Kingfisher

by Gerald Seymour

  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 wind
ow?'

  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.