Kingfisher

by Gerald Seymour

  The man that followed him was different, sharper on his feet, quicker in his movements, harder eyes. Poised, intense. He was an opponent, to be watched. But this was the man sent by his own people, the one they had to hear before he took Rebecca past the trolley barricade to the place of privacy in the far end corridor, beside the back toilets, close to the rear door. Not now, Isaac, shut it out: the time comes fast enough.

  Charlie began to walk down the aisle of the plane, slowly, gently, so that there could be no doubts about his intentions. Then he stopped where all could see him, reach into contact with him, his hand resting relaxed on a seat-back. Confident, friendly, assured.

  The famous smile, winning friends, putting the fears at ease, the man who was in control, looking to the passengers as his priority, avoiding Isaac with his pinched and sprung intensity, and his submachine-gun. Not looking back at the drab girl with the pistol.

  'Hello, my name is Charlie Webster. Just "Charlie", they generally call me. I'm with the British Foreign Office and I've come to take you off the plane. It won't be immediately, but it'll be very soon. You just have to be patient for a while longer. I know you've been that already - fantastic -

  but just a little bit longer while we sort some things out with the gentleman and the lady. Please stay in your seats, don't move at all, and remember that it won't be long now.'

  There were some who found his Russian difficult to follow, so there was a chorus of explanation as the word was passed back among the rows of seats till all comprehended. The applause came suddenly and spontaneously, sixty men and women and children hammering their hands together and shouting their support. Charlie blushed and smiled again, and put up his hand without avail to halt the flood of gratitude sweeping down the cabin. He looked for someone to speak to, and was grateful for the presence of the girl pilot, still staring to the front, hands moving in rhythm with the others, tears on her cheeks, losing the fight with her emotions.

  Charlie said, 'You are Miss Tashova. I want you to know that everyone in the control tower, all the authorities that are gathered there, have expressed their great admiration for your achievement last night. The landing was brilliant, absolutely bloody brilliant, if you'll excuse me.

  They are looking forward to congratulating you personally.' Just once she slipped a glance to him, without commitment, without dropping her reserve, then gazing again into the dour material of the seat-back in front of her.

  Keep it going, Charlie, keep it moving around, gentle and natural. Make the two of them believe it's all over, that it's finished, out of their control. No negotiation, no concession, just that tbe game's gone, the whistle's blown. 'Taking the initiative', the boffins would call it, and holding it so that Isaac couldn't wrest it back. Silly little bugger, should have known his bible, rule one,

  'Never let the bastards with the open faces and the empty hands on board.' Curtains after that, Isaac, old sunshine.

  He moved forward two more rows. Closer to Isaac, closer than he had ever been, where he could see the confused and shadowed face with its sheen of sweat. Able to focus on the gun, understand its cooling system, its front needle sight, its age and peeled paint work. Shouldn't dwell on it, though, shouldn't show apprehension, like a policeman that edges along the windowsill towards the man determined on suicide, and who must talk calmly and be mundane, matter of fact. As he turned to the nursing mother the style of the gun was imprinted on his mind, the knowledge that a flick of the trigger, casual and involuntary or predetermined, and the magazine would be unloading in a cascade of shells hurtling through the trimmed airspace between him and the squat, tensed, curly-haired boy. He tapped the baby's head with his left hand, trying not to draw away from the stench of the unchanged clothes, attempting to weave the web of normality.

  Just keep it going, Charlie, ever so slow, ever so gradual. In front of him the children, the school kids, still quiet, and waiting for you, Charlie. Had to get beyond them, had to impose himself between the boy with the gun and their soft flesh that would be ripped and carved by a single volley. Winked at a couple of the little brats. Eight or nine more rows, that would be enough, then he'd be a shield for the kids, then he could talk of who left the plane first, then he could believe that it was finished.

  All the time moving, edging closer to the boy with the gun, soft voices, controlled smile, creeping nearer, insidious, and deep inside his heart pounding and his muscles taut and stretched, and his eyes on the gun. Don't lose sight of that gun, Charlie, don't take your bloody eyes off it.

  Gendy Charlie spoke to Isaac, spanning the few feet of carpet with his words, making the contact. ' I've brought Colonel Benitz to see you, Isaac. He's from the Israeli Defence Force, and he's a fighter, he's like you. Listen to him, Isaac. Listen to what he tells you.'

  It took Charlie time to realize that Benitz had begun to speak behind him. A different voice, and words that he could not understand, a language that was strange to him and incomprehensible.

  Benitz turned back towards the open door and the cockpit entrance. Gazed down the length of the aisle towards the girl.

  'Come here, Rebecca. Come close to us where you can hear what I say.' A cool, spring voice, an instruction in the Yiddish tongue, 'Come nearer, so that I do not shout.' Looking into her eyes, absorbing the creased lines of her tiredness, and her faltering step. The girl who wanted to come to Israel, who wanted to take her place amongst his people, bear her children there. 'Keep coming, Rebecca, keep coming, you have nothing to fear from me.'

  He saw the way she looked at him, as if the flood-gates of her misery might now be broken down, saw the relief catch at the curls of her mouth that now, after all the hideousness and pain, she had finally found her friend. And they had told him on the telephone that these young ones would be sent back, would be returned to the land of oppression, and to cells, and to death and to the quicklime pits. He wondered as she came towards him where she had started, where she had begun the journey that had brought her here. In the arms of one of the boys? Or something more rare - had there been the driving inner commitment, the force that sharpened the men that he led, the men of the storm squad? And he would not know, would never know, because now there was no time.

  When she reached him Benitz put his arm around her shoulder, draped loosely and carelessly, glanced once at the pistol held in her hand and mingled with the folds of her dress, worked his fingers into the muscle of her shoulder, the gesture of reassurance, and saw Isaac straighten as if his fear too was waning.

  'We know what you sought, we know what you have accomplished.' Arie Benitz spoke with a simplicity, with the humility of the funeral oration at the graveside of a soldier of Squad 101. 'We know of it and we marvel, and are proud. We understand the depth of despair, the pain and the agony that will have been yours when the welcome was of guns and armed men and tanks. We understand why you felt driven to take the life of a man who now lies outside and dead. We understand.' Both of them were looking at him, both watching, and the gun barrel of Isaac lowered so that the muzzle aimed at the slight space between his feet. 'In many ways we can struggle against our opponents. The battle may be offensive, it may be passive. There are those that fight in the front line, those that are far to the rear. There are sudden victories that can be won, and there are those that are secret and quiet and without garlands.

  There are times, too, when the victory must be purchased, times when great sacrifice is demanded. Those are the sad times, the times when our people weep upon the coffins . . The tank commanders who held the Golan at Yom Kippur, when the Syrians came, for them there could be no relief, no reinforcement, no supply. They were pitifully few and they fought till their shells were expended, and then they fought with their machine-guns, and when the magazines were empty then they threw their grenades. And they died by their broken tanks. They died because it was required of them. And there was no fear, no terror, no panic. They died because Israel needed their lives, needed them as currency to pay for the ultimate victory. They w
on us time, and when we returned we stood in awe and understood what these few had achieved for us, and we buried them in the military cemetery on a hill outside Jerusalem, and there are flowers there, and men come with their women and children to stand in silence beside the stones.'

  Only Isaac and Rebecca understood his words, but the plane was hushed, as if all were sensitive to the moment.

  'We do not share our fight We do not rely on allies. We stand by ourselves and expect favours from none. It is a hostile, friendless world,' Arie Benitz smiled, not from humour, but a deep sympathy, 'you have found that, you know it as I know it. When you were in the air over Hanover, that was when you would have known it, and when you woke to the dawn this morning and found the guns that circled you. It is a hard and savage place that you have come to.' His hand had slipped from the girl's shoulder, and his fingers played now with the sun-dried skin of her upper arm where it was bared beneath her sleeve, pulled gendy and squeezed it, and played patterns with his nails. Winning her, comforting her, and all the time edging down towards the limp-held pistol. "The British have told you that you will not fly on from here. If they say that I believe them, and I have no power to alter their decision. And if you surrender the British will send you back . . . back to Kiev, back to the courts..

  He felt the girl stiffen at his side, and his hand now gripped her arm, tight, pinioning, pressing it against her body, denying her movement.

  'What do you want of us?' The peace clearing from Isaac's face, the weariness returning. 'What is the message that you bring us?'

  'There is only one course for you, only one that you can contemplate, and I have come to help you.' Said firmly but with resolution, the man who has loved his dog, which now is in pain, and must be killed. 'I will help you. It will be at the hands of a friend.' Benitz's hand had sunk far on Rebecca's arm, below the bony elbow, and his fingers brushed at her waist and close to the butt end of her pistol.

  'That is what you came to tell us?' Isaac laughed, throwing back his head. 'That was the message that they flew you here to deliver? Be good little boys, kill yourselves nicely, and we'll send a man to do it with you, to hold the hand, make certain it's a nice clean shot, that it's not messy ...?'

  'You cannot go back, Isaac. Neither of you can go back/

  Isaac now sank to a crouch, the gun barrel up. The passengers fidgeted in their seats.

  'There is no other way, Isaac,' Benitz shouting down the aisle.

  'From these people, yes, from the British we could expect this. From the Russians, yes, we could expect them to send a killer to us. But that it should be you, of our own people, who can offer us nothing ...'

  'There is nothing else.' The calmness gone, the soldier in uniform. Benitz's fragile patience diminishing.

  Slowly and with emphasis, pointing each word, Isaac said, 'But that it should be you.'

  ' I said it was a hard and savage place that you had come to. I offer you the best, the only way.'

  And there was a shame in his voice, a humiliation. And banging in his ears the words of the Ambassador. A detestable job. T was not ordered to bring you this message, not by my government. They wanted to save you, but you have destroyed yourselves. When you took the man to the doorway, that was when you died, Isaac. Whether at my hand, your hand, or a Russian hand, that was when you died. I only came to make it easier. I can give nothing more. When you took the man to the door you went beyond our reach.'

  One hand at the pistol jerking it from the girl's wrist, the other jack-knifing her arm behind her back, so that she shuddered from the pain of the movement. He pulled her across in front of him, protection against Isaac's submachine-gun that was now at his shoulder, aimed clear and straight down the length of the aisle.

  The urgency of his voice scything over the heads of the passengers, Charlie shouted, 'What are you saying, Benitz? What are you telling them?'

  'Whalt I have to say. What is obvious to a fool/

  'What is it? Tell me'- the rare anger that Charlie was unused to.

  'Keep out, Charlie. This is not your quarrel. Come back here, to behind me/

  A command, spoken with unarguable authority, and Charlie obediently edged his way down the aisle, all the time watching the face of Isaac, watching for the steeling of the eyes that" would mean he was preparing to shoot. Backed past the children, past the woman with the baby, away from the American, away from the pilot officer. Benitz's arm came to meet him, grabbed his collar and half-guided, half-hurled him sideways among the legs of the passengers. As he stumbled, trying to regain his balance, pressing into a lap for support, Benitz went past him, using the girl as his protection, advancing with a slow and strange circumspection towards Isaac.

  Arie Benitz forced his thighs and knees into the back of the girl's legs, melting their movements into one, compressing his body against hers, and all the time talking in the language that Charlie did not know. Softer now, and using the tactic of persuasion, the same message all the time, till Charlie had no doubts. He wanted the submachine-gun, wanted it thrown down, wanted it abandoned and harmless. Had the pistol that would be the weapon of execution, raised and cocked and ready.

  Ten paces from Isaac now, the Israeli and the slight Jewish girl. Ten paces and closing. Charlie could anticipate the way Benitz's mind would run. Work himself close enough to propel the girl against the boy, and in the medley hope for the chance to snatch at the submachine-gun, or just simply shoot into the chaos he would have created. Still closing on Isaac and staring him out all the time. The advance of the predator on the rabbit, and no bolt-hole for Isaac.

  One sentence Rebecca shouted.

  'Shoot him, Isaac, shoot him!'

  Banal, silly, words . . . not those she would have chosen for her epiltaph, not the final words she would have wanted to speak to Isaac, the last she would say in her life to the boy who had kissed her lips.

  Breaking through Charlie's thoughts - the endless bleating of the machine-gun, spitting out its bullets, a single drumming cacophony of noise, on and on, an unbroken rhythm of flashes. It was a low-velocity weapon and the first shots stayed with the girl, beating at her body, hitting, wracking her till she pitched forward. Still the gun fired, as Benitz made a last and forlorn gesture towards the saving of his life. Alone now and without the human wall for security he seemed to try to aim the girl's pistol at the source of his pain. There was a half-face for Charlie to see, bemused and irritated that he had been found out in such trivial company. A man of Entebbe, and the Savoy Hotel, and of Maalot and Kyryat Shmona; a man who had fought with the storm squad against the best of the Palestinians, and now undone by a boy and a girl who knew nothing but the dream of a country they would never see.

  Benitz was a long time falling. Even as the bullets hit him he sought to steady himself, holding grimly on to a seat. Raising the right hand, the fist that held the pistol as each succeeding shell threw back his resolution, forced him to begin again, a man who fights the tide and cannot win.

  When he was still, on the rumpled carpet of the aisle that his feet had racked and that soon would be stained by the coursing of his blood, then Isaac pulled his finger from the trigger and lowered the gun barrel.

  Scrambling along the aisle, Charlie reached Benitz, knelt by his head, Isaac forgotten, lifted him at the back of the neck as he had been taught to do. Precaution against a man drowning in his own blood, standard and automatic reaction however grave the wounds, however small the chances of salvation.

  ' It was rubbish you talked, Charlie, silly deceitful rubbish. They go back, and you know that.'

  A gurgling, panting chant. Charlie's hands under his head, tilting it. 'The little fools did not know, did not know which was the easy way. Dead whatever they do, better at my hand . . . better at the hand of a friend.' The death of Arie Benitz came in a last shaking spasm that lifted his head sharply; the cough was barely complete before his life fled him. Charlie eased the weight back on to the carpet, and looked up at Isaac, still motionless, the gun at his kn
ees.

  The baby was crying.

  ' I prefer to believe him, Charlie. Not your new-found promise for us. And we were going to do as he wanted, we did not need to be told. Not by the man that you brought to us, not by anyone. We knew. But it was to be in our time - not with these bastards sitting round us, counting us out. Can you understand, Charlie, Rebecca and I, we were going to do it? We trusted you and you brought this animal to kill us and hang us up by the ankles. You brought him, and because he was with you, because of what you said, we wanted to hear him. He came to execute us, here among the crowd. Not even in Kiev is the firing squad public, Charlie.'

  Isaac started to come forward. Lightly, almost delicately, slightly-built and on the balls of his feet. He swung his arm in a lackadaisical way so that as he released the gun it made an arc in the air, almost brushing the roof before Charlie caught it.

  'Do it for me, Charlie. Do it quickly.'

  In three fast, trained movements Charlie removed the magazine, ejecting the shell in the breach so that it flew from the weapon sideways, falling on to a passenger's trousers. Then he pulled the trigger with the barrel aimed at the ceiling. Harmless.

  'No, Charlie, no!' Isaac, curious that his request had not been observed. 'You have to do it. You owe it to me, Charlie.'