Kingfisher

CHAPTER EIGHT

Remember that she'll be close to exhaustion, nerves frayed on a hacksaw, that she doesn't understand English, that everything must go through the navigator. Nurse her down, not condescending, not patronizing, but take it ever so gently. Those were the instructions given by telephone from London to the air traffic controller in the Stansted tower who would talk Anna Tashova on to the runway. Encourage them to query anything, make it a hundred per cent certain, hundred and one. No risks, not at this stage. Policemen, army officers, airport manager, senior air traffic supervisor, all crowded into the dim-lit space behind the young man who was now in direct contact with the Ilyushin. Full runway lights blazing out in the half-gloom of the evening, marking the tarmac that stretched three thousand yards beyond the battery of red 'line-up' lights upon which she would straighten trim, make the final calculations.

'We'd like you to tell her that everyone here is with her, that everyone thinks she's done very well, that it's nearly over.'

'Roger, I will explain to her what you say.' Voice of the navigator booming inside the glass cased tower.

'About a hundred too high. She should drop 20 knots. Otherwise she's fine. We'd like to see her landing lights.'

'Roger. She is making the adjustments you require.' Pause.

'The pilot officer apologizes for the lights.'

Just like they are in the books you read, thought the Controller. Not an iota different. Formal, correct, like it's a training run, as though there isn't a submachine-gun six inches from her.

Apologizes for not having switched her lights on. Pilot dead beside her, or on the floor somewhere, planeload of people to think about, three mad bastards with guns, and she's saying she's sorry.

'Just tell her not to worry. She's doing fine. We're all with her.' Pause again. Silence in the tower, all eyes peering at the sky for the lights. 'No wind problems, surface westerly fifteen knots, you'll be landing right into them. There is no other traffic, nothing else to concern yourselves with. Still a little high, drop the speed down ten. Call at the outer marker.'

'Roger, thank you, 927 outer marker, inbound. Your instructions are very clear. We appreciate your help.'

'You're not going to need them, but there are emergency services ready. Everything is prepared.'

The Controller wondered what it must be like in the cockpit, checked the flight plan they'd given to him, saw the takeoff and mentally equated it with the British time difference. Five hours the girl had been flying the bloody thing now. He knew about the Migs, knew about Hanover and Schipol. Poor little bitch; must be like having a guardian angel all dolled up in halos and wings and white sheets hovering alongside to have a sympathetic voice talking from the control tower to her. Not that she'd know what he was saying, just get the feel, the togetherness… Could see the lights now, the men behind him pointing out to his right. He looked away from the green-tinted radar screen from which he had been working, turned for a moment from the bright grass- green blip that was the Ilyushin. Two huge and powerful beams scything into the night from the elevated angle of the aircraft's approach.

'927, we can see you, and you're doing very nicely. Take it calmly. No problems. Speed's right, height's right, line's right. Doing very well.'

Nothing more to say now. Time just to watch and pray that the tiredness of the girl did not force her into error. No reason why it should, only male chauvinism that made him worry, he thought. Chance of a woman flying a plane in the West was next to minus nil. One or two of them, of course, but so extraordinary that they had their pictures in the papers each week – nothing like the Russian system, where the girls had the same opportunities as the men.

Wondered what she'd look like. Funny not being able to talk to her, only the distant voice of the man who sat behind her, and who switched off his radio each time he relayed the instructions to his pilot, as if they didn't want anyone else to hear the backchat of the flight deck. Meant you couldn't evaluate her state of mind, didn't know what her condition was.

"Trim's right. Height right. Speed right,'

'Roger.'

'No problems, take it steady.*

'Roger.'

Don't give anything away, the buggers.

The shape of the plane eclipsed the lights at the far end of the runway, and in the tower they heard the roar of the reverse thrust being applied: that meant she was down, the big bird had made her landfall. The tower's rotating searchlight caught the Ilyushin halfway down the runway, flooding the white and red and silver of the fuselage as it began to slow for the taxi-ing run, and in a moment as the beam moved on the plane was lost, and there was only the noise and to the front the lights by which the men in the control tower could follow its progress.

All eyes fixed on the plane.

Like men who've seen a topless swimmer for the first time, and stare on unashamed – voyeurs, that's what we are, thought the controller. Fascinated by it, and it looks no different from any other plane, not from the scores he talked down each week. But they stared at it, as if hoping by their very persistence to see men with guns, or the passengers, unwilling to accept the shroud of night and that the Ilyushin was still a full six hundred yards away. They'd plotted on the airfield map where they wanted him to direct the aircraft to take its stand; the position had been carefully worked at, not for this flight, but years back when the hi-jack plan for Stansted had first been rehearsed.

'Turn her through 180, and back the way you came. Two hundred yards up on the starboard side you'll see a "Follow Me" van, with yellow lights. He'll take you to the stand. And well done to the pilot officer. Pass that to her, please, from all of us in here.'

'Roger.'

The controller saw the plane turn in the distance and begin a sedate progress back up the runway towards where the truck with the flashing amber lights waited. The searchlight on its pass picked out the two Saracens that crawled in pursuit – invisible to anyone on board.

'I'll stay with them till they douse the engines, then it's your problem, gentlemen.' Half a minute more, and wringing in sweat and knowing he'd slipped half the procedure rules but feeling for once in his life he'd achieved something, the controller eased out of his chair.

The Assistant Commissioner of Police for the county had taken his place beside him, looking warily at the equipment. Too bloody right, he thought, now it's our problem. Till the heavies get down from London.

Three green and white petrol tankers parked close to each other and forming a half-moon barricade. A little to the right of them a squat single-level building. Close to here that the Ilyushin should taxi and come to rest. Simple, logical, as all military plans should be, cover for the troops close to the aircraft, offering no risk of detection. Ten of the SAS team here, with their control radio set, their chests heaving slightly from the exertion of running to their hide with their equipment as the plane was readying for its approach. A hundred yards from it, perhaps less, certainly no more. They wore no badges of rank, were dressed in dark blue, boiler-suit overalls and had covered their faces with the newly-developed lotion that turned the brightness of their skin into an indistinct mess. Stirlings, rifles, machine-guns, an anti-tank rocket launcher, a crate each of the incapacitating CS gas canisters and smoke grenades. Via his elaborate radio net Major George Davies, 22nd Regiment of the Special Air Service, learned that the first stage of the planning blueprint had worked as had been hoped. But he was not a man who suffered from self-delusion, and he could recognize that this was a small bonus, trivial. Out beyond them, quiet, hidden and silent, lay the cordon of armoured cars and the prone and crouching soldiers of the Fusiliers.

The passengers' reaction to the successful touchdown was a great and spontaneous burst of applause. Shouts in Russian and Italian, and one in the English language, and all carrying the same message of admiration for Anna Tashova, a desperate gratitude for her skill and stamina.

As the plane slowed some gave way to tears, noisily, silently, publicly and behind clenched fingers. Others hugged those who sat next to them, total strangers embracing and pressing their cheeks together, and there were smiles on the faces of the children who took their cue from their elders and realized that this was a moment of celebration. The experts who have studied the subject of hi-jacking, and who sit in the offices of the Secret Services or Defence Ministries of those countries that regard the problem with care, would have said that this was a totally predictable emotion for the passengers to be showing. They would point out that the morale of men and women and children who have travelled for many hours at gunpoint and at risk is a very fickle matter, that they are constantly seeking for the sign that their ordeal is over. On Aeroflot 927 there was a general feeling that their troubles were now gone. They had forgotten, because they wished to forget, the words spoken by Isaac in the passenger aisle a bare hour earlier.

Silly, helpless, laughing tears on the face of Luigi Fran- coni, something they would never have believed in his office in Via Botteghe Oscure; not little Luigi, not the silent one. He found he could barely talk, not with coherence, and felt the muscles of his stomach slacken, his legs lapping hopelessly together. The arm of his friend round him, the comfort of Aldo Genti, who supervised in party headquarters the world of economic affairs, and who was a man who chose not to show his emotion.

' I did not believe it possible.'

' It is not finished yet, Luigi.'

' It cannot be worse than it has been. They will see reason now. The worst must be over.'

Further back towards the rear Edward R. Jones Jr swivelled his backside in the confines of his seat once more to face Rebecca.

'What now, Miss? Where do we go from here?'

'We refuel. Then we go to Israel.'

It was an involuntary reply, and she knew that she was not supposed to talk, and hated herself for the weakness and loathing the moment because there was no one with whom she could share the joy of the landing that was all around her. An outcast, her link with the general pleasure severed.

'Might not be easy, Miss. Like I said earlier.'

She bit at her tongue, stifling the desire to argue. Who was he to tell her what would happen?

Sneering at her, contemptuous of her.

'What happens if they don't give you the fuel? What happens then?'

She did not reply, only stared back at him, trying to outlast his clear and unwavering gaze till she accepted defeat and focused again down the line of the cabin, unable to look back at where he sat. She heard him say to his wife, his voice loud and unrepentant, 'They haven't an idea in hell, these kids. It's what makes them so damned dangerous. If they were a bit more pragmatic about it all you could assess what they were going to do. But they're out of this world, don't know what it's about, and Christ only knows what they'll do when the truth sinks in.'

The art teacher leaned over from his window seat towards the headmaster, sandwiching the boy who sat between them. It was the first time anyone had spoken to him, first time for a life-span and his face was haggard with the strain of the silence, lines at his eyes, age at his mouth.

'Headmaster, we will support you. We believe in what you did. It was right what you attempted.' What they would all say. But who had joined him when he needed their strength, who had come to him with anything more than a medley of desultory kicks at the little bitch? Held their ground, hadn't they? Waiting to see the outcome, fearful of committing themselves till they knew who would win, who would stand condemned.

Forward in the cockpit Anna Tashova sat immobilized in her flying harness, head flopped on to her chest, eyes closed as if she were asleep. A very great tiredness she felt, and a desire only to immure herself behind any barricade that would protect her from the talk of the two men who had dictated her route and from the eyes and fingers of the dials and switches that peered back at her from the control panels. For her too the flight had seemed an infinite nightmare of darkened, cloying turnings chased and harried by endless closing pursuit with the only sedative to block out the images found in the mechanics of the aircraft, the occupation of controlling the insensate instruments. Like the American passenger whose existence she did not know of, she too wondered what would happen next. But unlike him, now that she had shut down the four Ivchenko engines, she cared not a damn.

The navigator – she had been briefly introduced to him before take-off by the captain because they had not flown together before, and she had forgotten his name – was shuffling his papers and maps. Methodical, a tidy man, and putting them quietly in his briefcase, as if they might be of further use. Yet the scope of the maps had long since been exhausted. To the border of the BDR, and everything after that on instruments and from the chorus of ground controllers who had passed them on, like a ship that flies the yellow flag and cannot find a welcoming port.

Both of them in their various ways ignored David's presence. The pilot officer who had not spoken since the landing, and the navigator who did not meet his eyes and who busied himself with trivia. And the captain too. Not a movement from him. Five hours dead now, and not a wavering of his posture; the ultimate act of defiance, sitting there, trapped, head bowed down.

Face whitening, the mouth clamped fast as if in determination not to show the pain that would have come too fast for him to know it.

Isaac stood behind him at the end of the corridor, the mouth of the cabin, studying the passengers, relentless and with total concentration after the attempt to overpower Rebecca.

Suspicious and hostile and watchful, seeming to crouch his body as though among the facing mass of people there was a missile or weapon that could damage him if he presented the broader target. He stood out in the centre of the aisle where all could see him if they stretched up from their seats and take note of the rock-firm grip on the handle of the submachine-gun. The passengers would know that the inhibitions of the pressurization of the cabin had now deserted him. The plane was on the ground: he would have no hesitation in shooting now.

' I am going to talk to the tower on the radio. I want all the people to remain in their seats. No one is to move, not for any reason.'

Isaac did not look away. His eyes were sweeping over the passengers like a prison tower searchlight, and nodded his agreement.

It seemed natural that David should resume the initiative, take up the leadership again. David waved-an afterthought -to the girl at the far end of the cabin, caught her attention and waved again and stayed long enough to see the thankfulness on her face.

'When you are ready, Isaac, take her place. She has been away from us too long.'

Inside the cockpit the navigator made way for him, but David declined the small, low-set seat, not wishing to box himself in, seeking the freedom of movement from which he could dominate.

He held the gun in his left hand now, away from the pilot officer and the navigator, and with his right he began to pull at the headset that was fastened to the ceiling of the flight deck.

'You waste your time,' the navigator said. 'Unless you speak in English there is no one there who can talk to you.'

The navigator saw the disappointment cloud over the young man's face. So far, so much at stake for him, and no one to speak his bloody language. Half a smile, little more than a suspicion, and covert, as David backed out of the cockpit, petulant anger rising.

He strode down the corridor, almost marching in his speed when he reached the passenger cabin aisle. For many of them it was their first clear glimpse of the man they took to be the leader of the group, the man most directly responsible for their position. Good-looking, those who could be remotely objective would have conceded, but they were few and from the majority there was only loathing, hidden in their turned-away faces. Edward R. Jones Jr took a surreptitious picture but doubted whether it would expose well in the dull, interior light. All the way to Rebecca, pushing past the drinks trolley, till he reached her and took her slowly and gently in his arms, the greeting of a brother, of a friend. An arm round her shoulders, and another pressing her head against his chest, the one that held his machine-gun, and the gesture was awkward till he sensed the intensity of her response.

David felt the ripple of her breath playing on the skin of his neck, heard her say, 'Are we free now, David? Is it over, is it finished?'

'The crewman says there is no one there who will speak in our language. You can speak some of their English; in a moment you must talk to them.'

'How will they be to us, after the Germans and the Dutch? How will the British be?'

He found that all he wished for was to hold the girl, keep her close, continue 'the contact. Her words now a distraction. He sensed the softness of her body, the pliant pull of her weight.

'Was it a great crime, the shooting of one policeman, and him not dead?' she continued. 'They know why we fight, they have told us on the radio of their sympathy. Does the wounding of one policeman outweigh all their statements?'

Tighter, closer, pressing her frailty against him. Silly, stupid girl. Lovely girl. Squeezing, hugging her to him.

'You forget, Rebecca, you forget the captain in his cockpit. You have put him from your mind.

But they know of it. At Hanover they had the knowledge, and at Amsterdam, and these people here will know of it. I have killed the captain, and to these people he will be the martyr and we will be the animals. One shot only I fired. One shot. It was I who fired it, not Isaac. The door would not open, and I fired. I did not angle the gun, Rebecca, I did not fire for the floor. I killed him, Rebecca, and to them that will be murder.,.'

'You are wrong, David. Too tired to think,'

'Where can there be rest now?'

'You must calm yourself.'

' I should have been calm when I fired at the door."

To the girl he seemed to sag, forcing her to grip at his waist to steady him. A terrible pain in his eyes, a great hurt. He hung on to her a full minute, then jolted awake.

'You are the one who speaks English, you must come and talk to them.' But he made no move to loosen her, just stood, rocking slowly, feeling her body against his own.

The words of the navigator barked over the loudspeaker system of the tower. Volume turned to maximum and the listeners knew from the sound of his breathing that the Russian was whispering.

'They are all out of the cockpit now. Three of them. The two men have machine-pistols. There is also a girl, but she is always with the passengers and we have not seen her. I think they have gone for her, because they do not speak English, the men. I have said there are no Russian speakers. Sometimes they are calm, sometimes they shout. They believe they will get fuel for Israel, and… they are returning.'

Nothing more came from the loudspeakers. There was an opportunity for the second tape recorder to be switched on, while the spool of the first was lifted off and hurried for transcription. There had been a short-hand note, but every word spoken from the control tower would, as usual, be recorded.

'A very switched-on boy, that one,' the Assistant Chief Constable said. 'Be a star hanging on his chest when this lot's over.' He'd done the courses and seminars, Home-organized, and attended the Special Study Groups, because Stansted was in his 'manor', and if the fiction became reality then he was designated as having a part to play. He fancied he knew his subject, and liked the fact known. It put him a cut above administering CID and Regional Crime Squad and investigating the corruption allegations.

'The fact that there's only three of them, and that one is a girl, where does that put things?' The question was from the Fusiliers colonel, familiar enough with urban guerrilla fighting across the Irish Sea, inexperienced in this particular field.

The Assistant Chief Constable warmed, revelling in the deference shown him by the army officer. ' I think the fellow knew what we wanted to hear. Took his opportunity well and gave us the bones of it. Didn't mention explosives. On the Middle East jobs they try and booby-trap the doors, but he didn't say anything about that. Could be that he just doesn't know, but if they haven't them then it has to be easier for us if we go heavy. The fact that there are three means it's not likely to last long. But I didn't like what he said about the shouting: infinitely more dangerous to everyone if they become unstable. Then anything can happen.'

There was much more the policeman could have said, a longer and more elaborate assessment. But the voices behind him cut him short, and the bustle of activity behind him, and the drift of the attention that he had held veered towards the door. The familiar TV features of the Home Secretary who grinned thinly at the stiff salute. There was a man at his right shoulder that he had not seen before, not present at the week-end courses – worn, pale, autumn face, and baggy under the eyes. There were handshakes and he caught a name, 'Webster, Charlie Webster,' no explanation of rank or department. Had they started talking yet from the plane? And he'd scarcely begun to answer before the newcomer was in the chair where he'd been sitting and close to the extended microphone and was gathering together rough paper and drawing a Biro from his pocket. Wouldn't say that he was unhappy that someone else had come to do the chat, but he'd like to have been asked, to have known the pedigree.

Charlie slid his jacket from his shoulders, slung it over the back of the seat-rest, loosened his tie, and settled himself to wait for the contact. Sort of been drawn into it, hadn't he? Never really been asked. Just expected of him, taken for granted. Charlie Webster, terrorist hunter back on the job, keeping people safe in their beds, letting the great unwashed fornicate in peace, and by-the-by chopping a few kids who'd been sold some crap ideology and thought they could change the world on the strength of it.

The transcript was placed in front of him; he read it briefly -three to chop this time. Shouldn't be too difficult, Charlie. Not unless they played stupid.

The Parliamentary Private Secretary was at the cabinet administering the ice cubes, pouring out the gin.

'Plenty of that, and not too much tonic.' The Foreign Secretary always said that and it didn't affect the same weak mixture that was always surrendered to him. He had hated the drive back from Dorneywood, detested the speed. It should have been one of the privileges of his rank that he didn't have to submit to those bloody siren-paced races up the M4. Generally he was able to instruct the driver that he wanted a steady ride, forty-five miles an hour, but events hadn't waited on him that evening. The Russian would be waiting outside, in the ante-room, but time first for a stiff one – not flat it would be. Some of the blighters you couldn't talk to, the Russians, not a spark of contact, dead as the Sargasso. But at least this fellow was out of the ordinary, quite human, and good enough English to ditch the interpreter which always seemed to smooth the way. He downed his drink in a single gulp, leaving the ice and the lemon slice unsullied, then handed the glass back to his PPS; the man knew the drill, put it out of sight in the cabinet and closed the doors on the array of bottles.

'Let's have him,' the Foreign Secretary said.

Decent-looking chap, in his way, hair well cut, and not a bad suit. First impressions of the Foreign Secretary at the entrance at the far end of the forty-foot office of the Russian Ambassador at the Court of St James. He offered him a seat on the sofa and took his own place in the armchair at the side. PPS behind them both with the scribbling pad and the pencil. Not really form, not having an FO man in here with them, but the Russian hadn't brought anyone either.

There were times for an official, minuted record, times when it wasn't suitable; and neither was seeking to preserve this particular conversation for posterity.

' I would like to say first,' the Ambassador began – flawless English, marginal accent – 'that my government sends a message of gratitude to the British government for permitting the Aeroflot flight to land.' With a gesture of his hand the Foreign Secretary acknowledged the formalities.

'But I think, Minister, that we both understand that we have reached a most difficult and complex stage in the handling of this criminal incident. I am informed by my government that prior to the murderous hi-jacking of the aircraft this gang of thugs had attempted to kill a policeman in the city of Kiev. For this they were being sought at the very time that they took over the Aeroflot flight from that city to Tashkent, and by doing so endangered the lives of many innocent passengers. During their capture of the aircraft – which had no armed security men on board – they killed the captain at his seat in the cockpit-we have been told by the young pilot officer who successfully flew the plane to Britain that her captain was executed as the assassins took over the flight deck. All of this you know, Foreign Secretary. Also you will have had by now the communication of my government, personally signed by the Comrade Secretary General of the Party, and sent to all heads of government in the countries in which we thought it possible that the aircraft might land.'

He had the admiration of the British politician. So many of them would have taken half an hour to get to the point, but they were already there, and the first cigarette in the Russian's hand not half-smoked.

'My government look upon these three not as political refugees but as murderers and criminals.

We regard them as you regard the terrorists of the Irish Republican Army that bomb your cities.

When you arrested the men and women of Birmingham and Guildford, the terrorists of your central London campaign, you put them through the courts and you sentenced them as your law permits. I venture to say that if these men had taken refuge in any European country you would have sought their arrest and extradition. We cannot believe that the British government would contemplate the refuelling of the aircraft to facilitate its flight to Israel.' There was a nod of acquiescence from the Foreign Secretary. 'And after your authorities have disarmed these people we will require that they be sent back forthwith to the Ukraine to face justice in Kiev. I am also informed-and this may help you arrive at your final decision – that the position of the aircraft at the moment the captain was shot places the crime within the jurisdiction of the courts of that city.

"That is what I have been asked by the senior personalities of the Soviet Foreign Ministry to pass to your Excellency in addition to the communication of the Comrade Secretary General. I have also been asked to furnish some indication of the attitude that the British government will take in this matter.'

Right between the eyes, and where he'd expected it. Been dealing with them long enough to know that the sting was always in the tail. Used a hard word, for the language of diplomacy that was: 'require', nearest thing to an ultimatum you could get, not a friendly word, not leaving much room for manoeuvre. And wanting some sort of answer off the cuff. He knew the problems just like everyone else did, but was piling on the pressure from the start, getting his foot in the door.

He'd done it well.

' I can assure you – and you may pass this on to your government and to the Comrade Secretary General – that it is not the intention of the British security forces and officials who are currently at Stansted that the aircraft should leave there except as a free flight and without passengers and crew being held at gunpoint. There is no question while the plane is under the command of armed men that it will be refuelled for an onward flight to Israel. That is a solemn guarantee.' The easy section, obvious and would satisfy nobody. The next leg was harder, 'I am advised by the British government's legal officers that the hi-jackers have already contravened various sections of the British criminal code, certainly illegal possession of firearms, possibly kidnapping, and it is likely that should they surrender they would be required to face the due process of United Kingdom law…'

' I do not wish to have to report to my government that in my opinion the British would use minor charges to protect these three criminals from the Soviet courts. Perhaps I have not made myself clear, Excellency: we want these people back. We want them quickly. We would take procrastination on this point as a most serious matter.'

'Threats will not be conducive to settling our problems.' It was quietly said by the Foreign Secretary, but with the acting and the politeness vanishing from the soft-lit room.

'It is not a threat.'

'Then I misunderstood your choice of words. We must be most careful in the choice of words that we use, otherwise we will have misunderstandings, which would be unfortunate.'

'What then should I inform my government concerning the extradition of these people?' A fractional retreat, but tactical only, and the Foreign Secretary knew it would mean as little at the end of the day as his answer.

'You should tell your government that the British Foreign Secretary has undertaken to pass on the details of this conversation personally to the Prime Minister. You should also say that the first priority of the British government is to ensure the safe release of all the passengers and crew of the plane. In the short term we regard that as the more important issue.'

The Soviet Ambassador rose, smile back on his face, firm grip in his handshake, a word about future meetings and he was through the door and into the ante-room. He had time as he walked across the Isfahan carpet to recognize the short and stubbed presence, buried in an easy chair, of the Israeli Ambassador, now waiting for his appointment.

There was no greeting, no acknowledgment from either.

From where he sat Charlie Webster had as good a view as any of the Ilyushin.

Static and immobilized, it was swathed in light from the portable floodlights that the military had put in place within a hundred yards of its towering, crab-like form.

Behind Charlie were the Emergency Committee who would dictate his replies once the hi-jackers chose to begin transmissions. The Home Secretary, there at the Prime Minister's request to assume overall political control of the affair, with the convoy of civil servants hovering near to him, to advise and to caution. The Assistant Chief Constable, spruced and neat and boasting the thin multi-coloured ribbons of war service and police work on his chest. Two army officers who had made a separate journey from London, coming from Ministry of Defence.

One civilian, as different from the rest of them in his own right as was Charlie; check shirt and the collar stiffeners bent in too many washes so that they rode up his sports coat lapels, a tie that had shields on it that were lost and disfigured by the many times it had been knotted, hair that was long and had not known the benefit of comb and water and that hung loosely from the body of his head, rounded brown corduroy trousers and scuffed brown shoes: not a man who was kept, not a man who owed allegiance to conformity, stiff bold cheekbones and a ferret nose that poked and pried into the conversations around him. Not somebody who was accepted but tolerated, because he was the psychiatrist in the team, with a special role to play: the man with experience of psychopaths, of the deranged, who had advised on the siege at Balcombe Street, and the Spaghetti House stake-out in London's West End. The Dutch with their knowledge of the prison and train hostage-taking operations had proved the value of a medical man in the team, and the Home Office had drafted Anthony Clitheroe into their plans, placing him on call so that he could be summoned from his Wimpole Street practice whenever the need arose.

Later the group would disperse to the offices of the airport management but at that moment all of them wanted to witness the initial contact, sought to hear the timbre of the voices of the opposition still hidden from them by the sleek, wind-wiped walls of the Dyushin's fuselage.

In front of him Charlie had placed the three photographs he had been given in London: he could see the faces, study them, learn from them. Further to his right, as if denoting its lesser importance, he had laid the diagram of the interior of the 11-18. He felt nervous, tense in his stomach, waiting for them to begin, longing for them to do so. But had to let them take the initiative, that was the procedure; the young people should not be hurried, all the privileges of the bride.

It was the girl who spoke first.

"To the authorities, do you hear u s… do you hear us?'

'We hear you veiy clearly.'

'Do you hear us…' The girl had forgotten, or never known, that she had to take her finger off the depress switch when she'd finished speaking, otherwise she couldn't hear the replies. Stupid cow.

'We hear you very clearly.'

Her memory of the technicalities jolted, or someone had told her, but now she had mastered the equipment. 'We call ourselves the Kingfisher group. We wish to talk to the responsible persons. Have they come yet?'

Not bad English, out of the classroom – like your Russian, Charlie. She was speaking too close to the microphone so that she distorted and he could not gauge the strength of her spirits, her morale.

'Hello, Kingfisher group.' Where had they dug that one up? Out of the norm-Black September, Black June, First of April movement, Struggle group of any wet November Thursday, that was what they'd come to expect. 'My name is Webster, Charlie Webster. We can talk in Russian or English, whichever you prefer. If you want to talk in Russian you must accept that there will be pauses while I translate to the people that are with me what you are saying.'

Silence, while they worked it out. Decide whether the big man in the group wants to do the talking for himself, which means Russian, or whether they delegate to the girl. A handwritten note was passed in front of him. Charlie should not let it be known the Emergency Committee had already assembled at the airport. Going for the stall game and delay; Clitheroe's advice was clear on this, adamant.

In Russian, and a man speaking. Sounded an age away, more distant than the girl, subdued, unsure; perhaps just the angle to the microphone.

'My name is David. I wish to speak to the persons in charge.'

Charlie in Russian too. Couldn't match his dialect, softer, less cruel to the ear than the harsher speech of the north, of Moscow. Wouldn't try to ape him, just speak the way he had been taught, the way they were all taught in T Corps where it was assumed that any Russian they would need to interrogate had done his secondary school in the Kremlin's shadows. Not easy, not at first. Seemed a long time since he'd spoken the language conversationally. One thing to read newspapers and official reports, even to write it, but quite another to chat in the tongue and summon up the persuasiveness to win confidence.

'Webster, Charlie Webster here. I'm the Russian language speaker, but as I explained to your colleague there will be delays while I tell my colleagues what you are saying, and what I am telling you.' Take all night at this rate. He flicked the transmission button to 'off' on the console in front of him, told the men who stood behind what he had said. Back to 'on'. Live again.

'We should say who we are. The Kingfisher group is Jewish. We are of a people who have long been oppressed and persecuted. We are political persons. We have flown out of the Soviet Union because we seek to arrive in Israel, and now we need fuel to continue our journey. We mean no harm to anyone, but we demand the fuel. Have you understood that?'

' I have understood that, David. I am going to tell my colleagues what you have said.' Charlie repeated the drill on the console, turned in the swing chair and explained the message.

The Home Secretary said, 'You know, Mr Webster, that there is no possibility of them having fuel. The question is, do they find that out now or later?'

Anthony Clitheroe was an eminent man in his field, accustomed to delivering detailed and lengthy speeches to his colleagues, with a considerable list of major studies to his name and a quarter of a column of Who's Who to back up his claims to be heard out. But he had learned from his two previous encounters with security forces that they required the shortest of responses from him in such situations.

'Find an excuse, put him off, tell him the people necessary to make such a decision are not here, and won't be till the morning.'

Finger back to the console, Charlie speaking again to the flight deck.

'David, this is a very important request that you are making, and one which would have to be considered very carefully by the British government. The problem is that we're in the middle of the holiday season here. Many of the most senior men are away on their vacations. There is no one here who could give that sort of authorization. Probably we won't be able to get a decision till the morning.'

'Don't make a fool of me.' The inanimate, detached voice cracked back from the loudspeaker high on the back wall of the control tower. Pitch rising, and hostility communicated.

' I'm not making a fool of you, David.'

'Don't take me for an idiot. The Germans were able to make a decision that we should not land, the Dutch were able to offer us impossible conditions knowing that we would not accept. We are not peasants. Your people facilitated this landing; that was not authorized by a junior official. Do not tell me that the responsible people cannot now be contacted. Do not play a game with me. We are very tired, we are impatient now. Do you know why I say that…?'

'Of course you are tired, and that is the more reason why you should sleep, and the pilot too must have a chance to sleep, and then we can talk in the morning.'

'Not in the morning. We want the fuel tonight. In the morning we fly.'

"It is not possible..

'It must be possible. Tell your people that, whoever they are. Tell them.'

Clocks ticking, a subdued cough, the shuffling of feet. Charlie sighed, loosened his collar further and turned once more to his audience; but they didn't need him – not to give them the bones, at any rate. They'd picked that up from the voices – David's anger, Charlie's wheedling.

But he went through the drama and the explanation.

The Assistant Chief Constable had manoeuvred till he was at the Home Secretary's shoulder.

'With respect, sir – and I acknowledge that there are others better qualified in these matters than myself-but it's dangerous this way round, codding them along. I suggest we make it plain, right from the start, that they are not flying on, that it's not negotiable.'

' I want to lead them to the realization gradually.' Clitheroe held his ground, not seeking proximity to their political master, aloof and with his hands in his pockets. 'You have heard the man's voice; it didn't need Mr Webster's translation to tell you he's near-hysterical. He is exhausted, and may become totally irrational. If you push him you could have a suicide situation, at best a collapse, at worst mayhem among the passengers.'

First conflict, Charlie thought to himself. Haven't been here forty-five minutes and they're swapping punches already. Always the same when you try and do things by committee.

'You have to take a firm line,..' sNot for its own sake, only if that helps the end result.'

The Home Secretary looked beyond his protagonists. Then he went to the man who had impressed him in London, who seemed to know and who had the humility of caution in his assessments.

'Mr Webster. Stall them, or give it to them straight?'

Charlie closed his eyes, tried to think, to see his way into the minds of the three young Russians; lust photographs and distant voices. How in God's name did you answer that one? ' I think I'd go with the doctor,' he said, noting the anticipation of the Assistant Chief Constable blend into his set, uniformed, clipped moustache face. 'With respect to all who might disagree with me, we should not underestimate what they've been through, to put it crudely. The stress they've been under, the strain…' What do you know about strain, Charlie? Well, more than any of these buggers. "They could go mad if we wrapped them down right now.'

Clitheroe didn't acknowledge Charlie's support, just walked away and jangled the coins in his pocket. The policeman was gazing through the windows.

'Stall them, Mr Webster,' said the Home Secretary. He looked hard at Charlie, seeking rapport, trying to share the loneliness of taking decisions on conflicting advice. Sorry, can't help you, sir.

You say what happens, I just march up and down and do as I'm told.

'David, it's Charlie here. Now you've got to listen to me.' Trying to get colloquial, trying to find the phrases that create understanding. 'David, listen. We've spoken to London by telephone, and we are told that the ministers of the British government will be meeting later tonight or in the early hours of the morning. They have to talk about this thing, David.. You have to believe me, they must be allowed some time. We'll have an answer by dawn. That's the best I can offer you, David. It's a very important matter, this. They must have time to talk about it. They promise an answer by the morning.' They'll have an answer by the time you've had a good night's sleep, by the time you've calmed yourself, by the time the SAS boys have it all worked out.

'You are trying to confuse us, Charlie. You do not think that we are serious people.' But the doubt was registering – that much was clear from the inflection. Don't know what to do, what to say. Had the set speech worked out for the 'yes' or 'no' answer, and they're thrown by the 'wait and see'.

' I'm not trying to confuse you, David. Just explaining things the way they are.'

'You do not deceive me?'

' I don't deceive you, David. You'll have the answer in the morning, good and early.' Like pinching pocket money out of a blind school. First-timers – no briefing, no plan, just showed up and hoped for the best.

'Good night, Charlie. And you will tell us early the reply of your government. Tell us about the fuel and the onward flight to Israel.'

'Good night, David. We'll talk in the morning.'

Believe that lot and you'll believe anything. Charlie tucked the console button back to the 'off' position, stretched up out of his chair and braced his legs stiff from the long period crouched at his desk.

To no one in particular he said, 'I thought they'd be better than that.'