The negotiator gave up just before noon, and returned to the shade of the command centre behind the potted strelitzia in the main terminal. It was simply no good.
‘He won’t respect the talking stick,” he said, his face in his hands. ‘I’ve told him it’s a sharing experience, and that his comments are only embraced by his holding the talking stick as a physical representation of his identity, but he just won’t authenticate my view. He keeps throwing the stick out of the cockpit window and talking anyway.” He looked up ruefully at the hulking camouflaged figures on their flame-retarding futons. ‘It disappoints me to say this, but if he simply won’t own his life orientation, I think I’d have to agree to aggressive countermeasures. It’s all yours, colonel.”
The soldier set his jaw and nodded grimly. ‘Gentlemen, what we have out there on the runway is a very conflicted youth with low self-esteem. He’s sick, make no mistake. Lieutenant, how sick is he?”
‘Very, sir. We’ve just heard from the forward observation team in the catering van that he’s threatening to invoke gender stereotypes.” The others drew in their breath sharply. ‘It’s extremely ugly, sir, in a non-aesthetically judgemental way.”
The colonel reached for his radio. ‘This is Homestead One,” he barked. ‘Give me a sit rep, over.”
‘Roger, Homestead One,” came the crackling reply. ‘This is Khalil Gibran Four. Current status is that I’m okay, and you’re okay. Over.”
‘Roger that,” said the colonel. ‘Stay on visual, and if you have a no-feeling, fire a flare. Out.” He cracked his knuckles, and gazed intently at the Lego diorama of the airport on the strategy table before them. ‘Lieutenant, walk us through it one more time.”
The junior officer produced the transcript of the radio transmissions from the cockpit. ‘There’s some shouting, and then our guy says, ‘Take this plane to Nieu Bethesda or I’ll start questioning the efficacy of the parenting skills of this single mother!’ The captain says, ‘I can’t validate your emotions,’ and our guy says, ‘You better start or I’ll undermine the self-esteem of everyone on board.’ The pilot asks why Nieu Bethesda, and our guy says … uh …” The lieutenant turned the page, and squinted to find his place. ‘He says, ‘Don’t interrogate me: this isn’t an outcome-based flight. I’ve got a life-coaching seminar to workshop at the Owl House, and I don’t intend to be late. Just fly this thing, and nobody is going to have their inner child disillusioned.’ Shall I go on, sir?”
‘Thank you, lieutenant, that will do for now.” The colonel dragged a hand over his grizzled cheeks. ‘Fortune and rotten navigation has delivered him into our hands, and, without wanting to attribute this occurrence to a specific deity, thereby privileging one set of beliefs over another and denying the bliss of many vibrant cultures, I believe that semi-divine favour is shining upon us. Lieutenant, initiate Operation Yoko.”
The young executive saluted and began moving reassuringly among his squad, here handing out bandoliers loaded with finger-puppets and tubes of face-paint, there helping a trooper strap on a mobile field-flipchart. In minutes they were assembled before the colonel, and he beamed proudly.
‘Men,” said the old man, ‘and women, if there were any, and there aren’t only because of a demographic quirk, not because of the sinister machinations of gender repression, although this is not to deny that such machinations regularly take place, although to mention it gratuitously in such a context might seem patronising if not hypocritical …” He drew a breath. ‘Good luck, work as a team, and if you find yourself isolated, remember the prime directive of counter-terrorism operations: what would Paulo Coelho do?” Thirty nervous soldiers fingered their hardcover copy of The Alchemist, used both as body armour and general anaesthetic in the field. ‘Over to you, lieutenant.”
‘Right,” snapped the officer, ‘it’s going to be a standard non-confrontational supplicant assault. We go in here and here …” — he pointed to his combat Etch-A-Sketch — ‘and hit him with flow diagram depicting the ubiquitous hegemony of the ubiquitous hegemony. Stunned, he retreats to here, where he suddenly recognises that his mother was both enabler and castrator in his early childhood. Those few seconds, as he fights a paradigm shift, give us time to empower the passengers. Remember, do not insist that they bend forward into a brace position, as this is resonant of racialist overtones of subjugation, and as well as derogatory homosexual clichés. Be firm but kind, as would a Jungian horse-whisperer …”
Someone had dropped their Coelho as they broke cover and stalked out across the concrete apron. A little breeze whispered past, littering the road to Terminal One with good intentions.