Kingfisher

by Gerald Seymour

  There because of you, Rebecca. There to watch you, pry over you, examine you, and there to eliminate you, Rebecca. Eliminate, if that should be the instruction passed to them.

  Subjugated grey Shadow in the fuselage, and the fidgeting quiet of the passengers. The only movement, the sporadic prowling guard that Isaac maintained.

  Love, Rebecca?

  Was that the sensation and the addiction that had brought her this far with the boys, with David and Isaac? Love of one, or love of both? Was that where the answer lay?

  And what was love? Not something physical, not body to body, not flesh to flesh, not with the muscles straining and the warmth soft and moist. Had not felt their hands perusing her, wanting her, searching the secret intimacy that she thought of as love.

  If not love, then why are you here, Rebeoca? What is your purpose?

  How can I know? Who now may I ask the question of, and find the answer?

  An ordinary girl, Rebecca. Ordinary as cheese and mice, buses and queues, work-shifts and roubles . . . Ordinary, predictable. But there are not tanks and machine-guns and soldiers deployed through the slow night hours watching and waiting on an ordinary girl, to see what her thoughts and actions will be when the light comes and when she has rested herself.

  So easy in the hut, when the battle was just of words. No doubts that the cause was right, certainly. Not in dispute, Rebecca. But if the cause is right then someone must stand and defend it

  .. . but why you, Rebecca? Persecution, humiliation, spoliation, all those things have been visited on our people, and they have not stepped forward, have not armed themselves in their defence. So why you, Rebeoca? What was different, unique, that made you stand up and plan and conspire?

  Not enough now, too late, to call to the soldiers that you were just a follower, that it was not of your willing, not your choice. Too many questions, Isaac had said, and Isaac was right. Always right.

  And the talk of killing. All the preparations for the death of another. All the plotting, all the reconnaissance. All the hours in the hut used to prepare for the struggle that would be launched against the oppression that sat on their people. All that time, and no thought of this moment, of the trapped incarceration. Brave talk it had been, and Rebecca in the thick of it. Remember?

  Remember the calling for the choice, haphazard and not by merit, that determined that Moses should go first?

  Why, Rebecca?

  God, how do I know?

  Would David have loved you then, if you had drawn the short straw?

  Perhaps.

  If you had killed a man, would that have fired, stiffened, strengthened him?

  Perhaps.

  Did you have to kill a man to win David's love?

  But he never came to me, never came to me as a woman. Only as a friend, a colleague ... an adjunct, never as a woman.

  His fault or your fault, Rebecca?

  I don't know. God knows it's the truth, but I don't know.

  Is it that he cannot, Rebecca? Is it that he is not man enough...?

  Let me sleep, please, please.

  Did we have to come to this place for your answer, Rebecca, and have we now found it?

  I have to sleep. I must sleep.

  Is that your answer, Rebecca?

  If that is the truth better never to have known, better never to have come. Better to have stayed the ordinary girl. Brave, ignorant and happy.

  It was cold in the control tower when Charlie woke and he shivered as he recalled where he was, and why. A policeman grinned down at him from the chair in front of the console that he had occupied, guarding the radio, while Charlie slept. Long time since Charlie had slept rough, not since the family camping holiday outside Aberystwyth when they'd packed it in after four days, conceding second best to the weather and he'd vowed never again, no more holidays for the mob without confirmed hotel bookings. Have to get ready for when they opened the radio circuit.

  Should wash his socks through first though, not that anyone else would have, but a standing privilege of a desk job was that a man had the right to clean socks. Quit the rubbish, Charlie, get up and concentrate.

  Charlie dressed quickly, just his trousers and shirt, and felt a moment of distaste at the darkened rim of his collar.

  'Any chance of a cup of tea and a half-minute with a battery razor?'

  The policeman was happy to vacate the chair, said he'd go and look, and that the Committee was dossing down below in the Airport Manager's office, all except the Home Secretary, of course: found him a billet in the Fire Chief's house, a bit away, but inside the perimeter.

  'Tell them I'm on the seat, my compliments and remind them that the plane's due to come through any time now.'

  Going to have to be careful with this one. This was the crucial conversation: that much had been decided last night. Should be left in no doubt they'd get no petrol, fly nowhere else.

  Clitheroe had given it his sanction, all right once they'd rested to give them the pill. But didn't really matter how freshened they were, how much they could think things out, labour with the logic; always unpredictable when they flatten into a brick wall for the first time, realize they haven't a safety belt on . . . Shut up, Charlie, shut up and wait for the tea to come.

  But the radio call came before the tea.

  'Kingfisher here, Kingfisher here. The man we spoke to last night, is he there?'

  Charlie waved behind him, the fantasies scattered, alert, in control. There was a shout that echoed away down the stairs, and then the drumming of feet taking the stairs two at a time.

  'Charlie to Kingfisher'- humour the silly apes -'Charlie here. Please identify who is calling. Is that David?' Keep it simple to start with while you tune into the language.

  What a time in the morning to be fluent in Russian! 'Have you slept well inside the plane? Did you get your heads down?'

  ' It is immaterial. We are waiting for the answer. We want the fuel. Do you have the authorization for that?' He'd slept all right, the bastard. Didn't sound as if he were back on the ropes like last night - fresher, keener, more determined, and rejecting the request for identification. Someone was tapping on Charlie's shoulder. Assistant Chief Constable there, looking as though they'd pulled him backwards through a hedge and still combing what hair he had, and Clitheroe in his braces and short of his jacket and tie and still breathless from the race up the stairs.

  'Dont worry about the translation now, Mr Webster. Give it to them hard and straight.'

  Finger to the console, switch to transmission. Deep breath, steeled himself.

  'David, this is Charlie. I have a very important statement for you from the British government.

  I want you to hear it right through, and I don't think you should interrupt me, not till I've finished.

  Is that understood?'

  'We will hear what you have to say.' Concession and a fragment of subservience.

  'David, this is the reply of the British government. You are ready to listen? There will be no refuelling of the aircraft. There is no possibility, whatever your reaction, that the plane will be refuelled in order that you can fly to Israel . . .' There was a fast and angry explosion of shouting from the loudspeaker, explanatory, aggressive, yet difficult for Charlie to follow in detail. 'You said you'd hear me out. Shut up and listen. There will be no fuel, there will be no negotiation about flying this or any other plane to Israel. The journey is over, David. Your plane is surrounded by a military force that includes specialist troops of the highest calibre. There are two ways that you can leave the aircraft. You can come off dead, or you can come off alive with your hands over your heads, unarmed and after you've released the passengers. There are no other options. We will sit here as long as you need to make up your minds, but we think that you are all intelligent people, we think you will realize that there is no point in continuing, that you will understand your situation. Look out of any windows and you will see the armoured cars.

  There is nowhere for you to run to, David
. That is what the British government says.'

  Charlie sat back in his seat, heaving his chest in relief, then half-spun in the chair and gave the men who waited behind him a precis of what had passed. Then he swung back and was writing hard on his pad.

  New voice, different accent, devoid of subservience.

  'That is all you have to say to us?' Like meeting a pen friend for the first time. Had to be Isaac, and Charlie pointed without comment to the photograph for the benefit of those who watched.

  'Yes, Isaac, that is all. There is no room for negotiation, no scope for it. Your position is a hopeless one from any military or physical point of view, and you must surrender unconditionally. If you do that, and have first released the passengers and crew, then I guarantee that no harm will come to you when you give yourselves up.'

  'You know what the consequences will be?' Too fast a reply for him to relay an English translation to what he had said, had to hang on, keep up the momentum, hopeless if he broke the spell now.

  'There are no "consequences" as you put it, Isaac, that will alter the decision of the British government.'

  'You believe that?'

  ' I know it, Isaac. They will not change their stance.'

  'Wait till ten o'clock, ten this morning. Then tell me again.'

  ' Isaac, there is no point in threats. There is nothing to be gained from them, only the worsening of your situation . . .' No one listening, the empty, unresponsive echo of discarded headphones far away. Charlie looked up at the digital clock immediately above, saw the numeral flip over - four fifty-two. Five hours till Isaac turned his words into action. More explanations to the men behind and a graveness in their faces as they heard the final stages of the exchange.

  Assistant Chief Constable put it with the bluntness that was needed. 'They're threatening to start shooting passengers, executing their hostages, murdering ...'

  'That's about it,' said Charlie, matter of factly. 'And it's Isaac who's coming across as the hard boy. Moved on from the one we have as David.'

  'Military wont want to be messing about,' the Assistant Chief Constable went on, as if in ignorance of the interruption, 'not in the light, and that's what we'll have in twenty minutes.

  Wouldn't have mattered an hour ago when they had some cover. But they have to have cover, cover or it's bloody difficult for them and dangerous for the passengers. If we'd played it straight last night, said what we meant, and they'd reacted this way, then we could have put the military in

  . . .' In full flow, the staff officer of Agin court, of Waterloo or Passchendaele, and back from the front with his gunpowder burns.

  'The decision was taken by everybody.' Clitheroe rose to his own defence. 'We agreed that they would be more susceptible to the logical working out of their situation and position if they had had some sleep. The first one who spoke, David, he's obviously rested. But his sleep had to be paid for. Presumably the man Isaac has not slept, therefore he is exhausted and temporarily he is the irrational one, but there is much time for the others to work on him and for him to reflect on the measures that he has blurted out to us.'

  It was not a new problem for Clitheroe. Early in his working life he had come to accept that the science of psychiatry was not an exact one, that the ill-informed were sceptical and dubious about his expertise.

  'We should not take the threat too seriously, there is much time yet.'

  Charlie, his attention away from the medical man, focused on the senior policeman, said: 'If it's not vulgar to ask, Sir, what's to happen to these people? Assuming we talk them out, or we storm and take them alive, what happens to them?'

  The raw nerve. Stamped on it. Pinched it. Off-the-cuff question, and he hadn't thought it out beforehand. The civvies from London looked away. Colour at the Assistant Chief Constable's cheeks.

  ' I don't think it's been decided yet.'

  'They could ship them back, that has to be one of the options?'

  'That's only your assumption, Mr Webster.'

  'Bad news if they get a wind of it. Not going to come waltzing down the bloody steps and into our own arms. Stands to reason they're going to try and push us about a bit first.'

  'Outside your province, Mr Webster.' Putting the clamps down, hiding behind the medal ribbons, climbing on the

  silver of his epaulettes.

  ' If I can't put that one out of their minds then not much chance of it all ending in sweetness and light.'

  'Don't extend yourself, Mr Webster. You do an excellent job as an intermediary. Quite excellent, and be so good as to confine yourself to those limits.' Bloody martinet, thought Charlie, why can't he come clean, take a dose of the honest johnnie, accept he's outside the confidential circle.

  The sun was playing on the aircraft now, burnishing its sides, beating up from the tarmac.

  Made Charlie squint his eyes together just to look at it. Lonely-looking now, sort of lost and strayed off its path, and doesn't know how to get in the air again. Didn't suit it as well, the daylight, not like the night with its magnification and the floodlights. Seemed to have become shrunken as the sun crept up on it. Didn't have the look of anything deadly, shorn of the melodrama, just another bloody plane sitting on its wheels, waiting for its orders. Blinds were up and some of those behind him had binoculars and gazed intently at the portholes and pointed and passed the glasses from hand to hand, but Charlie couldn't see anything beyond the darkened shapes of the windows - nothing living, nothing moving.

  More movement at the back of the control area. Men with cables and a portable television set, the type used by industry with the innards gaping and uncased as the domestic set would be. It was placed on a bench close enough for Charlie to see the screen, far enough for others to watch without disturbing him from his communications on the radio. Further along the controller's work bench they fitted the tape recorders with their attendant headsets and the floor was a net of crazily inscribed wires and junction boxes.

  Some twenty seconds of frosting and snow storm as they tuned the set before the clear image came. Not bad, not bad at all, and Charlie joined the others who pressed shoulder to shoulder to identify the greyed soft-shaded shapes of the heads of men and women and children, some lolled as if still in sleep, others alert and darting with their eyes around them. He could see some of the children, and across the aisle and in a single-tone suit a man who sat with them and whose face was set and steady and did not waver.

  Behind Charlie someone asked, 'What's the sound quality?'

  'Not good, very muzzy. We'd hear something loud, shouting or a shot, but ordinary voice levels won't be satisfactory. Might be better when we put the tapes through the cleaners, wash the backgrounds out a bit. But don't count on it.' They let the audio man get on with it - sound was second best. That the picture was sensational was the general consensus; a new toy, and they were revelling in its versatility.

  'That's Isaac,' Charlie broke in. 'The one in the front. The girl's behind him - Rebecca.'

  Total attention on the screen now, and hazy in the middle distance was the figure of Isaac, his chin low on his chest and his hair messed and tangled, shirt creased and floppy and the tail out of his trousers. Watchful and suspicious and minding his charges. Two hands on the gun - World War Two, and Charlie wondered where they'd dug that one up from. He didn't really look at the girl, didn't know anything about her to convince himself that she wasn't there just for the ride; saw she kept close, not more than half a pace behind the man, and that her dress was torn, and that her cheekbone showed the discolouration of bruising. A long way up the aisle the fish-eye followed them before they were lost, cut off by the thick lip of the window's casing.

  'That's the one you have to concern yourselves with,' said Charlie to anyone who cared to listen. 'If you can convince him to walk out with his hands up when there's half a chance he'll be shipped back to Kiev, then it'll be champagne all round, and on me.'

  Pushing your luck, Charlie, only a cog, and a little one at that, and it's a big wh
eel you're working in. Steady down, sunshine. Not that anyone was listening to you anyway.

  The Foreign Secretary had not slept well. Never did in the Club beds. But the Party had been in office only four months, and the Prime Minister talked that frequently of the impossibility of continuing with so slight a majority and his wish for a snap election that it seemed pointless to make the expensive investment in a central London home. Better to wait and see whether the future was in the chauffeur-driven Foreign Office limousines or the wife-piloted Mini of Opposition. The Club was adequate and useful after the welter of official dinners that the Foreign Secretary was obliged to host, and at least it was quiet, with a code of ethics in the smoking lounge that would not tolerate him being accosted

  by other members and quizzed on government intentions.

  In his pyjamas he ate the scrambled eggs that the venerable servant had brought him at five.

  He glanced fitfully at the morning's screaming headlines. Milking it dry, pulling the udders down, but could hardly blame them. It was the height of the silly season, with parliament not sitting, damn-all going on and now a hi-jack in their back garden. Teams of reporters and teams of photographers, all with the credits above the stories and under the pictures. Even a photograph of himself leaving the Foreign Office by the side entrance that he favoured; shouldn't have smiled, wasn't right for the occasion, but the little devils were everywhere and you never saw them in the dark, only felt the flash against your face. Past midnight when he'd abandoned his desk. Three long telephone sessions with the Prime Minister and not much to chew on as a result of them. Usual story. 'You're the man Who knows the implications of it all, as far as foreigners go. You're the man in charge, Home Office will work to you. You act and we'll be behind you.' How far behind? Inside knifing range or out? How many years back was it that socialist chap had called his Ministry 'a bed of nails'? He'd only had Labour and Industrial Relations to worry about - should have tried Foreign Office for a week.