Kingfisher

by Gerald Seymour

  A barely audible knock, and the entry of the PPS. Shaved, suited, clean, and bringing more coffee. Thoughtful lad: good choice.

  'Before your solicitations I slept damned badly, feel washed out and would give almost anything to exchange my desk today for a decent morning's fishing.' Smiles all round. 'What have you brought me?'

  'Transcripts from the late night radio and television in Moscow. Going very hard. Meeting the Ambassador had with you last night, spelling out their demands; internal consumption stuff but still a very tough stance.'

  'And the Israelis?' Mouthful of toast, and a smear of marmalade to go with it. Beds might be lumpy but the Club at least maintained a good standard with their breakfasts.

  'Nothing direct from them, and no commentary on the tail of their bulletins. They're taking it very straight.'

  'State Department, and White House, anything there?'

  'Secretary of State's office called. Said they didn't want to wake you - I said you'd be in the office by six-fifteen. The

  Secretary will call you fifteen minutes later. They asked me to say he would be coming out of a function to do so. They describe it as a confidential and clarification matter.'

  The lobby getting to work, all its power and all its tentacles beginning to weave into the scene.

  To be anticipated.

  'There was a demonstration outside the British Embassy in Washington late last night their time, a couple of hours ago. Few rocks over the fence and the police broke it up. Fairly Renta-mob, but the law went a bit heavy so there will be pictures that won't be friendly. Banners about not sending them back to their deaths, that sort of thing.'

  "Trifle premature, but they don't waste time.' He reached for the new supply of coffee, poured it himself, and the PPS noticed that the hand was not steady, slurped into his saucer. Never at his best in the mornings, not till he'd put himself together. 'What do you think, my young friend?

  Give me an opinion.'

  'You can view the question from three angles. From emotion. From principle. From pragmatism. Take the first and last. If emotion wins the day then well find a reason not to return them. If it's the pragmatic we're after then we ship them home because sizeable though the Jewish stroke Israeli scene is it does not compare with the importance of our enjoying the continuing goodwill of the Soviet Union. Leaves only the principle of the matter. We're signatories to the Hague Aerial Piracy Convention, it's old now and it's gathering dust, but we and everyone else said at the time that we wanted a firm stand taken against hi-jacking. The firmest stand you can take is to send these people back.'

  That's making it all very simple.'

  The Foreign Secretary headed towards the bathroom. Once there he turned on the spurting taps, leaving the PPS to compete with the half-closed door and the running water.

  'As our chaplain at school used to say, where principle is involved there can be no leeway.'

  'And the limit of his concern was you little blighters smoking behind the physics lab and trying to deflower the art master's daughter.'

  ' If you take those three points you must come out two to one in favour of freighting them. It would only be emotion that would guide you to keep them here.'

  'And votes' - a distant reply echoing from the tiled walls of the bathroom, 'and your seat in the House and mine.'

  'All it comes down to is a selling matter. News Department can handle that. It's what they're paid for.'

  'And if I were to extract a public promise from the Soviet authorities that in view of the youth of these three persons the death sentence would not be exacted should they be found guilty, how would that affect matters?'

  'If you pulled that, Sir, I'd say you'd wrapped it all up very neatly.'

  More water running, topping up from the hot tap. 'Get the Russian chappie in for half-seven, and my car here for six.' Would be very tidy if it worked, solve a lot of problems- and not wound too many consciences. Israelis wouldn't like it, but then they didn't like anything, so damned prickly, but it would be a fair solution, and one that he was pleased with.

  An RAF staff car had brought Lt-Col. Arie Benitz from Brize Norton. There had been a shortage of serviced helicopters that was the excuse given to him on landing for the change of transport.

  That they were not ready to have him at Stansted was immediately apparent by the initial niggling delays. They had insisted that he should eat something after his long overnight flight, not just a sandwich, but something hot, and the Mess would soon be open, the cooks on duty.

  There was the problem of the civilan clothes that had to be mustered, a surprise to Benitz because he was medium height with unexceptional contours. It was suggested that he might care to telephone his Embassy and more time was consumed while they found the keys to a private office, and then again while the call was routed through to the Ambassador's home.

  'The British have a dilemma, Colonel,' the Ambassador had said. ' If they bow to the Soviet pressure then your journey will have been wasted. But if they stand up for themselves and it might be the first time in many years - then there is a role for you. But do not count on it: remember the spare parts for the Centurions in the time of Yom Kippur. At the moment their decision has not been made. I suggest you let the Air Force bring you to London, to the Embassy.

  There is not the great urgency that we had feared earlier, and the British show they are in no hurry to throw their apple to either side of the fence.'

  Two and a half hours it had taken him, first winding and turning on the country roads, then powering along the empty M3, until finally they were catacombed among the half-lit streets of the capital. First visit to London, first to England, and nothing to do but stare at the fleeing sights from the window and with only a taciturn driver for company. When he reached the Embassy he was not surprised at its fortress- like protection. A private road and a message sent ahead by telephone from the Kensington-end gates to warn of his arrival. Floodlights at the front of the building, a remote camera on an arm jutting above him, steel-faced door, an age of identification and explanation before the bolts were withdrawn, the lock turned.

  He was taken to the Ambassador's office to read the latest decoded communications from Jerusalem, to hear the most up-dated reports from Stansted, to study the photographs and biographies that the Russians had supplied to the Foreign Office and which had been passed on to the Israelis in confidence. He said little as he paced his way through the folder of documents, needing to scour the typed words only once, a man who assimilated information without hardship. When Benitz closed the file, signifying that the contents had been digested, the Ambassador spoke, quietly and with concern.

  'You have a detestable job, Colonel - not one that should be given to an officer of your experience and ability. If there is a role f o r you in this matter it will be to talk these people into a surrender and will be both wounding and hurtful to many of the Jews of the world. The position as we see it is this - and you must forgive any repetition of what you may have been told before you left Israel, but I understand the briefing time was short. There is little to no chance that the British will provide fuel for the aircraft. The escape of the three students has ended at Stansted, and it is their future there that concerns us. If they defy the British calls for surrender, if there is more bloodshed, more killing, then and I do not have to stress this to you - there will be grave embarrassment to our government. We want them out of that plane before they have done more damage, before they have had more opportunity to fuel the propaganda machine of the Soviets.

  But how, Colonel Benitz, can we wash our hands of them? Jewish children, fighting an oppression that we loudly and frequently condemn. We cannot

  abandon them. We cannot permit them to be returned to the Soviet Union. Our Defence Minister spoke in the Cabinet last night of our country's shame if they were to be sent back to their deaths.

  It is a dreadful dilemma that we face. That is my speech, Colonel, but it was necessary that we should all understand the positi
on we find ourselves in. We have offered your services to the British because we believe that the children will hear you, because you are a fighter, and that is how they see themselves. But we make one fundamental precondition for the use of your good offices. Should you help to win this surrender, then the British must guarantee that there will be no question of extradition.'

  'Are the British likely to accede to our request?'

  'No. It is unlikely in my opinion.'

  "And if they do not?'

  ' I think we have not yet arrived at that point.'

  "Most of the men we fight against in the Anti-Terrorist Unit, those that come into our country, have come to terms with the price of their struggle . . . understand that there can be no return . . .

  know that we will kill them.'

  Not articulate, trying to find the words he wanted and disappointed in himself that he could not match the fluency of the diplomat.

  'These will be different, without the training, without the discipline . . . their fear and confusion will be great by this time. Yet on their own scale they will believe they have achieved much.' A slow-forming smile on his face. 'Perhaps to them they have won their own Entebbe...'

  ' I said to you, Colonel Benitz, that it was a detestable job that you have been chosen to perform.'

  'And there is no chance, no hope whatsoever, that they will be allowed to come to Israel?'

  'How can there be? With the pilot dead, it is impossible. And even should the British allow it, could we receive them? When you are unpopular, alone as we are, and you wish to fight back, then your hands must be scrubbed clean. If we falter now, because our kith are involved, then we will have forfeited the right for ever to speak out against the terrorism that you know better than I. If we accept that these children can become the heroes of Zionism then we have borrowed the language of the Palestinians.'

  With a shrug Benitz said, 'The killing of the pilot has destroyed them.'

  'It has critically affected the matter.'

  'And would have been the action of a moment'

  'You are charitable, Colonel.'

  'Not charitable, just realistic.' He seemed to go far away, beyond the horizons of the room, to have lost interest in the conversation. It's so fast, so rushed, there is not time for thinking, not in the moment of assault, not in the seconds that count if you are to succeed...'

  It was not long before they parted. On his way out the Colonel wrote down a series of telephone numbers, some that ran through the switchboard, others that were connected to direct outside lines.

  'We asked,' said the Ambassador with a pleasant smile on his face, one that was rarely revealed, 'we asked that we could send our own communications system to Stansted, to enable you to report to us directly. The British indicated that there would be so much radio traffic that it was impossible for them to accommodate us, they said they regretted this. It would hinder their operations. We are used to these affairs, the British are not, and therefore they are tense and concerned that they will emerge well at the conclusion.'

  They had shaken hands and Benitz had returned to the waiting staff car. He dozed for much of the way out of London - not that he was particularly tired, but simply that he was used to taking his rest where he could find it. After a while he woke, aware of the sound of voices and of the car no longer moving. In the demi-light at the outer perimeter road block he could see a policeman scanning the travel authorization with his torch. Three miles further on there was another enforced stop, and again the production of the magic paper, and salutes from men in uniform for the huddled figure sprawled on the car's back seat.

  They took him to the control tower building, men gesturing to his driver the direction he should take, to which entrance he should report. He was conscious of the military as he stepped out of the car, bracing himself to the freshness of the morning - the howl of an armoured car accelerating in low gear, the medley of chatter and static on a soldier's radio set, tyres that had gouged tracks in the dried-out summer lawn. Familiar sounds, and sights that he was accustomed to.

  Twin pips on the officer's shoulder, but Benitz remained unimpressed with the lieutenant's deference as he was ushered into the hallway, ground floor, of the tower; perhaps a curl of amusement at his mouth at the flamboyance of the Fusilier's cockade, with the hackles of red and white set to the front of the beret. They had allocated a room for him, he was told. But first perhaps he would care to come to the Control Room, where the Emergency Committee had their Operational Centre? Seemed quite proud, this young man, that they had things so sorted out. But it takes more than tides and labels, that was what Benitz had learned.

  It had been slack in the control tower, their anxieties unrewarded, ever since the day's early communication with the Ilyushin, and Charlie had felt free to leave his chair at the console desk and walk around. He remained never more than a few feet from the microphone, but it was still something of an opportunity for him to stretch the perpetual stiffness from his legs, flex his cracked muscles. He was close to the door when the army officer brought in the visitor.

  Something in the complexion, the tan of the Mediterranean, and the close, quiet confidence of his eyes; Charlie knew from his instinct the origin and homeland of the stranger.

  He hung back as the introductions started. The Assistant Chief Constable had his hand out, Clitheroe examining and looking on with interest, new species, Home Office team in a line waiting for the exchange of names and rank.

  'Someone to see how things are going. Colonel Arie Benitz of the . . .' the lieutenant tailed away, conscious of the radio and television equipment operators, anxious to avoid indiscretion.

  ' I think we call it Dixie, don't we? In these circumstances,' Charlie said. 'Colonel Benitz from Dixie.' The usual way of covering embarrassment. Confused Clitheroe though - hadn't an idea what was meant - but the policeman had got the message. Mutual caution in the greetings until it was Charlie's turn. Men of a kind in a way. Charlie still without his wash and brush up, stubble on his chin and the tired, far-away looseness of his eyes, and the trousers that had forgotten their creases and the shoes that had scuffed their shine. Benitz wary, the jut of his jaw showing that he was not prepared to be pushed about, aggressive because he knew that the clothes he had exchanged for his battledress were a poor fit, and a man in clothes not his own is seldom at ease.

  ' It's been quiet overnight, but it's freshening up a bit out there right now. They have been told this morning that there's no petrol for the onward flight, that they won't see Dixie this afternoon.

  They're not happy about it, and the one of them who stands out from the mob is threatening dire things for ten hundred this morning. You've seen the pictures that the Russians have sent us?'

  Charlie motioned to the indifferent snap shots, taking them one at a time. 'This one we know as David; doesn't seem to have much left in him, morale's all over the place. We can talk to him, and work at him. This one's Isaac, and he's the headache; we think he stood watch through the night and is therefore tired, but he's the strong boy, the one who's throwing his weight about. Leaves us the girl, Rebecca; unknown quantity, quality as well. We can't say yet which way she'll fall if the two fellows start arguing. We don't expect them to hold together that long - too few of them, too exhausted, and it's spelled out that there's no future in it for them. David might see reason. Isaac looks as though he's going to try and elbow us.'

  Charlie directed Benitz towards the television screen, read the hostility in the other faces at the interloper in the pen. Screw them. He went on: ' I don't know whether you've seen these things before, but they take the pain out of sieges, cut the sweat out. It's a fish-eye lens with a one hundred and eighty degree arc. Means you can watch them and they're blissfully unaware of it.

  Let's you know when things are heating up and gives you an idea of where everybody is. We haven't seen Isaac for around thirty minutes, hence the assumption he's sleeping. Both David and Rebecca are out of sight at the moment, one at each end
of the passenger cabin where they watch from, watch us and the passengers.'

  ' I heard that similar equipment is being prepared for us; we don't have it yet.'

  Charlie denoted the hint of envy, fractional and disguised.

  ' We rely in these times on the skill of the manpower, not of the equipment.' What you'd expect him to say, a man who did real soldiering, knew what a front line was about and an enemy that hit and slugged with you; not going to be publicly impressed, not by gadgetry. He remembered when he'd been young, and his people had taken him out to Christmas morning drinks, and his own present that day had been a secondhand bike that worked but was short of paint and full of rust, and the kids of the house they'd gone to had shown off their new ones, wheeling them round, bright and shiny and pricey, and he hadn't spoken of his own present. Knew how the Israeli felt.

  Charlie said, 'We know it's not the end of the world, but it's useful.'

  The Israeli wasn't listening, not giving the appearance of it anyway, and Charlie saw that his cheeks were drawn in and his shoulders hunched low, and turned himself to the screen. The one they called David was in the picture; the girl wasn't with him, and his head was down, and he cradled the snub- nosed gun as a mother might a new-born baby, trying to win strength for herself from the child. In the brief moments that the camera showed the young Jew, caught his expression, he gave to his watchers the impression of deep misery, the caged rat caught in the trap in the barn that knows when morning and the farmer come it will drown in the rain butt.

  Still watching the set, Arie Benitz said quietly, 'Do you expect their surrender soon?'

  'They're still talking hard, giving us a rough line. There's the ultimatum at ten, and they hint of bad things to the passengers. They're not on the boil yet, but far from cooled down' - Charlie at his shoulder.

  'And the tough one, the fighter, the one who makes the threats: you say he is resting?'

  'We think so.'

  Arie Benitz straightened, looked round the room, said out loud so that all could hear and none could misinterpret, the surgeon who had examined and would now pronounce diagnosis. 'Why don't you go in there and take them, put them out of their shame?'