It was the fall that broke the headmaster's grip on her arm, the jerk with which her body collapsed was not anticipated, the sudden shift of her balance and weight was too great for the pliant fingers, not used to physical action. When she hit the floor the gun exploded in a blast of noise and cordite fumes, and she winced from the flash burn to her chest that seemed to sear a way through the fabric of her dress. Hands all round her now, pummelling and driving to reach under her body to where the gun was, pulling at her thighs, at the slight softness of her breasts, frantic in their haste now that the noise of the discharge bullet had sounded the alarm.
And then there was no one. Liberation. The hands withdrawn. She wiped the hair from her face front and looked up. She saw the feet that were edging back from her, moving away, and tilting her head further. Their hands were on their heads again, faces of guilt and fear, the boys found out, and halfway down the aisle was Isaac with the submachine- gun at his shoulder and far past him and guarding his back was David. Just the droning pull of the engines and the fractional swaying in the air currents of the plane on steady course: no words. The men who had left their seats making their way back, ashamed, caught out, a girl to disarm and they had failed, and now they faced the wrath of the young man with the chill in his eyes. He would not have made the mistakes that she had, and their faces showed their concern at the retribution he would exact, the toll he would take.
Deep throbbing pain in her leg where the man had kicked her, and an aching through her shoulders where a knee had pressured downwards against her spine, and a place on her forehead where there would be a bruise from the impact against the metal stanchion of a seat support.
Interrogation in Isaac's voice, questioning. 'How were they out of their seats?'
Difficult to speak at first, had to get the air back into her pinched lungs.
'They said the children should go to the toilet, they said their was one who needed help, who was ill, that was how they came behind me.'
'Nobody was to move.'
'But they said the children wanted to go..,*
'You were given an instruction. You disobeyed it. You jeopardized the whole of our mission.'
'But the children have to pee, Isaac. It was not.,. how was I to know?'
If they wanted to pee they could have used their knickers. You nearly destroyed everything, the whole plan, and you alone could have destroyed it.' No anger, not the burning in his eyes, but something else. She had never seen him like this before, not with the contempt turning the lines of his mouth and the single reddened patches on the high points of his cheeks, and the hands that were white and bloodless in their grip of the machine-gun.
'Which one was it? Which one attacked you?'
As if in a limbo of loyalties she hesitated, the struggle warring inside her as to whether she should identify the headmaster. What would Isaac do? Would he kill him? Had she the power to sentence the man, to cause his execution?
He was closer to her than to Isaac, with his head bowed, and she could see the bald top of his scalp, and the places where the grey hair still grew, and the places where the revealed skin was blotched and discoloured, and… and he had tried to kill her, that man, that was why he had struggled with her, to kill her and to kill David and Isaac.
' It was the one in the aisle seat, four rows from you, on the left.'
'Louder,' said Isaac, but his voice was hushed and low, competing with the aircraft's power.
'Do not be afraid. Do not believe that these people will save you. They'll cut your throat, Rebecca, bleed you like an animal. If they could they would have bludgeoned you to death, if the gun had not fired, and I not come. Which one was it?'
' It was the one in the aisle seat, four rows from you, on the left.' She looked away as Isaac advanced up the aisle between the avenue of passengers, no heads turning to watch him, just the shuffle of his canvas shoes on the carpet.
'Listen to what I say,' Isaac said to the headmaster. His voice as in a conversation, a tone of mutated friendship, bizarre to her, obscene. 'The Germans have prevented us from landing, and the Dutch too. They have driven lorries and army trucks across the runways of their airports to make it impossible for us to land. And now we are going to England. We have fuel to get there and no further, and they will let us land for that reason. But we have not come this far to finish in England: we go to Israel. Perhaps we will have to show the English that we have the will to fly to Israel, that we are not as the Jews were, that we are a new generation, as the 'sabras' are. If it is necessary we will shoot you, one by one, to prove to the English that we have determination. If that should happen then I make a promise to you, a promise that I shall keep. If anyone dies on this plane to convince the English of our will then it will be you, you will be the first, you will be the one that we call for.'
Isaac walked on till he reached Rebecca. Held out his hand for her to give him the pistol, checked the mechanism, ensured there was a bullet in the breach, that the gun was live. 'The mistake must not be repeated, Rebecca.' He turned on his heel and strode back down the length of the cabin. And the Ilyushin continued its course across the smooth unruffled waters of the North Sea towards the coastline of England and the Kingfisher's landfall.
The news that the Dutch landing conditions had not been accepted was sufficient for the summons to Charlie Webster to attend the Emergency Committee meeting in the offices of the Home Secretary in Whitehall.
The Home Secretary was in the Chair, flanked by one of his junior ministers, two civil servants of the Department both with the grading of Principal Under-Secretaries, a lowly Foreign Office minister in order that the deliberations of the two giant bureaucracies could be dovetailed through liaison, and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from Scotland Yard. At the far end of the polished mahogany table was Parker Smith, whose suggestion it had been that they call for the man in his section who specialized in the study of Russian dissident groups. The windows were open because it was a warm and windless evening, and the murmur of the London rush hour traffic came up to them from the courtyard. Coffee cups on the table, and filled ashtrays, and the paraphernalia of the meeting – torn up scraps of paper, others crumpled and discarded, some with the artistic and intricate doodles of the Foreign Office man, briefcases and maps, and telephone on an extended wire at the Home Secretary's elbow.
A messenger in the blue livery of the Home Office had been waiting in the wide and high-roofed lobby for Charlie to arrive. They hadn't bothered with the formality of signing him in, and together they had taken the sweeping staircase two at a time till they were on the first floor and walking briskly along the central corridor flanked by the uncleaned oil portraits of the Minister's predecessors in office. A brief knock and the messenger opened the door. Charlie spluttered involuntarily as the smoke wall hit him, fugging his nostrils and his eyes.
'Mr Charles Webster, gentlemen. 8
The Home Secretary waved him towards a seat, the only one vacant and halfway down the table on the right-hand side. Interest on the faces of all except Parker Smith. Different type of fellow to the ones that the politicians and civil servants of rank were accustomed to doing business with, suit not pressed as keenly, and shirt looking as though it had done service the day before by way of bonus, the shave wearing fine because he had not slipped to the men's room at lunchtime as these more public men were accustomed to do.
Parker Smith, sitting easily in the company, anxious to put Charlie at ease, and overdoing it, sounding patronizing, sort of speak-up-boy-they-won't-bite. 'Charlie, I've told the Minister and his colleagues here of your background. Told them of your experience overseas and in Dublin, and I've sketched through the work you do no w, with emphasis on your predictions of last night.'
The Home Secretary cut him short
'Mr Webster, the Aeroflot flight is perhaps a quarter of an hour off our coastline. We can keep it circling for a bit, but there will not be much opportunity for prevarication. We are advised that it has enough fuel for perhaps a further forty minutes' flying time, three-quarters of an hour at the most. It is our intention to put it down at Stansted in Essex. We do not have the luxury of our European colleagues of being able to pass the buck. The buck stops here; the fuel load of the plane determines that. We will obviously attempt to persuade the hi-jackers to surrender without further recourse to needless and stupid bloodshed, but we have to know from the time that the wheels hit the ground what sort of people we are dealing with. We want you to put some flesh on them, Mr Webster. I don't mind conjecture, provided that it's based on very sound background, but what you tell us may have to be acted upon very quickly so I'd prefer caution in your analysis.'
Civil servants and junior ministers with their sharpened pencils and gold-coated pens poised, only the Home Secretary and Parker Smith looking at him. And what do they want to hear? What can you give them, Charlie? Tell them about the kids who have learned that you don't walk through Hyde Park shouting any more; you get yourself a
