'When?'

'In Prague.'

He hesitated, wondering whether to answer.

I heard voices from the flight deck now, and radio static.

'I did some revision techniques on deuterium moderators,' Kuznetski said. 'I was with Dr Schwarz.'

He seemed to be waiting for some kind of answer.

'Are you going after your doctorate?'

Again he waited, watching me.

'Perhaps.'

We could hear the pilot clearly now.

'-and if you think you're going to get me to take this goddam bird up again on three engines you're crazy!'

I now noticed that Kuznetski was slowly going pale.

'Satynovich,' he murmured, 'is a wild man. He makes me afraid.'

'You should choose your friends more carefully,' I said, and went back along the aisle, hitting a seat-squab as the Boeing swung again and slowed under the brakes.

Then we stopped, and the long wait began, as it had to, This was at 10:41.

Zade stood with one booted foot on the navigator's seat, staring through the windscreen.

In the last few minutes a nervous tic had started to jerk at the corner of his mouth. His physical control was adequate but he lacked the nerves to back it up and when he spoke mere was a tremor of rage in his voice.

He was listening now to the distorted tones from the radio.

'I repeat my offer to replace your hostage personally.'

James K. Burdick, US Secretary of Defence.

He had arrived by military helicopter ten minutes ago and was speaking direct from the control tower. When Zade replied his voice was hoarse and the sibilants were accentuated.

'The hostage remains with us.'

His psychology was sound: he knew that Burdick would do more for his daughter's safety than he'd do for his own.

Half an hour ago at 11.04 the FBI had opened up communications via the tower and two-way radio: they were headed by a small group of men standing on the tarmac below the tower and I could see the glint of the chrome aerials as they moved about. The man in charge had announced himself as Dwight Sorenson and he had opened the exchange with an immediate demand for surrender and this had provoked Zade into expressing his anxiety in the form of rage.

At 11.09 he had ordered me pilot and navigator off the aircraft, probably because he thought they might become dangerous. They had been told to confirm mat Patricia Burdick was indeed a hostage on board and that she was indeed in a worsening condition of fever.

As Zade began speaking again I heard an aircraft landing but couldn't see it because the main runway was at right angles behind the tail of the Boeing. Zade interrupted himself and ordered all air traffic to cease and got an undertaking from fee base commander that only emergency movements would be permitted.

The Defence Secretary broke in again.

The material for exchange has been sent for. In the meantime 1 would welcome a personal meeting with you. and would present myself at the aircraft, unaccompanied.

Zade considered this and said no.

Francisco Ventura was on the flight deck, watching me with his slow moist eyes, a sub-machine-gun in the crook of his arm. He had followed me here when I'd come forward soon after the Boeing had stopped. He didn't worry me too much because I believed he would only shoot on orders from Zade and I didn't intend that Zade should give such orders, because I wanted to avoid a shoot-out.

But Shadia worried me because she'd been standing in the staff area immediately aft of the flight deck for the last twenty minutes, watching me steadily. On the few occasions when I met her eyes I felt she was ready at any instant to fire the heavy-calibre automatic that he held in her slim tanned hand, and not necessarily on orders from Zade. Her expression would have been hard to describe but I would say that she felt I owed her a death and she wanted to take it.

I could hear Sassine's high rapid tones from the first-class compartment, with nobody answering. The aircraft that had just landed was rolling towards the control tower and in a moment I heard its sound die to silence. It didn't have Ferris on board: the earliest he could get here was 12:30.

At 12:21 Dr Costa came forward to ask if the air-conditioning could be turned on. Zade said nothing: he was now standing with his back against the bulkhead, watching the group of men at the base of the tower, his dark face shining with sweat. He had spent the last ten minutes releasing a little of his rage over the radio, telling Burdick that he had broken their agreement to make the exchange as soon as the Boeing had landed. Burdick had said that nobody had known where the aircraft was going to land, and that the material for exchange had been "difficult to obtain", for reasons that should be "well understood". This material, he assured Zade, was now on its way.

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.'