‘I don’t want to light this place up yet,’ said Hanna slowly. ‘Perhaps if we find a room on the other side and screen the windows.’

We went back and I realised that the house was filling with men – tough young men in army uniforms carrying automatic weapons. Hanna had a word with the captain and a couple of his men began to screen the windows of a room, using blankets from a bed. Presently Jill was brought in and laid on the stripped bed and Dr Baines was at her side.

I went back and found John still at the window, looking towards the mainland. Leotta was standing beside him, staring into the blackness. I tapped John on the shoulder. ‘All right, John.’ I indicated the soldier behind me armed with a submachine-gun. ‘Let’s let the professionals take over.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said gravely, and hesitated. ‘I was pretty nasty to you once, sir. I’m sorry.’

‘Water under the bridge,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and have a drink. Oh, but you don’t, do you?’

‘I drink,’ he said. ‘I’m just careful who I drink with.’

V

‘Here’s my problem,’ said Hanna. ‘It doesn’t matter a damn if I have the whole Campanillan police force and a division of infantry as long as those bastards up there hold a hundred hostages. As it is, I don’t have too many men here. More are coming but it takes time, which is something we haven’t got.’

Leotta said, ‘Does anyone know how much the stuff weighs – the money, I mean, the twelve million dollars?’

Hanna shrugged. ‘Can’t be much less than two tons. Maybe more.’

‘It’s an hour since they landed,’ she said. ‘How long do you think it would take them to move the stuff from the Boeing to the Lear?’

‘Depends on how many of them there are.’

‘At least seven,’ I said. ‘That’s by my count. Probably four who hijacked the Boeing and three here. Four, if the chap in the exchange has got loose. But Bette Haslam was talking about using the passengers as slave labour as well.’

‘Let’s go into what she said in a little more detail,’ said Hanna. ‘What’s all this about crashing the Boeing into San Martin harbour?’

‘That was going to be down to Philips,’ I said. ‘According to Bette, he’s an expert parachutist. My guess is he’d set the auto-pilot on a long glide and jump over the sea. She said there’d be a boat to pick him up.’

‘We can do something about that,’ said Hanna. He turned to the army captain. ‘See if you can get the San Martin harbour police on that radio of yours.’

The captain vanished and Hanna said, ‘Did Mrs Haslam say anything about the passengers on this last flight of the Boeing?’