figure of the Colonel of Militia.
They were climbing in light cloud when Yuri Zibov, 18 years an Aeroflot pilot and most of them on the lumbering Ilyushin 11-18V, and before that Yak bombers in the Air Force, received the recall order. He motioned to his co-pilot – young, feminine, petite, a hint of lipstick, and as many flying qualifications as her male equivalents. Had she understood the message? A nod.
Zibov turned to the navigator sitting behind. He also had understood. Into the microphone that jutted out from his headset and that rested three-quarters of an inch from his mouth, he said, 'Bolt the cockpit door. Just a precaution, but fasten it, then we'll swing.'
The navigator started to intone the statistics that would govern their change of course.
David was groping with his arms into the recess of the shelf where he could not see. Even as he stretched upwards he was reliant on the touch of his fingers to tell him if the package were there.
Fumbling among the softness of the blankets and the pillows, scratching with his fingers and seeking for the hard shape. Not there, not above Row 19, and in a driving and frantic motion his hands spilled out to right and left, and he was high on his toes, and the passenger who had the seat beside him was staring, and was interested. Almost at the moment of panic David's hands locked on to the ungiving shape of the parcel. Must have slipped backwards on take-off, he thought.
Right over Row 20. He made a low- voiced apology to his neighbour, who was leaning back in his seat with his legs bent sideways to give David room. He lifted the package down, just as they had wrapped it, right down to the knots in the string: not tampered with. Tucking it under his arm he lurched his way through to the rear, to the bolted security of the lavatories, and a half-turn to be certain that Isaac was watching him; the gleam of recognition that told him Isaac was ready, coiled, anticipating. Had to push past the two stewardesses, blue uniforms, crumpled shirts, hair wisping from buns, minimum of make-up, preparing the food trolley and drinks. No alcohol on boardmineral water and orange juice and coffee, reluctant to step aside and let him pass, an obstruction when they were trying to work, seeming to say why couldn't he have gone in the terminal lavatories.
He slammed the door shut behind him and ran the catch across. Then he began to tear at the paper and the string binding, pulling at the cardboard that had given the parcel the rectangular shape, that had made Yevsei believe it was indeed a mass of books that he had handled. The parcel spilled open, pitching the hand-gun on to the floor beside the pan where he let it lie while he unravelled the further protection around the two submachine-guns. Lovely babies. Sweet, keen, pretty things, but already taking on the ugliness of their trade as the barrel symmetry was broken when he fastened the magazines at right angles to the bodies. One at a time and take it slowly, remember the drill with the old man, with Timofey. Never hurry in the preparation of weapons, he had said. The loud rasping of the cocking mechanism – devastating how the noise reverberated inside the confined space – then check the safety catch is on. Same for the pistol. No accidents, not in a capacity-filled airliner, not when the pressure of the cabin will soon be at risk.
Abruptly he lunged to the side, cannoning into the wall- fitted basin, knee ramming against the rim of the pan seat, thrown off balance by the sudden shift in direction of the plane as the pilot banked to begin the long turn that would bring the aircraft back to Kiev. David's mind was razor-sharp, honed by suspicion… He was still regaining his balance when there was Isaac's voice muffled by the closed door, dispute with the stewardesses, and them retorting angrily that the seat belt signs were illuminated again, that he should return to his place. Over the loudspeaker which had its own amplifier in the lavatory… 'This is Captain Zibov, your pilot. Sorry, but we seem to have some minor technical problem, but it means we must return to Kiev. It is nothing that should concern you, but we have to land again and get the fault repaired. Please fasten your belts again, and no more smoking. I hope the delay will be short. Thank you.' Warning bells, cymbal loud.
Not good enough, you pigs. Has to be wrong; too controlled, too much of a coincidence. Must not land, not at any cost.
David pulled the door open. Submachine-gun in each hand, pistol in the belt of his trousers, he careered straight into the grey-metalled drinks trolley, heaved with desperation to rid himself of the impediment, saw the faces turning, the necks twisting. Then he was clear and sprinting. Isaac in front of him, standing waiting, sharing his anxiety, had read the same message from the pilot's announcement and the tilting of the plane, ready to receive with outstretched arm the weapon that would be his. Unaware of everything now, of the passengers, of cabin crew, everything except the door of the cockpit. David's right shoulder cannoned into it, expecting it to give, face wreathed in amazement as it flung him back. The old David, the man of decision and fight, who had brought them together, armed and aimed them. The old David, who should have told Rebecca to go and scratch herself with her bloody twigs, who should have vetoed the use of Moses in the attack. The old David, that Isaac would follow as far as he was led. Submachine-gun held low and away from his body and the flash and explosion that drove at their ear drums as he fired into the centre of the door.
'Open or it's machine-gun fire. Open, or I kill the whole fucking lot of you.' Voice at screaming pitch. 'Open the fucking thing.' There was a hesitation, seeming endless, but in fact little more than three seconds, then the bolt was withdrawn, the door opened.
So small in the cockpit, a tiny space, like the lavatory, a box room, and three persons already strapped and harnessed in their seats. Saw the pilot, saw the co-pilot. A woman: David noticed that because she was the one who had turned her head towards them, then his eyes were riveted to the maze of dials and buttons, the instrument boards. Find the altimeter, that was the first thing, had to be certain they weren't losing height, had to climb, had to get up… after that the time to set a course.
'Take the bloody thing up,' he yelled, and pushed sideways with the gun barrel at the pilot's shoulder, aware there had been no response, still staring at the labyrinth of controls, searching for the magic of the altimeter.
Isaac said, his voice very quiet, 'You're wasting your time, David. No point shouting at him.
You've killed him.'
David stepped back, peering at the pilot held upright in his cockpit straps, then took in the neat expertise of the drilled hole at the back of the skull where the circumference showed clear against the short-cropped greying hair, and the path of blood that ran down to the uniformed collar and the white shirt. David arched his body round towards the hole in the door where the woodwork had been forced out by his bullet. Then his eyes rolled back again, via the instrument panels to the co-pilot. The noise and the venom gone, replaced by a vague aloofness, like a schoolmaster in a laboratory talking to students.
'What's your name?' he asked, almost conversationally.
'Anna Tashova, pilot officer.'
'You will ignore all instructions. Get the plane up now, get it high, and set a course to the West.
We want a course to the nearest frontier of the West. And know this. I am ignorant about flying.
I have never piloted an aircraft, but I think I would know if you deceive me. If you seek to trick us, Miss Tashova, then I will kill you, and if you die so does everyone on board the aircraft. We are Jews, Miss Tashova, and the days when we could be told that we were going for a warm shower to shed ourselves of lice are long gone. Do not test us, Miss Tashova; today we are a harder people.'
She did not fight him, recognizing her responsibilities. 'The tower is talking to us. They direct us to return to Kiev. What do you want me to tell them?' Calm, with a brusqueness in her voice, as in a committee meeting.
'You say nothing, ignore them. Let them shout. They can do nothing.'
He watched her hands, moving deftly over the scores of buttons and switches in front and beside her, never allowing herself a glance towards the dead captain. Saw the preparations until she was ready to move her hands, both together, on to the control lever that bisected her knees, heard the navigator beside him calling his lists of numbers and figures that represented a path through the airways. And there the sensation at his feet – the sensation that they were climbing.
It was possible for him to look now. Possible for him to gape at the occasionally lolling, drifting head of the first man he had killed. He had bickered with Isaac that first evening, snapped at him because he had used the word 'easy'. What was easier than this? Not a moment's thought demanded, no intention, no programme, no plot, just the pulling in of a finger knuckle.
A man dead that David might go free. The pilot officer involved in the work he had set her, the navigator concerned by his task. Only David and the captain who had no immediate function.
But it had not been intended, not to kill him. Yet he is removed from your apology, David. Now you must live with it.
Meanwhile, soaring upwards, the Kingfisher bird was escaping from her enemies. Full power given to the four
