'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? '

Then he gave an order and the cordon let me through and I walked across the tarmac under the hot sun,

my right foot trying to buckle over because the heel of the shoe had been worn away by the tyre of the DC-6.

Satynovich Zade hadn't yet recognized me: he had known only that someone in the crowd not only spoke his tongue but knew his name and he wanted to find out who it was. He was still standing at the top of the flight steps as I climbed them, and when I was halfway up he stopped me with a jerk of the machine-gun. I took off the sunglasses and looked up at him.

His own eyes were still concealed by the smoked lenses, so that I couldn't see their expression; but I noticed his mouth give a slight jerk as he recognized me.

'She didn't succeed,' I told him carefully in Polish.

Then I caught movement and looked higher, beyond him, and saw Shadia staring down at me with her face dead white.

Zade had been keeping the sub-machine-gun aimed steadily at my heart, and now I saw his finger go to the trigger.

'Don't do that,' I said.

The sun was reflected on his smoked glasses as he stood above me with his head perfectly still. It looked as if his eyes were blazing, but of course it was just the reflection.

This was why Ferris had taken his time thinking about what I'd said, when I'd told him I was going aboard: it wasn't a terribly good move and I'd probably get killed; but something had to be done and if I could do it and get it right it'd mean a lot to that bastard Egerton. There was of course the ghost of a chance that I'd get away with it, and that's all we ask, when despite all we've done there's nothing more we can do to save the mission, when the only choice is to abandon it and try to live with our pride or make the final throw and hope for the only thing that can get us through:, the ghost of a chance.

I watched his finger.

'Don't do that,' I told him again. 'I'm working for Burdick, didn't you know? That gets you another hostage for nothing, and you can use me to negotiate the exchange. So don't throw away good material — you might be glad of it later,'

He didn't move.

Shadia had gone inside the aircraft.

Pat Burdick looked down at me but I don't think she was taking anything in: her skin was yellow and her eyes dull and I could see why they'd wanted a doctor on board.

Carlos Ramirez watched me with his gun steady, Zade watched me, his finger curled.

I heard the cry of sea birds in the distance.

Some kind of aircraft landed and reversed thrust, sending out a rush of sound that diminished slowly.

I watched his finger.

It'd be a quick pressure, then off again: with shells that size he only needed one shot to blow me right off the steps.

'Work it out for yourself,' I said. 'It makes sense.'

There wasn't anything else I could do now, because I didn't want to oversell the idea: it'd look as if I were worried. It was his decision to make, entirely his decision, with nothing on my side to help me. Except the ghost of a chance.