Kingfisher

'Are you comfortable, Miss Tashova?' Almost a request for her acquiescence.

'As comfortable as any of the passengers.'

' I hope you can sleep there, that you will be rested.'

The soft derisive snort in response. 'It is hard to sleep when watched by a gun.'

' It is not of our making, Miss Tashova. We had not believed we would still be on the aircraft tonight. We had thought to sleep in beds…'

'And Yuri, you had thought for him to sleep in a coffin?'

' It was not as we intended.'

'Go tell him that.' Cruel and hurting, spoken low so that those around her could barely hear.

'Go and whisper it in his ear.'

' I tell you it was not intended.' Hardening, his respect cooling. 'You must sleep, Miss Tashova, that you can fly in the morning.'

There will be no flight from here. Your friend knows it Have you seen him, have you looked at him? He knows. He knows the penalty for killing Yuri. Only when the jets were with us, when he had so much to think of, only then could he forget our captain. And now he remembers him. Have you not watched your leader? Perhaps you should… perhaps you should study him, and absorb what you see.'

She spoke slowly, certain in her words, comforted by the knowledge that he listened.

' It is a trivial, pathetic little army that you have. Banal, insignificant beyond its guns. A leader who is frightened because he kills, a girl that is unsure of her role and who you hide at the back lest she should be a part in this and fail you…'

'But we have the guns, Miss Tashova. We have the guns and we will use them.' And there was enough in his voice to quieten her, as if at last she believed him. Nothing more to say, and his interest now lost in her, and she responded no further.

Isaac moved away. He checked the forward doors, then slipped back into the cockpit. He closed the door behind him, creating the darkness he needed to see beyond the steep- tilted, angled windows. It would take him time to see through the brilliance of the searchlights that played against the body of the aircraft. He sat himself at the back, where the navigator had been, outside the orbit of the light they could throw on to the flight deck. He kept very still, head motionless, body relaxed and even comfortable in the crewman's seat, steeling himself all the time to resist the tugging and clawing of drowsiness. Would not stay, not more than a few minutes, have to go back into the passage and relieve David and Rebecca; couldn't last, not the way they were, and he must take the burden of the night watch. Not enough of them – that was the fault, not enough for a shift system of watching and guarding. But nowhere you would have found more,

Isaac. Not a member of a group, of an organization, with a hydra of cells sprouting, with a recruiting belt in motion, delivering the fodder who could stand and take their positions while others slept. He didn't even know whether others would have followed if they had disseminated their message, who they could have trusted, confided in.

Movement out there. In the space between the searchlights to the left of the cockpit. Shadows at play, flitting and diving and disappearing, but he had seen the men move. And dimmed headlights approaching, and rear lights that were reddened and departing. They came to within two hundred metres of the plane, and he wondered if the men were closer. He watched the lights turn as if unwilling to test whatever strength he possessed with too close a contact, and instantly he was aware of the two soldiers, saw the tripod of the machine-gun, and the reflection from the ammunition belt. One man behind the weapon, the other crouched at the side of the barrel, saw it and lost it as the vehicle continued its traverse. Of course there would be soldiers out there, but how many and how close? Another with the silhouette of the rifle at the trail running across the front of the moving lights, hurrying and bent low so that he would be only minimally visible. He thought of precautions he'd taken inside the aircraft; inadequate, hopelessly inadequate if they came. And David believing when the man told him to sleep, told him the message would come in the morning… what would their orders be? Take them alive, or kill them? David, the stupid bastard, the one who they followed, and he had drunk in the syrup, taken it right down into his guts, believed what he bad been told because he was tired and wanted to sleep and did not understand the trap that had been prepared for them.

No relaxation now, hunched in the seat, and with his back muscles taut and his eyes hurting as he strained into the darkness, seeking more evidence of the perimeter they had placed around the plane. Lights further back this time, on and off, perhaps a couple of seconds, but time enough to understand the gaunt outline of two parked armoured cars. Faintly amused him; all the precautions they would be taking to ensure that watchers from the plane saw nothing of their preparations, and he had outsmarted them. Had seen the machine-gun, and the soldier who ran, and now the armoured cars. What did they want the killing apparatus for? Why did they need it if they would supply the petrol in the morning? A mirthless smile, something secret and personal to himself.

As he sat alone with his thoughts in the shadowed cockpit Isaac's resolve hardened. He would fight them all, do battle with the heavy guns and with the tanks they would send, and his hand was steady on the stock of the gun that nestled against his lap. Better here, he thought, than in the cellars with the militia men around him. What did they do to you, Moses? And how did you keep your silence, how did you win us the time to fly out? The pigs are here too, Moses, different only in their clothes and the voices, but they are here, where we did not expect them to have friends.

' If they had told me it would be like this, Moses, I would not have believed them.' There was no one to hear his words, none for company but the captain. It was an accident, it was not intended, old man. Join the ranks of the casualties- there are many of them. And there will be more, the crossfire will fiercen, the uninvolved who stand between the guns will be ma n y…

Isaac came out of the cockpit, moved quietly to where David stood leaning against the wall of the far end of the corridor beyond the cupboard doors.

'Sleep, David. Not you, Rebecca. I will watch the first part of the night, then Rebecca can sleep when the passengers are quiet.'

David nodded, numb, unthinking, and slouched away towards the open cockpit door. They heard him sink into the seat, still warm where Isaac had sat, and they heard him wriggling and turning till he found the position he wanted. Then nothing. Further back in the corridor beside the front exit to the plane were the seats that the cabin crew used for take-off and landing and when the plane was in turbulence. Isaac and Rebecca sat there, the girl on the inside, nearest the door, he leaning outwards so that his vision encompassed the whole of the cabin.

She said quietly, and she was close to his shoulder, 'Some of the old ones, and the children, they want to use the toilet, Isaac.'

'They cannot.'

'But there are old people here, Isaac, they must..

'The Jews grow old. They too have wanted such things,

Rebecca. Are there water closets at Potma and Perm, and basins to wash their hands in, to make themselves clean when they are locked in the huts at night? They He in their filth.'

'David said it was for you to decide. They asked him, and he would not say himself, he said it was for you to decide.'

'And you, Rebecca, what would you do, how much have they weakened you?'

' I would let them go to the toilet, because they must have dignity. If you prevent them going, if they mess themselves, then they have no dignity. We should not take that from them, whatever they have done to our people. We must show we are different to them. If we are the same, the animal same, then there is no salvation for us.'

Isaac stood up, abruptly, without further comment, and walked forward to the entrance of the cabin.

There is a toilet here. You may came to it one at a time. You have to be quick, and you have to know what will happen if you exploit the kindness we show to you.' He spoke savagely, soured and resentful at the concession that had been wrung from him. 'And while you are squatting, think of the Jews in your camps, the ones you call 'dissidents', whose crime in your eyes is that they want a new life. Think of them, wonder how they are crapping tonight. Think of their spoiled blankets. One at a time you come, and do not forget that the gun is loaded, and cocked.'

For a full hour a procession of passengers moved from their seats to the toilet and back again.

Isaac insisted that only one person should be out of his seat at a time, and the process was pained and slow.