off the six of them simultaneously without touching her, one of them at least would live long enough to shoot her at close range.'
Burdick was moving away from the group and Ferris gave me a signal and I followed both of them across the tarmac until we were out of earshot. The briefcase under the Defence Secretary's arm was a security model with four straps and a centre lock and provision for a wrist chain. This was the form I'd assumed the exchange material would take and that was why I'd talked to Kuznetski.
Burdick stopped,
'Are you willing to go back into the airplane, Mr Wexford?'
'Yes, sir.'
He held out the briefcase.
'This is the material they asked for.'
It was difficult to tell him.
'They've got a man there with a degree in atomic physics.'
His tired eyes went dead.
'Kuznetski?' Ferris asked.
'Yes.'
None of us spoke for a while.
From here I could see some of the marksmen ranged along the roof of the main building. Others were deployed in unmarked cars at regular intervals, their dark barrels poking towards the Boeing: these would fire last of all and only then if the situation became fluid and mobile. A dozen Air Force vehicles stood near the end of the main hangar and a group of uniformed officers were talking together, some of them with field glasses raised to watch the aircraft.
A Sheriff's Department helicopter stood just beyond the emergency bay with a pilot leaning against its door and an Air Force man talking to him, and I could see two DPS vehicles over by the tower, their lights still rotating.