Kingfisher

by Gerald Seymour

  'Shouldn't think so, there was nothing on the net about it first. Reckon he acted off his own bat, didn't think out the consequences, just couldn't sit there and watch it all in glorious technicolour.,

  'Had a point there.'

  'We'll have to see.'

  All the years they'd trained for this, exercises and rehearsal runs, sometimes thinking it was for real, usually knowing it wasn't. All the alerts, all the false alarms. Living and sleeping the problem for four years since the squad was formed, and he didn't know the answers. 'Expert' he was supposed to be, and he didn't know. Nobody did for that matter, but it didn't make the pill any sweeter.

  The television camera with the long lens showed the committee in the tower that Charlie Webster had reached the safety of the cropped grass at the side of the runway. He was on his knees beside the man that he had rescued. The episode was completed. They waited for him to call in on the radio, and when there had been no transmission presumed that the set was broken.

  The Assistant Chief Constable gave rapid orders, content that he was again able to perform a function, and separated from the tiresome world of conjecture and interpretation. A civilian ambulance should be sent to the pair. Under no circumstances should they be allowed to take cover behind the petrol tankers some fifty yards to their left: those in the plane should not have the chance of even a glimpse of the troops, and should continue to believe that the vehicles were abandoned, untenanted. Clitheroe mentioned to any who cared to listen that a major breakthrough had been achieved: they now had in their possession an eyewitness from the aircraft who would be able to furnish an up-to-the-minute description of the state of mind of both hi-jacker and hostage. The Home Secretary remained by the monitor that showed the interior of the aircraft recorded by the fish-eye. Isaac occasionally obliged by coming into view, but David stayed at the far end of the aircraft and was not seen. The girl passed the length of the aisle as if communicating messages. Still no sound from the microphones that were serviced by sheepish and frustrated technicians.

  'Has Mr Webster's action helped or hindered us?'

  He spoke to the room in general, not turning from the set, his hands clamped on the sides of his cheeks, elbows firmly on the table, feeling the tiredness that was common to all who had spent the last five and a half hours in the tower; a tiredness that came not from lack of sleep but from the frustration of playing the part continuously of voyeurs, unable to alter significantly the course of events.

  The Assistant Chief Constable had finished his delivery of instructions.

  'It's not yet ten, seven minutes or so to go, and there's seventy more they can pick from. What Mr Webster did may have had the opposite effect to what we have been hoping for. In effect he may have warmed them up.' The policeman knew that his words were not welcome, but time he was heard out and his experience and knowledge realized. 'It's not the sort of thing that is likely to weaken them - quite the reverse. It's a slap in the face for them. I would expect them to try to hit back.'

  ' I think you're wrong,' said the Home Secretary quietly. 'I hope so. We were all prepared to sit here and watch that poor man die. We had reconciled ourselves to it, justified our non-interference in a way we would have done with an inter- ministerial memorandum. We had passed the buck. That man is now alive because a decisive step was taken. We have a little dignity now. Not much, because it was not we who authorized Mr Webster's action. But we have some, and dignity is important...'

  'Minister, by the time the day's over we may have some dignity and we may have three or six dead passengers. The two don't equate on my scales.' The back of his neck, clipped and smooth, was reddening where it met with the white laundered shirt above the pressed collar of his tunic.

  ' I don't give a damn about dignity. I don't give a damn if the whole British cabinet has to crawl on its bended knees to that plane. I don't give a damn whether Mr Webster is the hero of the hour. I want those passengers out, and I want them out safely. When we've done that then we may be able to talk of dignity/

  The Home Secretary came awkwardly to his feet, turned square to the policeman. ' I'm in your way, and you have work to do. I will be below if you need me.' He stopped, as if uncertain as to the wisdom of his gesture, then said quietly and without hurry. 'I apologize for wasting your time, gentlemen. It's an alien world to me, and not one that I relish, nor have any great understanding of. If you think there is need of my presence please do not hesitate to call for me.'

  ' I really don't think, Minister . , „' the aides were round him, sidling forward, concerned.

  'Minister, there is no need ..

  It would not be wise ...'

  He smiled to them all and made his way to the door, walked through, and closed it afterwards with care-that it should not bang.

  'Dignity, my Christ,' muttered the policeman savagely. 'What does he think we're at, winning a bloody election?'

  He crossed the room for support and found it lacking, faces averted, studying the monitors, drawing from the coffee urn, unparcelling the food. Made a mistake, hadn't he? But what did they want? Easy answers, everything's rosy, pound's doing well, balance of payments sensational, exports record- breaking? Did they want that? Or the truth? That we're in a new situation, and it's four minutes to bloody ten o'clock?

  And they'd remember that, the smart little arse-lickers who burrowed in the files and said who was right for promotion to Chief Constable. They'd remember that and have a little titter behind their hands before they went out to lunch, and a damn good meal they'd have before coming back to pencil out his name.

  Luigi Franconi had long been a dreamer.

  Back at Party Headquarters, the drab poster-daubed redbrick block behind the Piazza Venezia where he occupied a third-floor room, the secretaries and his colleagues had become used to seeing his concentration drift away from their expositions and briefings. It was almost a joke to those that knew him well, the way he was present and then absent, merely moving his head in agreement or dissent whichever way the argument led. When he was corrected, exposed with much laughing, and irritation from those who were not his friends, then he would assume pained apology and shake himself and indicate that surely it was time for lunch in the trattoria that graced the small square close by. In truth Franconi was a private person, seldom willing to share his day-dreams and not convinced that the words of others conveyed any great importance. He worked from paper, from pile upon pile of mounting typed and printed paper. Only when confronted with the written word or figure did he produce evidence of the ability of which his superiors in the Party were convinced. They realized the value of this man, not a person to be influenced by suavity or glibness or fluency. The word and statistic had to sustain on its own, without extraneous support. They laughed about him in the office, but only to his face, never behind his back, and told him he must have the blood of the Germans in his veins, because no Italian could put such reliance on silence. Franconi would smile with them, and try to please, and think them fools, and relish their comradeship till the moment came to slip away.

  No papers to read now. He had not brought a book with him, not a Garzanti classic, not even a pamphlet draft that needed tidying, nor a notebook in which to jot his more casual impressions of the Soviet Union for the report Which they would be awaiting back in Rome. Nothing in the pouch in front of him except a sick-bag and a folder that described the Ilyushin safety procedures, and which was not written in any language that he understood.

  The choosing of the headmaster had made little impression on him, a brief flurry of excitement and apprehension as the man had disappeared from the doorway in the moment before the firing of the machine-gun. He had not aped the other passengers who had first stared through the windows and then subsided in their seats seeking anonymity as the eyes of Isaac had swept them; the mood of the moment had been quickly lost on him. He had not offended, he was divorced from their struggle, they had no quarrel with him. Before he had been nervous - he would admit that to himself - when the
y had separated him from his friend, from Aldo.

  The same fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar that he had known in the hills thirty-five years earlier, and it had passed now as it had then. He had barely glanced from the aircraft porthole to discover the headmaster's fate.

  He phased away the exterior world with the dreams of his home. When this was all over, and it would not take much time - the youth and desperation of his captors told him that -when they climbed down the ladder that would be brought, he would by-pass the television crews and the journalists. There were enough in the delegation who would be queueing, indeed, jumping forward, to satisfy the needs of the RAI interviewers or whoever else wanted their opinions. He would stand alone at the side, with a half-grin on his face, and shrug his shoulders and be polite and shake his head. Just wait till his colleagues had said their fill. They'd send them home by Alitalia; right to travel on the national airline, and an Italian ought to, a gesture to salve an infinitesimal percentage from the annual deficit. Over-manning, the central problem, always had been ... No better at Party Headquarters where they preached organization and control of the work force and distribution of labour, but still suffered the same malady as the capitalists.

  Adriana, Maria, Christina, all in the typing pool, all with time for knitting and gossip; any one of them could look af ter the needs of the section, but how to sack one? - it didn't bear thinking of, the squabbling, the arguing, the challenge over the pension rights. He'd go home on Alitalia. The wife would be there to meet him. Arms round his neck, lipstick on his collar, mascara on his cheek, sobbing in his ear. He'd have to endure all that. They'd drive out from Fiumicino and take the Reccordo Annulare and he'd see the girls beside the bushes and pretend he wasn't looking, and his wife would be firmly coping with the traffic. Be able to drink them in, the girls. Mini skirts and unbuttoned blouses, thighs and breasts and invitations, and he'd be left to his privacy to ponder on it while nodding and agreeing with all that his wife said. Often the cars pulled up sharply, a warning flash of brake lights and a man would jump from the driving-seat and the girls were already hurrying for the sanctuary of the undergrowth. Luigi had always wondered what it would be like, just what was said before the removal of the sparse strips of necessary clothing.

  When did you pay, before or after? And what would there be afterwards - a thanks, an acknowledgment, a wordless wave, or just a grin? He had spent an adult lifetime travelling the Reccordo, seen them, wanted them, lusted in his way after them, his foot near the brake pedal, and never dared. His wife would drive him home, park the car expansively in the road, and he'd comment on it and she'd dismiss the matter and lead him like an exhibit, a celebrity brought back from the fair, to their fourth-floor home where the gathering would be waiting. Kisses and hugs and back slaps now, a multitude of voices, a swill of chilled wine, a pasta bowl of welcome. All would ask him to relate his experiences, but in concert so that even should he want to speak none would be listening and all talking, chattering, demanding, crying. They'd be there for hours, filling his home, taking up his time, impressing their friendship when all he would seek would be the solace of his wife's arms. Drawn curtains and extinguished lights, the cosmetics to make her no different to the girls still plying their trade by the road kerb. Moving, performing, functioning, that would be his bedroom task on the night of his return; have full run of his domain that night: later would come the denials and the tiredness and the excuses. Not the first night, though.

  The hand sunk into the roof of his jacket collar, gripped at the well-woven material, and pulled him upright, splintering his reveries. It was an irrevocable strength that drew him from the seat, dragging him without explanation from the safety of his fellow passengers. Fleetingly he saw the faces around him, saw them twist and turn, aware of their shame and degradation.

  The one with the curly hair, the short one, that was the one that held him, propelled him out into the aisle, and now there was the thrust of steel against his backbone. The dreams were losing ground, the warmth of the flesh receding, the softened arms on him no longer gave hope. A cry came, hoarse and splitting into his consciousness, his name shouted at the pitch of hysteria, and the voice was Aldo's. Just his name, and an agony in the voice, and the sound of it hammered at him till his knees buckled and his bowels weakened, till his eyes glazed to a mist and he was blinded by the flood and could not tell where he was going, only reacting to the pressure at the nape of his neck that drove him forward.

  It came late, but there was a moment of total clarity before the brightness of the intruding sun through the opened aircraft door obliterated all images in front of him. And there was the memory of the face of the headmaster who had taken the similar path minutes before, as he had been led down the route that separated him from the rest, from the bovine accepting herd. Had Luigi Franconi looked like that? Had he showed the broken fear, the collapsed chin, the nerveless sagged cheeks, the faltering walk? Had he screamed inside without sound as the other must have done?

  The power of the gun barrel was no longer at his back. Gone, lost for a moment, giving the fractional hope of salvation, before he found it again, found it where he knew he must, found its chill and symmetry against the gentle skin that slid back from his earlobe towards the base of his neck.

  They all heard the single, echoing refrain of the shot.

  The reverberations were fierce inside the aircraft, quieting the frenzied shouts from the remaining members of the PCI delegation; an empty hollowed thud where Charlie Webster lay on the shortened grass, that caused the man he still protected to shudder underneath him and squirm as if trying to bury himself in the hardened soil; a faint popping noise, a distant car door slammed to those immured inside the plate glass of the control tower windows.

  Inside the press corral where the journalists were screened from the open door of the Ilyushin the solitary report was noted. Quizzical eyes, a margin of excitement, a switching- on of cameras, that their synchronized sound systems would record any further gunfire, a scribbling in notebooks.

  'What time do you make it?' A man from the Agencies asked the reporter who stood next to him; he was required to log the day's events with accuracy.

  The other kept his eyes fastened on that flank of the aircraft that was visible. 'Just on ten o'clock.'

  'Not much we can say then. At ten o'clock a single shot was heard from the far side of Aeroflot 927. That's it. Nothing else we can say.'

  With more powerful binoculars than they possessed the journalists and cameramen might have been able to distinguish the lifeless body of Luigi Franconi where it rested close to the starboard undercarriage wheels. But at the distance between where they stood and the Ilyushin the wheels only merged, shimmering in their stillness, with the unnoticed corpse.

  A sound recordist, a large man who prided himself equally on his wit and the perfection of his trimmed beard, made a joke, weak to those that heard it, but his own chorus of laughter was picked up by all in the pen; a palliative to the suppressed tension carried by the unexplained shot.

  The zephyr of laughter swept out across the scorched concrete, rippling its way towards the aircraft and the control tower till it settled on the far away ears of those who lay in the grass with their rifles and machine-guns.

  There were a score of impotent obscenities from the troops who had watched the small Italian die.

  C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

  Charlie had not looked back towards the tarmac. He knew what he would see if he turned his head, could picture the exact position in which the body would be lying. No need to look, not when death no longer held a fascination. He'd seen many before: the corpses of men who had

  'died well', who had 'died badly', whatever that meant - of men who had been killed judicially, and those who had gone without the solace of legality, of men Who had screamed and of men who had prayed. It made little difference to the poor bastards, not now, not when it was over.

  And this one, this nameless one down by the wheels, why
had he taken the trip? Pretty straightforward, when you think about it, Charlie. One was going to go. Those were the rules they were playing by: take a mouse from a cat and she'll go find another. Made you wonder whether it was worth it, worth all the adrenalin surge, the scream and the gunfire. Can't play heroics seventy times, Charlie.

  He could hear the approach of the ambulance, creeping carefully forward, low gear, on the outer perimeter road. It stopped a full hundred yards from him, as if nobody had told the driver the range of an SMG. Couldn't blame him, couldn't blame anybody who didn't want his head blasted. Not an ambulance driver's quarrel. Jews and Israelis and Russians, so where did a driver from Bishop's Stortford on forty-five pounds a week and struggling fit into that pattern? Charlie raised his right hand and gave the thumbs-up signal - put the poor blighter out of his misery and let him know he didn't have to come closer.

  Gently Charlie pulled the Russian to his feet and eased him into a position where his own body still gave protection from the aircraft. Together they shuffled forward, slowly and without precision because the headmaster's legs were still weak and unresponsive.

  'We're well clear of range. We'll just get to the truck, then you can forget it."

  Without turning, the Russian said through the tremor of his voice. 'The last shot. They have killed another?'

  ' I think so.' Charlie knew the inadequacy of his answer. Brusque and with a suggestion of authority, he said, "There's nothing we can do. Not our problem any more.'

  'They have killed him because you have taken me from them.'

  'Perhaps.'

  ' I had not thought it would be that way."

  Close to the ambulance now, a few more steps, and the moment for Charlie to conceal his impatience. But he led with his tongue, lashing and aggressive.

  'Well, what do you want to bloody-well do? Do you want to go and stand by the door and shout, "Hey, there, I'm sorry I escaped. I've come back to ask you to forgive me. I didn't want the other bugger killed. It was all a big mistake, and if you shoot me can we have the other guy back, give him his life again, because I want to play the bloody hero"? Cut the crap out and get down on your knees and thank whatever God you have in uptown Kiev that an idiot like Charlie Webster was sitting on his arse on the tarmac with nothing better to do on a sunny morning than stick his neck on the block so that if anyone has to go in the box it wouldn't be you. Course you didn't know it would happen like this, no bugger did. The whole lot may go on that plane, every last one of them. You may be the only one that walks out of it, and if that happens don't be in a corner and blubbering that you wanted to share it with them.'