Kingfisher

CHAPTER FOUR

A tin of stewed meat, sliced open and the contents eaten cold and messily, dribbling on to their shirt fronts, and a loaf of bread were their food as the two men waited out the night hours in the forest hut. They also had a litre of beer to wash it down with, to deaden the taste, but this they left unfinished. They needed a clear head in the morning, David had said, and Isaac had watched as the screw-top was replaced on the bottle-head. But the beer had been good, had chilled their bodies and smoothed their throats, sore from their incessant talking. Like talismen they had laid out, where both could see them, their achievements of the afternoon. Close to David's right hip lay the bundle in which he had brought the guns, the protective wrapping artfully pulled back so that the metal shapes could be properly admired. By Isaac's crossed ankles was the thin paper envelope that bore the Aeroflot insignia, and in which were placed the strips of paper, printed and ballpen-scrawled, that were their tickets to Tashkent. Both packets were worthy of study, comprising the power and the subtlety necessary for their escape. And what awaited them now was nothing as tangible as they had accomplished, just a promise: Yevsei's promise.

With the end of the meal they were left with nothing to succour them but the sight of each other's face, the sound of each other's words. Frequently Isaac looked at the door, as if anticipating that it could open without warning, that the girl would be back, spilling out her success. It was irritating to David, who preferred to keep his own company, and who sat quite still, breaking the mood only once to throw the empty meat tin into a darkened corner, far into the shadows made by the single, flickering candle.

'How long do you think, how long till she comes?'

David shrugged, disinterested.

'Can she come in the night?'

'You know the bus times as well as I do. There is no other way she can reach us.'

' It's just this waiting. Everything we have done today, and still not knowing whether it's meaningless..

"There is nothing we can do but wait.'

'Doesn't make it any easier.' Isaac laughed, nervous, cramped.

'Why should it be easy?'

' I didn't say it should be easy. I just meant..?

'There is nothing in a flight such as ours that can be easy. If it were then there would be many like us. We would not be alone.'

David spoke with almost a drawl, his eyes closed, seeming to ignore Isaac.

' Is that why you began? Is that why you started, because it wouldn't be easy?'

'Someone had to, after everything that our people have gone through

'

'But that's just jargon, David.'

'The flight had to be started..

'More jargon.*

' If you didn't believe in it why did you come? Why are you part of us?*

'Different to the words you use, a different reason. Revenge, perhaps – revenge for what has happened.'

'We are no different. We are of like mind, the same body. We hate with the same depth.'

Isaac shifted his position, mindful of the nails in the floor board, poorly hammered and whose heads bit at his buttocks.

'What was your vision of victory, David?' He saw the other man start, the eyes flash, a warning curl of anger at his mouth.

'What do you mean?"

'A campaign must have an aim, there must be a possibility of victory. If we are to fight them…'

'We have hurt them – is that not enough?'

' It's never enough, just to hurt. We could go on hurting them for weeks and months and the achievement would be nothing.'

'You think that it's nothing we have achieved? A policeman shot, an organization formed, a commitment, and you call that nothing?' David stared at Isaac, intense, chin jutting, spitting out his words.

' It was a start to something.' Isaac sought to catch a tone of reason and rationality. 'But it could not be the end. You must have thought of how what we did would develop, lead on. I can't find the words to express quite what I want to say… Just that-what did you hope for, what did you expect?'

'You say to hurt them is not enough. Well, who else has hurt them? Tell me that. Who else has filled their coffins? Has wounded and angered and insulted them? And what would you have us do? Send another telegram to the President of the United States? Call a press conference for the foreigners to attend and tell them our problems? Sit down in the street and wait for the militia to carry you away? Does that hurt them? Has anything changed in the years of the passive people, the clever people, those who relish the banner of "non-violence"? Have they won any battles? Do visas flow because their names are broadcast on the outside radio? Does it, shit. They win nothing, only a mindless and valueless moment of attention before they are forgotten and taken to rot in the camps.'

Startled and quieter, fearful of the passion that had been laid before him, Isaac said, 'But you knew, David, you knew that it could not just continue. They have organized themselves, they will sense they have a target. You yourself have said that in all probability they have taken Moses. If we cannot escape then they will close around us…'

'They would never take me.'

'But is that what you foresaw? David, is that what you thought would happen, that one morning they would surround us…?'

'They would never take me.*

Isaac was shouting now, changing his voice, believing he had secured the truth. It's a bloody death-wish, isn't it? You want to play the martyr. Spread out like a hero, and your name on the song sheet. Is that what you want, a tree on a hill outside Jerusalem…'

' I don't want to die.'

'… and a crowd of people to come each Shebat, and stand in silence…?'

' I don't want to die.'

'… the weeds will grow over you. You'll be nothing, just a bloody symbol. Is that what it was all for, to satisfy your bloody death-wish?'

'The door, Isaac. It's behind you. You can open it, you can walk through it, you can walk away, make your own path.'

Isaac looked into his face, blinked at the unmoving eyes of the friend he had known since he played with a tennis ball in the dust of his street. Saw that the composure had taken root again, and would not falter whatever the provocation he offered.

Tm sorry, David. I mean it, I'm sorry."

Just a whisper, competing with the light wind in the high trees. 'If you think it has been easy, Isaac, it is because you have not listened, you have not watched.'

For many minutes neither spoke, both their faces in shadow, so that neither could sense the brooding mood that gripped them. When would the girl come? thought Isaac. How much longer?

Would she come in darkness and in secrecy or in the public light of dawn? They'd be able to read it, written over her, whether she had succeeded or failed them. They wouldn't need words, or explanations: they would see it in her face. David had won his battle, had found the guns, and Isaac had fulfilled his share. Was she capable, the girl, of meeting her commitment? Hours Isaac had spent with her over the last years, and yet he hardly knew her, understood little about her.

Just the facade, not why she was a part of them, not why she had cradled the policeman's gun in the brief moments she had handled it, or why she had declared her intention to execute a man who was unknown to her, or why on this evening she would be wheedling her sexuality on a stupid, oafish youth. What did she owe them, that she risked her life to be part of a strange and demented crusade, a witness to David's death-wish, an accessory to Isaac's vengeance? He'd noted that she kept silent through David's monologues, seldom joined the others in questioning, seemed to float with them, a piece of driftwood. It would be different and straightforward if she were David's girl, but the moments, hidden or open, of gentle affection were not present – not that he had seen, anyway; never entwined fingers, never the hidden jokes and intimacies of lovers, nothing to give them away. But she was not relegated to the role of follower, to provide the boys of the group with the services they needed; she was an equal, as much a part of the 'programme' as he, Isaac, was. And now they depended on her: there was no flight without her, no salvation. If she failed them it would be the police cells and the beginning of David's yearning for the martyr's lime pit, and the end of Isaac's vengeance. He pictured her in his mind.

The awkward and ungainly chopping stride that was too long for a girl that cared to draw attention, the teeth that were too prominent, almost like a rabbit's, the hair that was not tended, the clothes that were husbanded. It was difficult to imagine her in David's front line, fighting his battles, setting out for combat where the intellectuals of their people had lost their way.

What would they do if they had not won Yevsei, if there were no escape?

It was a hot, perspiring night, but Isaac shuddered, and hunched forward with his body as if to draw towards himself the fragile heat of the shrinking flame.

Rebecca was haggard with exhaustion by the time she reached the hut. It was the first light of morning, Wednesday morning, the day they had chosen for the break-out. The previous night she had spent without sleep. It had been too late by the time that she had ditched Yevsei Allon to get the bus that went far out of the city to the forests, too dangerous to go home in case the police and militia should come. So there was nothing left for her to do but walk the streets, fearful of passing cars, anxious over the noise of footsteps behind, shrinking into shadows and finally collapsing, dazed and nervous, to a park bench. She had taken the first bus of the day out, and then stumbled the long walk through the trees to the hut that had been silent and had seemed deserted till she had knocked softly and said her name and heard the movement inside that told her that Isaac and David were there.

The relief had swept over their faces when she had said flatly, 'It's all right, hell do it. Someone

– it had better be me – has to take the parcel to him at noon. He thinks it is books he is handling.

But he'll do it.' Then she had added, 'And you have the guns?'

David had unwrapped them, and laid them out on the floor, and she had seen the killing weapons, and the skin on her face had compressed together.

' Isaac and I will have these,' said David, handling the submachine-guns. 'We understand them.

You can have the policeman's pistol. It is enough for you.'

'Where did you get them?' Rebecca asked, wonder in her voice, built from the uncertainty she had felt through the evening and the night that even if Yevsei agreed to handle the package there might be nothing to give him.

There is a man who is known to me. In his own way he fought the pigs, but many years ago, and he is now old, and has no need of these things. He would wish them to be used for the purpose that he once had them. He gave them to us.'

'And I have the tickets,' said Isaac, pride on his face, ignoring that he had told her his triumph the previous evening. 'I thought there would be difficulties, but there were none, and the seats are confirmed. We are going tonight to the West, Rebecca. Tonight we sleep in peace.'

And they stood together in the centre of the small room, holding each other close, kissing each other's faces, and there were tears on their cheeks, and they clung hard to each other's bodies, willing the strength they needed.

'But we were four, we must not forget that,' Rebecca said finally. 'We must not forget Moses.

Wherever he is, whatever they have done to him. If we weaken now we betray him.'

She had changed their mood, bringing a sombreness to them all. Like abandoning the wounded in battle, thought Isaac, to leave their friend. But what alternative was there? They were turning their backs, though, however they disguised it. David said, 'Rebecca, you must sleep now. If you don't you will be useless to us, half awake. You have time – three hours, four hours – before we go to the airport.'

On the floor she tossed and turned the minutes away, striving for comfort on the uneven boards, and her dreams were of the guns, and the bullets and the blood they might spill. She was alone while she slept, unaware that the others had gone, surreptitiously and with care to their homes and to hers, and that they had collected the personal identity cards that David decreed should not be carried on their persons, but which they would need at the airport. Work and school and the morning shopping rounds had emptied the houses, and they came and went unobserved by their families.

It was Isaac who had remembered that they must produce the cards at the barriers at the airport Luigi Franconi had lost his suitcase. Or rather the porter's desk at the Hotel Kiev had lost it. All the cases of the delegation had been put outside the room doors, as requested, and had been taken downstairs by the service lifts; all had appeared again beside the main swing doors to be loaded on to the airport bus – all, that is, except the case of Luigi Franconi.

Outside on the street the bus revved its engine and the driver sounded his horn with impatience. The Party representative who acted as the delegation's guide, interpreter and way-smoother attempted to assure the unfortunate Franconi that if he travelled to Tashkent without his bag it would be sure to be found and would be sent on to him on the next flight. A totally unsuccessful effort, as the Partito Communista Italiana's Assistant to the Foreign Policy Committee was not to be budged with mere promises. Not till the other eight members of the PCI delegation touring the Soviet Union had joined in the angry chorus was there a sudden and exultant shout from the far side of the cavernous lobby area: the errant piece of luggage had been discovered nestling among the cases of the Rumanian football team that had just arrived.

There were more delays for a last re-checking of the baggage, and by the time the laden bus was on its way to the airport it was running late. The delegation were in poor humour, and Luigi Franconi, sitting alone at a window seat, was not one to show gratitude that his problem had been solved.

Edward R. Jones Jr and his wife, Felicity Ann, had been more circumspect in their travel arrangements and had left the Hotel Kiev on schedule a full twenty minutes before the Italians.

But then when you were on a free trip – and they always travelled on free trips – you went when the car came to collect you. His Russian hosts at the Cultural Section of the city's Party Administration had been puzzled by the use of the word 'Junior' in his name, and found it strange that a man represented to them as a distinguished American poet with more than forty years of writing behind him should bother with such an appendage. That Edward R. Jones Sr had died in 1937 was known to them because the visa applications that the couple had filled in had told them so, but why this ageing son should insist on using what they regarded as a child's title was confusing and baffling.

Edward and Felicity Ann had realized many years before that the best way to travel the world and enjoy their summer holidays was to spend the winter firing off letters that begged in their reply an invitation, and they had found their ploy remarkably successful. Leningrad, Kiev and Tashkent this year. Budapest at the invitation of the Hungarian Socialist International Writers Conference the year before. Two years ago an expenses-paid summons to a poetry seminar in Warsaw. Not that the hotels were that good, and the restaurants were slothful and lifeless, but it was at least a plane ticket across the Atlantic, and a month away from the suffocation of New York in high summer.

As the taxi made its way through the outer suburbs of the city Felicity Ann mopped her forehead with a scented square of cotton. I hope the plane's on time, my dear,'

'If it is, it'll be the first one we've had.'

He did not seek the conversation of his wife. Talk was only a distraction from the task in hand, jotting the iambic pentameters of an ode on the back of a postcard. When it was completed he would type it out with the portable Olivetti he always carried with him, and post it to Valery Guizov who headed the Department of Cultural Studies in the Ukraine. He'd found on earlier journeys that his hosts were quite touched by such a gesture, and sometimes printed the work in a Party periodical.

On the last stretch to the airport now. The fifth-year school children that packed the coach had had the noise and argument bounced and melted out of them by the 225-mile drive from Lvov on the Polish border. Silent and slumped in their seats, for which their teachers were grateful. Six hours, with thirty-eight children, they'd endured through all the usual gamut of threats and cajolery, and at last the little ones had succumbed to the jerking motion of the coach and the sun that pierced the curtain] ess windows. In front of them an hour and a half of fractious hanging around at the terminal and then the tedium of the flight to Tashkent. More delays there, inevitable, before there was another coach to take them into the Kazakhstan city.

' If any of them have the strength to appreciate ballet it will be a miracle,' muttered the head teacher, balding, sweating in his dark suit, bright tie knotted high, to his neighbour from the Art Department.

'Well, if they sleep right through it at least the little so-andso's won't be fidgeting in the seats from halfway through the first act. Remember the ones last year?… But you wait and see, they'll sleep on the plane and be as awful as ever by tomorrow morning.'

The head teacher grimaced, then settled once again into his Pravda.

Other passengers for the 16.00 Aeroflot departure to Tashkent were already at the check-in counters, toeing their baggage forward, inching an advance with cloth-wrapped bundles, string bags and rope-fastened cases through a confusion of noise and objection and rancour.

David and Isaac were among them.

Nervous, both of them, and sweaty. Nothing strange in that, nobody in the queue able to keep calm and avoid the perspiration that the minimal air-conditioning system did little to counter.

Taking in the scene round them, looking with half-detached interest at the passengers who would share the plane with them, watching their stress and their push and their bloody-mindedness as they struggled to get nearer to the counter, another stage nearer the aircraft. There was a wry smile on Isaac's face as he whispered in David's ear, 'Wouldn't be shoving so hard, not if they knew where they were going.'

For a reply there was just a hushed, 'Shut up, you fool,' that telegraphed to Isaac that David was frightened and fighting to keep his control. Surprising really, thought Isaac; wouldn't have expected that of David – nerves, yes, but not fear. Would have expected him to button it down, shrug off the pressure. Last night that's how he'd thought he'd feel himself now, frightened; but he wasn't. A little tense, fingers stiff, voice hoarse, tight in the guts, but nothing else, almost distant from the whole thing. Not that he was worrying about David; he'd be all right once they had started, once they were in operation.

Isaac wondered how it would be there, what Israel would be like. Just a place that people talked about, dreamed about, but he'd never met anyone Who'd been there, nor anyone who had achieved the exit visa. The way they spoke on the foreign radio you'd imagine anyone who applied could get the visa, just filling in a form, and packing up and going. As if they didn't know how many were refused, how they weeded out the ones they wanted to stay, and how if they turned you down the pressures and persecutions built on your shoulders. Didnt know in the West what it was like, the reality of Soviet Jewry. And why was it important, this place Israel?

Different things to different people; obvious that, Isaac. Well, for the old ones, for them there was the faith, just a chance to stand at the wall in Jerusalem, stand there and pray to their God. For others it was a place where a man could work and earn his money and live his life and have no fear of the Party commissar and the Party spy. But for you, Isaac? A sort of freedom, that was what he was seeking, a freedom of choice, not that he wanted a society of anarchists, just the freedom to join the system if he wanted to – an end to compulsion. So he didn't really know. He'd have to find out, wouldn't he?

'Get the tickets.' David close to him, hissing the instruction, his face set, controlling his mouth muscles. 'The tickets – come on!'

'Where's Rebecca?' Isaac said as he pulled them from the inside pocket of his lightweight jacket.

'Coming from the far side, from the telephone. Give the girl the tickets.'

Isaac could hear behind him the strident voice with its American accent cutting across the other tongues. Not that he could understand the words – after all, he had studied science at school, not languages – and beyond and just surviving the drowning emphasis of the American was a further babble, European – could be Spanish or French or Italian- but he could not gauge which.

The girl at the counter said, 'Where's your baggage?'

It was something they hadn't thought about; so little time, and so much to think of, but they hadn't considered the need for baggage. Who goes on a plane with no baggage? With a 14-day excursion ticket? They'd gone home for the identity passes, and not thought of clearing a wardrobe, of scattering clothes in a case. People were pushing behind them, the American voice brimming with complaint, while in front the girl was waiting for an explanation.

'Our friend took it,' said Isaac with David still lost and unable to conjure up an explanation,

"When he went earlier in the week.' First thing that came to his head, first thing he could think of saying.

'For three of you? Hope he paid the excess.' She ripped off the top sheet of the tickets, one by one, and gave them the boarding cards. Small and sparse scraps of thickened paper, flight number scrawled on them. 'Gate four you want. Through the departure door, then the security, and you wait in the lounge till they call you.'

Ts the flight on time?' David asked.

But her attention was gone from him, given now to the next passenger in line. She shrugged, and said she didn't know.

The American couple took their places at the counter. Red trousers – well, red with a white check in them and a faded cream jacket. The woman in mauve, her hair a delicate blued tint that caught Isaac's eye by its unfamiliarity. Why do they wear these clothes? Straight out of the cartoons in Krokodil.

Just security now and nothing for them to find. Clean. Not a germ among them. Scrubbed and shining and polished, that was the way to go through security. David was talking to Rebecca, arm around her shoulders, heads near to touching and she was showing him a piece of paper. Must have worked, must be where the guns were.

There's time for coffee. At least ten minutes till we need to go through.' David led and they followed over to the bar- not that any of them were thirsty, but the process of ordering and paying and waiting for the coffees to be brought to the table, and then drinking, all that would use up time, time which they had no use for, which had to be exhausted. Should have told the parents, Isaac thought, should have said something to them, they should know what has happened, and why it has happened, before the time that the police arrive. He excused himself and rose from the table and went to the small shop where there were magazines and newspapers, postcards and cigarettes and souvenirs of Kiev. He asked for some note- paper and an envelope, but the man insisted on selling him a whole pad of notepaper and two dozen envelopes because that was the way they were packaged. There was no option, so he paid for them all and took them back to the table.

'I think we should write something to our people. It will be long over by the time that it reaches them.' There was agreement, and for five minutes no talk at the table, as they wrote out their farewells and justifications.

"Esteemed and respected father and mother and dear sisters, By the time that you read this you will have heard of our actions. You must forgive us the danger and hurt that they may cause you. We have taken this course because of what we saw as the persecution of our people in this land. If we had stayed the police would have taken us and for what we have done there is only one sentence, and there would have been no possibility of mercy. Our air tickets have been purchased with money from Isaac's mother, who paid for the three of us without knowing for what reason her money was wanted. From the family savings please send her 174 roubles. Rebecca will request her family to do the same. We hope to be in Israel very soon. We hope that it will be possible for you to join us there.

There is much to say and little time. All so difficult to explain. We started because we believed in our actions, but we did not know where they would leave us – we still do not know.

Be brave,

Your loving son, who will not forget you, David.'

Rebecca took the three envelopes to the post-counter for the stamps while David and Isaac stayed at the table waiting for her. When she came back the three of them walked towards the departure doors leaving the near-filled pad and twenty-one envelopes beside the coffee cups that had remained untouched while they wrote.

Abrupdy Rebeoca tugged at David's arm, pulled him closer to her as they crossed the concourse. 'What will they do to them, when we have gone?' He didn't look at her, fastening his eyes on the doorway to the front. 'I don't know.' A lie, and he could not meet her. 'Will they be punished for what we have done?' 'We cannot think of that now.' 'They have punished others…'

'What they will do to them will be as nothing to what will happen to us if we stay.' 'Do you care what happens to them, David?' 'I care more for what happens to my parents than you will concern yourself with the fate of Yevsei Allon. Think on that."

Her hand flew from his sleeve, leaving him free to walk on unimpeded. If Isaac had heard he showed no sign of it- stern faced, regular stride. All three of them continued their way across the tiled floorway.

Beyond the doors there was an airline official, bored and uninterested, who checked their tickets and the boarding passes and matched their names written there against the plastic-coated identity cards, not troubling to marry the Polaroid photographs with the actual likenesses. Further on, the high arch through which passengers had to pass and which showed whether they carried metallic objects in their pockets. This was the realm of the frontier guards, pistols hanging on their hips, and clean uniforms with wide-peaked caps. The man in front of them was stopped when the small green light that the guardsman watched changed abruptly to flashing red and his body was searched till a cigarette packet was retrieved from his trousers and he was shown the silver paper wrapping that had caused the detector to activate. Thank God we carried nothing, Isaac said to himself. Then it was their turn, and the light stayed green, and they walked past the guard, and on.

All of them braced themselves, shoulders stiffened as if to ward off a blow, as if they were expecting a shout from behind. But there was none, just a sun-filled lounge, with the ashtrays overflowing and paper on the floor, and dust and grime, and children shouting and running between the wooden benches, and a teacher's command. Across the room from them were the windows through which they could all see the tidy, painted profile of the Ilyushin 18 turbo-prop airliner, due to depart for Tashkent in thirty-five minutes.

In a tight phalanx the little group approached the forward steps of the aircraft. All of them sweating from the slight exertion of the walk across the apron. The captain to the front, straight backed, grey hair thinning, uniform pressed, rank denoted by the gold rings sewn to his tunic sleeve, carrying his cap easily in his hand. A pace behind him the navigator with his briefcase filled with the maps that covered the air routes of the southern area of the Soviet Union over which they would fly to Tashkent. Alone, not seeming to wish to engage in conversation with her male flight deck companions, was the co-pilot. Anna Tasnova's skirt rode high on her knees as she maintained their pace. She felt once at the knot of her thin black tie, unnecessary and unfeminine she thought it, but if it were decreed that it should be worn then it was her obligation to make certain that it bisected her collar with precision. The two flight stewardesses, acknowledging they were not part of the cockpit club, came last, handbags on their shoulders, talking of men and prices, and hotels, and the boredom of it all.

At the bottom of the forward steps the captain waited, a fixed smile on his face, for the young technician in overalls to hurry down the stairs. The boy should have waited for them, should not have obstructed and delayed their boarding. He seemed in a rush, and bounced against the captain's shoulder. No apology, just something indistinct mumbled from behind his teeth.

'Dirty little bastard,' the captain said. 'Soap and water, but perhaps he's never heard of them.'

The navigator laughed cheerfully, all the more for the sneer of distaste on the co-pilot's small mouth as if the retreating, jogging boy had left an odour behind which would contaminate all of them.

'We'll be off on time today, sir.'

'Well, don't blame me for it. Accidents happen even to the best of us.'

More smiles, and a moment of gallantry from the men – stepping aside that Anna Tashova and the stewardesses should be first on the steps.

The major of the Committee of State Security – KGB- worked from a smaller and less imposing building than his colleague in the militia security police. The address was not listed in the telephone directory, and was known only to those civilians who had a need for the knowledge.

The major was a frugal man who seldom took more than thirty minutes for his lunch, but since the arrest of Moses Albyov and his subsequent suicide he had not left his office, sleeping the previous two nights on an army bed that graced one corner of the room.

At half-past three the grey telephone on his desk, the direct line that by-passed the switchboard, rang out. A short message and from militia headquarters.

The Jew had been identified.

Quite clever really. The photograph they had taken of him showed indents at the sides of his face from the arms of spectacles, recent enough, but not worn when he had been brought in. One of the patrolmen from the car had said he might have been wearing them when he was taken; and the wounded policeman's description on which the arrest had been made, that had included spectacles. They had found them in the gutter where the street sweeper had pushed them, and the luck was that the lenses were still intact. The major had been kind enough to say that it would be police work that would identify the boy, and that was what it had been. A photograph of the glasses, an analysis of the lenses, a photograph of the boy, and twenty-five detectives touring the city's eye clinics. It was faster than doing it with the boy's teeth: fewer spectacle wearers than those requiring extractions and fillings.

And now they had a name, and were cross-checking with the statutory civil authority dossier.

Moses Albyov, residing at 428B Avenue of the First of May; a workers' quarter in the northern suburbs, he was informed, and also that there was no previous record of violence, and that two cars had left for the address and would be there within a quarter of an hour. Smash the little bastards, he thought, smash them till they screamed like the rats they were. Not long till they'd have their hands on them; the Albyov parents would tell of the associates, would have them all in the cells by dawn.

No delays on the departure of Aeroflot flight 927 to Tashkent. On time, on schedule. The passengers walked the hundred yards to the plane, in untidy caterpillar file out across the tarmac, heat streaming back at them from the great, open surface, burning through the soles of their footwear, driving their eyes together with everything beyond the middle distance dissolving into a haze.

'The seats run A-B-C down one side of the aisle, and D-E-F on the other,' David said to Isaac.

They were near the plane now and walking to the rear exit where the steps had been wheeled up, and there was an angle of shade thrown by the single high-tail structure. 'Yevsei told Rebecca the package would be on the right-hand side, level with the nineteenth row, and would be under the blankets, the blankets that they store in the luggage shelf at the top. We must get on the plane quickly, before the herd, so that one of us can sit in that row and the rest close by. I Will try and see that it is me. When I take the package I will go to the toilet at the back to get the guns assembled. Give me two minutes, then come and knock at the door. Quite soon we will go, after ten minutes, when the seat belt sign is off.'

David was the first of the three on to the steps, Isaac close behind, Rebecca separated by a dozen passengers. David climbed steadily, his speed dictated by the pace of those in front. To any passenger who glanced casually among his fellow travellers David would have aroused no particular interest, his inner tensions successfully masked. He seemed confident and relaxed as he ducked his head through the low doorway. He hesitated for a moment, sizing up the long cigarlike interior of the plane, with the duck-egg decor and green-backed seats stretching away from him to the distant cream-painted door that was half-open, so that he could see the silhouettes of the shoulders of pilot and co-pilot. Isaac nudged him, and he walked down the aisle, noting the row numbers. Row 19, aisle seat C. Isaac opposite him, Row 19, aisle seat D. The package would be above Isaac, and the boy hadn't look for it, was settling in his seat, fastening his safety belt.

Rebecca stooped into her place, four rows in front, but not turning to see them, and then David lost sight of her as other passengers surged the length of the cabin in a steady clamour. It was what he had heard, that people always suffer stress before take-off and before landing; makes them raise their voices, and push aggressively in a way they would not contemplate if their feet were grounded. David fastened his seat belt and looked across at Isaac.

'Courage, my friend,' he said.

'Not courage. It is the time for luck now.' Isaac closed his eyes, waiting for the motion of the plane to tell him they were taxi-ing.

Five minutes they'd been in the house, time enough for them to recognize the stark terror on the faces of the father and mother of Moses Albyov before the truncheon in her lower abdomen and the pistol whipping across his face had delivered up the names of David and Isaac and Rebecca.

One policeman stayed in the living-room, covering with his drawn pistol the woman who cowered in the chair, clutching herself and moaning, and the man lying still on the floor with the blood running from the head wound on to the lino surface. Another had gone to his car to radio to headquarters the fruits of the visit Six more, packed close together, were speeding towards the home of the one called David, the one the woman had said she had gone to visit the morning before to ask the whereabouts of her son.

Some hundreds of yards short of David's address the driver of the police car silenced the siren he had used to clear a path through the traffic, and when they staggered to a halt, his foot hard on the brake pedal, there was a swift and often rehearsed routine for them to follow. Two running for the back, jumping the wire fence, then crouching low, their guns aimed at the rear door. Two more at the front, and behind the car, to give themselves cover. The remaining two, an officer and one who was brave, chancing their luck at the door. 'Shoot him if he has a gun. Without hesitation. Remember what Albyov did, and remember this is one of them.'

David's mother, alone in the house, answered the hammering at the door. Her younger children were still at school, her husband at work, so she was without protection as the officer forced her against the old wooden sideboard, his knee hard against her thigh so that the carved angle bit into her skin. There was no reason to hit: she talked without resort to violence. Too much for her, after a year in Treblinka and never called for the showers, no resistance left, not to a man in uniform who carried a gun, and who shouted and who wore boots that reached to his knee. She had submitted before and would do so again. She told them of her son's friends, pointed him out in the family photograph, said he hadn't been home the previous night.

At militia headquarters they believed in the power of routine. Three names, photographs that would illustrate them when the cars came in from the homes, and when Central Records turned up the files. All standard and routine. Just as it was routine to call the airport with the names, and the principal Aeroflot ticket offices, and to send descriptions to the railway station and the bus terminus by the square of the granite war memorial. All routes of exit from the city were notified with 'priority' messages. And because the computer of the central Aeroflot offices was repaired and functioning, that was the source of the first hard information. The message rattled back over the teleprinter – three names, three tickets, flight number, take-off time, destination. All this was controlled from the second floor operations centre of the militia headquarters – fast, quiet, efficient, a trained team that was good at its work, and which had discovered a scent, and believed that the kill was close.

A call to the airport, routed through the offices of the Frontier Guard control point, to the commander of the unit who had responsibility for all matters affecting security. A second call to the Control Tower.

'Aeroflot flight 927 to Tashkent has been airborne nine minutes, close to ten,' the Frontier Guard commander reported back to the Control Room. Verified by the tower.

'Then tell the control tower to radio the pilot, order him to return. Tell him the passengers should be informed there is a technical fault. When the plane lands I want every man you have around it. Nobody gets off, not till we arrive.'

'Do you want the pilot to be told that this is a security matter?'

'Why not?'

Down in the yard the black Moskva car had been alerted; it waited with its engine idling for the sprinting figure of the Colonel of Militia.

They were climbing in light cloud when Yuri Zibov, 18 years an Aeroflot pilot and most of them on the lumbering Ilyushin 11-18V, and before that Yak bombers in the Air Force, received the recall order. He motioned to his co-pilot – young, feminine, petite, a hint of lipstick, and as many flying qualifications as her male equivalents. Had she understood the message? A nod.

Zibov turned to the navigator sitting behind. He also had understood. Into the microphone that jutted out from his headset and that rested three-quarters of an inch from his mouth, he said, 'Bolt the cockpit door. Just a precaution, but fasten it, then we'll swing.'

The navigator started to intone the statistics that would govern their change of course.

David was groping with his arms into the recess of the shelf where he could not see. Even as he stretched upwards he was reliant on the touch of his fingers to tell him if the package were there.

Fumbling among the softness of the blankets and the pillows, scratching with his fingers and seeking for the hard shape. Not there, not above Row 19, and in a driving and frantic motion his hands spilled out to right and left, and he was high on his toes, and the passenger who had the seat beside him was staring, and was interested. Almost at the moment of panic David's hands locked on to the ungiving shape of the parcel. Must have slipped backwards on take-off, he thought.

Right over Row 20. He made a low- voiced apology to his neighbour, who was leaning back in his seat with his legs bent sideways to give David room. He lifted the package down, just as they had wrapped it, right down to the knots in the string: not tampered with. Tucking it under his arm he lurched his way through to the rear, to the bolted security of the lavatories, and a half-turn to be certain that Isaac was watching him; the gleam of recognition that told him Isaac was ready, coiled, anticipating. Had to push past the two stewardesses, blue uniforms, crumpled shirts, hair wisping from buns, minimum of make-up, preparing the food trolley and drinks. No alcohol on boardmineral water and orange juice and coffee, reluctant to step aside and let him pass, an obstruction when they were trying to work, seeming to say why couldn't he have gone in the terminal lavatories.

He slammed the door shut behind him and ran the catch across. Then he began to tear at the paper and the string binding, pulling at the cardboard that had given the parcel the rectangular shape, that had made Yevsei believe it was indeed a mass of books that he had handled. The parcel spilled open, pitching the hand-gun on to the floor beside the pan where he let it lie while he unravelled the further protection around the two submachine-guns. Lovely babies. Sweet, keen, pretty things, but already taking on the ugliness of their trade as the barrel symmetry was broken when he fastened the magazines at right angles to the bodies. One at a time and take it slowly, remember the drill with the old man, with Timofey. Never hurry in the preparation of weapons, he had said. The loud rasping of the cocking mechanism – devastating how the noise reverberated inside the confined space – then check the safety catch is on. Same for the pistol. No accidents, not in a capacity-filled airliner, not when the pressure of the cabin will soon be at risk.

Abruptly he lunged to the side, cannoning into the wall- fitted basin, knee ramming against the rim of the pan seat, thrown off balance by the sudden shift in direction of the plane as the pilot banked to begin the long turn that would bring the aircraft back to Kiev. David's mind was razor-sharp, honed by suspicion… He was still regaining his balance when there was Isaac's voice muffled by the closed door, dispute with the stewardesses, and them retorting angrily that the seat belt signs were illuminated again, that he should return to his place. Over the loudspeaker which had its own amplifier in the lavatory… 'This is Captain Zibov, your pilot. Sorry, but we seem to have some minor technical problem, but it means we must return to Kiev. It is nothing that should concern you, but we have to land again and get the fault repaired. Please fasten your belts again, and no more smoking. I hope the delay will be short. Thank you.' Warning bells, cymbal loud.

Not good enough, you pigs. Has to be wrong; too controlled, too much of a coincidence. Must not land, not at any cost.

David pulled the door open. Submachine-gun in each hand, pistol in the belt of his trousers, he careered straight into the grey-metalled drinks trolley, heaved with desperation to rid himself of the impediment, saw the faces turning, the necks twisting. Then he was clear and sprinting. Isaac in front of him, standing waiting, sharing his anxiety, had read the same message from the pilot's announcement and the tilting of the plane, ready to receive with outstretched arm the weapon that would be his. Unaware of everything now, of the passengers, of cabin crew, everything except the door of the cockpit. David's right shoulder cannoned into it, expecting it to give, face wreathed in amazement as it flung him back. The old David, the man of decision and fight, who had brought them together, armed and aimed them. The old David, who should have told Rebecca to go and scratch herself with her bloody twigs, who should have vetoed the use of Moses in the attack. The old David, that Isaac would follow as far as he was led. Submachine-gun held low and away from his body and the flash and explosion that drove at their ear drums as he fired into the centre of the door.

'Open or it's machine-gun fire. Open, or I kill the whole fucking lot of you.' Voice at screaming pitch. 'Open the fucking thing.' There was a hesitation, seeming endless, but in fact little more than three seconds, then the bolt was withdrawn, the door opened.

So small in the cockpit, a tiny space, like the lavatory, a box room, and three persons already strapped and harnessed in their seats. Saw the pilot, saw the co-pilot. A woman: David noticed that because she was the one who had turned her head towards them, then his eyes were riveted to the maze of dials and buttons, the instrument boards. Find the altimeter, that was the first thing, had to be certain they weren't losing height, had to climb, had to get up… after that the time to set a course.

'Take the bloody thing up,' he yelled, and pushed sideways with the gun barrel at the pilot's shoulder, aware there had been no response, still staring at the labyrinth of controls, searching for the magic of the altimeter.

Isaac said, his voice very quiet, 'You're wasting your time, David. No point shouting at him.

You've killed him.'

David stepped back, peering at the pilot held upright in his cockpit straps, then took in the neat expertise of the drilled hole at the back of the skull where the circumference showed clear against the short-cropped greying hair, and the path of blood that ran down to the uniformed collar and the white shirt. David arched his body round towards the hole in the door where the woodwork had been forced out by his bullet. Then his eyes rolled back again, via the instrument panels to the co-pilot. The noise and the venom gone, replaced by a vague aloofness, like a schoolmaster in a laboratory talking to students.

'What's your name?' he asked, almost conversationally.

'Anna Tashova, pilot officer.'

'You will ignore all instructions. Get the plane up now, get it high, and set a course to the West.

We want a course to the nearest frontier of the West. And know this. I am ignorant about flying.

I have never piloted an aircraft, but I think I would know if you deceive me. If you seek to trick us, Miss Tashova, then I will kill you, and if you die so does everyone on board the aircraft. We are Jews, Miss Tashova, and the days when we could be told that we were going for a warm shower to shed ourselves of lice are long gone. Do not test us, Miss Tashova; today we are a harder people.'

She did not fight him, recognizing her responsibilities. 'The tower is talking to us. They direct us to return to Kiev. What do you want me to tell them?' Calm, with a brusqueness in her voice, as in a committee meeting.

'You say nothing, ignore them. Let them shout. They can do nothing."

He watched her hands, moving deftly over the scores of buttons and switches in front and beside her, never allowing herself a glance towards the dead captain. Saw the preparations until she was ready to move her hands, both together, on to the control lever that bisected her knees, heard the navigator beside him calling his lists of numbers and figures that represented a path through the airways. And there the sensation at his feet – the sensation that they were climbing.

It was possible for him to look now. Possible for him to gape at the occasionally lolling, drifting head of the first man he had killed. He had bickered with Isaac that first evening, snapped at him because he had used the word 'easy'. What was easier than this? Not a moment's thought demanded, no intention, no programme, no plot, just the pulling in of a finger knuckle.

A man dead that David might go free. The pilot officer involved in the work he had set her, the navigator concerned by his task. Only David and the captain who had no immediate function.

But it had not been intended, not to kill him. Yet he is removed from your apology, David. Now you must live with it.

Meanwhile, soaring upwards, the Kingfisher bird was escaping from her enemies. Full power given to the four Ivchenko A1-20 engines, reaching for her operational altitude of twenty-seven thousand feet, full tanks loaded to a capacity of five thousand two hundred Imperial gallons, offering a range of minimally less than two thousand miles with the cover of one hour's clear reserve.