This morning the sun flaming with heat made him dizzy. Though he stood in the shaded door of the air-conditioned aircraft, a terrible surf of scalding air sent his body reeling backward. He felt nausea and wondered if it was because of what he had to do. Now he would commit the final irrevocable act, the one last move in his chess game of terror that he had not revealed to Romeo or the Sultan of Sherhaben, nor to the supporting cadres of the Red Brigades. A final sacrilege.

Far away by the air terminal he saw the perimeter guarded by the Sultan's troops who kept the thousands of newspaper, magazine and TV reporters at bay. He had the attention of the entire world; he held the daughter of the President of the United States. He had a bigger audience than any ruler, any Pope, any prophet. Yabril turned away from the open door to face the plane's interior.

Four men of his new cadre were eating breakfast in the first-class cabin.

Twenty– four hours had passed since he gave the ultimatum. Time was up. He made them hurry, then sent them on their errands. One went with Yabril's handwritten order to the chief of security on the perimeter, ordering that TV crews be allowed close to the plane.

Another of the cadre was given the stack of printed leaflets proclaiming that since Yabril's demands had not been met within the twenty-four-hour deadline, one of the hostages would be executed.

Two men of the cadre were ordered to bring the President's daughter back from the isolated front row of the tourist cabin into the first-class cabin and Yabril's presence.

When Theresa Kennedy came into the first-class cabin and saw Yabril waiting, her face relaxed into a relieved smile. Yabril wondered how she could look so lovely after spending these days on the plane. It was the skin, he thought-she had no oil in her skin to collect dirt. He smiled back at her and said in a kindly half-joking way, "You look beautiful but a little untidy. Freshen yourself, put on some makeup, comb your hair.

The TV cameras are waiting for us. The whole world will be watching and I don't want them to think I've been treating you badly."

He let her into the aircraft toilet and waited. She took almost twenty minutes. He could hear flushing and he imagined her sitting there like a little girl and he felt a needlelike pain lance his heart and he prayed, Azazel, Azazel be with me now. And then he heard the great thunderous roar of the crowd standing in the blazing desert sun; they had read the leaflets. lie heard the TV mobile units coming closer.

Theresa appeared. Yabril saw a look of sadness in her face. Also stubbornness. She had decided she would not speak, would not let him force her to make his videotape. She was well scrubbed, pretty, with faith in her strength. But she had lost some of her heart's innocence.

Now she smiled at Yabril and said, "I won't speak."

Yabril took her by the hand. "I just want them to see you," he said. He led her to the open door of the aircraft; they stood on the ledge. The red air of the desert sun fired their bodies. Six mobile TV tractors seemed to guard the plane like prehistoric monsters, almost blocking the huge crowd beyond the perimeter. "Just smile at them," Yabril said, "I want your father to see you are safe."

At that moment he smoothed the back of her head, feeling the silky hair, pulling it to leave the nape of her neck clear, the ivory skin so frighteningly pale, the only blemish a small black mole on her shoulder.

She flinched at his touch and turned to see what he was doing. His grip tightened and he forced her head to turn front so that the TV cameras could see the beauty of her face. The desert sun framed her in gold, his body was her shadow.

One hand raised and pressed against the roof door to give him balance, he pressed the front of his body into her back so that they teetered on the very edge, a tender touching. He drew the pistol with his right hand and held it to the exposed skin of her neck. And then before she could understand the touch of metal, he pulled the trigger and let her body fall from his.

She seemed to float upward into the air, into the sun, into the halo of her own blood. Then her body tumbled so that her legs pointed to the sky and then turned again before she hit the cement runway, lying there, smashed beyond any mortality, with her ruined head cratered by the burning sun. At first the only sound was the whirring of TV cameras and mobile trucks, the grinding of sand, then rolling over the desert came the wail of thousands of people, an endless scream of terror.

The primal sound without the expected jubilance surprised Yabril. He stepped back from the door to the interior of the aircraft. He saw his cadre looking at him with horror, with loathing, with almost animal terror. He said to them, "Allah be praised," but they did not answer him. He waited for a long moment, then told them curtly, "Now the world will know how serious we are. Now they will give us what we ask." But his mind noted that the roar of the crowd had not had the ecstasy he had expected. The reaction of his own men seemed ominous.

The execution of the daughter of the President of the United States, that extinction of some exempt symbol of authority, violated a taboo he had not taken into account. But so be it.

He thought for one moment of Theresa Kennedy, her sweet face, the violet smell of her white neck, he thought of her body caught in the red halo of dust. And he thought, Let her be with Azazel, flung from the golden frame of heaven down into the desert sands forever and ever. His mind held one last picture of her body, her loose-fitting white slacks bunched around her calves, showing her sandaled feet. Fire from the sun rolled through the aircraft and he was drenched in sweat. And he thought, I am Azazel.

Washington

BEFORE DAWN ON Wednesday morning, deep in a nightmare filled with the anguished roar of a huge crowd, President Kennedy found himself being shaken by Jefferson. And oddly, though he was now awake, he could still hear the massive roll of thunderous voices that penetrated the walls of the White House.

There was something different about Jefferson-he did not look like a maker of hot chocolate, a brusher of clothes, the deferential servant. He looked more like a man who had tensed his body and face to receive a dreadful blow. He was saying over and over, "Mr. President, wake up, wake up."

But Kennedy was awake and he said, "What the hell is that noise?"

The whole bedroom was awash with light from the chandelier, and a group of men stood behind Jefferson. He recognized the naval officer who was the White House physician, the warrant officer entrusted with the nuclear "football," and there were Eugene Dazzy, Arthur Wix and Christian Klee. He felt Jefferson almost lifting him out of the bed to stand him on his feet, then in a quick motion slipping him into a bathrobe. For some reason his knees sagged and Jefferson held him up.

All the men seemed stricken, the features of their faces ghostly white, eyes rigidly wide open. Kennedy stood facing them with astonishment and then with an overwhelming dread. For a moment he lost all sense of vision, all sense of hearing, as the dread poisoned his very being. The naval officer opened his black bag and took out a needle already prepared and Kennedy said, "No." He looked at the other men one by one, but they did not speak. He said tentatively, "It's OK, Chris, I knew he would do it. He killed Theresa, didn't he?" And then waited for Christian to say no, that it was something else, that it was some natural catastrophe, the blowing up of a nuclear installation, the death of a great head of state, the sinking of a battleship in the Persian Gulf, a devastating earthquake, flood, fire, pestilence. Anything else. But Christian, his face so pale, said, "Yes."

And it seemed to Kennedy that some long illness, some lurking fever, crested over. He felt his body bow and then was aware that Christian was beside him, as if to shield him from the rest of the people in the room because his face was streaming with tears and he was gasping for breath.