He bad stopped seven, eight feet away, separated by the mingled blockade of bodies of Rebecca and Arie Benitz. He did not look down, but instead fastened his eyes on Charlie.
'Charlie, you have to do it.' Faint, hard to hear, the first trace of anxiety winning through the trance that had becalmed him since he had killed Rebecca and the Israeli. 'Charlie, you cannot leave me to them. I'm not strong enough, not to be sent back, not to do it here . .. not without Rebecca. Charlie...'
'Animals', they called them in the pub where he went at lunchtime from the Department.
Swine. Murderers. Communists. Fanatics. All the usual slogans as they chewed at their pork pies, and mouthed through their fat beef-filled sandwiches, and swilled the pints of warmed beer.
Should come and face one of their animals, see him at three paces.
'Just keep coming, Isaac. It's all over. You need some food, some sleep. You need to rest.
You're not going back, they told me that. Just keep walking.' Nothing else to say, Charlie thought, away from what he knew, away from the papers that would be piling on his desk high in the tower block half a day's drive away.
Now the scream.
"Charlie, you're lying to me. You have to shoot, you have to. You cannot send me back there.
Charlie, we believed in you. You were the one we trusted ...'
There was a scuffling sound behind him, and Charlie spun to see the first of the SAS troopers emerge from the doorway into the interior of the plane. A fast, trained man whose speed was electric and fear-inspiring; the line of the little gun, the Ingram, up to his face traversing with his body. More noise, louder and closer, and Charlie turned back to see the wheeling of the door behind Isaac and the flood of men intervening, scrambling aboard in their camouflage uniforms.
The lead man of the group that came from the rear of the Ilyushin was half over the fastened-down drinks trolley when the implications of what was happening swirled through Isaac's dulled comprehension. He seemed to launch himself forward, not at Charlie, but at the space beside the body of the Israeli, the few vacant inches of carpet where Rebecca's gun lay, Charlie knew the meaning of that last gesture of defiance, could have swung his foot towards the pistol, kicked it clear or trapped it beneath his shoe, and he did nothing. All of the alternatives were there, available to him, but he stayed back, rooted and detached.
Edward R. Jones Jr had understood not a word of the screaming appeal that Isaac addressed to the Englishman. His ears still sung from the explosion of the bullets, and he had seen the entry of the troops from the forward door, was unaware of those who moved behind him. To his own mind the situation was clear-cut. Elbowing his wife hard in the stomach he heaved his considerable frame out of the seat, pitching himself into Isaac's path. Much of his weight landed on the back of the young Jew, sufficient to deter his momentum, cause him to flinch from his target, lose sight for the fractional and vital second of the gun that he stretched for.
Alone the American and the Jew wrestled on the floor, and then, as if a signal had been given, the passengers that flanked them rose from their seats and threw themselves into the melee.
Charlie lost sight of Isaac. He saw the face once, one that held terror and shock and surprise, then could not find it. Fists from the teachers; the dark, flying boot of the farmer; the pummelling of a straight arm that wore a suit and had buttons at the cuffs. He was brushed aside, a quick, fast push, and his view of the writhing scrum was obscured by the trim blue uniform that he knew was worn by Anna Tashova. Her flat-soled shoe in her hand, beating without aim, without direction into the melee. He made a feeble attempt to pull some of the bodies clear, but he created no
impression and soon sagged back on to the armrest of a seat.
The SAS men cleared the aisle. One bellowing into a megaphone that all should stay in their places, the rehearsed drill, others dragging and tearing at the passengers - Russians, Italians, and last of all the American.
His face blooming with a mouth-breaking smile, Edward R. Jones Jr held out his great fist to Charlie. Enveloped in it was the pistol.
'I think I was just about in time for you. Perhaps you'd care to look after it.'
Charlie took the gun without response and looked past the American, already busy manoeuvring himself back over his wife's legs while she reached up and clung with linked hands around his throat. Isaac was there, uncovered now, visible and violated. Angry blotches on his temples, weals Where there would soon be blood at his cheeks, his shirt ripped open to expose the reddened patches against his ribs, trousers at his knees to expose the particular vengeance of one. But he was alive, and conscious, and his chest heaved as he struggled to replace the air lost to his lungs.
Nausea rising through him, welling from his stomach, Charlie found he couldn't take his eyes off the boy. He strained to hear what Isaac tried to say.
'Charlie, for the last time, you have to do it. Don't let them send me back. Please, Charlie.'
" It's not like that, Isaac. You're not going back, that's what they told me.*
The boy tried to laugh-bitter and shrill, till the sounds merged with 'his tears.
'Don't give me that crap, Charlie. Shoot me, for fuck's sake do it '
The last cry, the last plea, the last moment of faith for a stranger. Charlie felt the pressure of the gun handle where it rested against the softness of his palm, his fingers twined round the trigger guard. He tried to think back to what the control tower had told him, the way the response had been phrased, the words of the policeman, whether they had been specific, whether there was room for interpretation. He couldn't remember the exact words, the phrasing, but the impression had been there: that they wouldn't send them back. Or was that just what you wanted to hear, Charlie? And the little bastard didn't believe him anyway. So what now? He saw that Isaac had closed his eyes, clamped his lids together. It's what he wants, begging you, cringing to you, because he thinks that you alone among all the army of enemies can rescue him. He believes in you, Charlie, believes you can do it. Don't hide, not behind what the control tower told you, don't shelter there. Do you kill him or not? Can't pass the buck any more, no one else to catch it Do you kill him, Charlie? He seemed to see a boy in handcuffs pulled by the troops towards a prison wagon and the death cell of Nicosia Central, same height, same youth, same hopelessness, and you'd fingered him, Charlie. And another in Aden who was dead in the gutter with the rubbish, shot in the temple and quivering, and you fingered him, Charlie, told the squaddies where to look.
And there are more, who are pushing the weeds up, that you could make a living, earn your shilling. Haven't there been enough, Charlie, haven't you finished sending the bright-eyed kids on their way? But if it isn't Charlie Webster it will be someone else, a bloody Russian, and only that after all he'll go through first. Don't know, do you, Charlie? And you've not time to find out The gun was at his side, held loosely, unmoving.
The SAS hauled Isaac to his feet, one on each arm, not unkindly and with only that amount of force that was required to shift him, unprotesting, to the back of the aircraft. He looked back once at Charlie, before the caged face had turned, to be replaced by the matted black hair highlighted by a tremor of blood.
A set of motorized steps were driven to the forward door of the Ilyushin. By the time the first of the passengers clambered uneasily down to the oil-streaked concrete supported by a line of soldiers, their rifles dung, the corpses of David and Luigi Franconi had been covered with the scarlet blankets of the ambulance stretchers.
Anna Tashova, her right shoe still adrift, hobbled the first few steps on the tarmac on the arm of her navigator, before seeming to collect herself, disengage and walk unaided.
The teachers, like worried sheepdogs, penned the children together in a single cohesive group that stood and watched with fascination the bulging heaps that were covered all except the footwear; the one of polished leather still shining and immaculate, the other a tainted, dirt-torn canvas.
The Italian deleg
ation of the Party subdued their traditional ideology and made the gesture of the cross over their chests as they reoogniized what the blankets hid.
Edward R. Jones Jr had his arm around Felicity Ann and had readjusted his 'handkerchief bandage so that the coagulation of the scalp blood showed clearly. He remembered to adjust his camera to compensate for sunshine of the exterior.
The man who might have been a farmer was triumphant.
As best they might they scrambled on to an airport apron bus, and one of the Foreign Office interpreters told them there would be hot meals and beds and baths at a nearby hotel, and that an official from the Russian Embassy in London was waiting there to greet them. There was no shouting, no cheering as the bus pulled away, none believing there were grounds for self -
congratulation, and the very smell and filth of their bodies humiliated them.
A Saracen armoured car replaced the bus, but drove closer to the steps. The bodies of Arie Benitz and Rebecca were moved awkwardly down the steps on stretchers by men who sweated but bore the load in silence, and pushed far into the recesses of the vehicle so that they lay among the welter of gas canister boxes, and the coils of machine-gun ammunition, and the trenching tools and the emptied cigarette packets and coffee cartons. On top of the Israeli and the girl the soldiers laid David and the Italian, who to those who handled him seemed unmarked except for the scratch on his face from his fall from the plane; no one looked for the cavity set deep in the sleek and darkened hair.
Then came Isaac's turn. Handcuffed now, his arms locked across the front of his body. To the troops who ushered him from the plane and on to the ramp at the top of the steps he seemed an unworthy opponent. But he intrigued them, a boy who fought without a uniform, in the absence of a commander, and received no wage for it, and they permitted him to pause there, as if to drink in the freedom of the air, accepting and assimilating the surroundings to which he had brought the Ilyushin. Then he saw, deep in the Saracen, the body of David, uncovered, grotesque in the angle of fallen head, and seemed to wilt. He did not travel with David; another armoured car was designated to carry him, and the soldiers hustled Isaac to it, hands under his shoulder pits so that he was near lifted into the back, and then with his escort he was sat upon a cool iron seat. The great, thickened, high-velocity-proof doors were closed on him, exchanging for the boy one prison for another.
From the Foreign Secretary's office overlooking the lunch- time crowds that surged across Horse Guards Parade the news of the conclusion at Stansted spread quickly. Permanent Secretaries wound up their meetings, Under-Secretaries cancelled their lunch appointments. In News Department they prepared themselves for the issue of the statement that would explain the course of action being followed by Her Majesty's Government.
There was no more discussion on whether or not the survivor should be returned to Kiev. That decision had been taken; News Department was concerned with drafting only the justification.
There was much fetching and carrying of United Nations debate transcripts, Security Council and General Assembly, that had concerned themselves with aerial piracy. From the Security Council meeting that had followed the Israeli military intervention to Entebbe in July of 1976
there was much to be taken that pleased those who would eventually fashion the Foreign Office release. The red pencils were busy underlining passages from the speech of Chaim Herzog, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.
. . Those countries which fail to take a clear and unequivocal stand against international terrorism for reasons of expediency or cowardice will stand damned by all the decent people in this world and despised in history. There is a time in the affairs of men when even governments must make difficult decisions guided not by considerations of expediency but by considerations of morality ... It is now for the nations of this world, regardless of political differences which may divide them, to unite against this common enemy which recognizes no authority, knows no borders, respects no sovereignty, ignores all basic human decencies, and places no limits on human bestialities.'
Also coming down from the shelves were the transcripts of the 1970 Hague convention called to discuss the 'Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft'. Article 6 was the one that most concerned the drafters.
Upon being satisfied that the circumstances so warrant, any contracting state in the territory of which the offender or the alleged offender is present shall take him into custody and other measures shall be as provided in the law of that state but may only be continued for such time as is necessary to enable any criminal or extradition proceedings to be instituted.'
It was agreed that a good case could be made out. It would be harder to explain the absence of an appearance before an Essex Magistrate's court, and the speed with which it was intended the surviving hi-jacker should be removed from British soil and begin his journey back to the Soviet Union, but the press conferences at Stansted should divert immediate attention from the one point of contention. Get rid of him first was the priority, before the protests were mobilized, before inter-government relations were strained.
There were one or two in the labyrinth of Whitehall who voiced concern at the planned culmination of the affair, but they were not overly loud with their anxieties, and were soon muted. Closed ranks and consensus opinion. More dignified that way.
Charlie was the last to leave the plane. They had let the photographers forward and he saw them in their broken ranks running towards the Ilyushin from the distant perimeter fence, hustling with their pronged tripods and cameras and cables. Those who were least encumbered with equipment, and remembered him as the man who had walked out across their lenses in the early morning had a chance to photograph Charlie. When he recognized their opportunity he raised his hand to cover his face, a reflex gesture. He would have been horrified to know that he had provided the Fleet Street caption writers with one of the day's many bonuses. The "Shy Hero' was the title they put on the picture of the shambling figure walking away across the tarmac, his shirtsleeved arm raised, his trousers sagging on his hips.
C H A P T E R E I G H T E E N
It was late summer afternoon when they flew Isaac out of Stansted.
He had only to walk from the midnight black police van to the stunted steps of the Hawker-Siddley jet. A cluster of men, some in uniform, the majority favouring well-worn civilian suits, were there to see him on his way. No farewells, only a series of curt handshakes between those who were staying and those whose work was not yet finished. They talked around Isaac, pretending to ignore him, not speaking to him as if to demonstrate their relief that the load was to be shed, the burden passed on. No more defiances from the boy, left behind in the small cell in the basement of the airport police station where he had sat and pondered on what awaited him, whiling away the hours for the details of the flight to be arranged. A child again, and not to be equated with the savage hostility that the fish-eye had mirrored. He stumbled on the bottom rung of the ladder, but there were hands on his arms that prevented him from pitching back, and the faces around him were stern and closed, as if unwilling to display their emotions or bare their thoughts to him.
There were five passengers in all. A member of the Russian Embassy staff who had been the first to climb on board; they had checked his name after he had proffered it with the list of Soviet diplomats available to the Foreign Office, found him described as a chauffeur. After him came a uniformed corporal of the Royal Air Force police, immaculate in his starched and pressed battledress, who had a cap with a red ribbon round it and a webbing belt that carried the white-
blancoed holster encasing a Browning automatic pistol. Next Isaac, climbing with difficulty as he trailed his right arm that was linked by handcuffs to the wrist of a second Service policeman. Two Foreign Office men, both from security though neither would have admitted it, hurried inside the aircraft before the door was closed and the twin rear engines started.
That was the last Charlie Webster saw of Isaac, the back view of the dark-haired, p
ale-faced boy illuminated casually by the rotating blue lamp of the police van. Charlie sat slumped in the chair in the control tower from which he had watched the departure. To some he seemed churlish in his rejection of the many congratulations that were showered at him when he was greeted by the politicians and the political aides, the senior policemen, the army officers and civil servants.
But Clitheroe had moved among the offended and Charlie had heard the words, hushed and discreet, of 'shock' and 'terrible strain', and 'it was necessary to deceive him, helped him in fact', and 'what you'd expect in the circumstances' and 'exhaustion' and 'be right as rain once he's had a good sleep'. From where Charlie sat he could see the Hawker-Siddley taxi and then thrust forward in the gathering, closing gloom for take-off, the flashing red hghts marking its progress down the runway. He watched it all the way through lift-off, stayed with it till there was just a moving star of light that faded along with the roar of the engines under power.
He reached for a telephone and dialled his home. Told his wife that he'd be home, but late, was irritable when she asked him where he was and where he'd been and didn't he know she'd been worried, didn't answer, and heard her say that the key would be under the front door mat if he'd forgotten to take his own yesterday morning, and there'd be some food on the kitchen table, and please to be quiet when he came in because the children had exams at school tomorrow.
He stayed a long time in the control tower, way after the others had gathered their papers together and made noisy and exultant farewells, after the cleaners had been through with the stiff brushes for the carpet and the complaints about the stubbed cigarettes and the big plastic bags for the debris of rubbish that had accumulated; they worked around him, subdued in their normal exuberance and chatter and gossip by the hunched figure who held his hands over his eyes and who did not move, who had not even a nod of recognition for them.
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