by Mark Burnell
* * *
As I sit here in the nose of this aircraft, it feels as though all my life has been poured into some vast funnel which has narrowed everything down to this point of a moment. I cannot wait any longer. Flight BA117 is the first of the targeted twelve due to take off. I have less than sixty minutes. And since I have to assume that the passengers will start boarding the aircraft some time before departure, it means I have less than that. Effectively, I have no time at all. I have to act now.
I have tried to think of some way to get a message out. A mobile phone, perhaps. Except that Reza Mohammed had one of the terrorists clear all First Class and Club World hand-luggage to the rear of the economy cabin. I have even considered writing a message on a piece of paper and sticking it to the window in the hope that some powerful lens or scope might seize upon it and be able to identify what I have written. But that is such a long-shot that I cannot afford to take the chance. There is no time left and I need to be sure.
I know that I can’t get off the aircraft, which leaves the flight deck as the only viable means of communicating with the outside world. But the flight deck is under constant armed guard. It’s possible that I can overcome the terrorist on duty without drawing attention from downstairs but, even if I do, I know that the victory will only be temporary. Sooner or later, what I have done will be discovered and that will be the end of it. But there are no alternatives, so there is no choice to make.
I pick up the piece of paper on which I have written down the details of the targeted flights. From my bag, I take out the asthma inhaler, replacing the Salbutamol canister with the CS gas canister. I am ready.
Back in London, Alexander once expressed his opinion on Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and it has stuck with me ever since. He said, ‘These people do not speak for Muslims around the world. What they are doing is overlooking the Islamic experience of fourteen centuries. They are reducing all of that knowledge to one embryonic form of Islam that may or may not have existed in Medina when the Prophet Mohammed ruled. And do you know why they are doing this?’
At the time, I doubt I even cared. I think I shrugged in ignorance. ‘Why?’
‘Because they are terrified of the modern world. They cannot adapt to it and it scares them senseless. So instead, they seek sanctuary in a past that never actually existed in the way that they interpret it today. They have a fear of life—of modern life—and this fear of life makes them worship death. And this is the reason they yearn to crawl back into the womb of history. They want to feel safe and protected. They want to feel warm in a cold world.’
30
I step on to the upper deck. There is no turning back now. I move down the central aisle. Ahead, the door to the flight deck is ajar. My eyes scan everything and miss nothing. A shape pushes through the gloom by the two forward toilets. I recognize the squat, muscular build. It is Fatima. Her hair is cropped short in a masculine style. She holds a Beretta 9mm in her left hand. I am two rows of seats away from her, then one. I don’t know whether she speaks English or not so I say nothing. Instead, I hand her the piece of paper in my left hand and smile.
She has no reason to expect any danger from me and the hours of tension have taken their toll. Her reflexes are jaded. As she bows her head and peers at the numbers and letters on the paper, she does not notice my right hand coming up. I fire the inhaler into her face. A blast of CS gas hits her in the eyes but she cannot cry out because I have already winded her.
One strike to the stomach, then two, from shoulder to fist, my flesh tenses to steel. Each blow helps to release the anxiety within me. Temporarily blinded and gasping for air, she instinctively wants to crumple into a curl but I don’t let her. I keep her straight and then head-butt her. Her nose pops. As she slumps, I catch her beneath the armpits; I don’t want her landing with a thump. I let her down gently and prise the Beretta from her fingers. She groans softly.
I pistol-whip her twice and she is unconscious.
* * *
Petra picked up the piece of paper and checked the Beretta. There were ten rounds left, nine in the clip and one ready to go. She entered the flight deck. The captain and two co-pilots could not have looked more confused but their expressions contained hope. They would have listened to an explanation if it had been offered but there wasn’t time. Petra knew that all airline pilots were under instruction to comply with the demands of hijackers.
She pointed the Beretta at the captain. ‘I need to get a message out of here right now.’
As English as theirs, her accent shocked them all.
‘Do you want to speak to the control tower?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She handed him the piece of paper. ‘These twelve flights are all due to leave Europe for the United States. There will be a suicide-bomber on each one. None of these aircraft can leave the ground. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘What can you do?’
The captain exchanged glances with his crew and then said to Petra, ‘We could use ACARS.’
‘What is that?’
He pointed to a small screen and key-pad on the instrument board dividing his seat and the co-pilot’s. ‘It’s like a radio. It works on VHF. I type a message into it and send it. The moment it leaves here, it arrives there.’
‘Where?’
‘Wherever you send it to.’
‘And where would you send this message to for the quickest action?’
‘Heathrow.’ Petra looked sceptical so the captain added: ‘They already know we’re hijacked so the message will automatically be transferred to the crisis centre.’
‘Which crisis centre?’
‘The one at the airport. It’s situated beneath the Queen’s Building.’
‘Then do it now. Be quick but tell me before you send it.’
The captain began to type. Petra sat in the jump-seat behind him with the second co-pilot in the jump-seat to her right. She peered through the windows, looking for signs of a security presence, but saw nothing. Then she glanced over her shoulder to check the aisle.
‘Okay. It’s ready to go.’
She looked at the message on the screen. EMERGENCY. STOP TAKE-OFF OF FOLLOWING. The captain had then listed the flights in chronological order of departure. BOMBS ON ALL, CARRIED BY PAX.
She said, ‘Now add this: call sign: Market-East-one-one-six-four-R-P.’
Once it was done, the captain hit the ‘summary’ button and pressed ‘send’. A moment later, MSGXMIT appeared on the screen.
‘It’s gone,’ he told her. ‘What now?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
‘Who are you?’
‘Believe me, you don’t want to know.’
Petra hauled Fatima’s unconscious body off the floor and pushed her into one of the two toilets at the front of the upper deck. The second co-pilot showed her how to lock the door from the outside.
Back in the jump-seat, Petra was unable to prevent herself from looking at the second hand on her watch. Each flick seemed to take longer than the last. There was an edgy silence on the flight deck until the captain said, ‘Looks like we’ve got a reply.’
He was examining the central main screen at the front. By the engine indicators, it read: ACARS MSG. The in-built printer began to spew paper. The captain activated the ACARS screen for Petra to look at.
TO: MARKET-EAST-ONE-ONE-SIX-FOUR-R-P.
MSG RECEIVED, UNDERSTOOD. 12 GROUNDED.
YOU: SECURITY FORCES READY.
ON YOUR COMMAND.
I.B./RHYTHM SECTION.
* * *
I am amazed at how quickly the reply has come and it forces me to conclude that Alexander is at the nerve centre. That makes sense if Cyril Bradfield followed the instructions that I gave him. His anonymous call would have alerted Magenta House to the unsavoury truth: if the hijack has happened, Petra Reuter is on board. That would have given Alexander his reason to be at the heart of the security services response. I imagine that he is beneath
the Queen’s Building at this very moment.
I look at the screen again. I.B./RHYTHM SECTION. I quickly understand the easy part: I.B. is Iain Boyd. For RHYTHM SECTION, I find I am back in Scotland. I am on a hill as the mist descends. My running companion and I are forced to sit it out. The wind is blowing rain at us so we drop below the ridge and take cover behind a collection of jagged stones at the edge of a peat hag. He won’t tell me his name so I tell him to make one up. Geordie, he says. It matches his accent. He has buzz-cropped blond hair and a face that is creased by a permanent scowl, even when he smiles. As we wait for the mist to lift, I ask him how it’s possible to kill in cold blood. At first, he is reluctant to answer but eventually he tells me that the secret is in self-control. If you panic, you lose. Breathing is the key. If your breathing is under control, it’s impossible to fall to panic. The lungs and the heart, the bass and the drums, the rhythm section.
‘Keep the rhythm section tight and the rest of the song plays itself.’
That was what he said to me. I remember now. Geordie was a soldier. The type of soldier who comes out of nowhere and returns to nowhere. The type of soldier who is not permitted to have a name.
I hear a male voice behind me on the upper deck. ‘Fatima?’
* * *
Petra kept her back to the door and murmured to the captain, ‘Send another message immediately. Tell them to proceed. The passengers are in the rear economy cabin. Sign it Rhythm Section and replace I.B. with P.R.’
The voice was more insistent second time around. ‘Fatima?’
‘Do it now!’ she hissed at the captain.
Petra turned round and walked out of the flight deck. Reza Mohammed was standing at the far end of the upper deck. He was wearing his jacket. He stepped forward. To watch him emerge from shadow was to watch him emerge from Stephanie’s past into Petra’s present. In his right hand, there was a gun. The part of her mind that still belonged to Magenta House made the analysis: a Smith & Wesson 645, employing powerful .45ACP bullets in an eight-round single-column box magazine, with a double-action trigger system. The other part of her mind was suspended in confusion.
Reza Mohammed frowned at her. ‘Where is Fatima?’
‘Downstairs.’
For a second, he almost bought it. Then he began to shake his head. ‘No. She was up here.’
‘She went down.’
His eyes began to deaden. Petra recognized the signs.
‘Where is she?’ he demanded.
‘I’ve told you…’
He raised the Smith & Wesson. Petra raised her Beretta.
‘Put the gun down,’ he said.
‘You first.’
‘Put down your gun,’ he told her, ‘or I will destroy the aircraft and kill everyone on it.’
Now she understood. In his left hand, he held a Sony Walkman. His thumb was over the ‘reverse’ and ‘fast-forward’ buttons.
‘If I press my thumb down, I will detonate a bomb in the cargo hold close to the fuel tanks.’
Was it her Sony Walkman? Certainly, it looked like the same model from this distance. He could have taken it from her bag in the First Class cabin. In which case, it was useless. But it was not inconceivable that Reza Mohammed would be equipped with a trigger of his own. And if he was, would it be housed in the same brand and model of machine that Serra had given her? More than likely, Petra thought, when she considered the bulk purchases she had seen in the storeroom at the Anglo-Egyptian Cargo Company. Mohammed had even mentioned personal stereos passing as hosts for triggers when they had talked earlier.
‘I won’t put down my gun,’ she said. ‘And if your trigger finger flinches, I’ll take my chances and shoot you dead.’
Reza Mohammed said, ‘That is the difference between us. I am not afraid to die.’
‘Then you underestimate me.’
They looked at one another. Again, Petra expected to see fanatical hatred on his face. But she didn’t. Their eyes and guns locked together, there seemed to be no way out.
Eventually, he said, ‘Are you married?’
‘What?’
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘I was. Once. But she was killed.’ Petra felt a kick in her chest. ‘Five years ago, in Jerusalem.’ He paused to swallow and seemed to have difficulty doing it. ‘A group of Palestinian youths were throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers. In return, the soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons. They killed a teenager and a boy aged nine. They injured another five. And they killed my wife. She was crouched in a doorway, trying to hide.’
Petra’s attention remained focused on the line that led from her eye past the tip of the Beretta to the centre of Reza Mohammed’s chest.
He said, ‘The baby inside her—it would have been our first child—was killed instantly but she clung to life for three days. I was at her bedside until she died.’
‘You’re not the only one who’s suffered.’
‘Three times, the Israelis have murdered my family.’
Petra tried not to let herself be distracted. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I was sixteen in June 1982 when Israel invaded South Lebanon. Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on Tyre, which was where we lived. They said that the Israeli army would blow up any home that was suspected of sheltering PLO terrorists. They ordered all citizens to hang white flags on their windows and balconies but that didn’t stop their tanks from firing into the buildings anyway. My family escaped shortly before the city was cut off. With hundreds of others, they fled north to Sidon, where they hoped to be safe. But they weren’t. Sidon was subjected to intense bombardment from aircraft and artillery. And when the troops arrived in the city, they showed no restraint at all. Buildings were destroyed, civilians were killed. My grandparents and my father were executed in the street. My mother was forced to watch my sister being raped by Israeli soldiers before being raped by them herself. Then she was shot. My sister escaped but it was nearly two years before I saw her again and another three before she was able to bring herself to tell me what had happened.’
Petra found that she had lifted her head. Reza Mohammed had lowered the hand holding the Sony Walkman. He noticed that she had noticed, but he made no attempt to reverse the movement.
‘I was in Egypt when the invasion happened. Later, I was sent to live in Paris with one of my uncles. He was a wise man. He understood that our future could only be secured through compassion and tolerance. He realized that we would have to give in order to get. In Paris, he earned a good reputation for helping destitute Palestinian refugees find accommodation and work. He established a small foundation which paid for their clothes, for their food. It helped their children get into schools. He was a man who used his wealth to assist others. He taught me not to hate the Israelis for what they did to us, but to try to understand why they did it to us. He preached and practised forgiveness. And in 1991, they killed him.’
‘The Israelis?’ she asked. Reza Mohammed nodded. Petra frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Mossad were acting on intelligence passed to them by the CIA. They believed my uncle was using the foundation as a cover to assist terrorists to move throughout Europe. But they were wrong. Not for the first time, the CIA’s information was corrupted.’
Something passed between them. Unspoken yet undeniable, the dynamic changed. Petra watched Reza Mohammed lower the Smith & Wesson to his side.
‘First my parents and my grandparents, then my uncle. Finally, my wife. I wish I could forgive them but they have done too much to me to permit that.’
Petra was still pointing the Beretta at him. ‘You think this is going to make it stop?’
‘Israel behaves in the way that it does because it is bank-rolled by the United States. It doesn’t feel it has to make an effort because it can always rely upon America to support it.’
‘So you punish America to put pressure on Israel?’
Reza Mohammed nodded. ‘The Americans have no business interfering in our pa
rt of the world. They have to learn that they must stop. They do not understand us so they should leave us alone. I don’t hate Israelis. I don’t hate Americans. I just hate the people who keep destroying me.’
‘And what about the innocent? Is it okay for you to destroy them to make your point?’
Reza Mohammed opened his mouth but no sound emerged; the automatic answer stalled in his throat. Petra was familiar with ‘acceptable sacrifices’ and ‘the ends justifying the means’ because Magenta House traded in such phrases all the time but the two of them had moved beyond resorting to such cheap dishonesty. So Reza Mohammed allowed his silence to speak for him. There is no defending the indefensible. Petra recognized a man whose beliefs and grievances were as legitimate and sincere as ever but who, deep within his heart, knew the bitterness of the truth.
She said, ‘Because I don’t understand how that would solve anything.’
‘I’m not trying to solve anything. I’m just trying to get them to stop.’ He looked pensive for a moment, and then confused. ‘Who are you?’
‘Who are you?’ she countered.
His expression changed again. Instead of looking at her, he was now looking at something beyond the confines of the aircraft. Another time, perhaps, another world.
‘My name is Mustafa Sela. I am a Palestinian. My country has been stolen from me, my family has been torn apart. My people are regarded as dogs by the West.’ The focus returned to his gaze. ‘You wanted to know what brought me to this point. Well it isn’t religion and it isn’t politics. Think about the things I have told you and then tell me that if you were in my position, you wouldn’t be the same as me.’
I’m already the same as you; fate has cost us our families.
Petra said nothing and he nodded slowly. ‘You can’t, can you? It’s rage that has brought me here. I tried to control it but what chance did I have? None. That is what it is to be Palestinian.’
