Kingfisher

CHAPTER THREE

It was two years since they had given Charlie Webster a room of his own.

He hadn't really known whether to be flattered or grateful or what. It gave him a certain importance to be able to turn a key in the door when he went off for lunch, leaving an empty desk behind him as he headed for the lift and the fifteen-floor descent in the tower block that overlooked the Thames. Not that many of the deskmen for the 'Firm' enjoyed the privilege of only themselves for company. Trouble was that he could never quite satisfy himself as to whether the room was in recognition of the work he now did or simply a reward for services rendered.

'Foreign Office', Charlie called himself to those who asked but who did not know him. 'Well, not exactly Foreign Office,' his wife would say, 'but something like it, to do with Foreign Affairs anyway.' Fact was he never went near Whitehall. Too public. You couldn't be certain there wouldn't be some of those bloody agency photographers hanging about waiting for an ambassador or something, and he didn't want his photograph plastered all over the front pages just because he happened to be following a Venezuelan or a Zambian diplomat into the place. But since they came under the Foreign Office wing, and that was where the Under Secretary who now headed the Department had worked before his transfer, it was most convenient for members of the Secret Intelligence Service to bracket themselves with the herd of diplomats and civil servants who ran the public side of Britain's dealings with overseas governments.

Charlie worked to the Soviet Desk. Nine of them in all, answerable to Cecil Parker Smith, obe, mc, and most of them concerned with things military. That put four in the same room where they fiddled in each other's hair and didn't get much done, and thought they were the cream for the cat.

Two more on politics, the heavy fellows who spent their time reading the speeches of the Kremlin men, poor buggers. One for economics: he had a room to himself, and needed it, kept him going flat out, flogging his way through text books and brochures and progress reports. Then there was the one they called the Real Estate Man; he was the speculator, and his job was to predict long-range changes in Soviet attitudes and postures; worked to the letter of his brief and kept his thinking right in the far term, to the extent of sitting most of the day with his pipe in his mouth watching the pleasure boats negotiating Lambeth Bridge.

And there was Charlie, the ninth.

Last Christmas party, all a bit drunk, they'd christened him 'Double Diamond'- seen it as a hell of a laugh – and he'd looked blank, and they'd explained. 'DD'- those were the initials for his work. He'd still looked vacant and wondered why grown men always spent the last two days before the holidays dropping everything to gum paper streamers together to drape across the ceiling, and they'd shouted, 'sub-Desk Dissidents'. They'd all thought it hilarious, falling about over themselves. But that was his charge – sub-Desk Dissidents.

There was something to find out: couldn't doubt that. There were groups, cells, sections – call them what you want-that were alive and well and kicking faintly" inside the womb of the big red monolith. Not as many as there had been a decade before, but certainly some still there. Problem was that Charlie's job was to put them in perspective, extract any relevance from them. Much of his material came from emigre groups either in London or scattered across the cities of Western Europe, hopelessly unreliable people who would have you believe the whole bloody place was on the point of mass insurrection if you could only drop a Hercules load of Stirlings and FNs and grenades into People's Square, Novosibirsk. You had to weed and prune. Use the cosmetics to brighten the facade, and then search the cross-references and the files. Slowly, patiently – that's the way you touched on the subtle signs that pointed the way to the trends so beloved by his masters. Ukraine was usually fertile. There were bits and pieces from the Baltic; quite a little set-to they'd had in the Department over the Russian war ship that tried a flit to Sweden and that took a hammering from its own air force and turned back shot up; sub-Desk Military said it was theirs, Charlie claimed it too. Parker Smith sat for half a day on it while nobody spoke in the outer offices, then did his Solomon and gave it to sub-Desk Military. Followed by appeasing Charlie, told him he was doing too much valuable work for him to mess about working on something that was common knowledge to every European NATO set-up. Quite a ripple they'd had over that one. Bit of activity last year down in Georgia; Charlie had liked that because it came right out of the blue. Hadn't expected anything on that sort of scale, not a dozen bombs, quite excited him. He'd wondered what sort of devices they used, where they'd learned the trade.

He realized it was the technique, the string and the Sellotape, the timers and detonators, that absorbed him. Should have been ashamed really – and him supposed to be an analyst.

It was interesting work in its way, but Charlie had to pinch himself from time to time to make sure that it was actually important. He'd done enough in his life that was classified as vital, in the

'national interest'. Cyprus had been special, because attitudes were different then, and he was younger, and public opinion accepted that young men would go abroad and die in the sunshine for the preservation of something or other. Aden, too, though nastier there, and the last of its type, and people beginning to bore at the concept of 'our lads overseas', but a serious place where survival took skill if you did Charlie's work. And Ireland wasn't pretty, not in Dublin, and you had to know what the Provies were at, and you spent your nights low down in cars outside the pubs watching for who went in and who came out, and who was talking to whom, and had he done it before. That was important all right if you wanted a man to be able to take his missus for a Friday night jar in the local in Birmingham, or Manchester, or Glasgow or Guildford. Had the

'74 campaign and the '75 campaign, and the bombs taking off the arms and legs, and the glass scything the faces, to show for justification of spending his evenings watching the Paddys at their booze. But hard to convince himself that what he did now was of value. Nice to know, of course, that Big Brother was having difficulties as he sat all serene behind his watch towers, his mine fields and barbed-wire fences. Nice to know that the mosquitoes were out and nibbling, that he was scratching a bit, that he'd be turning over in his bed and cursing.

And there was the material that had come in that day. Hadn't gone through the files yet to find out what the pattern was, whether it was new, on-going. But he'd do some typing after lunch, string it all together for Parker Smith's In Tray. Sort of material the Minister liked to have when he was having a hard time at those conferences; it made the man feel that at least he had something up his sleeve. Gave him confidence, Charlie supposed, when he was in for a good kick in the crutch from those humourless bastards. Wouldn't want anything too long, Ministers never did, about half a dozen lines. But a policeman shot and nothing in the Kiev press, that was out of the ordinary. Straight criminals, then there would be no shortage of news print. But nothing on this one, not a public whisper – that's why it was different. And someone else thought it interesting, otherwise SIS (External Services) wouldn't have noted it, and the paper wouldn't have been duplicated and categorized so that it might find its way to Charlie's desk. Showed there was a bit of life in the old system after all, if they could pick up pin-pricks like that. So perhaps there was something going on, something for him to think about Quite interesting really, if you had the time to look into it. And Charlie Webster had the time.

The source of semi-automatic weapons had been known to David for some months, but he did not reveal it to the others in the group. It was a particular knowledge that he treasured, that he wished to keep to himself. The decision not to spread the information had come a long time before, when he had resolved that if ever there was the possibility he would be cornered then he would sell his life, and well. Being taken alive and put through the courts and the due process of law was an obsession for him, something he told himself he would never accept, whatever the feelings of the others, whatever they would do if the cordon closed tight around them. He would never come out with his hands high, never.

He had come across the old man by accident – had wandered into him in the forest and then been aware of the frightened, primitive eyes that had peered through the trees at him. Faint and sparse hair that was touselled. Clothes that were torn and patched and torn again and were too heavy for the summer weather but were needed for the winter cold of the forest. Hands that were shaking and claw-like and that rose to protect his head lest the intruder should strike him. The bearing of a woodland recluse who forsook company, believed that it brought only danger. David had talked to him and smiled and used soft words and broken down the old man's reluctance to talk. On his visits to their own hut, some three miles away, David would come earlier than the rest, so that he could bring food and, at first, fresh clothes to the old man; the food had been eaten, the trousers and jackets and woollens ignored. David had learned of the man's history, and what kept him in isolation and hiding. And the more he learned the greater the worth of the old man became to the plans he was fashioning for the four-strong cell.

It was a long journey Timofey had travelled. He was from the farmlands south of Moscow that lay behind the German winter line of 1942 running from Zhizdra, through Orel, and on towards Kursk. His town was Sevsk, and in that spring a man called Kaminski had come with a letter in his wallet that bore the signature of Generaloberst Schmidt, commanding the Second Panzer Army. Kaminski became the local governor of all the towns round Sevsk. His authority took in the communities of Navlya, Dmitrovsk, Dmitriev and Lokot; he had the power to appoint civilian officials, and most important of all he was answerable only to Generaloberst Schmidt. Timofey's collective was one of the first that Kaminski 'liberated'. The land was divided, the animals apportioned along with the farm equipment and stock, and in return the workers enlisted in the local militia to fight the communist guerrillas with an expertise that was beyond the alien German troops. It had been Generaloberst Schmidt's brilliance that he had possessed the foresight to realize the potential of men such as Kaminski, and using the carrot of individual land ownership he had derived the benefit of this unexpected source of manpower. Prior to Kaminski's time farmers like Timofey had watched with apathy as the guerrillas came at night to replenish their food stocks from the yards of the collectives; now they were directly affected; they were losing what had been made their own. The life of the guerrilla became harder, his reception at the darkened farmhouse more hostile. The next step was logical enough. The new militia were formed into units for patrolling their property and ultimately for hunting down the guerrillas. As a tactic it was a great success for the Germans; their allies were self-sufficient in abandoned Soviet weapons, anti-tank guns, machine-guns and mortars; they became military formations and safeguarded the access routes. Timofey had a position of rank, commanded a platoon-sized group, was a noticed man. And then the line to the north sagged, and there were bulges and salients before the Germans were gone, pushed back towards the distant Polish frontier. The Red Army reoccupied the towns where Kaminski's word had ruled. There were many now that could name those that had collaborated. Timofey's picture was displayed in the square at Sevsk. There was a reward for his capture.

Three submachine-guns and a rifle he had taken with him as he had foot-slogged south, moving at night, keeping away from the roads and the towns and the villages all through that long summer of 1943. He had entertained a vague hope that he might assume a new identity in Kiev, that the confusion of war would allow him to reappear without need of explanations. There had been many times when he had thought that the time was ripe for him to throw off his solitary exile in the forests and make the break from the past, but it would have been a great step and he never quite could bring himself to it. Five, six, perhaps seven times he had stood on the edge of the line of trees at the great road that ran towards Kiev and braced himself to step out of his sanctuary… but he had never been able to accomplish it. And as the years went by so the task of self-rehabilitation became even harder, till he had made for himself a permanent prison in the forests.

Thirty-five years he had been there now. Through the discomfiture of sores and bruises and spreading scabs, the pain of his ailing teeth, the frustration of his fading sight. He was paid a few kopecks by the dacha owners, who asked nothing more than that he should watch over their properties in the winter, and a few more coins for the wood that he brought them for their fires in the spring and in the autumn. Not that he had any use for the money. And they left him to himself, his memories and his hatreds, seeing him only as a harmless, pathetic, sometimes laughable figure, with a marginal usefulness that protected him from denunciation.

David whistled a warning of his approach when he was still a hundred yards from the old man's hut. Then he stood stock still and listened after the harsh notes that Timofey had taught him, and heard the answering call; it had started as a sort of game, but that was before the talk in the group had been of action. After that there had been a difference. New justifications and a seriousness for the precautions. David had not told him of the programme, just prodded his memory, vague and fading, leading the old man to the days in the woods round Sevsk when he had stalked the partisans. Technique, procedure, manoeuvre, tactics – all those Timofey could teach him. 'Be careful. Be on guard at all times. It is when you relax that they take you. The knife in the back, at the throat, the single shot.' Always the same epitaph: that he had relaxed, that he was not careful.

A silly thing to bury a man for, that he was casual, Timofey had said.

The hut was not as large as the one the group had found, but big enough for a woodsman to spend a night when his search for dried and fallen branches that were needed for his fires caused him to stray far from his home. Table inside, and chairs, and a mattress on the floor, all had been thrown out from the dachas and disappeared overnight from the rubbish heap. Rabbit snares on the wall, neatly in line, the coils of steel wire suspended from nails, a source of food.

When they were inside David said, 'Timofey, I do not have much time, and I have come to ask something of you. It is of the greatest importance you give me what I ask for. You have suffered greatly at their hands. If you give me what I need you will have the chance to hit them in a way that has not been possible for you. I want guns, Timofey. Not a rifle – I have no need of that-but the machine-guns. Two of them, certainly, I must have.'

In the half-light of the room David saw the eyes opposite him glint, closing with interest as the old man's attention was captured by the request. Desperate to know what I want them for, the old fox, thought David.

'Timofey, it is not a criminal act, not robbing a bank, not for money. It is against them, the system – it will hurt them whether we succeed or fail. It will punish them for what they have done to you, and to us.'

'What have they done to you?' His voice was hoarse with the strangeness of speaking.

They have hunted us in the same way as you, only the weapons have changed. They are our enemies as they are yours.'

'You have a house, clothes, work, money-how are they your enemies as they are mine?'

'We do not have the same opportunities, we are second- class citizens. We are not permitted to be part of their world. They reject us because we are Jews.'

'We saw the Jews go in the war. We were on the side of those who exterminated your parents and your relatives. Perhaps we even approved

… it is difficult… it was a long time a g o… we did nothing. How many millions of your people died then? And now you want guns, and you want to kill people to get a better place in the sun. Is that reason enough? We killed so many of each other at that time; what you now talk of seems a little matter. Perhaps because I am old, but what you seek for yourself seems nothing..

'I have not the time, old man.'

Timofey rose from his stool. 'When you have guns then you will go to war. That is the time when you must learn the wisdom of patience and calm, or you will end as nothing. With the strength of the gun beside you your haste must be tempered, even your haste to be clear of an old man who asks nothing of you, nothing but a few words that can be lies or truth, immaterial.' He moved stiffly because the damp had long been in his knees and movement was hard for him, towards the hanging sacking that marked off the area where he slept. When he emerged again it was with an ageing knapsack coloured the steel grey of the wartime German forces. He placed it with deliberation on the table and unbuckled the straps that held down the top flap. There was pale green mildew on them and the buckles were dark with rust. He saw the way the young man looked at him. 'Have no worry. Inside it is dry. Weapons do not age, not if they have been cared for, if they are cleaned. These have been.' Then the bundle of water-proofed oilskin, a mustard brown, camouflage ground sheet, and that was laid on the table, and there was string to be undone, and finally the guns were revealed. So small, David thought. The tubular steel shoulder rests folded down the stock, magazines separate and detached, just barrellength basically, insignificant little things such as children play with when they mimic the television pictures of the Red Army at its manoeuvres. But clean, and shining, and as worked on as any of his mother's mantelpiece ornaments.

'The ammunition too I have cared for. It would not be wise to fire a test, but I tell you, my boy, that they will function. They are adequate to kill any who are keeping you as a second citizen.' He laughed, his hoarseness giving way to a raven's croak, his face cracking with the humour of his remark, spilling new lines across the log-brown face.

'I need two, Timofey.'

'So there are more than one of you. You have a follower, perhaps an army, and you will be the general?'

"There are no generals. We are together.'

'We all say that when we are young. But do not listen to yourself. When there is danger there must be a leader. You cannot fight by committee, even they found that. And are you the leader, David? Can you take your friends forward? When you have the guns it is changed, you know.

You must discover that before you begin the course, whatever it may be, that you have chosen.

Later is too late, there is no time.'

David did not reply, and Timofey lapsed to taking the guns in his hands.

For half an hour he showed David the workings of the weapons until the lesson was learned.

He showed him the safety mechanism, showed him how to arm them, how to load the magazine, to attach it, explained the drift of automatic fire high and to the right if more than five shots were fired in a burst, showed him what to do if he suffered a jam.

At the door, the load he had come for in a plastic bag, David said, 'What is the call that you taught me, told me to use when I approached?'

'The kingfisher's.'

'Why did you choose that one?'

Timofey pointed past his hut into the tangle of trees. 'You cannot see it from here, but there is a stream, where no one comes, where I sit. There is the nest of a kingfisher there, and I hear her call, or that of her mate when he has need of her. It is rare for people to see that bird. Most of these swine that live here through the summer would never see one, let alone hear her. So I say that if I hear that call, and I hear it from the path that you use, then it will be you. Another bird, and I could be mistaken, or I might hear it too often. But the kingfisher is the rarity, a princess amongst them.'

'I have never seen one.'

'Because you are from the city. She is fast and swift, and she holds the initiative in her world.

None can catch her, few even see her, she is devastating in her attack. She is a lesson to the guerrilla. She is what you must strive after.'

'It is a good name, old man.'

They were walking now, close together because of the narrowness of the track, and the old man was shorter than David, bowed and shrivelled.

'Will you come again?' Timofey asked, his eyes looking up.

'I will not come again. However it goes there will be no return.'

There were no farewells, no hands shaken, no words of comfort or encouragement, just the blunt moment of parting as the old man turned back to his hut. David hurried down the track, his right hand holding the weighted package, his left shielding his face from the low, sharp hazel branches.

Remember what David had said, again and again through Isaac's mind went the phrase as he stood in the centre of the huge marble-veneered floor of the Aeroflot main offices. A bustle of people coming and going around him, and queues at the ticket counters. Just the way they had wanted it. And when it comes to the booking choose a harassed girl, one under pressure with a short temper and a willingness to be done with the business. You didn't want a girl with time to waste and questions to ask. Incredible, really, in a society like ours how people had so much time to ask questions; fear, he thought, fear is what it comes to, fear of being held responsible if there was error. A whole society so consumed with curiosity about the legalities of their fellow citizens' lives.

He had already taken the State airline's timetable and leafed through it till he came to the map that boasted the extent of the international as well as domestic routes. Take the North Sea as the outer limit, going due west. Have to be somewhere inside that orbit that they must be put down, and still be left witeh a failsafe quantity of fuel in the tanks. Must look at it analytically, that was the way he had been trained at school, and the way they were teaching him at the University.

Take a problem and search out the solution. So where to? Where to buy a ticket for?

Leningrad – no good. Equivalent distance to the centre of DDR, and he wasn't to know how much spare fuel they would carry. Would get them to Turkey, but that wasn't safe, not with a fascist military regime, same sort of people as the party here, hard to tell the difference; and they'd run the risk of being shipped back. Needed the 'liberal democracies', as David called them, where they followed the fortunes of Israel with concern, did not genuflect to the Arabs and their oil. North Europe the answer for the refuelling stop. There was a sense of frustration to his thinking that these decisions were being made now, plans that should have moulded days earlier, and would now be rushed and pressurized.

Yalta – too short, same for all the Black Sea resorts. Plenty of flights, but not enough aviation fuel.

Tbilisi – nearer, but whoever went to Georgia? And they must not have to explain the reason for their journey. Miserable, tight bastards down there and everyone in Kiev knew that. Have to explain if he wanted seats to Tbilisi.

He poised the map between his open hands again, running a finger further north. Tomsk and Novosibirsk.

Novosibirsk – opportunities there. God knows why anyone goes there, but that was an intellectual base, Science City. Perhaps a chemistry student could be going and Rebecca with her botany, and David with his working chemistry. The indicator board carried the daily arrivals and departures, covering a whole wall, the flights of the week. Nothing to those two cities for Wednesday. No to Tomsk, no to Novosibirsk, blank, nothing. Disappointment and back to the map.

Tashkent – a flight to Tashkent tomorrow. Flight on Wednesday. 1600 hours, the sort of time they wanted, could have finished their plans by then… but if they had three hours to play with, if Moses gave them that long, and he'd sworn and cursed at Moses when he should have prayed for him, prayed for strength for him. More than two thousand miles to Tashkent, way beyond the distance they needed. Fuel for more than five hours, take them into Europe, into the West. But down into Tashkent, where the flight was rooted, what papers would you need for that? Didn't know. It had been his plan, his idea, the whole thing and the others had accepted it, and he didn't know the answers, and had no way of finding them, only at the counter, only at the ticket counter.

Cannot apply logic to regulations, either know the answer or you are ignorant.

He joined the queue to one of the central counters, heavy traffic, more than at the extremes of right and left. Funny how people sought the centre where the delays would be greater.

Conformity. Five, ten minutes slipping by, and time for him to sum up the girl in the dowdy blue uniform behind the counter. Customers in front of him being satisfied, queue lengthening behind him. Soon there was only one more man in front – heavy suit of a Party worker. Perhaps he wasn't, but Isaac reckoned anybody who wore a heavy suit when it was hot was a Party worker, status in showing they had the clothes. Sweat was running down the man's neck on to his collar: so much for the gesture of superiority.

An argument. The man wanted Moscow. She said it was full for two days. He showed her his papers, his documentation and his cards, but she replied by saying it didn't make a damn of difference, that everything was full, although he could go to the airport and try his luck there.

Isaac realized that the man couldn't be that important, meant he didn't qualify by his rank for the tickets kept back for senior Party officials on all flights. Everyone knew about that.

The girl's cheeks were flushed, and she was looking round her for support when she caught Isaac's eyes, and his wink, the lowered lid, was acknowledged. Isaac saw her stifle a giggle and return her gaze to the man whose voice was now raised.

There would be trouble for her, a complaint to the responsible person. His department would lodge a protest at the highest level. What was her name? Blatant obstruction of an official. And he left his place at the counter.

Isaac said, 'I'd like to book three for tomorrow, to Tashkent, student fare, coming back fourteen days from tomorrow. I'd like to go on tomorrow afternoon's flight, return Wednesday fortnight. If it's possible?' and he smiled, boyish, intimate… 'silly old fool. You handled him well-you'll not hear from him again.' His right hand had moved from his hip pocket, engulfing the fifty roubles of notes, and the fist opened among the papers in front of her, tickets, timetables, price charts, and without taking her eyes from him she covered the notes, faded and worn, with her booking pad.

She didn't reply, just picked up her desk telephone – computer not working again-and was talking into it; Isaac waiting for the verdict.

Still holding the phone she asked for the names, and when they had been given to her she repeated them into the receiver, spelling them out letter by letter. It seemed to take a lifetime. She said 'priority', and grinned at him; not bad looking, Isaac thought, but someone should do something about her teeth. He smiled back.

'Confirmed,' she said, and started to make out the tickets themselves. Not much to fill in, not like an international ticket. When she had finished she set to work on her calculator. 'With the student reduction, and the fourteen-day stop reduction, and the ballet festival concession in Tashkent – you're lucky on that one… five hundred and twenty-two roubles… for the three. You pay over there, on the right at the cash counter, if you haven't a warrant, that is.'

'Our parents have the money,' said Isaac. 'Keep the tickets there beside you and I'll be back with the money…'

'I'm not supposed to do that, to make out tickets that aren't immediately paid for.'

' I'll be back. I know when you close. Keep them on one side. I'll be back.'

So the flight was booked, and he found it difficult to walk when he was out on the street again.

'How easy 1 It was going to work. The whole thing was going to work. He wanted to shout, to yell the message. David and Rebecca and Isaac, they'd show the bastards. Show them all.

Isaac's mother was waiting, as he had told her to, outside the Savings Bank nearest to their home.

She was a small, sparrow- sized woman, and the fines on her face were devoid of relief. The boy had not explained, given her no reason for her presence there, just told her to bring the payment book. A hard and suffering time she had had, with money not easy to come by; it had been grafted for, worked for and collected With a miser's hand. And he had said he would need most of the deposit that had increased at such pitiful speed over the previous thirty years. He had told her that David and Rebecca's mothers would repay her in part, and she had thought that she barely knew these other persons who were families of her son's friends. But something in the boy's looks had stopped her from remonstrating, and so she now stood and waited for him.

Two per cent per annum they paid – not a way to get rich, not a way that people could lift themselves from the bog of their lives. But what alternative was there? What else could one do with one's money? When he came Isaac took her arm, kissed her on the cheek and together they took their place in the queue. A bright, airy interior. Lace curtains and flowers on the table where the customers could sit and prepare their paperwork. Even Lenin, in his wall portrait, seemed content, as he looked the length of the bank across to the photograph of the Ukrainian General Secretary of the Party. At the counter, like a ventriloquist's doll, his mother spoke while Isaac a pace behind her primed the old lady's ear as to how much she should withdraw. It was time-consuming but without difficulty, and they maintained a punctilious politeness to the girl, for she could easily hinder them if they aggravated her. And they were Jews, so it was easy to offend.

When the money had passed to his mother and on to Isaac, he said, ' I cannot tell you why, but you will know by tomorrow night, and you must have courage, the courage of our people.

Whatever happens you must be brave. Do not bow to them. I will not be home tonight. Do not ask why; be brave.'

There was no emotion displayed by the old lady as she stepped out on to the street again. She walked away with a brisk and sturdy step.

And he had the money in his pocket. A tight wad of rolled, crisp banknotes, and he was hurrying for the bus that would take him back to the centre of Kiev and the Aeroflot offices. So he had done his part; they could board the plane that would lift off in twenty-three hours. But had David the guns? Would Rebecca secure access for them? And when would Moses break, when would Moses talk?

Yevsei Allon could barely believe his luck.

First the call by telephone to the freight office, and his being told by the Under Manager that there was a personal message for him, and not to take long because the line carried official business. The voice of the girl that he remembered from school, and who had been too haughty then to acknowledge him, the suggestion that they should meet and talk about the old days in the classroom, the little laugh that mingled with the static of the poor connection, and his thinking of his night classes, and not daring to mention them. They would meet at the subway entrance that was near the small church of Saint Sophia.

Before he had left the airport at the end of the day-shift Yevsei had spent ten full minutes in the washroom, scrubbing his hands and lathering the hard public utilities soap on his face. He wetted and then combed the short hair on his head till the parting was straight and exact, and he had looked at himself in the mirror, and the man who waited behind him to use the basin had quipped, 'You'll need more than soap and a comb to please her.' He'd blushed, crimson over his whitened face, and mumbled an answer before running for the bus.

They had had coffee after they met, sitting at a table away from the bar where the voices of other customers were reduced to a background drone. The girl listened to him as he grew in confidence, and she had asked him about his job, what he did at the airport, and they had talked of their teachers in the low voices of conspiracy and of their friends, and demolished them all.

Her white teeth had flashed when he made his jokes, and she had thrown back her head, so that the long black hair trailed away from the slightness of her neck. He could see the shape of her breasts and the outline of her waist till there was a tightness and a sweat inside the ill- fitting trousers that he cursed himself for having chosen to wear that morning. Too much really to believe in. On his way to the toilet he'd stumbled, banging his foot against the leg of the table, rattling the cups. Then he'd scrabbled in his pocket for the kopecks that he needed for the machine, and for the sachet that he would want when the light faded.

She took him in the early evening to the sandbank of the Dneiper, and they swam in the great river that flows north to south through the city. She was prepared, and wearing a one-piece bathing suit that had been concealed under her dress, he in the blue underpants that bulged and heaved in spite of the cold drift of water round his lower belly. When he touched her in the water, trying to pretend it was an accident, she had not moved away as the other girls did, and when she laughed it was with him, not at him. There were others there, naturally, because it was a warm evening and the authorities prided themselves on the cleanliness of the river, the way they had been able to stave off pollution from the water artery of an industrialized city of more than two million inhabitants. But she seemed oblivious to them, allowing no intruders in the private oasis she was creating for the man who worked at Kiev airport and who had access to the tarmac and the planes.

The parks are numerous in the city, putting those of London and Paris and Frankfurt and Rome to shame. Some are ornamental, with laid out flower beds where the elderly go, others little more than enclosed spaces of bushes and trees where the grass has been permitted to grow, and there are paths that can lead far from the noise of voices. It was to such a place that they walked after the river. His trousers showed a dark and damp stain at the seat from his sodden pants and she, still encased in her costume, hid the shivers she felt. But her trembling was not from any sharp wind, but of what must happen that the guns would go on board the plane; and he mistook the shaking of her hand for an excitement for which he believed he was responsible.

The place they found was some way from the life of the city, hidden and enclosed by undergrowth, and she said to him, 'Don't look, but I can't wear this costume. I'll catch my death if I keep these damp things against my skin.' She had twisted away from where he sat and turned her back on him, and reached behind her to pull down the zip fastener of the dress till it was clear of her shoulders. More contortions and the garment was hanging, straps free, at her waist. Hands now under the skirt of her dress, and the wriggling before it was free and she reached up again to pull the dress back into position. But the zip remained loose and he could see, suntanned by the weather, the knotted outline of her backbone.

'Why don't you take yours off?' she said, matter of fact, as though it were everyday, nothing special.

Though he could feel the clamminess of his pants against his skin he said, ' I'm all right. I think they've just about dried.' There was a huskiness in his voice. The sort of thing the men at work talked about in the canteen during lunch break, and it was happening to him, to Yevsei Allon.

She laid her costume out on the grass neatly and with care as if to prevent it becoming creased, then fell back on to the ground, and with her arms stretched above her head ' I love it here. So peaceful, so beautiful, so quiet It makes you forget everything else.' It was a lie; her thoughts were far from the leaves, and the cool grass. What would they do to the boy, if he did as she was to ask? What would be his punishment?

Perhaps they'd think that he was one of the group, and if they did that would mean the firing squad, or the execution shed. He'd have to work hard to prove that he wasn't. If he were lucky it would be the cattle trucks to Moldavia and the camp at Potma. The Jews had a hard time there, especially from the fascists – there were still fascists there, from the war days, but they were the

'trustees' and now ran the camps and took their revenge on the newest source of prisoners, on the Jews. Perhaps he would not be linked to them, but that was unlikely. They were thorough people, these pigs, and how could poor Yevsei be warned to cover his tracks?. .. poor Yevsei. God, he wants to kiss me, and there's spittle at the side of his mouth, and how many hours since he shaved?… Lucky if he just went to the Labour Camp. He'd be a casualty of the breakout, but there had been casualties before. Six million casualties in the war, and how many since then?

And what war was ever won without the ignorant and the innocent standing up in the cross-fire and dying with disbelief on their faces? Isaac had the tickets, only now for David to get the guns.

They'll give me one. One of my own to hold.

' I don't think you should do that,' she whispered and smiled bravely. His hand was at her kneecap, and his fingers, cold and bony, were skating patterns on her lower thigh.

' I don't know,' he said. He was panting and his mouth was very close to hers.

' I don't really know either,' she said, and looked into his eyes. Was there a squint or not? She couldn't be sure. God knows he was heavy.

Never done it before, poor boy, she thought. Hadn't an idea. But neither had she – couldn't claim the virtue of experience. Could have with Darvid, but… One hand climbing her thigh, the other pushing between her breasts, seeking a nipple to squeeze and hold to, and finding it and not knowing his strength till she cried out, and he believed she encouraged him. The hand higher, searching and brushing gently at her and trying to prise her legs apart, and the one that had been at her breasts gone and the motion of rolling activity as he struggled to release something from the but- toned-down pocket on his buttocks.

'Oh, my God,' she let out. 'The time, it's so late. And I haven't said I'd be out late tonight Yevsei, I have to go… I really must.' But was it too fast, too hurried? Had she merely wound the elastic and in releasing it exploded in him an anger, a teased fury? Out of her orbit, out of her experience. She'd had no need of the casual evenings with stranger boys with a few kopecks in their pockets now that her life was with the group. The anxiety showed in her eyes, the fear that she had damaged the work of the evening. She flitted a hand to his wrist, withdrawing it but consoling. How far along the path must she walk? How deep was the submission required to guarantee the passage of the guns? Hideous, the thought that she had failed them, David and Isaac, that she could not prise apart her thighs for the love of her friends. And Yevsei hovering over her, weight on his knees.

In his confusion she could sit up, disengage, disentangle. 'Another ten minutes, just ten minutes.' Pleading, yet knowing he had lost as she smoothed her dress down her thighs.

'I want to, I desperately want to, Yevsei. But I cannot tonight. You've made the time flee.

Tomorrow I could come back. I could come tomorrow evening. If you want me to.'

Yevsei Allon nodded, bewildered by all that had happened to him. But that was a promise, and he had done nothing wrong, had not upset her. Only the tightness and agonizing frustration to tell him how close he had been to the most triumphant success of his twenty-one-year life, and burning in his hip pocket the sachet he had brought from the coin machine in the cafe.

When they were walking back along the path to the road and the bus stop where they would part she said quickly, Yevsei, you're in freight, that is correct?'

'Yes.' He wasn't proud of it. He'd told her earlier what he did-she'd telephoned him there. Why did she need to ask?

'And you go to the planes to load them?'

'That is done by the porters. Rebecca, what time tomorrow, what time will I see you?'

'But you could go to the plane yourself – if it was necessary?'

'Of course. The same time tomorrow, and I will bring my swimming-trunks."

'The same time, Yevsei. But I have something to ask of you. There is a friend of mine who is going tomorrow to Tashkent. He is of our faith, of our people, and he must take a package with him. There are some books that he cannot put in his bags in case they are seen. I want you to put them on the plane for him, Yevsei.' She had linked her arm through his, and walked close to him, her hip bouncing against his. I want you to tell me where they are placed so that he can collect them during the flight. When he gets off at Tashkent there are no searches and he can carry them off."

Still the suppressed, flattened pain fighting the coldness of his pants, but tomorrow there would be only liberation. It was a promise. She had promised. He asked, 'Is it dangerous?' and was immediately ashamed at his reaction as she smiled and shook her head.

'We would not ask anything dangerous of a school friend, much less of one of our faith, one who worships with us.' He could not remember that he had seen her at the synagogue that he visited with his family each week. He felt his arm, encircling her waist, being pushed higher, so that his hand could cup her breast. 'Which flight?'

'The flight to Tashkent. The one that leaves at four o'clock in the afternoon.'

'Bring the package to me at mid-day when I take my lunch- break, at the outer door of the freight offices. Then you will need to telephone me at three, the same number that you used today. I will be able to tell you by then in what seat your friend should sit to recover his books. I can do it for you.'

She kissed him on the cheek, and did not fight when he moved her mouth to his and explored behind her gums and teeth with his tongue. He saw that she was still smiling, a radiant, consuming smile.

Parker Smith was never at his desk before ten in the morning, claiming with a shrug that he could never survive the stampede of the rush hour, but he stayed late to clear his In Tray, load the Out.

He let it be known amongst the men who worked for him that he was most receptive to discussion and exchange of viewpoints after the general office hours had been terminated, when the telephones had stopped ringing, when no secretaries were left on the premises to harry him.

Around seven in the evening he would put his head out through the door to his office and see if anyone was waiting in the outer section. It was a house rule that after five o'clock nothing short of the death of Stalin, the chopping of Krushchev or the declaration of war between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Republic of China should cause him to be interrupted before he indicated his willingness to receive visitors. Parker Smith was keen on rules, had learned them in his army days and not forgotten them when he transferred from Intelligence Corps, Ministry of Defence, to the civilian wing of the government's espionage service, the SIS.

With his jacket left in his own office, and his tie loosened, collar button undone, Charlie Webster was waiting, far back in an armchair, and idling through the previous day's Financial Times. Not really the type we're used to, and more's the pity, thought Parker Smith. The totally committed man, and with more experience up front than the rest of the Section put together. He'd noticed the way the others kept their distance from Charlie Webster, didn't mix with the older man from the different background, put him on the outside. Hadn't read his personal file, had they? Would have treated him like a king if they had.

'Come on in, Charlie.' He liked the way the man straightened in his chair, left the newspaper folded on the coffee table, pushed up his tie before entering the inner sanctum. Take a chair, and what can I do for you?' It was a good office for talking. Parker Smith had the rank and the Civil Service grading to be able to choose, within a stipulated budget, his colour schemes – kept them soft, a gentie sky blue and a rich cream, full length net curtains, two quietly abstract paintings, and a sprouting philodendron in the corner; none of your Annigoni prints of HM in Garter robes, nor any 'Myself Meeting Winston Churchill' photographs.

'It's this, sir. Something or nothing, I'm not sure yet, but could be amusing. I put in a 'B' category to you this afternoon, about Kiev. Perhaps I shouldn't have bothered you… It's just that a policeman has been shot, and there's silence in the local rags and on the wireless. External picked it up and pushed it in my direction. If the Soviets had been trumpeting it I wouldn't have bothered. But they haven't, and that's what made it a bit unusual to me. Seemed it could mean there's something political there.'

'I read it,' said Parker Smith. 'What's the source evaluation?'

'Not bad. One of the businessmen's pick-ups from a long- termer, passed on by the handlers.

We've had this chap's stuff before, and not had reason to doubt it.'

Parker Smith bowed his head faintly in acknowledgment. One of the crosses the Department had to bear was that its source of hard news came more often than not courtesy of the active wing of SIS that occupied floors below.

There's not much to add to the report I handed in, except that a bit more has come in from the Moscow end. It's a bit convoluted, but it's more fast. Seems a British student on exchange post-grad studies at the University got into a bit of a panic, left his passport on a bus in Kiev, and rang into the Embassy in Moscow for guidance. Seems he told them that the talk there was of truck-loads of militia moving into the city late this afternoon and that there'd been an attack on a policeman. It's very fresh this: he was only talking to the Embassy a couple of hours ago. He said all this was mixed up with a rumour running the rounds at the University, and only a rumour, that a Jewish youth had been taken into custody. The kid said that the students were saying all these three factors were related. He's just an ordinary student, nothing special, not one of ours. But it all comes at the right time to go with the other stuff.'

' Interesting, Charlie. But still doesn't up it to "A" category.'

'Be pretty hard for anything the bloody dissidents do to manage "A" quality, sir.'

'But it's nice to know. Nice to know the bastards have their own little bit of Belfast. I don't envy the little blighters up the sharp end if they get their hands on them.'

That's not really why I want to see you this evening. It's just that if what we have already is genuine, then we could be into something much deeper.' Parker Smith was listening. It was what he wanted to hear, what the Department existed for, drew the Treasury funds to discover. 'Ever since I came to work here it's struck me that one day the Soviet Jews are going to get lively.

We've been through all the primary stages – press conferences, hunger strikes, trying to stir the pot up to get themselves shipped out to Israel, the botched-up job of the Leningrad hi-jack when they didn't have a gun between them and were riddled with informers and didn't even make it on to the plane before they were picked up. We've had all that kind of thing, but that was the older generation at work. It's the same the world over. All these things start with the thinkers and not the hard boys running the show, and they're too fragmented to have any unity, and there's failure.

But there comes a change, when the toughies get involved. I've damn all of nothing to base this on, but if you have – and it's only an assumption – but if you have a specific target – shooting, and you have troops coming in – paramilitary anyway – and you have a Jewish boy picked up, then you have a pattern. There's a load of "ifs" about the whole scene, but should there be the connection that I'm drawing, then things could get very interesting.'

' I think what you're saying, Charlie, is that it doesn't really matter how the Ukrainians and the Georgians and that crowd up in the Baltic spend their evenings, but that if it was Jewish, then the flavour would be richer, the spices would be in the pot. We'd have an international scene.'

'Something like that, sir. And I thought you'd like to know.'

The conversation was over. Anyone else and Parker Smith would have given him more encouragement, but it didn't work like that with Charlie Webster. Always at his best when he had to convince people, and seemed to lose interest once he had. Strange chap, not really part of them, but a good man to have around.

Charlie let himself out and walked back to his own office to collect his coat and briefcase. The bag had nothing in it beyond the morning paper, and he'd long done the crossword, but his wife liked him to carry it, had the EIIR monogram on it and she liked that to be seen. Couldn't take any of the office papers home – all classified and restricted – but he liked to humour her. He'd be in time for the 8.52 from Waterloo,