'Two minutes,' I told him.
I heard a murmur from somewhere behind me, in Portuguese.
Dr Costa was praying.
Just in case Zade was missing anything I thought I should spell it out for him. We didn't want any mistakes. 'There are fifty marksmen out there, and when you leave the aircraft you'll walk into a firing squad. Or you can elect to live, and let the girl go free.'
He was silent for what seemed a long time. It was probably for only a few seconds, but seconds were a long time, now.
'Have they guaranteed it?'
'Yes.'
I wished now that I could tell what he was thinking.
Perhaps it was too simple for him: he was looking for something complex. But the only terms were those that governed every hostage-and-demand situation: life for life. He could have accepted them earlier, when the FBI had asked him to surrender. But at that time he saw the Boeing as his refuge: here he would make his stand. He could have held out for weeks, against all argument. Now he could hold out for less than two minutes because that was my argument: the bomb.
It was something he could understand.
Before this point was reached, he could have stayed hi his refuge, refusing all terms that were offered. But now he had no refuge and it could change his thinking radically. I thought the chances of his opting to go out in a Gotterdammerung of martyrdom were rather high but it was one of the risks that had to be taken.
I'd told James Burdick what I'd had to: that I didn't think there was a lot of hope.
'Satynovich,' Kuznetski said. 'The material is genuine.'
I couldn't think what be was trying to do: he must know the papers were no use to them, genuine or false. Possibly he was working on Zade's mind, as I was, but in a different way.
'You're lying,' Zade said.
I saw Kuznetski get up from the seat and stand with his forehead against the panelling, his eyes closed.
'Sixty seconds,' I said.
I watched the thin blued-steel needle pass across the top marker for the last time and begin its final circuit. I had asked the CIA technician what the margin of error was in the firing delay and he'd told me the action was electronic and zero-zero precise.
There was sweat on the palms of my hands again and I wiped them by folding my arms and sliding the palms against the sleeves, because Zade was watching me. They were all watching me.
Then I heard Sassine begin talking rapidly and when Zade stopped him I turned and looked across the aisle at Dr Costa and spoke to him and turned back to watch the dial of the chronometer.
'Forty-five seconds.'
I said it clearly because there wasn't a lot of time left and they were leaving it late. That was because of Zade, I believed: his personality was able to subdue them, especially Shadia and Ramirez.
I turned my head and looked along the perspective of the aircraft. At this point configuration would have to be noted:' I had to see the group at the other end of the aisle as if they were figures cut out of the background, like one of those pictures where people are identified by numbers inside blank outlines.
Zade was standing in the aisle to the left side and he was nearer than anyone else and so his figure was larger. Shadia was on the other side, perched on the arm of a seat with the gun resting on her thigh and her unnaturally pale eyes watching me. Ventura was behind them at a distance of several feet, his configuration carrying the extension of the sub-machine-gun. I couldn't see Sassine: perhaps Zade had hit him again and he was sulking somewhere. Ramirez was almost directly behind Shadia and her configuration made a part of his, because she was sitting and he was standing. Kuznetski was still leaning his forehead against the panelling, behind Ventura.
The configuration I needed, unless something unexpected happened, was the space between them, outlined by their figures and by the panels and ceiling above their heads. It would make things much more difficult for me if anyone moved.
Tick-tick-tick-tick.
The soft quick sound reminded me.
'Thirty seconds,' I said.
Then one of them moved.
Kuznetski.
Zade hadn't seen him yet because he was standing with his back to him. I don't think he'd heard him either, or he would have swung round to see what was happening. Now he heard him, and swung round.
'Kuznetski!'
Zade didn't carry a gun but Shadia was there and Ventura and Ramirez were there and one of them swung his machine-gun round in the low aim but that was probably by instinct because those two were the hit-men and would ready their weapons at any sign of crisis.
'Kuznetski!'
It was a jungle sound, the cry of an animal.
But Kuznetski had gone. The configuration had changed and he'd left a space to one side. No one had closed the main door when I'd come aboard and he had gone through there, as Sassine must have done not long ago.
It was Kuznetski I'd been relying on to break first, but with Sassine I'd got two for the price of one. I suppose Zade shouldn't have hit him like that.
Tick-tick-tick.
I looked down at the needle.
'Sixteen seconds.'
It felt very close now in the compartment: the air seemed to press against the face. I wiped my palms dry again. When I looked up from the chronometer I saw Zade had half-turned towards me again. I could see by the movement of his chest that he was taking deep breaths: something he'd learned, perhaps, as a means of controlling the nerves. His voice still had a tremor to it but he spoke slowly, and clearly enough to make sure I heard him.
'I am not a man to threaten. You can see that now.'
This was what I thought he might do in the last few seconds. I suppose in a way it was admirable: if I had to choose any of these men as a comrade in some dangerous enterprise, it would be Satynovich Zade.
Tick-tick.
I looked down quickly.
The sliver of blue steel was moving in rapid jerks, each one as precise as the last, and as precise as those to come.
'Nine seconds.'
I looked up again, along the aisle, No one had moved.
'Let the girl go,' I said.
Zade kept his head turned towards me and spoke over his shoulder.
'If the girl moves, Shoot her. If this man moves, shoot him. But the doctor can go. Tell him, Carlos.'
Ramirez spoke in Portuguese and I heard his voice was shaking.
Dr Costa answered him, saying he would stay with his patient.
Then I saw Ramirez turn and walk out through the door of the aircraft.
Zade didn't move his head.
'Who was that?' he asked.
'Carlos,' Ventura told him.
There was no sound of firing. Sorenson had told me that if any of these people came out of the Boeing they would be arrested, providing they carried no weapons.
'What would you expect,' Zade said, 'from the son of a Seville prostitute?'
No one answered.
No one moved.
So it wasn't going to work.
Again it was a question of predictability: the chemical chain reaction that would take place inside the time-bomb a few seconds from now was predictable; the chain reaction within the Kobra cell was not. I'd been relying on breaking their nerve and I'd been relying on Kuznetski to provide the initiative and Sassine had done it for him but only two of them had followed him out. The reaction had stopped there, as if the powder in an explosive compound had been badly mixed.
Shadia watched me still, her sun-bronzed hand on the gun. She was smiling with her mouth but the pale eyes were glass-bright and expressionless.
Ventura had come to stand behind one of the seats, and his arm rested along its back. He stood perfectly upright and perfectly still, and his eyes were slightly defensive, as people sometimes look when they're having their photograph taken in a studio: there was something Victorian about him, and something still of the men's haberdashery assistant.