Speedbird One Zero was rolling along the taxi way towards take-off point, her huge bulk steered solely by her nose-wheel, operated by the tiller under Fallon’s left hand. Captain Fallon was in permanent contact with Tower Control. As he reached the far end of the main runway he asked for and got immediate take-off permission. That meant he could continue from taxi track to take-off without a pause.
The Jumbo turned onto the runway, lined its nose up with the centre line and high above the tarmac the captain eased the thrust levers forward then curled his fingers to press the toga (Take Off/Go Around) switches. The power in all four engines rose automatically to pre-set figures.
The passengers could feel the rumble increase in speed as the jumbo gathered pace. Neither they nor the crew in the cloistered calm of the flight deck could hear the manic scream of the four jets outside the hull, but they could feel the power. Far to one side the lights of the main terminal flashed by. A touch on the controls brought the nose-wheel off the tarmac. The First Class passengers heard the first clunk beneath their feet, but this was simply the oleo leg extending as the weight came off. Ten seconds later the main undercarriage assemblies lifted off and she was airborne.
As she lifted clear of the ground, on Fallon’s command his co-pilot selected the switch to bring up the entire undercarriage; a series of further clunks, then all the noise and the vibrations stopped. He climbed at 1,300 feet per minute to 1,500 feet, then eased the climb. As the speed increased Fallon called for the wing flaps to be retracted in sequence, from twenty degrees to ten, to five, to one, to zero and she was ‘clean’.
John Higgins in 34 D finally loosed the rigid grip he had imposed on both his armrests. He was not a good flier and he hated take-off most of all, but he tried not to show his family. Glancing out into the aisle, he observed that the hippie was just four rows in front of them, in 30 C, across the aisle. The long passage stretched ahead of him to the bulkhead separating Economy from Club. Here there was a complete galley and four lavatories. He could see four or five stewardesses already up and about, preparing to serve the belated evening meal. It had been six hours since his last snack in the hotel, and he was hungry. He turned back to help Julie sort out her in-flight entertainment facility and find the cartoon channel.
Take-off at Bangkok is usually towards the north. Fallon eased the climbing airliner gently to port and looked down. It was a clear night. Behind them was the Gulf of Thailand on which Bangkok lay; ahead, across the width of the country, the Andaman Sea. Between lay Thailand, and the moon glinted off so many flooded rice paddies that the whole country seemed to be made of water. Speedbird One Zero climbed to 31,000 feet and levelled off, setting course for London, passing over Calcutta, Delhi, Kabul, Teheran, eastern Turkey, the Balkans and Germany on one of the several possible routes. He slipped Speedbird One Zero onto autopilot, stretched and right on cue one of the upper-deck stewardesses brought in the coffee.
In 30 C the hippie glanced at the small card offering the menu for the late-night dinner. His appetite was small; what he really lusted for was a cigarette. Thirteen hours of this, and another watching the carousel at Heathrow for his bigger rucksack, before he could slip outside and light up. And two after that before he could risk a decent joint.
‘The beef,’ he said to the smiling stewardess who stood beside him. The accent appeared American but his passport would say he was a Canadian called Donovan.
In an office in the west of London whose address is a fairly closely guarded secret, a phone rang. The man at the desk glanced at his watch. Five thirty and dark already.
‘Yes.’
‘Boss, BA Oh-One-Oh out of Bangkok is airborne.’
‘Thanks.’
He put the phone down. William ‘Bill’ Butler did not like to spend much time talking on phones. He did not talk much at all. He was known for it. He was also known as a good man to work for and a bad one to displease. What was not known by any of his subordinates was that he had once had a deeply loved daughter, the pride of his life, the girl who went to university on a scholarship and then died of a heroin overdose. Bill Butler did not like heroin. Even more he hated the men who trafficked in it. Which made him a bad enemy, and a formidable one, given the job he did. His department waged the endless war against hard drugs on behalf of HM Customs and Excise. It was known simply as ‘the Knock’, and Bill Butler made it his life’s work to knock harder than any of them.
Five hours passed. The hundreds of packaged, reheated meals had been served, gobbled down (or left) and the plastic trays removed. The quarter-bottles of cheap wine had been quaffed and removed, or jammed into the pocket ahead of the knees. Aft of the bulkhead the heaving mass of Economy-Class humanity had finally settled down.
In the electronics bay below the First Class cabin, the two flight-management computers chatted electronically to each other as they absorbed information from the three Inertial Reference Systems, collected data from beacons and satellites, worked out the aircraft’s position and directed the autopilot to make tiny movements of the controls to keep Speedbird One Zero on the preplanned track.
Far below lay the rugged land between Kabul and Kandahar. Away to the north in the mountains of the Panshir, the fanatical Taleban waged their war against Shah Masood, the last warlord to hold out against them. The passengers in the howling cocoon high above Afghanistan were shuttered against the blackness, the lethal cold, the engine noise, the cruel landscape and the war.
The window blinds were all down, the lights dimmed to a low glim, the thin blankets distributed. Most were trying to get some sleep. A few watched the in-flight movie; some were tuned in to the concert.
In seat 34 G Mrs Higgins was fast asleep, blanket up to chin, mouth half open, breathing gently. Seats E and F had been turned into one by the removal of the armrest, and Julie was spread out lengthways, blanket-warm, dolly clutched to chest, also asleep.
John Higgins could not sleep. He never could on aeroplanes. So, tired though he was, he thought back to their Far East holiday. It was a package, of course. An insurance clerk could not go as far as Thailand any other way, and even then it had involved scrimping and saving. But it had been worth it.
They had stayed at the Pansea Hotel on Phuket Island, far away from the tawdry goings-on at Pattaya – he h
ad been most careful to check with the agency that all that side of things would come nowhere near his family. And it had been magical, they all agreed on that. They had rented bicycles and pedalled through rubber plantations and Thai villages in the interior of the island. They had stopped to marvel at red-painted, golden-roofed Buddhist temples and seen the saffron-robed monks at their devotions.
From the hotel he had rented snorkel masks and fins for himself and Julie; Mrs Higgins did not swim, except gently in the pool. With these he and his daughter had swum out to a coral reef offshore, Julie with her water wings, he with a flotation belt. Beneath the water they had seen the scurrying fish: rock beauties and butterflies, four-eyes and sergeant-majors.
Julie had been so excited she raised her head to shout, in case her father had not seen them. But of course he had, so he gestured she should put her mouthpiece back in, before she took a gulp of water. Too late; he had to help her, spluttering and coughing, back to the beach.
There had been offers to give him a pupil’s scuba-diving course in the hotel pool, but he had declined. He had read there might be sharks in the water and Mrs Higgins had squealed with horror. They were a family who wanted a nice adventure but not too much.
In the hotel shop Julie had found a doll in the form of a little Thai girl and he had bought it as a treat. After ten days at the Pansea, right below the stupefyingly expensive Amanpuri, they had completed the vacation with three days in Bangkok. There they had taken guided tours to see the Jade Buddha and the enormous Sleeping Buddha, wrinkled their noses at the stench coming off the Chao Praya River and choked on the traffic fumes. But it had been well worth it, the holiday of a lifetime.
On the seat-back in front of him was a small screen with a display of constant updates on their flight progress. He watched it idly. The figures were endless: time from Bangkok, distance covered, distance to destination, flight time ditto, outside temperature (a terrifying 76 below zero), speed of headwind.
Between the figures another image flashed up: a map of this part of the world and a small white aeroplane slowly jerking its way north-west towards Europe and home. He wondered if, like counting sheep, the mesmeric effect of the little plane might help him sleep. Then the jumbo hit a small patch of clear-air turbulence and he was wide awake, gripping the seat-arms.
He noticed that the hippie four rows ahead and across the aisle was also awake. He saw the man check his watch and begin to ease himself out of his blanket. Then the man stood up.
He glanced round as if to see if anyone was watching, then moved up the aisle towards the bulkhead. There was a curtain here, but it was only half-drawn and a shaft of light spilled out of the galley area, illuminating a patch of carpet and the two lavatory doors. The hippie reached the doors, glanced at each, but made no attempt to test them. No doubt both were occupied, though Higgins had seen no-one else move. The hippie leaned against one of the doors and waited.
Thirty seconds later he was joined by another man. Higgins was intrigued. The other man was quite different. He had a casual elegance and the appearance of wealth. He came from somewhere up front, Club or even First. But why?