Kingfisher

Tt is not finished. Not for many more hours, not till we have tested our will against theirs. You understand? It should be simple and clear: there must be no more talk of submission. Our destination is Israel. That is where we go, and we do not permit deflection. Were we stupid and ignorant and useless then we would have been permitted to go, thrown on to the train for Vienna, propped on the flight for Tel Aviv, no difficulties would have obstructed us. But we are the people that they want inside Mother Russia, because we are the technicians that the giant needs to fuel herself from. Who with higher education is allowed to leave? We are the people that they obstruct, that they imprison, that languish on trumped-up charges at Potma and Perm. We have rejected their system, rejected it with blood, because we did not want to be a part of their way. It is not a time to talk of capitulation. We have come a long way. But if this were to be the end then it would have been better we had never started at all.'

Isaac saw the tight laughless smile of Anna Tashova as she sat three rows in front of him, and ignored it. He witnessed too the confusion of the Italian who was closest to him, and who did not understand what was being said and who looked vaguely for an indication from among their gestures and who was to remain uninformed and puzzled. He saw the headmaster who turned away to look through the window the moment their eyes met. Many faces for Isaac to see. Old and young, neat and unclean, educated and stupid, brave and fearful. The passengers were all he possessed with which to fight. Their lives his ammunition. But effective, that he knew, better than the tanks and the machine-guns and the infantry that waited in ambush beyond the plane's walls. These were the shells that would carry the weight when battle was joined, would push back the soldiers and their guns. The lives of the men and the women and the children. They would bend, the Britishers, after ten o'clock they would bend. They had lost the will to fight, that was what he had read, that was what he believed.

As if to acknowledge that the episode was over Isaac said, 'The man is close to the plane now.

Who is he? What have you arranged?'

' It is the one from the tower. The Russian speaker. They want him to talk to us.'

' I have your word, Rebecca, and yours too, David, that there will be no more talk of surrender? An oath that we fight together?'

He did not hear their replies; they mumbled from far down in their throats, but the movement of the lips was sufficient. He moved into the cockpit, the vantage point, from which he could observe the man who bad broken the invisible thread laid across the tarmac and who had entered their territory, forsaking the safety of the armaments of his own people. Isaac looked down at him, noticed that the other never glanced at the windows as if keeping his own counsel, minding his time till the moment for contact was right. Isaac could recognize the mould of experience on his face. A deep man, Isaac thought, not a bureaucrat; someone from security and to be treated with care; someone who came because the persons in authority believed there was advantage to be gained from it, and the fools behind him trusted the promises that had been made, had faith in the words spoken over the radio link. Unarmed – but then there was no reason for him to carry a weapon, nothing gained. His weapons would be in his words, designed to lull and win confidence, and in his eyes that would report back to his masters sheltering in the tower. He had shown weakness in letting this man come close, Isaac knew that, and weakness was dangerous because much had to be sacrificed if the initiative was to be rewon. Isaac had not studied the history and tactics of hijacking, but his sensibilities told him that the man in shirtsleeves and baggy, rounded trousers represented a threat. Yet he knew he wanted to hear what the man had to say, wanted an excuse to break the eighteen hours of isolation, needed some release from the confines of the plane's walls.

A buzz of talk filled the aircraft, a subdued drone, as the passengers with window seats told their neighbours that a man had come close to the Ilyushin. The news stifled thoughts of bulging bladders and empty stomachs, overcame the awareness of the smell of sweat. It was an event, and being the first of the day that offered the possibility of outside interference in their position it was welcome. The children talked more loudly than their elders, and pointed to the man and pushed those with the best view aside. The masters tried to quieten them but accepted they could not be successful.

Huge lenses mounted on cameras and tripods of weight and security had followed Charlie Webster's walk. The uniformed policemen were present to prevent any surge forward by cameramen, and journalists obligingly squatted on their haunches to avoid obstructing the view – the solitary figure barely visible to the naked eye at that range but greatly magnified by film. The static APCs and the resting soldiers had long been exhausted as a source of pictures, and this was recognized as something different. There were many suggestions as to the role of the man who had strode towards the aircraft. He was 'SAS', he was a 'doctor because some of the passengers were sick', he was 'the leading government negotiator', a 'police chief of rank'. There seemed endless scope for speculation.

'The bastard's going round the far side.'

'Same at Tunis with the BOAC VC10, never saw a damn thing.'

'Shut up. YouH wreck the bloody sound track.'

'Fat lot of sound you're getting at a thousand yards.'

'He's gone, the bastard. Lost him round the nose.'

The advance of Charlie Webster had promised much to the cameramen, and they had been cheated and were angry and bickered among themselves as the film they had taken was canned and labelled and handed to the waiting motorcyclists.

'Always the same, never let you see a damn thing.'

When Colonel Arie Benitz dialled the number he had been given the previous night the response in London was almost immediate: two rings and the connection. He was not told to whom he was speaking, nor did he introduce himself. The conversation was brief.

'We have tried to arrange a meeting this morning at the Foreign Office, and we were put off,' he was told. 'The British Foreign Secretary is in continuous session with his advisers, they say.

We are being shut out, and we need to take our own course.'

The soldier of another army would have laughed derisively at that moment, questioning immediately what initiative was possible. But other armies did not fly two thousand miles across hostile airspace to land at Entebbe, or take their commando squads into territory as hostile as Beirut for the elimination of the men who fought against them, did not force down foreign airliners on scheduled routes because they were thought to be carrying the men who directed and controlled the war against Israel. If a suggestion were made there would be no ridicule at its feasibility from Colonel Arie Benitz. He would listen, evaluate and decide on the best plan available to ensure the possibility of success, however remote.

' Is there a chance that you might get to the plane and talk to those that hold it?'

' It would be difficult. They are suspicious of me, the British, as I was told they would be.'

'We would like a message passed to the plane, to the young people. But it is difficult if we work through the British. They are possessive of this matter

'

'They are possessive because they are nervous. It is to be expected. What is the message?'

' I used the wrong word. It is less a message, more a suggestion. Perhaps… if they were to offer to surrender now, no more killing, but conditional on their not being sent back?… They have asked in Jerusalem that I should say this to you, but it cannot be with the knowledge of the British. I ask again, is it possible for you to reach the plane?'

Patiently and without rancour, Benitz said into the phone,

'They have an army around the aircraft. I cannot just walk to it. .. you understand. And there is little time now. The children have set an ultimatum, you yourself told me that. And you must see that it is difficult for the British to bend at this moment, with the pilot dead, and when they are under duress from threats. If we do not have the co-operation of the security here then it would be difficult for me to reach the aircraft.' Not one to use the word 'impossible', but there was enough in his voice to suggest it. 'I will try, but you must send the reply to the Crisis Committee that I can offer little hope that I will be able to talk with our people.'

' It is understood, Colonel, it is understood what circumstances you find yourself in. Call us please should the position change, but I fear it will not. From London we are still trying for a meeting with the Foreign Secretary, but as I have told you they are not responsive.'

Arie Benitz hung the phone back on its hook, and cursed the noise from the juke box and the babble of conversation among the airport staff, revelling in their enforced idleness, who gathered for breakfast and cups of tea and chatter of shop prices and housekeeping purses.

He yearned to be back with his own, back with the squad, back at the training school, back near Ashdod. Skirting the tables and chairs he walked slowly towards the door, not caring to glance at the mass of cheerful,