Kingfisher

CHAPTER NINE

The Foreign Secretary would dearly have liked another of his PPS's mixtures from the cabinet, but it was hardly the suitable time for that – not with the night stretching ahead, the threat increasing.

For this senior politician with a lifetime of manoeuvring and negotiating in the fraught and deceptive world of diplomacy the problem was totally straightforward – so clear-cut, indeed, that the area for compromise was minimal. He had a fair idea of the appeal that the Israeli would make to him, knew it would be impassioned and emotional and difficult to deflect. His role would thus not be easy. He still carried the burden of the one-time super-power, one-time member of the Big Five, but the world had moved on, and the weight in affairs abroad of the government he now represented had diminished to a startling degree in the previous two decades.

And if the cloth had shrunk so had the muscle of the wearer. Circumspection was required if he were to avoid the unnecessary pitfalls of winning the hostility of those who had usurped the influence that had once been Britain's. Forget the principle, take the practical way out. And why not, with these silly children to concern himself with? The Russians would want them back, the Israelis would accept almost anything other than that course. Three idiot children, and because of them he wrestled with a dilemma that should not have existed, who to offend, who to hurt – the monolith of the Soviet Union, or the massive voice of the Jewish lobby across the free world.

Damned ridiculous. And both of them, Russians and Israelis alike, would be wanting one thing in common from him that evening, a binding commitment on a course of action. Only card he held, and he'd see both went home without it.

He'd stayed in his armchair after the Russian had gone, musing, turning the problem over slowly in his mind. When he rose to greet the Israeli Ambassador it was with some awkwardness, the legacy of the wartime shrapnel embedded in his hip. It was not usual for the Foreign Secretary himself to greet ambassadors, not when the issue at stake was the future of three juveniles, killers, but then the situation was not usual; no point on an evening such as this in sticking to protocol. Another circumspect bottom sinking into the comfort of the settee's soft cushions, a moment's pleasantries, and then the starting gun.

'Our position is sensitive, Foreign Secretary, in that we do not have any direct connection with these people, we knew nothing of them before their action became public knowledge. I begin with that, but my government believes it carries a responsibility to all the Jewish peoples, not just to those who reside in the State of Israel, a responsibility that we must discharge within the boundaries of acceptable international conduct.' The Ambassador was leaning forward, and having difficulty making his point with the emphasis he strove for as his small body had sufficiently depressed the cushions that he was unable to gain the height and stature suitable for his address. 'That these young people have committed crimes we accept – serious crimes, we accept that also. In our country there have been no executions since the mass-murderer Eichmann was put to death, in Great Britain there have been none for close to fifteen years. We have both abolished the death penalty for humanitarian reasons. Neither of us believes in judicial killings.' The Foreign Secretary raised an eyebrow; an art he had, only the right eyebrow, and its intention was to signify scepticism. He did it very well. A popular vote in either Britain or Israel would, he thought, have endorsed with enthusiasm a return of capital punishment if directed against the IRA men who bombed the British cities, or the Black September gangs that assaulted the northern Israeli settlements. But the Ambassador was not to be deterred by the movement of a hair line. ' In the Soviet Union these three will face the supreme penalty…' and that would be so wr o n g?… ' I would suggest that you could assume with near certainty that these three will be put to death if they are returned to Russia. ..' and would the world be a poorer place in their absence?… 'My government could not countenance the sending of these three young people to a death they would not have faced if their crimes had been committed in your territory or in ours

…' serve the little blighters r i g h t… ' I am instructed by my Prime Minister to ask of you an immediate guarantee that these people will not be returned to Kiev.'

'What would you suggest happens to them?'

' I am instructed by my government that we would accept their appearance before British courts, and that should they be convicted then they would serve terms of imprisonment inside the United Kingdom.'

'And what charges would they face in Britain?'

'They would face the charges that would have been laid against them in Kiev."

The Foreign Secretary drew a long breath. An audacious approach, but then that was to be accepted. Same as the damned Russians, seeking the propaganda coup – that much was clear to him, even through the pain that meant tiredness and that the fragments of metal still bit at the encasing gristle deep in his body. Concern for advantage, tantamount; concern for the lives at stake, minimal. T am remindedthough I do not have the exact text at hand – of the eloquent statement made recently by your Ambassador to the United Nations General Assembly. It was a call, if I recollect, for a rule of law to combat aerial piracy, a demand that nations should band together to stamp out this contemporary evil. Are we to assume that the religious faith of these three young people excludes them from the type of justice you would wish to see exacted upon men of other creeds?'

The Ambassador did not answer him. It came as no surprise to the Foreign Secretary: diplomats seldom replied to each other's points of debate. It failed to get them anywhere if they did.

'As you know, with the co-operation of your government, we are sending a personal representative of the government of Israel to Britain. This man is a fighter, he holds a substantive rank in those units of our armed forces that deal exclusively with the terrorist threat. If you were to find it possible to commit your government not to return the young people to their deaths then we would order the officer to use his utmost influence to persuade them to surrender without further bloodshed. We have chosen this man with care. It is not accidental that he is the one who has been sent. In our society were his name and his achievements able to be published he would be a hero among us. We believe he is the man to appeal to these youngsters, to gain much from them, more than you can achieve.'

No longer audacious, damned arrogant now,

'What makes you think we need help..,? 2

'We have the experience.' sAnd no one else?'

'Not to the same degree, no. Ask the Germans who were responsible at Munich, ask your friend the President of Uganda.'

'You know, of course that the government of the United Kingdom does not have an extradition treaty with the Soviet Union.'

' I know that military aircraft can take off under cover of darkness, and that politicians can justify their actions at a future date.'

'The Ambassador of the Soviet Union has just departed after telling me his government required an immediate answer on the same question that you ask. I told him that we were considering the situation.'

'From which he would have assumed,' said the Ambassador, 'that the British require time."

' If that was his assumption then it would have been a correct one. Your officer will indeed be taken to Stansted, but whether there is any part for him to play, while conditions are attached to his presence, remains a matter of debate.'

Termination of the conversation. The need that was much more pressing was to speak with the Prime Minister. Worthless and predictable this, a mere swapping of words now that the battle-lines had been drawn.

Alone, while the PPS led the Ambassador through outer offices and empty corridors, the Foreign Secretary sat still in his chair. What if they were not his concern, what if the ministry of another country were in turmoil over the problem, what if he were exonerated of anxiety? Would his feelings on the fate of three young people be different then? How many speeches had he made in the constituency… the Russian threat – the need for vigilance-not to lower our guard – persecution – the tanks of the Warsaw pact – how many war planes, how many missiles, divisions, chemical-gas batteries of artillery.. . always went down damn well, those speeches, particularly at the mid-July garden fete. Three children had taken the System to battle, thrown a tatty, unlined glove at it, and looked for a champion to ride to their rescue. Well, they'd have to look elsewhere, wouldn't they? Silly little blighters.

Wouldn't bother the switchboard, dial it himself, the number that was personal and restricted, the Prime Minister's holiday home.

In the forward corridor of the aircraft, where they could achieve privacy, straddled between the cockpit and the passenger cabin, David and Isaac and Rebecca talked of the radio conversation with the man who called himself Charlie. None of them had ever met an Englishman before, which made their attempts at assessing what had been told them difficult, almost impossible.

There had been English students on the campus that both Isaac and Rebecca had seen since they had started their studies at Kiev University, but they had not been In their classes. There had been no point of contact.

David had said it was better to wait till the morning before talking again. Isaac had not challenged him, realized the depth of exhaustion to which his friend succumbed, saw the need he had for sleep and reassurance. Get no sense out of David, not till he was rested. Wished he'd been there, in the cockpit, to hear at first hand the message from the ground, but his persistent, clinging anxiety about their security at the hands of the passengers following the incident with Rebecca had prevented that. While David was talking behind him in the flight deck he had hovered in the doorway of the cabin, attention bound to his charges, watching them, a chicken with its brood when the fox is close to the coop. Told later of the conversation he had laughed to himself, amused at David's faith, convinced of his own suspicions.

Many hours now since either had lain in a bed; the last sleep reduced to a few tossing and restless minutes on the floor of the forest hut. Both were unshaven, and the new growth tickling and irritating at their collars, and their eyes large and reddened, slow and sluggish in their movements. The girl wore worse than both of them, hardly able to keep her lids from closing and vague in what she said when they spoke to her. Had to sleep, all of them, had to devise a rota for resting. And now circling, aimlessly and without direction, around the conversation that David had made with the tower, and him defensive about what he had said, and the girl uncomprehending and repeating only that the man they spoke to was called Charlie, and that he had promised. Had to get them to sleep, both of them, and summon for himself the strength to outlast and outfight his own great weariness. A few more minutes, then they could go, could be excused, could seek the deliverance they needed. But first the passengers, the currency, valuable, without price, first he should concern himself with the passengers. Voice a little hoarse now, but clear and to those who listened these were the words of a man who had usurped command, who had filled the vacuum of leadership.

'We have requested that the English give us fuel. We are told that their government is meeting in London tonight to discuss our request. They will tell us their answer by the early morning. In the meantime we will all sleep on the aircraft.' He paused and there was the vaguest of smiles, a suspicion, and he corrected himself. 'In the meantime you will all sleep on the aircraft There is no food for you, and there will be no drinks. You must not talk and nobody on any pretext must leave their seat. The lights will remain on through the night, and all of you who sit at the windows must draw their blinds. We will shoot if anyone moves. That must be understood.

When I say we will shoot, you should not take it just as a threat. You should not seek to prove me.'

Isaac walked halfway down the aisle to where the leg room was greatest, to the seats by the passage to the emergency doors with the escape route on to the wings. Luigi Franconi and Aldo Genti were on his right, three of the schoolchildren from Lvov to the left. He beckoned to them with his gun barrel, the motioning gesture drawing them from their seats as if he had discarded the possibility that they would understand his speech. The children were simple, absorbed immediately among their friends, but the Italians were harder and he had to lead them down the aisle to where there were vacant places and stifled protests from those who were comfortable and settled. Both had to climb over knees and bags and passengers that were already settled and unyielding and heavy with hostility at the disturbance, Franconi two rows in front of Genti, separated from their camaraderie and nervous and fiddling with their spectacles. Isaac checked the doors till he was satisfied they had not been tampered with, were as secure as they had been when they were airborne. He walked on down the aisle, the submachine-gun swinging easily in his hand, turning neither to right nor left, as if ignoring those who sat to either side of him. He walked to where the drinks trolley still blocked the rear passageway to the far exit, and bent down to rummage under the final row of seats till his hands emerged with two life jackets, brilliant orange and with their straps sagging. A few moments work and he had lashed the trolley to the nearest seat legs, pulling on the knots he had made with the straps till he was satisfied that they would hold. A slight and primitive barricade, an obstruction between the body of the plane and the back exit. He returned down the aisle, now staring his way through the passengers, as if his whim had changed and he sought to force his personality over them, but there were no takers, no heroes seeking a dangerous laugh at his expense. Even the American was not talking. And the headmaster looking straight ahead even when Isaac brushed his hip against the shoulder of the sitting man.

Isaac came past David and Rebecca, not stopping, and went on to the cockpit. Again the gesture with the gun, and the pilot officer and the navigator unfastened their harnesses, climbed up from their seats and moved back towards the main cabin. As she came through the passage entrance Anna Tashova dropped her facade of competence and seriousness and grinned, meeting the eyes in front of her, identifying the heads and faces, seeing on them the broad lines of gratitude and thanks. She had heard the clapping when she had landed the Ilyushin, and it had warmed her, a sweetening and sustaining gesture, and now she saw again from these people the trust and regard in which they held her. They were all too frightened to speak to her – yet who was she to call them cowards? She had been told what it was like in the 'Former Times', as the elderly referred to them, when Josef Stalin, who was now a 'non-person', had ruled, when the secret police were rampant, when the prisons were full and the firing squads busy. She knew why they were quiet, and wondered what more she might do to protect them. She found a seat near the front of the plane, the navigator further back.

Isaac lingered near her, interrupting his continuous movement for a moment. He wanted her to speak to him, as if he believed she was part of their plan in some confused and abstract way.

Twice he was about to move on his mission of bedding down the passengers, but he faltered, staying close, inviting conversation that she was not prepared to offer.

'Are you comfortable, Miss Tashova?' Almost a request for her acquiescence.

'As comfortable as any of the passengers.'

' I hope you can sleep there, that you will be rested.'

The soft derisive snort in response. 'It is hard to sleep when watched by a gun.'

' It is not of our making, Miss Tashova. We had not believed we would still be on the aircraft tonight. We had thought to sleep in beds…'

'And Yuri, you had thought for him to sleep in a coffin?'

' It was not as we intended.'

"Go tell him that.' Cruel and hurting, spoken low so that those around her could barely hear.

'Go and whisper it in his ear.'

' I tell you it was not intended.' Hardening, his respect cooling. 'You must sleep, Miss Tashova, that you can fly in the morning.'

There will be no flight from here. Your friend knows it Have you seen him, have you looked at him? He knows. He knows the penalty for killing Yuri. Only when the jets were with us, when he had so much to think of, only then could he forget our captain. And now he remembers him. Have you not watched your leader? Perhaps you should… perhaps you should study him, and absorb what you see.'

She spoke slowly, certain in her words, comforted by the knowledge that he listened.

' It is a trivial, pathetic little army that you have. Banal, insignificant beyond its guns. A leader who is frightened because he kills, a girl that is unsure of her role and who you hide at the back lest she should be a part in this and fail you…'

'But we have the guns, Miss Tashova. We have the guns and we will use them.' And there was enough in his voice to quieten her, as if at last she believed him. Nothing more to say, and his interest now lost in her, and she responded no further.

Isaac moved away. He checked the forward doors, then slipped back into the cockpit. He closed the door behind him, creating the darkness he needed to see beyond the steep- tilted, angled windows. It would take him time to see through the brilliance of the searchlights that played against the body of the aircraft. He sat himself at the back, where the navigator had been, outside the orbit of the light they could throw on to the flight deck. He kept very still, head motionless, body relaxed and even comfortable in the crewman's seat, steeling himself all the time to resist the tugging and clawing of drowsiness. Would not stay, not more than a few minutes, have to go back into the passage and relieve David and Rebecca; couldn't last, not the way they were, and he must take the burden of the night watch. Not enough of them – that was the fault, not enough for a shift system of watching and guarding. But nowhere you would have found more,

Isaac. Not a member of a group, of an organization, with a hydra of cells sprouting, with a recruiting belt in motion, delivering the fodder who could stand and take their positions while others slept. He didn't even know whether others would have followed if they had disseminated their message, who they could have trusted, confided in.

Movement out there. In the space between the searchlights to the left of the cockpit. Shadows at play, flitting and diving and disappearing, but he had seen the men move. And dimmed headlights approaching, and rear lights that were reddened and departing. They came to within two hundred metres of the plane, and he wondered if the men were closer. He watched the lights turn as if unwilling to test whatever strength he possessed with too close a contact, and instantly he was aware of the two soldiers, saw the tripod of the machine-gun, and the reflection from the ammunition belt. One man behind the weapon, the other crouched at the side of the barrel, saw it and lost it as the vehicle continued its traverse. Of course there would be soldiers out there, but how many and how close? Another with the silhouette of the rifle at the trail running across the front of the moving lights, hurrying and bent low so that he would be only minimally visible. He thought of precautions he'd taken inside the aircraft; inadequate, hopelessly inadequate if they came. And David believing when the man told him to sleep, told him the message would come in the morning… what would their orders be? Take them alive, or kill them? David, the stupid bastard, the one who they followed, and he had drunk in the syrup, taken it right down into his guts, believed what he bad been told because he was tired and wanted to sleep and did not understand the trap that had been prepared for them.

No relaxation now, hunched in the seat, and with his back muscles taut and his eyes hurting as he strained into the darkness, seeking more evidence of the perimeter they had placed around the plane. Lights further back this time, on and off, perhaps a couple of seconds, but time enough to understand the gaunt outline of two parked armoured cars. Faintly amused him; all the precautions they would be taking to ensure that watchers from the plane saw nothing of their preparations, and he had outsmarted them. Had seen the machine-gun, and the soldier who ran, and now the armoured cars. What did they want the killing apparatus for? Why did they need it if they would supply the petrol in the morning? A mirthless smile, something secret and personal to himself.

As he sat alone with his thoughts in the shadowed cockpit Isaac's resolve hardened. He would fight them all, do battle with the heavy guns and with the tanks they would send, and his hand was steady on the stock of the gun that nestled against his lap. Better here, he thought, than in the cellars with the militia men around him. What did they do to you, Moses? And how did you keep your silence, how did you win us the time to fly out? The pigs are here too, Moses, different only in their clothes and the voices, but they are here, where we did not expect them to have friends.

' If they had told me it would be like this, Moses, I would not have believed them.' There was no one to hear his words, none for company but the captain. It was an accident, it was not intended, old man. Join the ranks of the casualties- there are many of them. And there will be more, the crossfire will fiercen, the uninvolved who stand between the guns will be ma n y…

Isaac came out of the cockpit, moved quietly to where David stood leaning against the wall of the far end of the corridor beyond the cupboard doors.

'Sleep, David. Not you, Rebecca. I will watch the first part of the night, then Rebecca can sleep when the passengers are quiet.'

David nodded, numb, unthinking, and slouched away towards the open cockpit door. They heard him sink into the seat, still warm where Isaac had sat, and they heard him wriggling and turning till he found the position he wanted. Then nothing. Further back in the corridor beside the front exit to the plane were the seats that the cabin crew used for take-off and landing and when the plane was in turbulence. Isaac and Rebecca sat there, the girl on the inside, nearest the door, he leaning outwards so that his vision encompassed the whole of the cabin.

She said quietly, and she was close to his shoulder, 'Some of the old ones, and the children, they want to use the toilet, Isaac.'

'They cannot.'

'But there are old people here, Isaac, they must..

'The Jews grow old. They too have wanted such things,

Rebecca. Are there water closets at Potma and Perm, and basins to wash their hands in, to make themselves clean when they are locked in the huts at night? They He in their filth.'

'David said it was for you to decide. They asked him, and he would not say himself, he said it was for you to decide.'

'And you, Rebecca, what would you do, how much have they weakened you?'

' I would let them go to the toilet, because they must have dignity. If you prevent them going, if they mess themselves, then they have no dignity. We should not take that from them, whatever they have done to our people. We must show we are different to them. If we are the same, the animal same, then there is no salvation for us.'

Isaac stood up, abruptly, without further comment, and walked forward to the entrance of the cabin.

There is a toilet here. You may came to it one at a time. You have to be quick, and you have to know what will happen if you exploit the kindness we show to you.' He spoke savagely, soured and resentful at the concession that had been wrung from him. 'And while you are squatting, think of the Jews in your camps, the ones you call "dissidents", whose crime in your eyes is that they want a new life. Think of them, wonder how they are crapping tonight. Think of their spoiled blankets. One at a time you come, and do not forget that the gun is loaded, and cocked.'

For a full hour a procession of passengers moved from their seats to the toilet and back again.

Isaac insisted that only one person should be out of his seat at a time, and the process was pained and slow. Some thanked him for his consideration, others ignored him, and he saw those who had not lasted and had already fouled themselves, staining their trousers and dresses and who were ashamed and hated him. They will dance on my body should they kill me, he thought. Dance and sing as if it were a holiday. From the furthest row at the end of the plane came the one who seemed the farmer, he would be the last. As he passed Isaac he spat noisily and with rare force on to the carpet. One at last with balls to him! Isaac laughed loud and smacked the old man on the back, and saw his face twist in astonishment that the gesture he had spent many minutes thinking over and which was the only protest he could muster should be taken so lightly.

When the man went back, with his bowed shoulders and his worn summer coat and the boots that were heavy and foreign to the isle carpet, Isaac returned to his seat. He could hear David sleeping. What a mercy sleep was. The time of safety, when all is forgotten, when the dreads and fears are shut out. Lucky bastard. The one that brought us here, and who does not know the cold and the chill and the death that surrounds him. Lucky bastard, David. Dream yourself away, conjure up the wide streets of Israel, the sunshine, green trees that carry oranges, people who laugh and would make you welcome. Lucky David, always the lucky one. And the escape is yours, not ours. You sleep, content in your warmth; and we are left behind with the stink of our own bodies and of another sixty, and the odour of the lavatory.

'What will happen tomorrow?' She was drowsy, eyes half- closed, shoulder against his chest, head against his cheek.

'We will ask for the fuel for the aeroplane.'

'And they will give it to us.' Faint voice, and he could not recognize whether she had asked a question or made a statement.

'No.' He saw her start and stiffen, her mind turning, hopelessly competing with the need for sleep.

'The fuel, will they give it to us?' A question now, no room for doubt.

'No.'

'But we must have fuel to reach Israel.'

'They will not give us the fuel. They will not give it to us just because we ask.'

' B u t… '

"But nothing, Rebecca. They are all around our plane. They have machine-guns that I have seen, and there are soldiers and light tanks. They are not waiting there to see the fuel loaded at dawn. They are waiting for us to break, Rebecca. They are waiting for our will to snap, fracture, so they can take us.'

'What can we do?' Trying to wake herself, trying to throw off the sleep that had near-engulfed her, bright wide eyes. 'What can we do?'

'We have to surprise them, convince them that we are hard, that we are serious, that we are not easily deflected.' Bored with the sound of his own words, attempting to communicate on a different level. Not something that you can express, only that you can feel. She had no comprehension, the words meant nothing to her. They have given in before. They sent the Arab girl back. Leila, Leila something… I do not remember her name. They sent her back to her people. If the threat is great enough they will bend. Have we the power to make the threat great enough?

Too many questions, Rebecca, and past time you were sleeping.'

Impatience cutting through, and there were too many questions. Too many questions that Isaac himself could not yet summon the answers to.

From behind the barricade of petrol tankers Davies watched the unloading of the equipment that had been brought to him from Science and Forensics, Scotland Yard. Four metal- encased crates, with warnings of 'Fragile' and 'This Way Up' stencilled on their tops and sides, boxes that were handled gingerly and with respect as they were carried from the rear doors of the van. The SAS unit crowded round the cargo, noted the crudely-drawn eye with grotesque lashes that had been painted on the smallest box with the title of 'Cyclops'. Seen it all on exercise, never in the buff, the altogether. Had been at the Spaghetti House and Balcombe Street, but the SAS hadn't been called for-left it on both occasions to the police. But they'd seen the results and reckoned it would make their job way easier if the storm order came.

The Yard had sent their own operators, senior grade men from the civil service union, grey flannel trousers brigade, with buttoned collars and ties that carried the emblem of the single piercing eye, out of place among the denimed soldiers. No contact, no common ground, and a mutual suspicion between those who would operate the equipment and those who would take the risks in placing it in position where it could best be utilized. Some among the new arrivals sought out Davies and closeted with him over diagrams of the Ilyushin interior, fingers stabbing at the cockpit area, at the porthole sections on the flanks, at the windows set into the rear of the aircraft.

They had brought from London three pieces of equipment.

Primary among them, pre-eminent was the 'cyclops', the fish- eye lens with its 180-degree visual capability. Relegated to secondary importance by those who now unwrapped the components from their padded cells were the suction adhesive audio devices. It was 'cyclops' that the experts swore by; a lens no bigger than the nail of a man's little finger and that was triggered to a camera via a flexible fibre cable. Had introduced it into the sealed basement of Spaghetti House, down the ventilation shaft, clandestine and silent, to provide the crystal-bright pictures of the siege room, removed the incessant anxiety because you knew what was happening behind the locked and bolted doors. But a greater problem here-the root of the discussion between Davies and the men from London-where to place it, where to gain maximum advantage, where it could be secreted against the outer glass of a window and face the minimum chance of detection? Couldn't just plaster it across the centre of a porthole. And had to go in soon, before it reached dawn.

'We don't know the scene inside,' said Davies. "They've pulled all the blinds… what I'd have done in their boat, but I'd hazard that their central area is towards the front, close to the cockpit.'

'You can have it for the cockpit, or the forward cabin, one or the other,' said the Yard man tetchily. 'We don't have a dozen of them.'

Davies ignored the edge in the other man's voice. 'What's the lighting factor, if we have it forward, outside corner of a window?'

Happier ground for the technician. 'Pretty fair with video. You'll see the faces clear enough.

Not into the cockpit, just the passengers and the aisle. Most of that.'

They compromised. 'Cyclops' and one audio circuit at the front of the passenger cabin, the second audio for the cockpit. Further briefings for the soldiers, reminders of how to fasten the suction pads, the angle the camera required, how the cables should be laid. As if the troops hadn't handled the gear before.

'Pretty useless the audio will be,' said one who loathed to see the apparatus out of his personal control. 'With the doors closed you'll hear fuck-all. And the pictures not much better, not going to show through for you. It's not bloody magic.' And the sergeant that he spoke to was patient and explained that though the blinds were drawn now they would probably be raised during the daylight hours. That the people inside weren't fools, that the blinds were down because they needed the lights on in the cabin, and it would be different in daylight, wouldn't it?

Past two in the morning when Davies and four NCOs began their slow and time-consuming leopard-crawl out across the smooth surface of the tarmac. Davies leading, his sergeant the work donkey with the canvas bag that held the fish-eye and the audios and the lightweight nine-foot aluminium ladder, the other three in close fire support. Coordinated advance with the searchlights tilting their beams to new elevations, playing on the windows to dazzle and blind any who might look out.

They felt no excitement when they rose to their feet at. the belly of the fuselage beneath the various indecipherable words of the Cyrillic alphabet that were printed on the hatches.

Professional soldiers, with the emotion and fervour of their youth long dissipated. Calm and efficient, master artisans, working the pracised procedures. Ladder in position, foam rubber upper protection denying the sound of scratch or scrape against the metal of the fuselage. The sergeant climbing and as he went bending the fibre attachment, moulding it to the curve of the plane's exterior, planting the lens itself, upper right corner, third porthole starboard, suction pad and beyond it the shallow protuberance of the cobra head, the lens in place, reaching over the hp of the window fitting, need to be searched for, cursory look insufficient for discovery. The audio close to the next window forward but reservations there, waste of bloody time till the doors were opened. Second audio at the cockpit windows, low down and wrapped among the arms of the rain wipers.

They ran the cables quickly and with discretion across the fuselage, bringing them together where the starboard wheel rested, camera case fastened in the interior of the undercarriage flap.

Began to pay out the cables away from the plane, running them in the cracks that separated the concrete segments of the taxi area. Thirty-five minutes it took them till they were back to the cover of the tankers' shadows. David had slept through their visit, Rebecca too, and Isaac who straggled to stay awake had heard no sounds that could have aroused him from his vigil with the passengers.

'Bugs nicely in place, ready to bite,' Davies told the scientist – not a matter to boast of, just the communication of necessary information.

Receivers had been moved into the cement hut behind the tankers. Three men were busying themselves with screwdrivers and transistor circuit diagrams. 'Get a move on, lads. I want you out of here by sparrow fart, all tucked up in your beds by morning,' said the major. The civilians worked fast, knew that he joked, knew they were relegated to spend the next day, or two, or three, in the hut. When they had finished with their adjustments they returned to the van, unloaded camp beds, and one carried a Thermos flask, and another spoke of overtime or 'bubble at time and a half', as he called it. 'Not a bloody holiday camp,' was Davies's parting thrust. He walked out into the night again. Depended now on the boffins to get the kit into shape, but he'd met them before, believed in them and their equipment. The main thing was the secrecy of the fish-eye: the buggers inside wouldn't know of it, wouldn't look for it.

Davies eased himself into the small gap between cabin and tail of two tankers, where the plane was flush to him. Shouldn't be difficult, not if there's only three of them, and all youngsters. Be in there in no time, if that's what the gods on high decreed. Always the problem though, always the chance that one of the buggers won't see the reason of it, won't want to live, will take his last five seconds on earth blasting all and sundry round him. Plenty of plaudits for the rescue team if he doesn't, if the civvies come out of it in one piece, but sparse on thanks and short on medals for the chaps that pull out twenty stiffs and another fifteen in the ambulances with the sirens going full blast. All a matter of luck, whether one man stands his ground and wants to take people with him before he coughs. Same operation, same tactics, same drills, and you either end up a hero or a miserable bloody failure. Israelis understood that – wouldn't have taken thirty doctors to Entebbe if they hadn't – but Davies's masters, would they understand it? Not a bloody chance.

Behind him the voice said, 'There's nothing to see yet, and no one talking on the inside loud enough for the mikes,

But everything seems to be operational. Should be able to start the peep-show once they lift the curtain.'

Proud and bold, the battleship at her moorings, Aeroflot 927 rode out the night hours. No movement inside her visible to the army of watchers, no sound that was detectable. Splendid and serene and masking her secrets, defying the onlookers to penetrate her inner thoughts. With the darkness had come the dew that caused the soldiers sprawled in the grass to curse and fidget and envy those who owned at least the warmth and dryness of the aircraft seats in which to rest. Over all the turgid throb of the generators for the lights, beating out their own discordant rhythm, sending messages far beyond the circle of men who cradled their rifles and waited.

Charlie would have liked to have gone down from the tower, out into the air and walked close to the plane, sniffed at the atmosphere that surrounded it. But his place was by the radio, and he needed sleep. No point being knackered in the morning, not when the hard work would start.

Wondered how they'd take it, how they'd react, when they realized the time was up, come in 927, show's over. Go ape, or take it calmly? Never could say with these kids.

Past two when he came to terms with his camp bed. Not long till dawn, till the time to talk to the plane again. Endless repetition of the same thought. How good would they be? What calibre?

Brave? And if they were, how would they use it?

He remembered the kid in Sheik Othman, little bastard, with his shirt-tail flapping, and his futah loosened from the drive of his knees as he sought to clear the soldiers' cordon, and how they'd brought him down and laughed and sat on him, and you'd heard him scream, Charlie, scream for his father, and the captain had come, and the fist had lost itself in the bid's hair and they'd walked him to the corner. One shot you'd heard, you and all the others in the coffee shop, you with the ointment on your face that made you local, made you one of them. And you'd wanted to heave, and had looked around for guidance and for a lead. Not an eyebrow flickering, not a mouth cracking, not a breath drawn in. Called him a grenadier in the communique, and the little bugger should have been at school. Defence of the Empire, Charlie, defence of Law and Order. Shook you, Charlie, and you supposed to be a hard man.

Never could sleep without a pillow. Remember the night in the officers' mess, infantry battalion down at Plymouth and some bright sod had suggested you go down and talk to a few of the chaps before you went to Dublin the first time? Not that they said anything, anything that might be useful, but crowed like fucking cockerels. How we killed young Paddy, young Sean, young Micky. Terrorists all of them, seventeen years, eighteen years, nineteen years old. Bloody kids.

Chased them round the alleys, up the back entries, closed the net. One shot to slow, one shot to fell, one shot to finish, and get the Saracen up fast and over the body so Dad doesn't come out and whip the Armalite for the next pig-thick ignorant kid with holes in his shoes through to his socks and one pair of jeans to his name who wants burying and thinks he's a freedom fucking fighter.

Wrap it, Charlie, time for bloody sleep. Time to kill three more kids, little bright eyes all waiting for you, waiting for you in the morning, Charlie, and with a bit of luck the sun will be shining.

Long time coming, the sleep. Not that a pillow would have helped.