'No.'

He looked away.

The silence came in again.

A few ideas had occurred to me during the flight from Belem and I'd had enough time to treble-check them for feasibility and none of them had stood up, not one. The only thing left was a technical last-ditch action, with the odds so steep that I'd got it out of my mind.

But I thought about it now because there wasn't any choice.

'Ferris,' I said quietly, 'I want to talk.'

He looked up at me quickly.

'Mr Secretary,' he said, 'will you excuse us for a moment?'

'Of course.'

I walked with Ferris across the tarmac, halfway to the emergency bay. Burdick wouldn't like the proposal and I was going to leave Ferris to persuade him to give me a completely free hand.

'Look,' I said, 'if I'm going back in there I'll need something a bit more useful than that ersatz stuff in the briefcase. I want something I can argue with — something they can understand.'

He was looking towards the Boeing.

'What do you need?' he asked me.

'I need to break their nerve.'

Chapter Seventeen: ZERO-ZERO

I went aboard the Boeing at 14:55.

Zade was unarmed, waiting at the top of the flight steps.

Ventura and Ramirez were on each side of him with a submachine-gun trained on me as I came up.

Zade took the briefcase from me and went into the aircraft.

The other two lowered their weapons and I followed Zade aboard, telescoping the antenna of the walkie-talkie.

I saw Patricia Burdick at the rear of the main passenger compartment with Dr Costa, and went along the aisle to talk to them.

At this point I had the urge to turn back and get out of the Boeing and stay out, stay alive. But then I would have to live with myself afterwards.

'Your father sends his love,' I said to the girl. 'He wants you to know you'll be home again soon now.'

She stared up at me without saying anything for a moment, as if she were repeating what I'd said to herself a few times to find out if it were true, whether she could trust me.

'How's he taking this?' she asked.

'Very calmly. He knows you'll soon be home.'

Quietly she murmured, 'Sure,' and closed her eyes.

I wondered how much she'd be able to do for herself, if she had the chance; her skin was waxen and wet with perspiration. Dr Costa looked at me with his mournful eyes but said nothing; I thought that inside he was praying, and to the most powerful of his gods.

I moved across the aisle and pulled down the table for the end seat and opened the zip of the walkie-talkie case and took out the bomb and put it on the table.

'Zade,' I called.

I set the dial to 5.

The chronometer began ticking.

Zade looked along the aisle. He'd given the briefcase to Kuznetski, and Kuznetski had taken out the batch of varicoloured papers and was going through them.

I leaned against the seat squab with my arms folded, 'In five minutes this plane's going up.'

They were all looking at me now.

Zade came slowly down the aisle. He still wore his dark glasses and I couldn't see what he was thinking but that didn't matter because there was nothing he could do about this.

He saw the bomb.

'Carlos,' he said over his shoulder.

Ramirez followed him along the aisle. He was down in the dossier as an explosives expert. I had known that, and would use the advantage.

Zade stood over the seat, looking down.

He'd been patient, so far, They'd taken almost an hour and a half to get this thing for me and I'd talked to Zade with a two-way radio, saying we didn't trust him, we wanted him to bring his hostage to a neutral zone for the exchange, accepted practice, so forth. I'd made it sound genuine, and the FBI had taken over and used all the correct phrases; I thought they'd sold it to him, once, then he'd got worried and said if I wasn't back in the aircraft with the material they were going to start with one of her fingers.

Ramirez stood beside him, looking down; then he instinctively edged away a fraction and I noted this, Zade moved his hand and I said:

'Don't!'

I put a lot of expression into it and he drew back. I didn't have to work up any spurious alarm: I just let it show, so that he'd get the message. Nothing would happen if he picked the tiling up but he might go and drop it and it was omnidirectionally percussion-triggered and that would be that.

Zade watched my face. I could feel the blood receding and the first of the sweat coming to the surface and presumably he saw this and stood away slightly, not moving his hands any more.

'Ramirez,' I said, and began speaking Spanish. 'You understand explosives. This device-'

'Speak in Polish!' Zade cut in.

'He'll tell you what I said,' I told him. 'I want him to know the precise situation and his Polish isn't very good.' I switched back to Spanish. 'This device is produced exclusively for the Central Intelligence Agency and is made to very exacting specifications. It has an electronic blasting cap and booster and the main charge is composed of ammonium nitrate closely confined to increase the detonation wave, which will reach 14,000 f.p.s. The secondary stage is provided by the plastic case, which is chemically sensitized Composition C-4 with a detonating temperature of 290 °Centigrade.'

I was watching his face.

Zade spoke to him sharply: 'What did he — '

'One more thing,' I told Ramirez. The device has a protective circuit, and I'd be glad if you would warn Zade on this point. It has a clock arming-delay, two pressure-release micro-switches — here, and here — a mercury tilt switch and a vibrator activator. Please tell your friends that we don't want any undue movement inside the aircraft. Now report to Zade.'

I moved across the aisle and sat on the arm of the end seat. The sweat was a problem now, making my scalp itch and reminding me that I was frightened. It's often a chain reaction unless you can control it: you know when you're frightened but you want to feel you're at least not showing it and can keep on top of the situation. The reason why the sweat was an actual problem was that I had to keep it off my hands.

Ramirez was speaking slowly to Zade, using an English phrase when he could think of one. His eyes were very serious and I believed I'd convinced him. Most of it was the truth, in any case: there was no mercury tilt switch or vibrator but if anyone picked that thing up and dropped it the Boeing would blow.

It would have been nice to tell the girl not to worry, that we still had a chance. But she wouldn't believe me because I'd said she was going home soon and now she could see there was a confrontation: and if she believed me the relief would show in her face and they might notice it.

It was very quiet in here now.

The ticking was discreet and fairly rapid and we could hear it when nobody was talking. Ramirez had stopped, and Zade was standing perfectly still, looking at the bomb. He didn't seem afraid of it, but he wasn't the unbalanced type of revolutionary who would take a chance for the sake of blood and glory. If he had been that kind of man I couldn't have brought this thing in here.

The others were farther along the aisle, their faces turned this way. I noted Kuznetski particularly. It was Kuznetski I was relying on.

'Shoot him,' Shadia said suddenly.

I saw her face and I knew I was right about her: she was superstitious. She was frightened of ghosts and I owed her a death and she wanted it 'We don't need him now, Satynovich.'

His dark head half-turned towards her.

'Be quiet,' he said, and it sounded worse than if he'd screamed it out. I saw her face freeze.

He looked at me.

'What is the object?' he asked me.

'I want the girl out of here.'