tip escort banked away.
They are not finished,' Anna Tashova said, 'they manoeuvre to shoot at us.'
The screaming in the cabin behind David and Isaac had not lasted for many seconds, stifled by the very helplessness the passengers felt. What was the point of pleading when there was no one to answer? The girl was far back, at the rear of the plane, and no one dared turn to see her. The man, the short one, the one who had addressed them, hovered half in and half out of the cockpit.
The other man had long gone from view and busying himself with the direction of the aircraft.
Those at the windows had the best view of the gleaming Migs, and saw from the gestures of the pilots that this was a time of crisis.
Luigi Franconi had won the courage to ignore the instruction that his hands should be on his head. They covered his eyes as he crouched low in the seat, shutting out the fantasy nightmare of the killing machines that cruised so calmly, and that displayed with such ostentation their rockets. He knew what they were for, and saw also the determination in the young man's face, the one who covered them with the gun, always watching with the gun, always ready, as if some ludicrous intervention were possible. A test of wills, that was what was involved, and though the young man might at some time submit this was not the hour; the mere presence of the fighters was insufficient. That was the reasoning of the Italian, was why he buried his head from it, and thought of his wife and his children and the flat on Via Aurelia. At home, he reflected, the government did not fill the cells of the Regina Caeli with the terrorists they held at Fiumicino; they shipped them out by military aircraft, unmindful of whether there was a decent lapse of time between arrest and release, but concerning themselves with the safety of the Alitalia fleet, and the avoidance of reprisals; the Western world called them cowards for it. Franconi could only surmise as he peeped between the clenched fingers across his scalp that the Russian approach would be different, and that his life was as irrelevant as the safety of a wooden chess figure – a humble pawn – to the generals and senior politicians who would make their decisions in deep-set operations rooms and bright office suites.
Edward R. Jones Jr and Felicity Ann understood their future less dramatically. She too had removed her hands from her thinly waved hair and they operated the couple's Agfamatic 3000, the camera that they took on all their travels and which aided him in his notes for the lecture tours of the Mid-west that followed the summer journeys. His own hands still embedded in his winter-white hair, he called the stop changes to his wife as she alternated between interiors and film of the fighters through the porthole. A fortune to be made, and what an auction! Associated Press against United Press International for the world exclusive rights. His optimism about the immediate outcome was not based on any specialized knowledge of Russian thinking, rather on a lack of it. American and conditioned to reading that the pilots of his own country had orders to fall in with hi-jackers' demands, he could not conceive that the interceptors had any r61e other than one of bluff.
The school children whose ages spanned their eleventh and twelfth birthdays had lived too sheltered an upbringing to realize the dangers to which their young lives were now exposed.
Most rigidly obeyed the instruction to keep their arms raised, only a few grumbling to those who sat beside them at the discomfiture. No question, the headmaster thought, of querying the order, not with the girl and the two men so preoccupied. Necessary to maintain calm among these people, and any interruption, however trivial, however well-founded, would only lead to anger, only harm the position of the children. He kept silent.
Twenty-five others. Some praying through closed eyes and clenched hands, some stolid and defiant and gazing straight ahead, some fascinated by what they saw beyond the reinforced windows, some crying quietly. Even the baby, halfway back, snuggled in a mother's shawl, sat hushed.
Wandering with his eyes, restless, Isaac fastened on the two stewardesses, sitting together, holding hands, watching him, following his movements. The pretty one in the centre seat, with the red hair, smoothed her skirt down her thighs. Isaac winked at her, just a flash, and saw her blush and twist her head away. All of them sitting there, inanimate, straining away the minutes.
Would the jets open fire? Quite a way to go if they do, thought Isaac.
From Moscow the orders were transmitted to Air Force
Headquarters, West Ukraine, and from there relayed to the major who commanded the Mig pilots. He led the formation, four planes in line, separated by a half mile, across the path of the Ilyushin, spitting long bursts of cannon fire two hundred yards in front of the airliner. For pilots as highly trained as these it was a simple manoeuvre. Climbing again and leaning back across the space of his cramped cockpit he radioed that there was no apparent deviation of the Ilyushin.
Once more, he was told, he should fire across the nose, again with the cannon, but closer. If that were not successful he should return to station and await further instructions.
Inside the cockpit and the passenger cabin, hemmed in by the hermetically-sealed fuselage, the noise of the cannon fire was considerable. Isaac had joined David in the cockpit and they stood together, huddled in the limited space as they watched the contortions of the fighter planes. Dive, level off, pull out. Vicious hammering of fire from the wings – so close that it made them draw back and wince, instinctive and involuntary, seeking safety from the threat. The slip stream of the jets jolted and tumbled the Ilyushin, and both men clung to the back of Anna Tashova's seat.
And then they were gone, and the airliner was still on course, and it was as if there had been nothing, except that David's knuckles were white as he held himself upright and his face was drawn and old beyond his years, and Isaac saw that there were tears in the pilot officer's eyes that she fought to suppress. She thought they were going to kill us, herself as well, and all of her passengers, that was what she would have preferred, that was the depth of her hate for us.
The navigator in his seat behind them broke the silence. A forgotten man, who had stayed quiet and unobtrusive since they had swarmed into the cockpit, contenting himself with plotting their course, identifying their position on his maps. 'We have perhaps half a minute to turn. The next time it will be missiles. They know they cannot damage us, sufficiently to force us to land, but so that we can land successfully. If they damage us we crash, and so they will make it fast for us, they will destroy us in the air. The pilot who tried to land the Libyan plane that the Israelis fired on, the Frenchman, he tried and he failed. A passenger liner cannot withstand any damage, not at this altitude.'
'We fly on,' said David. 'The Kingfisher bird is on course.
They will not come again.'
'Are you blind to it, you crazed fool? Can you not see the signs with your own eyes? That was the warning, the final warning. The next time it is over.' Anna Tashova's words lapped around David, rippling and eddying at him, but without the conviction to strike him, leaving him unmoved. Isaac put his arm around the taller man's waist and hugged and pulled their two bodies together. 'I did not know it would be like that,' David said. ' I had no idea…'
'But you found the strength to fight them,' encouraged Isaac.
'Never again, not like that… never again,' David whispered, and he trembled, his whole frame consumed by the convulsions as Isaac held him. And he no longer stared out through the small cockpit windows, but was again magnetized by the captain's slowly moving head, its inverted pendulum motion.
'He still fights me..
'Don't be so stupid. You weren't to know. It was only one bullet. You weren't to know.'
'He still fights me…'
'Keep the bloody plane on course,' said Isaac wearily.
Radio chatter amongst the Migs.
'Eagle 4 to Sunray. What do they want us to do now?'
'Eagle 3 to Sunray. We cross the Polish border in under a minute.'
'Eagle 2 to Sunray. Do we shoot to bring them down or not?'
'Sunray to Eagle Flight. You hear the orders as I do. The order is to wait-they are checking something out. Maintain course.'
'Eagle 4 to Sunray. What is there to check out?'
'Eagle 3 to Sunray. Did you see the children at the windows? Quite clearly you can see them.'
'Eagle 2 to Sunray. There is the man in the cockpit. I saw him… with the gun.'
'Sunray to Eagle Flight. Stop the bloody talking. I know where we are, so does Ground. I have eyes too – I have seen the children – I have seen the man. They will be checking the passenger list. They want to know who is on board.'
