'Hold it, hold it.' In Charlie's ear the captain whispered, 'What in Christ's name do you think he's at?'
' I don't know,' Charlie answered. 'I just don't know.'
Never looking away, speaking from the side of his mouth, and with the quiet of a man who is in church, Arie Benitz said: 'It's very clear, Charlie. He has made his farewells, and now he wants to die. Better they should do it quickly, and kindly.'
Charlie turned to look at the Israeli. Too late. The face averted, the eyes hidden*
Braised, shaken, grazed at the shins where the cheap cloth of his trousers had been ripped by the fall, David rose first to one knee, then more slowly edged his way upright on to his feet. Had to fight for breath, recapture the air blown from his lungs and combat the ferocity of the sun bursting into his face after the diluted greyness of the Ilyushin interior. A step forward, and another, testing the unfamiliarity of his surroundings, but feeling the warmth on his face, the wind at his back, the exultation at the freedom. Round to his right an armoured car, and the big gun following him, locking on to his body with the sights, repetition to the left with the crew scrambling on its surface, and to the front the immobile, precious tankers. The tankers that held their salvation, carried the fuel they needed if they were to see the coast and the orange groves and the mountains of Israel; bright, gaudy, abrasive in their paintwork. And a triumph in his eyes when he captured the half-glimpse of the short stubbed barrel of the rifle deep in the darkness beside the forward wheel of the central tanker. That was where they were, hidden, covert, and he had discovered them.
Remember the bird that Timofey had spoken of. Remember the Kingfisher bird, fast and darting, sure in attack, brilliant in retreat, with the colours of a prince and a victor. Remember the dream of the Kingfisher, to be carried to a faraway place safe on the technicolour wings of speed and colour. But the nets had come and the beaters and the men with guns and there were no longer the river banks and bushes of concealment. They have clipped you, my Kingfisher bird, lured you from your sanctuary, broken, violated, trampled you.
The dream would not last. The sleep would soon be lost. Only the clarity of the machine-guns and the poking, prying rifle barrel would remain.
Five shots in the first burst, finger snatching at the trigger bar, feeling the throbbing pumping of the recoil against his shoulder, watching the creeping and ineffective gatherings of dust that told him he was short, that he would not reach the man behind the wheels.
Silence.
'Come out, you pigs. Come out and fight. Come out and shoot. I'm here for you to kill..
Fire again, whispered the instruction to himself. Dropped down to one knee. Take the aim steadily, don't hurry, there is time now, time to control the shaking of the wrist, time to hold the' flight of the barrel till it steadies. Why don't they shoot? Why don't they end it? Don't they know, can they not understand? They must shoot soon, the miserable, can- cered pigs, they must shoot soon. How long do they think the gun can be held, how long before it drops, before the hands rise in surrender of their own jurisdiction?
Aim again and fire so that they must shoot back.
'You cannot make me grovel before you, not at the last, not now. You cannot want that, to make me surrender, crawl in capitulation to you.'
Shoot, shoot, hurt the pigs, wound them, anger them. Finger sealed on the trigger, molten to it, the hammering against the muscle of his shoulder. The dirt trail inching forward, creeping to the tyre, hunting the pig in his sty, searching for him, sniffing for him, the long waving line of ricochets and flying bullets closing on his target.
'Find him Find him!' David screamed.
One shot fired in retaliation. For the marksman it was an easy shot, seventy yards and a static target, better odds than a fairground range and all the time in the world to line the crossed wires of the telescopic sight on the upper chest. Time to reflect too before the captain tapped his shoulder, time to look at the face and its contorted and twisted features, time to see the heaving of the chest. Seemed to be talking to himself, the little bugger, seemed to be saying something, all the time he was firing. Too easy really, not even worth thinking about, never get a pigeon that simple, not even a bloody rook.
David was picked off the ground, hurled a dozen feet backwards and came to rest spreadeagled, arms and legs outstretched, the gaping entry wound a tribute to the marksman's skill. There were no convulsions, no tremors, no useless lingering of life.
On his hands and knees, low under the chassis of the tanker Charlie Webster saw him fall, seemed to feel himself the power and hitting thrust of the one answering blow, closed his eyes, screwed them shut, muttered a soundless obscenity.
He felt the Israeli's arm swathed across his back, and the knot of the fist clamped in the shirt above his shoulder. Heard the man sigh, a low whisper of pain. So, even he feels it, thought Charlie, even he who is hardened and has killed many. Head of the bloody Storm squad, even him.
'But Isaac won't sell himself so cheap,' said Charlie.
They had walked five kilometres back from the police station.
More than two hours since they had been called from the cells, expecting only another session of interrogation, but instead they had been led up the stairs and then out into the hallway of the building. Their papers had been returned to them and the man in uniform had swung on his heel leaving the couple to fend for themselves with the weight of the heavy swing doors and find their own way back to their home.
Hardly a word had passed between David's parents as they had trudged the length of the streets and along the pitted pavements. Nothing to say, nothing to communicate. Old and wise enough to know the virtue of quiet. There had been hours of questioning, first the mother on her own, then later when the father had been brought from work they had stood side by side. A night spent in the cells, and then more questions through the morning stolidly enduring the repetitions of the officer behind the desk. Always the same point, no deviation from the perpetual question. Who were his friends? Who did he go out with? Again and again. Never a need for them to resort to threats. They were elderly, defenceless, incapable of resistance, and they had answered. Moshe. .. Isaac… Rebecca… there were no others. They had been shown the police photographs of the dead policeman, they had been told of the seizing of the airliner, of the killing of the pilot, that the aircraft had landed in Britain which was a country too far away and inaccessible for them to conjure the necessary images. The officer said their son would die there in a foreign country or if he surrendered would be brought back to face trial and execution in his own city; he seemed not to mind either course.
Then they had been permitted to go.
There had been a cluster of neighbours outside the house – some Jewish, some not, but all had drifted away as the couple approached their home. Word of plague spreads fast and they were contaminated, this pair, dangerous to touch. They did not speak to those who backed away at their approach; there was no reason to.
David's father opened the front door and put his arm around the shoulders of his wife. It had been a proud household, exemplary in the neatness of the three ground-floor rooms in which they lived. It would take them many hours to clear the debris from the floor, to shift the confusion of the search from the threadbare carpet. They had been thorough in their work, every drawer emptied, every cupboard spilled out, every chest upturned, every ornament split open.
Thrown in the firegrate, the glass smashed, was the large portrait photograph of their son, taken many years back on the day of his Bar Mitzvah – young, radiant, close-cut washed- down hair, promise and hope. David's mother drew it from the resting place on the newspaper that in summer covered the coal and chopped wood. It should not be there when the girls returned.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alone among the passengers who could see from the starboard side windows Anna Tashova had stood her ground, not flinching during the shooting, staying close to the glass of the window. She had seen everything, heard and relished it all. Her hands had come up from her lap as if she was about to clap them together as David had jerked, then tumbled backwards, but she had desisted just as she had stifled the cheer of exultation within her. She felt no pity, no horror, no sadness at the snuffing out of a life, instead gloried that her captain was at last remembered and revenged.
