Kingfisher

by Gerald Seymour

  He shuffled the papers together, waved his colleagues into chairs, understood the pain in their faces and knew they had read all that he had seen. Fools, he thought, three idiots wallowing in their own stupidity.

  'One decision at least can be made,' the Prime Minister said. 'We cannot condemn and we cannot condone. The world will be watching for our reaction, our friends and our enemies. We cannot support these three, not publicly, and at the same time we cannot be seen to be abandoning them. Our movement must be through the passive channels, through suggestion."

  'But that does not confront the issue.' It was the senior civil servant of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, still in his thirties with the aggression of youth and the high brow of intellect. The Russians are asking for the return of these people once they have landed; they are telling the Europeans that these three are criminals and must be sent back to stand trial for murder. They are accused of shooting a policeman in Kiev, and we hear now that the pilot of the aircraft has been killed. The penalty for those offences in the Soviet Union is death. There are many in our country who would believe in such a sentence if the roles were reversed. For any Western government to permit the plane to land and refuel and facilitate its onward flight is unthinkable. That is why the Germans refused to become involved. The country to which the plane comes must disarm these three and then will have to consider its options, will have to decide whether to send them back, to their executions. Whether we do it privately or publicly this is the issue on which we must clear our position,'

  'You have pre-empted me,' said the Prime Minister. 'I too see the problem. You are not alone in identifying the difficulty. All of us can see it.'

  'We have spoken much in the past of the need for solidarity to fight the aerial warfare of the Arab groups .. .'

  'You say the obvious,' intercepted the Prime Minister wearily, his ears still ringing with the hammer of the rotor blades. 'We know that, we know what we have said. So what do you ask me to do? Do you ask me to tell the British, or the Dutch, or the Danes, or the French ... do you ask me to tell them to disarm these people and put them on a flight to Moscow?'

  The silence was broken by the scraping of chair legs on the tiled floor. All except the Prime Minister began pacing, searching for a clear way forward, while the smoke rose up in grey-blue columns, and coffee was poured .. . The evening of the Middle East comes fast, running across the sandstone houses and the cement towers and the grey roads, but it was many minutes after the shadows had infiltrated the room before the lights were switched on; that seemed to change the mood and break the stillness in which those present had cocooned themselves, and emphasized the passing of time. The Prime Minister rapped the desk top with his pen.

  'When the plane lands we must offer our services to the government concerned. We must make an offer to help in all ways possible to ensure that there is no further bloodshed, no siege.

  Perhaps we could send one of our people to talk to these three youngsters, to persuade them to surrender. We would demand one thing in return, and require a solemn promise on this, that the three should be tried in whatever country they land for whatever offences they have committed.

  In anything with political involvement the death sentence isn't inflicted in Western Europe. We would accept a period of imprisonment...'

  'And in Western Europe who has the greatest sway?' The scepticism of the Minister of Defence. 'Is it us, or is it the Soviet Union? What if our appeal is rejected?'

  'What is your solution, then?' said the Prime Minister, angry that his reasoning so carefully arrived at should face challenge so soon.

  ' I have no "solution", as you call it. Perhaps there is none. But we must be clear in our minds what we are looking for. When the French took Abu Daoud then we called for his extradition.

  We made noises and we flexed what muscle we possessed. It is irrelevant that it was not sufficient. On the same basis the Soviets will want the return of these children, but that Is something that we cannot permit, that is unthinkable. There would be the deepest shame on ourselves and our people if we failed to use every artifice available to us to prevent the young ones being sent back to execution. I accept, of course, that we cannot associate our government with their actions, but at the same time I say that we cannot disassociate ourselves to the extent of permitting them to go to their deaths in a Soviet prison ...'

  'What would you have me do? Fly in the paratroopers again, recreate Entebbe? Lift them from whatever airfield they land?"

  ' I say that we cannot hold our heads high as the representatives of the people of the Jewish State if we tolerate the sending back -'

  'What do you seek to tell me?'

  'For years now we have fought and struggled to rid our people in Russia of persecution. We cannot allow-must not allow-them to be sent back. The humiliation would be unacceptable.'

  'What then do you think I am suggesting? Do you believe I look towards a craven retreat? This is why I offer to send a man.'

  He broke off, thankful for the softened knock at the door that precluded further argument and would only take them deeper into confusion. A single sheet of paper was handed over to him, and while he read it he took in the sound of the door closing behind file messenger. A deep sigh, from far down in his chest, then the Prime Minister shrugged, irritated, as if to throw off the constriction of a burden.

  'Gentlemen, there is little time now. The Dutch government has informed our Embassy in The Hague that they have decided-and they say it is with regret-that they have made certain conditions which must be met if the plane is allowed to land. They must have the word of the three that they will disarm themselves and surrender. I note that our Ambassador makes no mention of what would happen to the three should they comply with the instructions. But it would seem that the question is irrelevant. The demand has been rejected, the plane is flying on.

  They will be over the United Kingdom

  in less than three-quarters of an hour, they have enough fuel to get there, but not for a further diversion. It seems it is the British with whom we have to deal.'

  The Defence Minister leaned across the table, his hand

  outstretched, and reaching for that of the Prime Minister. I agree to what you propose. It is right for the first step. We must win more time to talk of alternatives. You have my support. You have my word.'

  There was a pale moon of gratification at the Prime Minister's mouth. He said, 'You must find a man that you think well of, who could talk to the three, someone young, someone they will admire and accept, who can convince them. A man of our strength, of the strength of our people.'

  And then he added, as an afterthought, half to himself and yet not caring who heard, ' I would prefer it had not been the British.'

  CHAPTER SEVE N

  The closing of Schipol Airport represented a huge task to the dozen Air Traffic Controllers on duty in the tower. All flights on the ground were to be indefinitely delayed - simple enough that, with only the passengers' fury and the carriers' frustration to contend with - but harder and more complex to handle the fifteen aircraft in various stages of final approach. Diversions to Brussels for those closest, to Rotterdam for those that came from the North, and for those that were further afield there were requests for information on fuel loads and suggestions that they put down at Lille or Charles de Gaulle and Orly on the outskirts of Paris. Short haul flights coming from North Germany and Heathrow were advised to delay take-off until the situation had clarified.

  Within a matter of minutes of the order being given the intricate and complicated process of planning the controlled flights of some scores of aircraft across Northern Europe was in apparent chaos. In the terminals there was confusion, passengers struggling into queues at the check-in counters where the abused staff could neither accept their baggage nor award them with boarding cards.

  Out on the runways of Schipol Dutch troops had taken to their lumbering armoured personnel carriers. Blue-uniformed members of the police airport squad with s
teel helmets and Ml carbines drove their jeeps alongside them to augment the effect of the APCs. The blocking programme successfully used by the Germans was aped till the runways offered no scope for landing, only for disaster. But the Dutch government faced greater emotional problems than the Germans. Ever since the Yom Kippur was of 1973 when the support of the Netherlands for Israel had been unqualified through the clouds of bitter invective from the Arab oil producers, the small nation had acquired a reputation of providing a solid staff on which the Zionist State could lean. For this reason the Dutch cabinet had felt the need to offer landing permission to the Ilyushin, but had attached such riders that they felt confident they would deflect the Aeroflot's route beyond their airspace. It was by now academic what line the cabinet would have taken in response to the demand of the Soviet Union that the three should be returned to their jurisdiction. The plane had circled the airport twice, watched by huge crowds of transistor-toting passengers and mechanics and ground staff, before heading towards the dykes and the sea wall and the cold evening waters of the North Sea.

  Although on their circuits of Schipol David and Isaac had been able to identify the faint and indistinct shapes of the blocking vehicles their feelings were much changed from those above Hanover when they had first realized that the West was reluctant to play host to their errant migration from the East.

  The navigator had provided them with the piece of paper on which was written in his neat hand the brief message from the Dutch authorities that listed the conditions of landing. They had studied it, read it perhaps three times each, trying to win the nuances of the carefully prepared government statement of policy, and known, both of them, that they would fly on.

  'Where can we go?' David had asked the navigator, quietly and with respect, as if accepting that in spite of their guns and their proven willingness to kill they had still needed the man's expertise.

  'We can go south. Try Belgium, perhaps, or the French.

  We can go north towards Denmark, or back into the Federal Republic. If we continue we will reach Britain. But if they make us circle, if there is more waiting, then we have no further alternatives. We would not be able to regain the European continent. If we go to Britain that is where we must land.' The pilot officer supported him, wordlessly pointing to the quivering fuel counters that now edged past the vertical towards the wing of the measurement arc and that hustled closer to the red warning line.

  The navigator waited for them. He did not interfere, sensing perhaps that at this moment they relied heavily on him and that in their dependence on his skills he might exert, subtly and imperceptibly, at least some influence. If he antagonized them or disputed with them then the relationship could be destroyed. He knew that at this moment there was no possibility of abject surrender, that it was not the time for him to begin the gentle and clandestine process of wearing down the resolve of the two men who shared the cockpit with himself and the pilot officer, knew that that time would come later when the lives of the passengers were not at such direct risk. He was just past his twenty-seventh birthday, tanned from his holiday on the Bulgarian coast, engaged to be married and flush with the confidence that came from the knowledge that he did his job well, that he would advance. The men who stood behind him and looked over his shoulder at the air routes and tried to decipher the meaning of his lines and paths and to assess the distances he talked of and weigh them against their scant knowledge of the different implications of reception in the north, in the south, or the west, were only a little younger than himself. They were similar to the people he saw in the streets of Moscow and Leningrad and Kiev when he was on stop-over. A great ordinariness about them, he thought, nothing to distinguish them from the wallowing, compliant herd, nothing in their faces, their hands, their clothes, nothing to make them stand out . . . only the guns. He suppressed the slow smile, their only claim on him, on his interest, his attention, his curiosity ... the guns, and the fact that if they were fired then a planeload of people would perish. But such ordinariness surprised him, and he wondered how they could have chosen this course, and why, why they were there, why they had started, just why.

  'We will go to Britain.' David speaking, evenly and in his own voice, calmed now. '1 want it made clear that this time we land. You must tell them of our fuel position, but not till we are near their airfields, till they cannot move us on, parcel us up, send us elsewhere.' He was going to say more, but clamped on his tongue. He had to talk to Isaac more, had to have consensus, had to draw again on the strength of his friend.

  Again the nose of the plane rose, climbing once more.

  Out in the passageway between the cockpit and the passenger cabin, where there was storage space and the cupboards and the forward toilet and privacy, the two men huddled together.

  David stood facing the flight deck crew, Isaac the passengers, both studying their charges and speaking from the sides of their mouths, bodies close, and still the guns aimed at their charges.

  ' I had thought it would be finished by now,' said David.

  'They have made it difficult for us. They will not change now.'

  ' I did not think it possible .. .*

  'And we do not make it easy for them. It is not they alone who can hurt'

  'You have heard the stories of the Arabs on the radio ., .l

  ' It will be difficult, but they can be made to soften.'

  They give in to threats.'

  'We have to take the philosophy of the Arabs, David,'

  "And we have hostages, and we must use them.'

  'If we want to see Israel, David.'

  " If we are to force them, if they must bow to us , « , but then it will be a long road ...'

  ' It has been a long road already.'

  'You know what it means, Isaac? If we are to go on, if we are to succeed?'

  ' I know what it means. I understand,8

  'We must use the passengers ...'

  ' I understand that.'

  How docile they sit, how quiet, and they do not know what I have talked of, what David has accepted, what I know. Like the Jews of old. Do not know they are no longer just human beings, that their destiny has forsaken them, that they have become casualties that will fall if our will does not rise supreme over that of the people that we will face. Ex-pendable . . . and how many of them? How many to be taken before we convince the people on the ground that we are travelling to Israel? One? Perhaps the Italian, the man who sits in the middle of the front row of the group, who cannot look at me, who has the capped teeth and the silk tie; would he be enough to convince them? Perhaps the schoolmaster - perhaps we will need two? With his glasses that do not hide the way he stares back at me, not because he is brave and has courage but because he is afraid to lose face in the presence of the children. If we kill him as well, will that bend them?

  Take a third, and why not? The American with his bleeding head and the handkerchief that his wife has wrapped around it, who seems like a farmer now in the field with his hay who must stop the sweat coming from his scalp to his eyes. Why not him also, if they hesitate, if they wish to test us? And the children, what of the children, Isaac? A wave of nausea rose up from his stomach. A terrible shame, a humiliation that the thought should even come to him. He had made David say it first, led him to the cliff face, defiled him, nagged him, pressured him, till they had come together to the ultimate - the children. And what if their will is stronger than ours, if they do not bend? How many do we kill to find out the temper of their resolution? He seemed to shrug to himself, disengaging from David. It will not be so, we will have the fuel. They will give us the fuel.

  A full-measured, slowed, leaden-paced hour since they last came to the back of the plane to see her. Only the seat tops to look at, and the hands on people's heads, and the occasional stolen glance over the shoulder to see that she was still there - that the pistol was in her hand. There was hatred on some faces when they looked back, something they would not dare when Isaac was watching them, not since he had struck the
American. But that was an hour back, and they looked differently at Rebecca, because she was a girl, just a girl, and had no right to be feared. But they do not come and talk with me, leave me here, isolated, ignored, searching the length of the plane to lip-read their whispers far away as they meet in the corridor outside the cockpit. Because I screamed, is that why I am not to be trusted? she thought. Have I less strength than the others, and is that the only currency they value, strength whatever that may be, man's strength, their stupid, ignorant puerile virility? David has screamed too, and I heard it, heard it the length of the plane, heard it with all the passengers and seen their heads jump up like those of jerked marionettes and subside cautiously again when calm returned to the cockpit area. They loathe me, these people, they would like to stamp and kick and pummel the life out of me, beat and beat till each bone is broken; that is the revenge they seek, and only the gun prevents it. Only the squat and polished security of the gun holds them back, because that is what they fear.

  The head teacher's hand raised.

  Like all the teachers she'd ever known. In his best clothes because he was taking the children somewhere, would have polished his shoes, selected his best shirt. A compilation of Soviet virtues, preaching the Love of the Motherland, Indus- triousness and Frugality, Friendship and Comradeship, Love of Studies and Consciousness. Teacher's hand raised. Ludicrous, the classroom table turned.

  The children want to relieve themselves, Miss.'

  Of course they do. Don't we all?

  The children have been very patient, Miss. They have waited a long time.'