Kingfisher

CHAPTER ELEVEN

With a sharp, spruce step the Russian Ambassador emerged into the sunlight from the darkness of the Foreign Office corridors. His immense black limousine was at the pavement side, door held open by a uniformed chauffeur. A policeman and a detective from SB Protection Group stood in the background, watching, relaxed and comfortable in the gentle heat. Be a pig of a day later. The Ambassador looked about him and saw the television crew and the reporter struggling to get clear of the camera car in which they had awaited his exit. The cameraman and sound man jogged across the street, connecting the cables as they went, the reporter faster and more anxious lest the quarry should elude him and disappear into the fastnesses of the car. The Ambassador slowed, then stopped, and saw the gratitude on the reporter's face. Lens focused and the recordist asking for sound level, and the reporter explaining the need for it, as if the Ambassador had never seen a camera before, never previously been interviewed. The diplomat smiled, sensing his opportunity. The cameraman called, 'Running. Go in five."

Q. How would you describe your meeting with the Foreign Secretary?

A. Very fruitful, and I think we have a large measure of agreement on a mutual policy of what our reaction should be to these murderous criminals.

Q. The Russian government has demanded that the hijackers should be returned to Russia if they are captured. What are the British saying?

A. The British government and the Soviet government are both determined to put an end to the evil of aerial piracy. I have the impression that the British would wish to return these three to the courts of the Ukraine where they would stand trial for their crimes committed before and after they took over the Aeroflot flight.

Q. If they were returned to Russia, would they face the death penalty?

A. In your country there is no death penalty, and we are most sympathetic to the emotion that the subject arouses. In the Soviet Union we have the death penalty, but it is rarely applied and then only to hardened criminals. I was able to assure the Foreign Secretary that people as young as those concerned in the hi-jacking would be most unlikely to face the supreme penalty of the law.

Q. Are you saying that you have given a guarantee that if these people were returned they would not be executed?

A. We discussed this matter at some length. It was not a guarantee that I gave, because sentence is a matter for the courts. But I was able to indicate that my government would look with great sympathy at this matter. And now you will excuse me. Thank you.

The reporter was astonished at his good fortune, and because of his inexperience unable to assess the extent to which his microphone had been used as a bludgeon upon the Foreign Secretary now sitting in his first-floor office and weighing the results of his most recent conversation beside the transcript of his talk with the American Secretary of State, and the latest digests of world opinion on the issue being fed to the Foreign Office from British Embassies abroad.

Though the camera crew had what they regarded as a minor scoop they had no outlet to broadcast it before the mid-day news bulletin, but standing beside the interviewer had been a young journalist from the Press Association. Recently arrived in the capital from a Midlands evening paper he had felt too shy to intervene and ask his own questions. He had contented himself instead with taking a verbatim note of questions and answers, and within minutes he had found an unvandalized telephone kiosk and had read his copy to his news editor in Fleet Street. The sub-editors quickly packed the story into shape and context and prepared it for the teleprinters. All the big selling newspapers in Britain, television and radio studios, the Foreign Agencies- Reuters, Associated Press, and United Press International – all had received it before the young man stepped from his taxi at the door of his offices. The quotes he had taken down were recorded as of major significance, an indication of the British policy.

By telephone the contents of the interview were conveyed from the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem to the Prime Minister's office. And by messenger a photocopy of the nine-inch- long text was taken from News Department to the Foreign Secretary.

It seemed to stun him, the flimsy sheet of paper, the crudity of a coiled fist. Those around him had to wait, unwilling to badger him for the contents. In his own good time he would tell them.

The Under-Secretary nearest heard him muttering as if on a loop of tape: 'The swine… the swine

… the swine… the swine.' He threw the paper half-crumpled across his desk, available to whoever wished to straighten it out. 'They've taken us for a big ride, those damned people. You have a private conversation. Leave it at a delicate point, nuance and innuendo, nothing signed and sealed, and he walks out and tells the whole damned world about it. Read that and you'll think the British are hand in glove with them. It makes a nonsense of what I told the Secretary of State.'

'Aren't we hand in glove with them, Minister?' queried the Under-Secretary currently in possession of the text.

'Not till they were safely in the air. After that we could be hand in hand, arm in arm, whatever cliche you want, but not till then. That was the deal, and they've reneged…'

'And reduced your freedom of action, Minister. Difficult now to change tack. Would seem very strange.'

He realized he'd been outwitted, out-thought. And that all around him knew it.

The 'freedom of action' so beloved by Foreign Secretary and Under-Secretary alike was to be further eroded in the following hour. Home Office press desk telephoning their opposite numbers in News Department: Thought you'd like to know, old boy, that we've had the press chaps on from the Street. Seems they have transcripts of tower to cockpit conversations, have translated the Russian, and are asking Us for reaction on a hi-jackers' ultimatum scheduled to expire at ten in the morning. Didn't take a brain to work that one out: threats meant government had to respond with, the hard line, hard line meant send them back, as the Soviets wanted. Cannot go soft on little blighters who're throwing their weight about.

Can't you have them under Wireless Telegraphy, criminal offence tapping authorized radio channels? asked News Department. Tried it, old boy, responded Press Desk. Told us to get stuffed – more politely, of course, but that was the gist of it.

Explicit instructions had been given: corral the journalists and photographers somewhere where they see nothing, hear nothing, give them a view of the plane and nothing else. The order had been carried out to the letter. A pen was provided, but in such a position that the Ilyushin blocked any view of the SAS command post, and there was an ill-briefed press officer who could in truth report nothing of substance to the hungry observers. But a farm backed on to that section of the perimeter where the press were held, and at dawn the owner's wife, out of a sense of charity and pity, had sent her eldest son with three full Thermos flasks of coffee and a plastic bag of sandwiches to the newsmen. The boy brought with him his radio set, an advanced Japanese model, on which he was in the habit of tuning to the conversations between the tower and incoming aircraft; a hobby that he shared with hundreds of other youths who lived close to the noise of the country's major airports.

When the farmer's son returned home with the empty flasks and plastic bag, he was without the radio, but in his hip pocket were five newly-printed five-pound notes and a promise of the same for each day that the worn, sleep-short men borrowed the set. The family themselves had listened to the talk-down of the Ilyushin the previous night, and the tuning had not been altered. There was disappointment at first when it was realized the early morning exchange was to be conducted in Russian, but these were men paid their monthly salaries for their enterprise. The conversation was recorded on a cassette tape player, and the spool sent back to London by despatch rider to await translation.

It was a sombre gathering in the Foreign Secretary's room. Some standing, some sitting, some watching the window and the crowded pavements, some waiting for the next intervention of the telephone. And the old man in their midst, paled face in his bone-ribbed hands. Poor devil, thought the PPS. Too old for learning new tricks. Should have been out to grass years ago and togged up in his waders and dumped in some river with a hat full of flies to keep him warm. Days that started badly didn't get better, and this was going to be a long and bitter one, and carefully compiled reputations could be demolished by the late summer dusk. And all because of three little bastards from the other side of Europe. Made him want to weep, but there'd be enough tears to be mopped up, enough without him adding to the flood.

The light that poured into the cockpit left Isaac undisturbed. He had curled his sparse body into the seat that had been Anna Tashova's and settled his legs with care so that they would not brush against the floor pedals or the instrument switches of the flight deck. His sleep was dreamless, the exhaustion permitting neither the pleasure of fantasy nor the horror of nightmare. He had checked the safety catch of his gun, made sure that the weapon could not fire if he lurched or reached in a spasm of movement and now held it tight across his chest. The lines of tension round his mouth and on his forehead had softened, as if he had discovered a peace and understanding with himself. He had pulled his knees up to his stomach, and his breathing was calm and regular, marred only by the trace of catarrh from the passing summer cold that had dogged him his last week in Kiev. Not a dangerous-looking creature, not a psychopath or a manic depressive; just a youth who had become extremely tired, and who tried now to regain his strength, to recharge the batteries that powered him. Slight and ineffective he would have seemed if the fish-eye could have found him, far from worthy of all that his actions had brought to Stansted. His stomach rumbled in its desire for food, but even the aching far down behind the stomach wall was insufficient to break the hold of his sleep. The first traces of a beard were showing through, a shadowy mess on the whiteness of his skin. His shirt was dirty now and creased from his own sweat, sleeves carelessly rolled; hands dirty from the oil of the gun that had not left his grip, fingernails too short and clipped to retain the filth that otherwise would have been theirs.

Difficult to see as a figure who had created fear, even terror, difficult to take seriously, this boy who had spat his threat into the microphone now idle and propped on the back of his seat. Two hours he'd promised himself, then David should wake him. He was terrified of not sleeping, of not resting and being found inadequate when he sought his best; right from the days of Secondary examinations, and of the tests and interviews for university places. Had to sleep that he would not go pallid and yawning before the tutors. David had promised to wake him. Would rouse him at eight, long before the deadline. He could rely on David,

It was the stench that woke Rebecca.

The heavy, all-invading stench of the forward toilet. The wall of the lavatory was behind the crew seats on which she had slept, small enough to make a bed of, an arm becoming a make-shift pillow. The toilet queue had formed again, but not like the one that Isaac had controlled: people standing up from their seats, and in a line in the centre of the cabin, something different and less fearful than it had been the night before. She lay still, her head motionless, one eye half open, acclimatizing. She had dreamed, she could remember that, images of her home and of her mother and family, nothing vicious in the images she had conjured, soft and warming. But then the harshness of the smell had forced the sleep from her. It was difficult at first to realize where she was, and why, but then she recalled the plane, its traplike compactness, its arched prison walls.

The passengers walked to the toilet, heads erect as if the tumbrils delivered them, and behind her came the constant routine sounds, punctuated by the flushing of the pan and the squirting of water into the basin. One after another they came, edging their way past David as he stood at the entrance of the cabin, some five feet in front of her, showing him deference. He held his gun lightly in his right hand, and that was the termination of her rest, that was reality, the gun and the asymmetry of its magazine from which the old paint had worn and which still showed the oil slicks of its preservation.

David did not see that she was awake, concentrating on the passengers and every minute or so breaking away to move to the portholes and peer out, searching for a sign, like someone looking through the windows of his home when a guest is expected but is late.

David, sustaining and comforting, giving strength and help, keeping the wolves clear from the encampment. Ever since she had known him, the bigger boy in the higher class, this had been their point of contact and togetherness. From when he was in short trousers and she in frocks with white ankle socks and they had gone to the Pioneer camps, and he had sought her out, he had been protective and all-knowing. With maturity had come the cementing of the friendship, brother and sister, colleague and comrade. Different to Moses and Isaac, outsiders who had joined: they were the nucleus, the kernel. Always a shoulder to lean on, a chest to rest against, an ear for confidences. Should have loved him, now that he was a man and she a Woman. No denial of opportunity, frequent occasions, didn't understand why it had never happened. Seemed to spill through her, the nausea of the awful primitive groping of the fool Yevsei. Thirty-six hours, just a day and a half, nothing in time, and on her back in the grass with that stupid, oafish idiot. Could have been David.

Harvested by her fantasies, the rounded walls of the cabin burgeoned in on her, restricting and claustrophobic. Rebecca was not one to weep, not unless there was a sudden pain, but a deep depression swamped her as she lay on her side on the hardened seats. Always there had been a forest path or a side alley that was good for escape, and now nothing but the barricaded doors with their pressurized locks and the tiny windows with their reinforced glass.

She called to David. 'Have you talked with them? Have you talked with the British?'

'You were sleeping and we did not wish to wake you. We have talked to them.' Had only seen his back since she had woken, and now he turned his face to her. The night had not refreshed him.

Haggard and unshaven, eyes dulled and deadened. Only the lines of sympathy at his mouth suggested he had news difficult to tell.

'What did they say about the fuel?'

'They said there would be none. That we should surrender. We would fly no further, they said.'

'What do we do, David?' Simple, little more than a whisper, oblivious of the passenger behind who made his way to the lavatory.

' Isaac says we fight them.'

'He said the same last night, before I slept, while you rested. What does that mean?'

Isaac says we must make them listen to us, that we must show our strength.'

'What strength do we have?'

'Only the passengers. The guns are nothing – against us they have an army. There are only the passengers.'

' Isaac said last night that if we were hard with the passengers then the British would bend. He said they have done so in the past.

'That is what Isaac believes.' David, remote and lost to her, listened to her questions, but his replies were mechanical.

'What do you believe, David? Not what Isaac says, but what is your thought?' Those who are caught in the winter snows, hikers and climbers and those whose cars fail them, and lose the will to go on, and cannot maintain the fight, want only to sleep, the sure and certain way to death.

David, uncaring, uninvolved. Had to raise him – lift him again before he was lost. 'You have to know what you want, David. You have your own mind.'

' I don't know. Believe me, I don't know. It was Isaac who thought of the plane as a way of escape. We all agreed and now we must stand with him.'

'And they will kill us here, kill us in the plane?'

' Isaac thinks we can make them surrender to us. He has told them they have till ten o'clock. It is that on your watch now, but you have not allowed for the time difference. They have two more hours.'

' If they do not surrender by the time that you have given?'

'Then we will shoot a passenger, where they can see it, where they will understand.' He motioned to another to come forward in the queue. They were discussing the passengers as would a collective manager and the responsible person from the abattoir. Rebecca sat up, reaching forward so that her fingers were on David's hand.

'And if we shoot one and they still do not surrender?'

'We shoot another. Isaac does not believe it will be easy. He has changed, our Isaac, has made himself of steel. He is the fighter. The last night we were in the hut I was angry, roused by him, because he thought that it was easy. He knows now what we face. A few days back, if you had asked me of

Isaac, I would have said he was not capable of this strength

'And you, David, where is your strength?'

'Perhaps it was never present, perhaps it was just a figment, something we created. Remember when we were in the woods, when we talked, when we planned. It is different here, Rebecca.

When we talked did you know it would end like this? Do you believe that I knew that it could end like this? Think, Rebecca, think and tell me if I knew the road that I was leading you on.'

'You told us that we must fight them…'

'Nothing but words, slogans, phrases. There was no reality there, nothing of the soldiers, the guns, or what has happened to Moses.'

'Why are you saying this to me now?'

'Because this is no time for deception. Past and gone, that moment. I talked us into coming here, Rebecca. I talked and you listened. You and Isaac and Moses, you all listened to me. That's why we are here.'

'And now that we are here, you will fight?'

He did not answer, as if the tiredness had come again, but just looked at her, as if she were new to him, and a stranger. Then the shrug and the smile, and pushing his fingers in his hair.

'Take your gun, arm it, and go to the back. Check that the seat belts are fastened, that the passengers not in the queue are strapped in.'

She walked forward, putting a swing in her hips that she told herself was the hallmark of command, face set, measured stride, pistol gripped. Find something to do, occupy yourself, make work and business, hasten the clock hands, that it might cut out the awfulness they had so casually discussed. Right to the back of the aircraft. Check the fastenings that Isaac had made last night and that held the trolley across the aisle, check them and re-check them, absorb time, use it and waste it, bury it and destroy it. What does a man or a woman…? Why think of a man, think of a woman, or a girl not yet an adult, not yet opened, penetrated, known… what does she do in the basement cells in the hours before they take her out and kneel her in the yard and place the policeman's pistol at the nape of her neck? Tortured, agonized, revolving mind, and how to occupy it, must find something that time shall be lost. Straps secure. Begin on the passengers.

Some still with their hands raised because the order was never rescinded. Others ignoring the dictum now that it was not demanded and sitting with their arms folded and fists clenched on their knees. Some seeking comfort from the gesture, some defiance, some just to hide the stains at their trousers and skirts, those for whom the snail-like pace of the toilet queue had been intolerable.

How few of them she knew, how few she would recognize if she walked past them on a pavement tomorrow. The American? Yes, she would remember him. The Italians? Perhaps, but not because of who they were, or what they stood for; only the ornaments, the cut of the clothes, the whispered conspiracy of their chatter. The schoolmasters and the headmaster? They would not fade because she had experience of such people. Would she know the pilot, sitting away to the front, never speaking since she had been ordered back from the flight deck, know her if they bumped into each other in the street at the bus halt, disputed the right to a purchase of stockings in the store, collided laden with bags at a street crossing? She did not know. Yet a choice must be made among them, that was what Isaac had told David, and he had not disagreed. Academic problem, should have taken it to the professor, perhaps he would have helped them, discussed it at a seminar. The tall one or the thin one, the fat one or the fidgeter, the foreigner or the… she pressed her lids tight shut, blocking the sight of the domed head rising above the seat rest. That was the one who had been chosen.

It was the American whose voice she heard.

'Not much going on out there, Miss, just tanks and soldiers. Not much action from the petrol tankers. Not like they're about to refuel you.'

Never had been able to stare him through, she thought, not from the first time, and not now.

Couldn't muster the scorn or the indifference, not from the time she'd first been aware of his presence, and the foreign brightness and ebullience of his garments. Handkerchief still at his head – not needed now, but worn proudly as a trophy, stain showing and somewhat awry, so that the wound it was supposed to hide was partly visible. Wife's hand at his arm, counselling caution, and ignored.

'Nearly a dozen hours since we touched down. They'd have filled you by now if they were going to. Don't you think so, Miss?'

A frosted, splintered-ice smile and even with the strangeness of the language and the difficulties she had in following his words She could touch the changing mood, the spirit of aggression and attack. 'They've screwed you, Miss, screwed you proper. I'll take a bet with you, and any money you have and give you odds if you know what that means – they're saying the glory ride is over, right? Time to come out with your hands high. Do I have it right, Miss?'

Couldn't draw away from him, couldn't detach from the hydra tentacles that kept her listening.

'You're all fucked up, Miss, if you and Felicity Anne will excuse me. Out in the punt and without a paddle. Listen to me now: I couldn't give a damn what you've done back home, what you think your grievances are, if you have any. You've a nice face and you're a good- looking girl, and when you're my age you notice these things. I'd like to give you some advice, Miss.' The pistol in her hand, foolish little appendage, nowhere to put it, nowhere to hide it, felt like a man with his wife's handbag and loath to be seen carrying it, a silly awkward little machine, but which was her lifeline and her survival rope. 'My advice is this, Miss. Find out what the British are going to do with you. I'm an old man and Felicity Anne's no chicken, and no one gives a damn about us in the States – don't read a word I write, only hire me for the lecture circuit because I'm offseason and cheap – so we're not that interested in how we come out of all this. I'm telling you – and I mean it, it's in your interests – find out what they're going to do to you, and if it doesn't seem too bad, then chuck it, throw the towel in. Don't go playing the martyr because if you give them half a chance they'll chop you, and it won't be fun, it won't be glorious and you won't be around to see if anyone weeps over your box. That's what I want to say to you, Miss, and it's meant kindly, and while you're asking them see if you can talk the Brits into sending some food up. People are hungry in here.'

Sent her off on his errand. Rebecca checked none of the other passengers to see if their straps were fastened, just buffeted the length of the plane, tumbling against the armrests of seats, unaware of the impediments, needing to get where David was standing, back to her in the forward corridor and looking out through the cockpit perspex.

' Is Isaac still sleeping?'

Obvious when she saw him, slumped in front of her in the pilot seat, but she sought confirmation and reassurance. David nodded, was watching the stationary armoured cars and the soldiers who lolled beside the mountings for the heavy machine-guns. Two hundred yards of open ground separating her from the men the American had said would kill her.

'We have to talk to them, David, you and I. We have to know whether it is necessary, what Isaac wants. Not when he is awake, but now that he sleeps.'

Maddening, driving her to fury, David not reacting. 'We can speak to them again when Isaac is woken. We can wait till then.'

Only served to drive her forward, egg her on deeper into the swamp she had set herself to cross. 'We have to know what will happen to us, what they would do to us.'

'Time enough when Isaac is with us.'

'Can't you see it, David, that you have abrogated to him? There are three of us. He alone does not have the monopoly of negotiation. If we are together then any of us can talk…'

'But not behind his back, not when he is sleeping.' But doubt showed on his high line-woven forehead, furrowed with indecision as he hissed his replies, • calculated not to disturb the sleep of their colleague.

'Ask them, David. Ask them what they would do with us.'

He wavered, hesitated, then reached forward, weight on the balls of his feet, and lifted the headset from the back of the pilot's seat. He drew it back into the corridor till the cable attachment was bouncing and taut. Rebecca could only hear the questions that David asked.

'Kingfisher. Kingfisher. Do you hear us? The one called Charlie, do you hear us?'

Rebecca listening to David, a draining, sweat-soaked relief overwhelming her. Contact with the outside world, a lifting of the horizon, a breaching of the capsule wall.

'It is David who is here… Isaac is sleeping… there are questions that we have for you.' Pause and silence, both watching Isaac, furtive and anxious lest he should open his eyes.

'The question is this. If we were to surrender what would you do to us? What would happen to us?'

The words had been said, the Judas sign was fashioned, their faces turned away from each other, the shame not shared.

Charlie had stiffened, pencil alert from the first moment that the call sign had been given.

Conversation in the control tower had been broken by the staccato identification over the loudspeaker.

They say Isaac's sleeping… they want clarification on some points.' Intent, and peering down at his papers. Then the mirthless smile. 'They want to know what happens to them if they surrender.' Charlie pushed the microphone button to off position. 'What do you want me to say?'

The Home Secretary was four paces behind the console, summoned late from the bed in which he had slept. Had had time to wash himself and run a cursory wet shave, but showed no benefit from it. Was experienced enough to know that this was the first crisis of morale, and was fretful lest his instructions to Charlie should affect it. 'First repeat the conditions of surrender.' He moved back, the pilot fish formation of aides at his shoulder.

Charlie addressed the microphone. 'The British government are not prepared to enter into negotiations over surrender. That has been made clear to you earlier. The situation remains the same – you must first release all the passengers, and when that is completed you must leave the plane disarmed and with your hands on your heads. I repeat the guarantee that was given to you earlier. You will not be harmed by the British security forces.'

Kids out after dark, he thought, babes in the bloody woods. Three frightened brats – two, anyway – out of their league and wanting to end it all, get back on dry land. He swung round in his chair and said to the policy huddle, They say they know the terms of surrender. They want to know what happens to them after that.'

Clitheroe away from the main group, at the Home Secre tary's shoulder, a moment of whispered talk, nodded acquiescence from the politician, and he was hurrying to Charlie's side. 'Tell them thait you want to speak to them direct… that it's difficult over the radio. More you can say if you come to the plane. Tell them it's a very sensitive matter, for many people in the tower, how much better it will be when you talk at the plane, face-to-face stuff.'

Getting like the old days, Charlie. Calling for volunteers. He repeated the message in Russian.

Not that they'll buy that one, never in a month of Sundays. First basic of the hijacker's bible.

Book One, Chapter One, Verse One: never let the opposition near you; keep them at arm's length.

'Keep the pressure on them,' snapped Clitheroe. 'Tell them you're going to come out of the control tower and that you'll be walking to the plane. They'll see you all the way. They'll know there's no trick. But I want to get you to them, face to face, so we can start the confidence phase.'

Seemed excited at the prospect. And too bloody right he should be. Wasn't his arse that was going on show. 'See it this way, they've called us up because they're anxious, they want to do some talking. The whole thing is about this answer, this question, the crucial one to them. They want out, and they have to trust somebody, follow someone's guidance. It has to be you, because of the language, Charlie. They won't hurt you, not unless you take them bad news, and you're not going to do that.'

Broke off, allowed Charlie to talk again to the aircraft. 'Don't discuss it with them, don't debate. Just say you're coming.' Charlie speaking, trying to sound calm, organized, casual, efficient, and half the room chuntering in his right ear. Finished, thwacked the transmission button away from him.

'So, what do you want me to tell them when I get there? What's the answer?'

'There is no answer,' Clitheroe said. 'Vague and general, that's how you play it. You're a little man, you don't have that sort of authority. You're not going out there to talk to them, you're going to show yourself, that's all. Most likely you'll be the first Englishman they've ever spoken to.

You'll show them that you don't represent a threat, that they'll have nothing to fear from you.'

'But if they want an answer?' Fair enough for these bas tards, sitting behind the glass with binoculars. ' If they want the answer, what do I say then?'

'Cover it over, Mr Webster,' the Home Secretary, authoritative, on home territory, used to ploughing through the arguments of committee. 'You've heard the news bulletins, and you know what the Russians are saying. Gives you an idea what's being said in London. Not possible for you to be in any way specific but your own mind can be at rest. Soviets say there's no question of the death penalty for these people, and anyway I wouldn't put too much store by the diplomatic optimism" of Moscow at this stage. More likely these people will spend a period in British prisons if no more damage is done.'

Charlie turned to face him, but was denied the politician's features-had walked away, towards the f a r windows, meandering apparently without purpose. The Home Secretary knew his limitations.

'You'll need some equipment,' chimed the Assistant Chief Constable. Charlie, with a meekness that was not usually evident, followed him through the door.

David hung the headset back on the top of the pilot seat. He felt the lead weight clutching at him, numbing, and Rebecca pestering, pulling at his sleeve and whispering her demand f o r their final answer, the people in the tower. Isaac still sleeping, innocent of what they had done.

'He is coming to the plane, the one called Charlie. He says the matter is sensitive, that he wishes to talk to us face to face, on the question of what they will do with us if we…' Surrender.

Capitulation. Couldn't say it, couldn't say the words.

'When will he come?"

' In a few minutes, very soon, he will walk alone to the plane.'

'Is there a danger from this?'

' If one man comes there can be no danger.' And what did it matter, how could it concern them?

What further danger could there be at the moment of defeat? But he didn't know, hadn't thought through the possibilities, untuned to those technicalities of defence that had so obsessed Isaac.

'Will you wake him?'

David seemed to shake his head – not a definite movement, just the imperceptible wave of the eyebrows, the flick of the hair across his forehead. They clung together a long time, arms round each other, cheek to cheek, Rebecca stretching upwards to match her height with his. Many times David said, with the tears running on his face, ' I'm sorry.

I am sorry.' And Rebecca crying too, choking in her throat, unable to reply.

It was a pleasant enough room that had been set aside for Colonel Arie Benitz.

Calendars on the walls – gifts of aviation companies that showed a combination of light aircraft and bikini-clad girls draped on their wings. Photographs, too, of the first airliners that had used Stansted, sepia-toned and looking frail and historic. Flowers on the window ledge. Easy chairs and a desk with a telephone.

When the call came he let it ring several seconds before answering, time to summon his caution and prepare himself. He did not identify with either rank or name, was wary till he heard the Hebrew language that was used.

The Embassy in London. He should know that the Soviet Ambassador had been received at the Foreign Office that morning, that he had made a statement to the press, had spoken of agreement with the British that the three should be returned to Russia. He also should know that there were journalists' reports that an ultimatum had been set on the aircraft, due to expire at ten hundred hours, and that it was the opinion of advice available to the Ambassador that further violence on the part of the three would only strengthen the resolve of the British to fulfil their arrangement with the Soviets.

He should find a public telephone kiosk and immediately contact those designated to liaise with him in London. The number he should call would be the first given him in the small hours.

There was a wish of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem to clarify his instructions in view of the new circumstances.

Arie Benitz let himself out of the office. There were many civilians and policemen and soldiers who hurried purposefully about their business and who passed him in the corridors, and none had cause to notice him. A cleaning lady, with time on her hands because many of the rooms she normally tidied at this time were occupied, directed him to a telephone in the staff canteen in the building's basement. She even changed for him the fifty-pence piece into the range of coins he would require to make the connection.

As he walked down the stairs Benitz felt the irritation rising in him, fuelled by the ill-shaped and ill-fitting clothes, ignited by the problems of the mission that he had been given. Ill at ease, unwanted, a stranger among the bustle of those who had a task and work that could not wait.

Unaccustomed to being a watcher, and on the side-lines.

Arie Benitz was steeped in the history of the State of Israel. He was committed to the defence of its people, had experienced moments when protection came only from the hammering of his Uzi, and the cries of pain from his enemies. He was treated with respect in his own country, called by his given name when spoken to in conference by his Chief of Staff. And these people had declined his help, ignored him.

As he walked into the canteen he was thinking of the three young ones, frightened and alone, in the Ilyushin. And they had said on the telephone to him that they would be returned, that he would not be required by the British to help in surrender. Arie Benitz had to fight against the thought that came into his mind. Willing them, willing the children, to hit back, attack, show their defiance. Had to suppress it, because that was contrary to his country's interests, and he was a servant of his country.

The hard one, the one they called Isaac, the one who led them now, he was the material of Squad 101, he was fashioned for the Anti-terrorist Unit. Do not lose your courage, children, thought Arie Benitz. There can be no help, there can be no rescue, but do not lose your courage.

Unwatched, unobserved, he dialled the London code.