Peace on Earth. Gordon Stevens

Haddad, was acting as he should do. Except that it was already too late. He sank back into his seat and looked again at the newspaper he had bought in the hotel foyer that morning, the picture covering the entire front page, the image of the man stemming the boy’s life as it flowed away from him. After fifteen minutes the black Granada returned and parked in front of the unmarked transit. The chauffeur got out and went again into the terminal building. Haddad laid the newspaper on the front passenger’s seat of the hire car, pulled the transmitter from beneath the seat, placed it on the newspaper, and folded the paper over it. The picture of the man in Belfast, he could not help notice, was staring at him.

      He had waited another ten minutes when the chauffeur reappeared, carrying a suitcase; with him was a middle-aged man, slightly balding, whom Walid Haddad recognised from photographs as the PLO representative in London. The driver put the case in the boot and opened the door for the delegate, thanked the policeman, put up his hand to the unmarked transit then pulled away.

      No second man, thought Haddad, no bodyguard. Only the driver. Not that it would have done any of them any good.

      He moved after the Granada, not wanting to be either too close or too far back, remembering the points before the motorway at which he could become separated from his target. The traffic lights at the roundabout before the tunnel were green, the driver of the car in front of him was lost, the man’s wife telling him what to do. The Granada was almost at the lights. Still green. He was getting too far back, tried to pull round the car in front, was cut off by an airport coach crowded with schoolchildren. The lights turned to red. He looked for the Granada, saw that it had also stopped, and breathed a sigh of relief.

      The lights changed, he followed the cars down the slope and into the tunnel. The Granada was in the left-hand lane, not travelling as quickly as he had imagined it would; the airport coach was in the right-hand lane, pulling away. He drove out of the tunnel, turned right at the roundabout, and headed towards the M4. Nine miles, he began to think, nine miles in which he had to kill the PLO man and his chauffeur. It did not occur to him that they were Palestinians like himself. He passed the Trust House Forte Hotel on the left, drove round the roundabout beneath the motorway and turned back onto the M4 towards London. At the precise moment he did so he leaned forward and pressed the mileage counter. One mile, first bridge. The Granada picking up speed, the driver talking to his passenger. Not much traffic, even less traffic than before. The Granada pulled into the central lane and began accelerating. Two miles, A312 exit and second bridge. Never much time, almost a quarter the distance already gone.

      In front he could see the airport bus, the one filled with children. Three miles, service station. The PLO driver was sticking to the speed limit, he suddenly thought, knowing he could not do it from behind, could not be caught in the traffic jam that would pile up behind the blast, knowing also that if he was too far in front he would not be able to check that the road round the Granada was clear. The airport bus moved into the inside lane, the Granada overtaking it. ‘Yallah,’ he urged the driver. ‘For the love of Allah, move it.’ Four miles, fourth bridge, the Granada pulling away from the coach. Ideally he would need half a mile between the coach and the car. Could do it with less, of course, could overtake and do it now. Run the risk of killing the kids. Kids had died before, would die again. Except his orders were specific – only the PLO man and his driver should die, no one else. Especially not a busload of kids, Nabil would have said.

      Four miles gone, another five to do it.

      Plenty of time, he told himself, not believing it, beginning to accelerate, preparing to overtake the Granada. The coach six hundred yards behind.

      The sirens blasted in his ear. Instinctively he slowed down, saw the white police BMW level with him, lights flashing. He had been set up, he thought. The device was only six inches from his left hand. Do it anyway, he thought, get the PLO man. The Granada driver had heard, was slowing down. Fool, Haddad thought, he should be reacting, pulling his man out of trouble. Do it anyway, he thought again. Saw the coach. Alongside him. The children looking at him, waving at him. The Granada only twenty yards in front.

      Five miles, fifth bridge, only four miles to go. He told himself to calm down, looked across at the police car, ignoring him, ignoring the Granada, already pulling away. Six miles, three-lane motorway into two lanes. Almost too bloody late. The Granada beginning to accelerate again. Not quickly enough, the coach still too close. The cameras, one facing west, the other east. Never much time, he thought, almost no time at all.

      The blind spot, the two hundred yards between the cameras. He pulled the wheel violently to the left, and jerked the hire car across the inside lane, braking hard. Behind him the coach driver slammed on his brakes, the children tumbling forward. In his rear view mirror Haddad saw the coach suddenly fill the entire frame. The Granada was pulling away, three hundred yards, almost four hundred. Bloody drivers, the coach driver was shouting at him, waving his fist. The Granada five hundred yards away, nearly six hundred. The children picking themselves up from the floor. Madman, the driver was gesticulating at him, bloody loony. He changed into third, accelerating away from the coach. Seven miles, onto the flyover, the office blocks on either side. The Granada was three hundred yards ahead, two hundred. The road in front and behind clear. Almost out of distance, he thought, almost out of everything. Eight miles, off the flyover and past the Granada. A hundred yards, two hundred yards clear, closing on another group of cars. In his rear view mirror he could see the Granada clearly.

      He reached across to the passenger’s seat and unfolded the newspaper.

      * * *

      Pan Am flight number PA1 arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport on time, taxied across the runway, and began disgorging its three hundred and fifty-two passengers into the terminal building. Three hundred and fifty-one of them were innocent citizens, the three hundred and fifty-second was Abu Nabil. By six thirty he had cleared immigration and customs, using the passport he had used in Paris and London, and taken a cab to the Plaza Hotel. He checked into his room, switched on the early evening news programme and made a single telephone call confirming his meeting for the following morning.

      The third item oh the news bulletin was the assassination in London of the PLO spokesman Hassan Nabulsi. The report showed video pictures of the remains of the man’s Ford Granada motor car, on the M4 motorway near Heathrow Airport. He had just returned from a meeting with Yasser Arafat, the report continued, adding that unofficial sources had confirmed that the type of bomb used was believed to be identical to that used by the IRA in Northern Ireland. The reporter, standing at the side of the motorway, the wreckage of the car behind him, speculated that the assassination was the latest episode in the struggle for supremacy within the various factions of the Palestinian movement. More sinister, he suggested, his collar turned up against the biting wind and the first cutting flakes of sleet, was the possibility of a link-up between the IRA and one of the extremist Palestinian groups.

      If Haddad was to end it, Nabil had thought to himself in Damascus, then Haddad may as well start it. He flicked between the channels, catching the same report on CBS and NBC. Haddad had now started it.

      He showered, took a light supper of cold meats and salad, and went to bed.

      He woke at four, a combination of the time difference between Damascus, London and New York, and the air conditioning, which he found oppressive, slept fitfully for another two hours and rose at six. He left the hotel and spent the next ninety minutes walking the streets. The weather was brisk and cold. On the corner of Times Square he bought copies of the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal.

      He was getting hungry. In a delicatessen six blocks from the hotel he took lox and bagels, sitting in the seat farthest from the window. The service was friendly, he wondered for the briefest of moments what the shabab, the boys, would have thought, how the owners would have reacted, if they had known that he, Abu Nabil, planner of death, executioner of violence, survivor of at least three Israeli attempts on his life, was breakfasting in a Jewish deli in New York, served by a smiling Jewish waiter whom he called David and whom, as he left, he would tip and who would tell him to have a good day. His battle, however, had never been personal. Besides, the lox was good and the second cup of coffee was free. And the place was warm and crowded. He thought, not for the first time