She groaned and sat down suddenly. ‘Do I want to? Of course I don’t! But I suppose I must talk to them because that man was an American. Send them in. They can have five minutes with me, that’s all.’
‘Yes, Prime Minister.’ Michael picked up a telephone.
When the girl came back into the cabin she was shaking. Her hands were shaking and she was crying and smoke was coming out of her gun. One of the passengers, an American, stood up and shouted at her.
‘You’re a murderer!’ he shouted. ‘You are a dirty, murdering b …’
She turned and pointed the gun at him and fired. The man sat down in his seat and the bullets went above the seats, all along the plane, and out through the roof. After ten seconds the girl stopped firing and shouted.
‘You shut up! You shut up and sit down or I’ll kill you all! I am a soldier of the People’s Liberation Army and I’ll kill you, all of you!’ But she was crying too, and the young man in the black shirt put his arm around her and held her. She leaned against him, crying, and he whispered something in her ear.
