Kingfisher

CHAPTER TEN

Many hours now the group had been meeting. Beyond the closing of the cafes and pubs, beyond the closing anthem of the television stations, beyond the gradual whittling of the drumming traffic noise on the Bayswater streets. At any time of concern this was where they always gathered, not because the cramped flat was in any way suitable for their deliberations but because its tenant was the General Secretary of their movement – in charge of their proud pile of headed notepaper, and the petty cash.

At times as many as twenty had been present, but the size of the group varied, some hurrying away, others coming fretful that they had delayed too long. There were enough, though, to fill all the chairs in the room, and the stools that had been brought from the kitchenette, and the pillows pressed into service from the bedroom. They drank coffee, sharp and gritty, swilled down with tap water and sweetened by spoonfuls of sugar, and they nibbled at supermarket biscuits, and straggled to stay awake lest any should miss the hourly news bulletins that could be found on the World Service of the BBC, and the more atmospheric Voice of America.

The members of the group had many factors in common. All had been born inside the confines of the Soviet Union. All were tarnished with the same labels -'refugee', 'exile'. All were Jewish, contributors and active members of the London-based 'Committee for Freedom of Soviet Jewry'.

All were worried, all anxious, all frustrated that the strand of involvement was stretched so loose.

All were attempting to focus their minds and thoughts on a lone aircraft, far away and at an airport none had visited. And all were willing their intellect to transport them across the miles of cityscape and countryside close to the hull of the Ilyushin airliner.

The shared tiredness had long since dulled the clarity of their conversation, so that for long spells the silence hung, burdening, upon the little room. Some it caused to feel unequal to the moment, others the anger of helplessness, and a very few to doze, comforted in the knowledge that they would be awakened at the chime of signature music that would herald the next bulletin.

These were kicked and pummelled people. They had experienced the soaring upsurge of spirit that comes from the first breath of freedom at stepping outside their rejected homeland, and now had realized that life was crueller, more savage, and that their visions of liberation had led to the bed-sit land where they lived and the hotel kitchens where they thought themselves fortunate to find work. Little people, whose escape had been quiet and without fanfare and who now fidgeted with their necklaces and their Star-of-David chains, and who searched each other's faces that the next news programme might be hastened, and coughed hesitantly, pulling at their cigarettes and expelling the smoke into the saturated air.

Most Sundays they gathered in a tight knot on the grass of Hyde Park. They took regular turns at making and listening to the familiar speeches, and clapped and cheered, and wondered why the great herd was so uncaring and so indifferent that it passed them by without even pausing to hear the stark message of oppression and humiliation. Most Wednesdays they came to the General Secretary's flat and discussed and argued and made the arrangements for their next public meeting. Always the culmination of the gathering was when the General Secretary's wife drew a single sheet of headed notepaper from the folder, and with pride wrote the requisite and formal letter to Scotland Yard requesting the necessary permission.

All easy, all clean – an absence of blurring obstructions. And if they had not yet roused the dormant wastes of British public opinion then there was always tomorrow, and next year, and a lifetime. But falling on them now was a cold gust that was foreign, and carried in its wind both fear and confusion.

Yet the evening had started well – back-slapping and jokes and wide and excited faces. Those that came first brought the last editions of the afternoon papers with their glaring headlines, and they had stayed, transfixed, beside the television and radio. Their people were coming out, a flight out of Egypt! Escape on the grandest and most eloquent scale! Initially they had discussed a press statement, to be phoned to the agencies as an expression of solidarity with the young people who were brave and of their faith… Would not their next public meeting be crowded and packed, would not the masses at last awake to their cause and struggle? Later had come the flesh that covered the skeleton of the story. A girl flying a plane at gunpoint. Her captain who had carried no weapon dead beside her. A party of school children whose lives were at risk. Damning and deadening.

When the General Secretary had telephoned the Labour Member of Parliament who championed their people in the House of Commons his wife had answered the call. Yes, she would bring him to the phone, and there had been the scraped sound of a hand placed over the receiver and camouflaged and indistinct words. He was not at home, she had said. She was sorry.

Perhaps later. Was there a number she should take down? Another MP, not Jewish but a long-time sympathizer, was braver and less anxious to salve their sensibilities.

'It's aerial piracy and it's murder,' he'd said, with a gruff – ness that startled the General Secretary. 'You cannot dress it up any other way. They've killed a defenceless man, en-dangered a plane-load of people. I'm sorry, but that's the way I see it. I'm bloody sorry. Of course I'm sympathetic to you, and to the fight, but this is different. Take my advice: stay quiet, and don't get involved.'

They had followed the advice. The drafted statement to the press was now a torn shambles of paper in the rubbish basket.

Past four in the morning. Time for the lorries to start their trail into the city With the daily load of market fruit and vegetables, and for the street-cleaning trucks to be out on their business. None in the group able to leave now, held and magnetized by the radio reports. Fresh fiddling with the dials, away from World Service seeking again Voice of America. 'Behind the News' reports.

Read from the studio, taken from the despatches of the Associated Press Bureau in Moscow. A voice in a cracked, staccato rush so that all in the room had to strain to follow the words. The Bureau had been checking for reaction with those Soviet Jews who were at liberty in the Russian capital but whose opposition to the regime was known. A denial of all knowledge and connection with those who had taken the plane out of Kiev, a condemnation of violence from whatever source. In silence they heard the message, heard the door slammed at any suggestion, however guarded, of complicity. Next, a short voice-track from the network's correspondent in Jerusalem.

The Israeli government had no comment, on the record or off the record, to the hi-jacking of the Aeroflot flight. No government official was prepared to speak on the matter. The stance of the cabinet was well known on both terrorism and the plight of Soviet Jewry, the reporter had intoned, and it was the belief of observers in the capital that they were gravely embarrassed by what had happened. From Washington, also, no authorized comment, room only for journalistic speculation, and the expressed belief that the United States administration would not seek to influence the British on the course of action to follow. This incident was regarded as divorced from the President's often-repeated attitude on Human Rights inside

…

Savagely one of the listeners, galvanized now by his lack of sleep, switched off the set, plunging the room for a moment into an abyss of quiet. Then he shouted, 'The cowards, bloody cowards. Bloody stinking politicos., /

An avalanche of contradiction fell on him.

'And what are the people that took the plane, what are they?'

'For years we have suffered in dignity that we might win support, and now that we have succeeded _

'

'They have betrayed the brave ones, these children..

'In the Kremlin they will be drinking champagne, toasting each other.'

They can justify anything now. Pogroms, show trials, round-ups, arrests. Anything they wish to do, they are able to now. The children have given it all to them.'

A girl was crying, smearing a handkerchief across her eyes, her voice broken and frail. 'Why did they kill the man? Why did they shoot the pilot? There can have been no need to. If they had not killed the p i l o t… '

'Who are we to speak of what they have done, and what their motives?' said the General Secretary, slowly and with deliberation. 'Who are we? We did not even make the journey to Israel. We are not a part of that place. We are the Jews that remain outside the family, and we are shocked now because a life has been cut short in the name of Israel, perhaps in heat, perhaps in cold blood. We do not know anything of these people…'

Interruption from above. The battered protest of an umbrella handle pounding at the ceiling – the upstairs tenant's only recourse to quell the surge of noise and argument. s… whether they have been stupid or wise, brave or cowardly, they are of our people. They have stretched us, tested us. Perhaps already they have shamed us, and perhaps also they will destroy us. But they are of our people and they are alone, and they have the right to our prayers.'

Setting aside their weariness, those on the chairs and stools came down to kneel, those on the carpet and the cushions rose awkwardly that they could share the moment. As he shuffled his aged legs and felt the pain in the tightness of his joints, the General Secretary murmured, 'It would have been better for us if they had not come. But they are here, and they are few, and it should not be us that cast the rocks. There will be many others f o r that task.'

Each in his own form, and in silence, the members of the group prayed.

Body strength waning, muscles aching, head throbbing, limbs contorted in the limitations of her resting place, Rebecca sought sleep.

Elusive though, hard to touch. Too many images revolving, denying her the comfort of oblivion. The things that Isaac had spoken of. Tanks. Machine-guns. Soldiers. Cold, metallic, functional killing machines that had come for a purpose, that did not wait beyond the arc lights unless their value had been assessed and decided as necessary.

There because of you, Rebecca. There to watch you, pry over you, examine you, and there to eliminate you, Rebecca. Eliminate, if that should be the instruction passed to them.

Subjugated grey Shadow in the fuselage, and the fidgeting quiet of the passengers. The only movement, the sporadic prowling guard that Isaac maintained.

Love, Rebecca?

Was that the sensation and the addiction that had brought her this far with the boys, with David and Isaac? Love of one, or love of both? Was that where the answer lay?

And what was love? Not something physical, not body to body, not flesh to flesh, not with the muscles straining and the warmth soft and moist. Had not felt their hands perusing her, wanting her, searching the secret intimacy that she thought of as love.

If not love, then why are you here, Rebeoca? What is your purpose?

How can I know? Who now may I ask the question of, and find the answer?

An ordinary girl, Rebecca. Ordinary as cheese and mice, buses and queues, work-shifts and roubles… Ordinary, predictable. But there are not tanks and machine-guns and soldiers deployed through the slow night hours watching and waiting on an ordinary girl, to see what her thoughts and actions will be when the light comes and when she has rested herself.

So easy in the hut, when the battle was just of words. No doubts that the cause was right, certainly. Not in dispute, Rebecca. But if the cause is right then someone must stand and defend it

… but why you, Rebecca? Persecution, humiliation, spoliation, all those things have been visited on our people, and they have not stepped forward, have not armed themselves in their defence. So why you, Rebeoca? What was different, unique, that made you stand up and plan and conspire?

Not enough now, too late, to call to the soldiers that you were just a follower, that it was not of your willing, not your choice. Too many questions, Isaac had said, and Isaac was right. Always right.

And the talk of killing. All the preparations for the death of another. All the plotting, all the reconnaissance. All the hours in the hut used to prepare for the struggle that would be launched against the oppression that sat on their people. All that time, and no thought of this moment, of the trapped incarceration. Brave talk it had been, and Rebecca in the thick of it. Remember?

Remember the calling for the choice, haphazard and not by merit, that determined that Moses should go first?

Why, Rebecca?

God, how do I know?

Would David have loved you then, if you had drawn the short straw?

Perhaps.

If you had killed a man, would that have fired, stiffened, strengthened him?

Perhaps.

Did you have to kill a man to win David's love?

But he never came to me, never came to me as a woman. Only as a friend, a colleague… an adjunct, never as a woman.

His fault or your fault, Rebecca?

I don't know. God knows it's the truth, but I don't know.

Is it that he cannot, Rebecca? Is it that he is not man enough…?

Let me sleep, please, please.

Did we have to come to this place for your answer, Rebecca, and have we now found it?

I have to sleep. I must sleep.

Is that your answer, Rebecca?

If that is the truth better never to have known, better never to have come. Better to have stayed the ordinary girl. Brave, ignorant and happy.

It was cold in the control tower when Charlie woke and he shivered as he recalled where he was, and why. A policeman grinned down at him from the chair in front of the console that he had occupied, guarding the radio, while Charlie slept. Long time since Charlie had slept rough, not since the family camping holiday outside Aberystwyth when they'd packed it in after four days, conceding second best to the weather and he'd vowed never again, no more holidays for the mob without confirmed hotel bookings. Have to get ready for when they opened the radio circuit.

Should wash his socks through first though, not that anyone else would have, but a standing privilege of a desk job was that a man had the right to clean socks. Quit the rubbish, Charlie, get up and concentrate.

Charlie dressed quickly, just his trousers and shirt, and felt a moment of distaste at the darkened rim of his collar.

'Any chance of a cup of tea and a half-minute with a battery razor?'

The policeman was happy to vacate the chair, said he'd go and look, and that the Committee was dossing down below in the Airport Manager's office, all except the Home Secretary, of course: found him a billet in the Fire Chief's house, a bit away, but inside the perimeter.

'Tell them I'm on the seat, my compliments and remind them that the plane's due to come through any time now.'

Going to have to be careful with this one. This was the crucial conversation: that much had been decided last night. Should be left in no doubt they'd get no petrol, fly nowhere else.

Clitheroe had given it his sanction, all right once they'd rested to give them the pill. But didn't really matter how freshened they were, how much they could think things out, labour with the logic; always unpredictable when they flatten into a brick wall for the first time, realize they haven't a safety belt on… Shut up, Charlie, shut up and wait for the tea to come.

But the radio call came before the tea.

'Kingfisher here, Kingfisher here. The man we spoke to last night, is he there?'

Charlie waved behind him, the fantasies scattered, alert, in control. There was a shout that echoed away down the stairs, and then the drumming of feet taking the stairs two at a time.

'Charlie to Kingfisher'- humour the silly apes -'Charlie here. Please identify who is calling. Is that David?' Keep it simple to start with while you tune into the language.

What a time in the morning to be fluent in Russian! 'Have you slept well inside the plane? Did you get your heads down?'

' It is immaterial. We are waiting for the answer. We want the fuel. Do you have the authorization for that?' He'd slept all right, the bastard. Didn't sound as if he were back on the ropes like last night – fresher, keener, more determined, and rejecting the request for identification. Someone was tapping on Charlie's shoulder. Assistant Chief Constable there, looking as though they'd pulled him backwards through a hedge and still combing what hair he had, and Clitheroe in his braces and short of his jacket and tie and still breathless from the race up the stairs.

'Dont worry about the translation now, Mr Webster. Give it to them hard and straight.'

Finger to the console, switch to transmission. Deep breath, steeled himself.

'David, this is Charlie. I have a very important statement for you from the British government.

I want you to hear it right through, and I don't think you should interrupt me, not till I've finished.

Is that understood?'

'We will hear what you have to say.' Concession and a fragment of subservience.

'David, this is the reply of the British government. You are ready to listen? There will be no refuelling of the aircraft. There is no possibility, whatever your reaction, that the plane will be refuelled in order that you can fly to Israel…' There was a fast and angry explosion of shouting from the loudspeaker, explanatory, aggressive, yet difficult for Charlie to follow in detail. 'You said you'd hear me out. Shut up and listen. There will be no fuel, there will be no negotiation about flying this or any other plane to Israel. The journey is over, David. Your plane is surrounded by a military force that includes specialist troops of the highest calibre. There are two ways that you can leave the aircraft. You can come off dead, or you can come off alive with your hands over your heads, unarmed and after you've released the passengers. There are no other options. We will sit here as long as you need to make up your minds, but we think that you are all intelligent people, we think you will realize that there is no point in continuing, that you will understand your situation. Look out of any windows and you will see the armoured cars.

There is nowhere for you to run to, David. That is what the British government says.'

Charlie sat back in his seat, heaving his chest in relief, then half-spun in the chair and gave the men who waited behind him a precis of what had passed. Then he swung back and was writing hard on his pad.

New voice, different accent, devoid of subservience.

'That is all you have to say to us?' Like meeting a pen friend for the first time. Had to be Isaac, and Charlie pointed without comment to the photograph for the benefit of those who watched.

'Yes, Isaac, that is all. There is no room for negotiation, no scope for it. Your position is a hopeless one from any military or physical point of view, and you must surrender unconditionally. If you do that, and have first released the passengers and crew, then I guarantee that no harm will come to you when you give yourselves up.'

'You know what the consequences will be?' Too fast a reply for him to relay an English translation to what he had said, had to hang on, keep up the momentum, hopeless if he broke the spell now.

'There are no "consequences" as you put it, Isaac, that will alter the decision of the British government.'

'You believe that?'

' I know it, Isaac. They will not change their stance.'

'Wait till ten o'clock, ten this morning. Then tell me again.'

' Isaac, there is no point in threats. There is nothing to be gained from them, only the worsening of your situation…' No one listening, the empty, unresponsive echo of discarded headphones far away. Charlie looked up at the digital clock immediately above, saw the numeral flip over – four fifty-two. Five hours till Isaac turned his words into action. More explanations to the men behind and a graveness in their faces as they heard the final stages of the exchange.

Assistant Chief Constable put it with the bluntness that was needed. 'They're threatening to start shooting passengers, executing their hostages, murdering…'

'That's about it,' said Charlie, matter of factly. 'And it's Isaac who's coming across as the hard boy. Moved on from the one we have as David.'

'Military wont want to be messing about,' the Assistant Chief Constable went on, as if in ignorance of the interruption, 'not in the light, and that's what we'll have in twenty minutes.

Wouldn't have mattered an hour ago when they had some cover. But they have to have cover, cover or it's bloody difficult for them and dangerous for the passengers. If we'd played it straight last night, said what we meant, and they'd reacted this way, then we could have put the military in

…' In full flow, the staff officer of Agin court, of Waterloo or Passchendaele, and back from the front with his gunpowder burns.

'The decision was taken by everybody.' Clitheroe rose to his own defence. 'We agreed that they would be more susceptible to the logical working out of their situation and position if they had had some sleep. The first one who spoke, David, he's obviously rested. But his sleep had to be paid for. Presumably the man Isaac has not slept, therefore he is exhausted and temporarily he is the irrational one, but there is much time for the others to work on him and for him to reflect on the measures that he has blurted out to us.'

It was not a new problem for Clitheroe. Early in his working life he had come to accept that the science of psychiatry was not an exact one, that the ill-informed were sceptical and dubious about his expertise.

'We should not take the threat too seriously, there is much time yet.'

Charlie, his attention away from the medical man, focused on the senior policeman, said: 'If it's not vulgar to ask, Sir, what's to happen to these people? Assuming we talk them out, or we storm and take them alive, what happens to them?'

The raw nerve. Stamped on it. Pinched it. Off-the-cuff question, and he hadn't thought it out beforehand. The civvies from London looked away. Colour at the Assistant Chief Constable's cheeks.

' I don't think it's been decided yet.'

'They could ship them back, that has to be one of the options?'

'That's only your assumption, Mr Webster.'

'Bad news if they get a wind of it. Not going to come waltzing down the bloody steps and into our own arms. Stands to reason they're going to try and push us about a bit first.'

'Outside your province, Mr Webster.' Putting the clamps down, hiding behind the medal ribbons, climbing on the silver of his epaulettes.

' If I can't put that one out of their minds then not much chance of it all ending in sweetness and light.'

'Don't extend yourself, Mr Webster. You do an excellent job as an intermediary. Quite excellent, and be so good as to confine yourself to those limits.' Bloody martinet, thought Charlie, why can't he come clean, take a dose of the honest johnnie, accept he's outside the confidential circle.

The sun was playing on the aircraft now, burnishing its sides, beating up from the tarmac.

Made Charlie squint his eyes together just to look at it. Lonely-looking now, sort of lost and strayed off its path, and doesn't know how to get in the air again. Didn't suit it as well, the daylight, not like the night with its magnification and the floodlights. Seemed to have become shrunken as the sun crept up on it. Didn't have the look of anything deadly, shorn of the melodrama, just another bloody plane sitting on its wheels, waiting for its orders. Blinds were up and some of those behind him had binoculars and gazed intently at the portholes and pointed and passed the glasses from hand to hand, but Charlie couldn't see anything beyond the darkened shapes of the windows – nothing living, nothing moving.

More movement at the back of the control area. Men with cables and a portable television set, the type used by industry with the innards gaping and uncased as the domestic set would be. It was placed on a bench close enough for Charlie to see the screen, far enough for others to watch without disturbing him from his communications on the radio. Further along the controller's work bench they fitted the tape recorders with their attendant headsets and the floor was a net of crazily inscribed wires and junction boxes.

Some twenty seconds of frosting and snow storm as they tuned the set before the clear image came. Not bad, not bad at all, and Charlie joined the others who pressed shoulder to shoulder to identify the greyed soft-shaded shapes of the heads of men and women and children, some lolled as if still in sleep, others alert and darting with their eyes around them. He could see some of the children, and across the aisle and in a single-tone suit a man who sat with them and whose face was set and steady and did not waver.

Behind Charlie someone asked, 'What's the sound quality?'

'Not good, very muzzy. We'd hear something loud, shouting or a shot, but ordinary voice levels won't be satisfactory. Might be better when we put the tapes through the cleaners, wash the backgrounds out a bit. But don't count on it.' They let the audio man get on with it – sound was second best. That the picture was sensational was the general consensus; a new toy, and they were revelling in its versatility.

'That's Isaac,' Charlie broke in. 'The one in the front. The girl's behind him – Rebecca.'

Total attention on the screen now, and hazy in the middle distance was the figure of Isaac, his chin low on his chest and his hair messed and tangled, shirt creased and floppy and the tail out of his trousers. Watchful and suspicious and minding his charges. Two hands on the gun – World War Two, and Charlie wondered where they'd dug that one up from. He didn't really look at the girl, didn't know anything about her to convince himself that she wasn't there just for the ride; saw she kept close, not more than half a pace behind the man, and that her dress was torn, and that her cheekbone showed the discolouration of bruising. A long way up the aisle the fish-eye followed them before they were lost, cut off by the thick lip of the window's casing.

'That's the one you have to concern yourselves with,' said Charlie to anyone who cared to listen. 'If you can convince him to walk out with his hands up when there's half a chance he'll be shipped back to Kiev, then it'll be champagne all round, and on me.'

Pushing your luck, Charlie, only a cog, and a little one at that, and it's a big wheel you're working in. Steady down, sunshine. Not that anyone was listening to you anyway.

The Foreign Secretary had not slept well. Never did in the Club beds. But the Party had been in office only four months, and the Prime Minister talked that frequently of the impossibility of continuing with so slight a majority and his wish for a snap election that it seemed pointless to make the expensive investment in a central London home. Better to wait and see whether the future was in the chauffeur-driven Foreign Office limousines or the wife-piloted Mini of Opposition. The Club was adequate and useful after the welter of official dinners that the Foreign Secretary was obliged to host, and at least it was quiet, with a code of ethics in the smoking lounge that would not tolerate him being accosted by other members and quizzed on government intentions.

In his pyjamas he ate the scrambled eggs that the venerable servant had brought him at five.

He glanced fitfully at the morning's screaming headlines. Milking it dry, pulling the udders down, but could hardly blame them. It was the height of the silly season, with parliament not sitting, damn-all going on and now a hi-jack in their back garden. Teams of reporters and teams of photographers, all with the credits above the stories and under the pictures. Even a photograph of himself leaving the Foreign Office by the side entrance that he favoured; shouldn't have smiled, wasn't right for the occasion, but the little devils were everywhere and you never saw them in the dark, only felt the flash against your face. Past midnight when he'd abandoned his desk. Three long telephone sessions with the Prime Minister and not much to chew on as a result of them. Usual story. 'You're the man Who knows the implications of it all, as far as foreigners go. You're the man in charge, Home Office will work to you. You act and we'll be behind you.' How far behind? Inside knifing range or out? How many years back was it that socialist chap had called his Ministry 'a bed of nails'? He'd only had Labour and Industrial Relations to worry about – should have tried Foreign Office for a week.

A barely audible knock, and the entry of the PPS. Shaved, suited, clean, and bringing more coffee. Thoughtful lad: good choice.

'Before your solicitations I slept damned badly, feel washed out and would give almost anything to exchange my desk today for a decent morning's fishing.' Smiles all round. 'What have you brought me?'

'Transcripts from the late night radio and television in Moscow. Going very hard. Meeting the Ambassador had with you last night, spelling out their demands; internal consumption stuff but still a very tough stance.'

'And the Israelis?' Mouthful of toast, and a smear of marmalade to go with it. Beds might be lumpy but the Club at least maintained a good standard with their breakfasts.

'Nothing direct from them, and no commentary on the tail of their bulletins. They're taking it very straight.'

'State Department, and White House, anything there?'

'Secretary of State's office called. Said they didn't want to wake you – I said you'd be in the office by six-fifteen. The

Secretary will call you fifteen minutes later. They asked me to say he would be coming out of a function to do so. They describe it as a confidential and clarification matter.'

The lobby getting to work, all its power and all its tentacles beginning to weave into the scene.

To be anticipated.

'There was a demonstration outside the British Embassy in Washington late last night their time, a couple of hours ago. Few rocks over the fence and the police broke it up. Fairly Renta-mob, but the law went a bit heavy so there will be pictures that won't be friendly. Banners about not sending them back to their deaths, that sort of thing.'

"Trifle premature, but they don't waste time.' He reached for the new supply of coffee, poured it himself, and the PPS noticed that the hand was not steady, slurped into his saucer. Never at his best in the mornings, not till he'd put himself together. 'What do you think, my young friend?

Give me an opinion.'

'You can view the question from three angles. From emotion. From principle. From pragmatism. Take the first and last. If emotion wins the day then well find a reason not to return them. If it's the pragmatic we're after then we ship them home because sizeable though the Jewish stroke Israeli scene is it does not compare with the importance of our enjoying the continuing goodwill of the Soviet Union. Leaves only the principle of the matter. We're signatories to the Hague Aerial Piracy Convention, it's old now and it's gathering dust, but we and everyone else said at the time that we wanted a firm stand taken against hi-jacking. The firmest stand you can take is to send these people back.'

That's making it all very simple.'

The Foreign Secretary headed towards the bathroom. Once there he turned on the spurting taps, leaving the PPS to compete with the half-closed door and the running water.

'As our chaplain at school used to say, where principle is involved there can be no leeway.'

'And the limit of his concern was you little blighters smoking behind the physics lab and trying to deflower the art master's daughter.'

' If you take those three points you must come out two to one in favour of freighting them. It would only be emotion that would guide you to keep them here.'

'And votes' – a distant reply echoing from the tiled walls of the bathroom, 'and your seat in the House and mine.'

'All it comes down to is a selling matter. News Department can handle that. It's what they're paid for.'

'And if I were to extract a public promise from the Soviet authorities that in view of the youth of these three persons the death sentence would not be exacted should they be found guilty, how would that affect matters?'

'If you pulled that, Sir, I'd say you'd wrapped it all up very neatly.'

More water running, topping up from the hot tap. 'Get the Russian chappie in for half-seven, and my car here for six.' Would be very tidy if it worked, solve a lot of problems- and not wound too many consciences. Israelis wouldn't like it, but then they didn't like anything, so damned prickly, but it would be a fair solution, and one that he was pleased with.

An RAF staff car had brought Lt-Col. Arie Benitz from Brize Norton. There had been a shortage of serviced helicopters that was the excuse given to him on landing for the change of transport.

That they were not ready to have him at Stansted was immediately apparent by the initial niggling delays. They had insisted that he should eat something after his long overnight flight, not just a sandwich, but something hot, and the Mess would soon be open, the cooks on duty.

There was the problem of the civilan clothes that had to be mustered, a surprise to Benitz because he was medium height with unexceptional contours. It was suggested that he might care to telephone his Embassy and more time was consumed while they found the keys to a private office, and then again while the call was routed through to the Ambassador's home.

'The British have a dilemma, Colonel,' the Ambassador had said. ' If they bow to the Soviet pressure then your journey will have been wasted. But if they stand up for themselves and it might be the first time in many years – then there is a role for you. But do not count on it: remember the spare parts for the Centurions in the time of Yom Kippur. At the moment their decision has not been made. I suggest you let the Air Force bring you to London, to the Embassy.

There is not the great urgency that we had feared earlier, and the British show they are in no hurry to throw their apple to either side of the fence.'

Two and a half hours it had taken him, first winding and turning on the country roads, then powering along the empty M3, until finally they were catacombed among the half-lit streets of the capital. First visit to London, first to England, and nothing to do but stare at the fleeing sights from the window and with only a taciturn driver for company. When he reached the Embassy he was not surprised at its fortress- like protection. A private road and a message sent ahead by telephone from the Kensington-end gates to warn of his arrival. Floodlights at the front of the building, a remote camera on an arm jutting above him, steel-faced door, an age of identification and explanation before the bolts were withdrawn, the lock turned.

He was taken to the Ambassador's office to read the latest decoded communications from Jerusalem, to hear the most up-dated reports from Stansted, to study the photographs and biographies that the Russians had supplied to the Foreign Office and which had been passed on to the Israelis in confidence. He said little as he paced his way through the folder of documents, needing to scour the typed words only once, a man who assimilated information without hardship. When Benitz closed the file, signifying that the contents had been digested, the Ambassador spoke, quietly and with concern.

'You have a detestable job, Colonel – not one that should be given to an officer of your experience and ability. If there is a role f o r you in this matter it will be to talk these people into a surrender and will be both wounding and hurtful to many of the Jews of the world. The position as we see it is this – and you must forgive any repetition of what you may have been told before you left Israel, but I understand the briefing time was short. There is little to no chance that the British will provide fuel for the aircraft. The escape of the three students has ended at Stansted, and it is their future there that concerns us. If they defy the British calls for surrender, if there is more bloodshed, more killing, then and I do not have to stress this to you – there will be grave embarrassment to our government. We want them out of that plane before they have done more damage, before they have had more opportunity to fuel the propaganda machine of the Soviets.

But how, Colonel Benitz, can we wash our hands of them? Jewish children, fighting an oppression that we loudly and frequently condemn. We cannot abandon them. We cannot permit them to be returned to the Soviet Union. Our Defence Minister spoke in the Cabinet last night of our country's shame if they were to be sent back to their deaths.

It is a dreadful dilemma that we face. That is my speech, Colonel, but it was necessary that we should all understand the position we find ourselves in. We have offered your services to the British because we believe that the children will hear you, because you are a fighter, and that is how they see themselves. But we make one fundamental precondition for the use of your good offices. Should you help to win this surrender, then the British must guarantee that there will be no question of extradition.'

'Are the British likely to accede to our request?'

'No. It is unlikely in my opinion.'

"And if they do not?'

' I think we have not yet arrived at that point.'

"Most of the men we fight against in the Anti-Terrorist Unit, those that come into our country, have come to terms with the price of their struggle… understand that there can be no return… know that we will kill them.'

Not articulate, trying to find the words he wanted and disappointed in himself that he could not match the fluency of the diplomat.

'These will be different, without the training, without the discipline… their fear and confusion will be great by this time. Yet on their own scale they will believe they have achieved much.' A slow-forming smile on his face. 'Perhaps to them they have won their own Entebbe…'

' I said to you, Colonel Benitz, that it was a detestable job that you have been chosen to perform.'

'And there is no chance, no hope whatsoever, that they will be allowed to come to Israel?'

'How can there be? With the pilot dead, it is impossible. And even should the British allow it, could we receive them? When you are unpopular, alone as we are, and you wish to fight back, then your hands must be scrubbed clean. If we falter now, because our kith are involved, then we will have forfeited the right for ever to speak out against the terrorism that you know better than I. If we accept that these children can become the heroes of Zionism then we have borrowed the language of the Palestinians.'

With a shrug Benitz said, 'The killing of the pilot has destroyed them.'

'It has critically affected the matter.'

'And would have been the action of a moment'

'You are charitable, Colonel.'

'Not charitable, just realistic.' He seemed to go far away, beyond the horizons of the room, to have lost interest in the conversation. It's so fast, so rushed, there is not time for thinking, not in the moment of assault, not in the seconds that count if you are to succeed…'

It was not long before they parted. On his way out the Colonel wrote down a series of telephone numbers, some that ran through the switchboard, others that were connected to direct outside lines.

'We asked,' said the Ambassador with a pleasant smile on his face, one that was rarely revealed, 'we asked that we could send our own communications system to Stansted, to enable you to report to us directly. The British indicated that there would be so much radio traffic that it was impossible for them to accommodate us, they said they regretted this. It would hinder their operations. We are used to these affairs, the British are not, and therefore they are tense and concerned that they will emerge well at the conclusion.'

They had shaken hands and Benitz had returned to the waiting staff car. He dozed for much of the way out of London – not that he was particularly tired, but simply that he was used to taking his rest where he could find it. After a while he woke, aware of the sound of voices and of the car no longer moving. In the demi-light at the outer perimeter road block he could see a policeman scanning the travel authorization with his torch. Three miles further on there was another enforced stop, and again the production of the magic paper, and salutes from men in uniform for the huddled figure sprawled on the car's back seat.

They took him to the control tower building, men gesturing to his driver the direction he should take, to which entrance he should report. He was conscious of the military as he stepped out of the car, bracing himself to the freshness of the morning – the howl of an armoured car accelerating in low gear, the medley of chatter and static on a soldier's radio set, tyres that had gouged tracks in the dried-out summer lawn. Familiar sounds, and sights that he was accustomed to.

Twin pips on the officer's shoulder, but Benitz remained unimpressed with the lieutenant's deference as he was ushered into the hallway, ground floor, of the tower; perhaps a curl of amusement at his mouth at the flamboyance of the Fusilier's cockade, with the hackles of red and white set to the front of the beret. They had allocated a room for him, he was told. But first perhaps he would care to come to the Control Room, where the Emergency Committee had their Operational Centre? Seemed quite proud, this young man, that they had things so sorted out. But it takes more than tides and labels, that was what Benitz had learned.

It had been slack in the control tower, their anxieties unrewarded, ever since the day's early communication with the Ilyushin, and Charlie had felt free to leave his chair at the console desk and walk around. He remained never more than a few feet from the microphone, but it was still something of an opportunity for him to stretch the perpetual stiffness from his legs, flex his cracked muscles. He was close to the door when the army officer brought in the visitor.

Something in the complexion, the tan of the Mediterranean, and the close, quiet confidence of his eyes; Charlie knew from his instinct the origin and homeland of the stranger.

He hung back as the introductions started. The Assistant Chief Constable had his hand out, Clitheroe examining and looking on with interest, new species, Home Office team in a line waiting for the exchange of names and rank.

'Someone to see how things are going. Colonel Arie Benitz of the. ..' the lieutenant tailed away, conscious of the radio and television equipment operators, anxious to avoid indiscretion.

' I think we call it Dixie, don't we? In these circumstances,' Charlie said. 'Colonel Benitz from Dixie.' The usual way of covering embarrassment. Confused Clitheroe though – hadn't an idea what was meant – but the policeman had got the message. Mutual caution in the greetings until it was Charlie's turn. Men of a kind in a way. Charlie still without his wash and brush up, stubble on his chin and the tired, far-away looseness of his eyes, and the trousers that had forgotten their creases and the shoes that had scuffed their shine. Benitz wary, the jut of his jaw showing that he was not prepared to be pushed about, aggressive because he knew that the clothes he had exchanged for his battledress were a poor fit, and a man in clothes not his own is seldom at ease.

' It's been quiet overnight, but it's freshening up a bit out there right now. They have been told this morning that there's no petrol for the onward flight, that they won't see Dixie this afternoon.

They're not happy about it, and the one of them who stands out from the mob is threatening dire things for ten hundred this morning. You've seen the pictures that the Russians have sent us?'

Charlie motioned to the indifferent snap shots, taking them one at a time. 'This one we know as David; doesn't seem to have much left in him, morale's all over the place. We can talk to him, and work at him. This one's Isaac, and he's the headache; we think he stood watch through the night and is therefore tired, but he's the strong boy, the one who's throwing his weight about. Leaves us the girl, Rebecca; unknown quantity, quality as well. We can't say yet which way she'll fall if the two fellows start arguing. We don't expect them to hold together that long – too few of them, too exhausted, and it's spelled out that there's no future in it for them. David might see reason. Isaac looks as though he's going to try and elbow us.'

Charlie directed Benitz towards the television screen, read the hostility in the other faces at the interloper in the pen. Screw them. He went on: ' I don't know whether you've seen these things before, but they take the pain out of sieges, cut the sweat out. It's a fish-eye lens with a one hundred and eighty degree arc. Means you can watch them and they're blissfully unaware of it.

Let's you know when things are heating up and gives you an idea of where everybody is. We haven't seen Isaac for around thirty minutes, hence the assumption he's sleeping. Both David and Rebecca are out of sight at the moment, one at each end of the passenger cabin where they watch from, watch us and the passengers.'

' I heard that similar equipment is being prepared for us; we don't have it yet.'

Charlie denoted the hint of envy, fractional and disguised.

' We rely in these times on the skill of the manpower, not of the equipment.' What you'd expect him to say, a man who did real soldiering, knew what a front line was about and an enemy that hit and slugged with you; not going to be publicly impressed, not by gadgetry. He remembered when he'd been young, and his people had taken him out to Christmas morning drinks, and his own present that day had been a secondhand bike that worked but was short of paint and full of rust, and the kids of the house they'd gone to had shown off their new ones, wheeling them round, bright and shiny and pricey, and he hadn't spoken of his own present. Knew how the Israeli felt.

Charlie said, 'We know it's not the end of the world, but it's useful.'

The Israeli wasn't listening, not giving the appearance of it anyway, and Charlie saw that his cheeks were drawn in and his shoulders hunched low, and turned himself to the screen. The one they called David was in the picture; the girl wasn't with him, and his head was down, and he cradled the snub- nosed gun as a mother might a new-born baby, trying to win strength for herself from the child. In the brief moments that the camera showed the young Jew, caught his expression, he gave to his watchers the impression of deep misery, the caged rat caught in the trap in the barn that knows when morning and the farmer come it will drown in the rain butt.

Still watching the set, Arie Benitz said quietly, 'Do you expect their surrender soon?'

'They're still talking hard, giving us a rough line. There's the ultimatum at ten, and they hint of bad things to the passengers. They're not on the boil yet, but far from cooled down' – Charlie at his shoulder.

'And the tough one, the fighter, the one who makes the threats: you say he is resting?'

'We think so.'

Arie Benitz straightened, looked round the room, said out loud so that all could hear and none could misinterpret, the surgeon who had examined and would now pronounce diagnosis. 'Why don't you go in there and take them, put them out of their shame?'

'What do you mean?' the Assistant Chief Constable spun towards him, pirouetting in his polished shoes, smarting that no one had informed him of the Israeli's arrival and his role.

' I mean, why don't you go and finish the thing?'

"And have half the passengers shot up, have a bloodbath on our hands?'

' If that one is anything to go by it would be over in ten seconds, and you have solved your problem.'

'You can't attack in daylight…'

'Rubbish. We had daylight in Tel Aviv when we freed the passengers of the Sabena jet. Even the Egyptians can do it- Luxor two years ago when they took out the Libyans. At Tel Aviv we had four to cope with, grown-ups compared with these children, and the hard one by your own admission is sleeping. Of course it can be done.'

The Assistant Chief Constable fastened on the luckless lieutenant who was Arie Benitz's escort. Fighting for self- control, Charlie saw, hating the eyes that were on him. ' I think we should see if Colonel Benitz has been allocated a room in the building. Certainly he would not want to impede our work in this already crowded space.' Embarrassment, and plenty to spare, hands masking faces, discreet coughs as the Israeli left. Smiling, wasn't he? And a half wink at Charlie.

'What does he think we are, a load of butchers, that we get kicks out of turning machine-guns on people?' The policeman had waited till the door was closed tight against further intervention.

'Shortens the agony if all we're going to do is to send them back where they came from at the end of it,' Clitheroe said, playing the marionette, exasperating, and knowing it 'If all we're here for is to talk them into facing a Russian firing squad…'

' It's a politician's decision, not ours, what happens to them.' The Assistant Chief Constable cut short the argument, preventing further contagious growth.

Charlie slid back into his seat. Nothing moving out at the plane. Not a vestige of life, the sun climbing and the plane shadow diminishing, and soon the tarmac would shiver and glaze in the heat.

Then from behind, and a sure sign they didn't take to the waiting. ' Is there any way we can start talking to them on the radio again?'

Charlie shook his head. 'No way at all. It's their privilege, and we have to be patient.'

From his room in the Moscow Hotel Freddie Smyth was shouting at the full range of his voice into the telephone that was connected with the office of the commercial attache of the British Embassy.

Four days he'd been hanging around to sign that contract, worth three and a half million quid, didn't they know? Jobs of five hundred men depending on it. He'd a bloody good expert record behind him, and a CBE medal to prove it. So what happens this morning, when he's all dressed up and ready to head to the Ministry with Sales and Technical? Had the phone call, hadn't he?

All off, wasn't it? Not using those words, 'course not, 'need for further analysis of the project'.

Could cut through that lot, couldn't he? Being fucked about, and they'd gone as far as telling him why. Because of some plane load of bloody hi-jackers. The attache should get off his arse and get on to the Ambassador and tell him to get talking with whoever was responsible in London.

Tell him that Freddie Smyth, Managing Director, Coventry Cables, stood to have wasted four bloody days in Moscow, and if the factory went broke with half a thousand guys on the dole then Freddie Smyth would make sure every bloody newspaper in Britain knew the reason why.

The commercial attache avoided the Ambassador's office, but went instead to the room on the same floor of the First Secretary. Freddie Smyth's outburst that morning was not unique, only the most vivid. Three other relatively prominent British businessmen had telephoned to report cancellation of morning meetings with Russian officials.

'Just the start of it,' said the First Secretary, flashing the sad smile of a diplomat who has already served two long years in the Russian capital and knew its ways, and had another twelve months of his sentence to run in which to learn them better. 'There'll be a few more of them too.

Broad enough hints dropped by their people at the Cuban reception last night, found us out and bashed our ears, and played it coy about the Chancellor's visit – and that doesn't even have a firm date on it. But the factory ought to know about it, and we'll sling them a cable.'

It was a long time since the Kremlin had publicly shown its displeasure with Britain, he reflected. Back to the Lyalin defection and the expulsion from Britain of all the KGB chaps, all the trade men and the chauffeurs, and that was a fair few years back. Taken their time about thawing that one out. Difficult enough to work here, even when relations were comparatively normal, but damned near impossible when you made them angry. He would put a 'priority' on the cable to Whitehall.