dripped on and on, beating out messages of logic and persuasion in endless repetition. Rebecca had been beaten from the time they first heard his voice, David following her, and now he, Isaac, joining his colleagues in defeat. How many times had he said there would be no fuel before the message slowly and inexorably won through? Not an enemy, but not an ally, not this man with the dirt-stained shirt and the crumpled, rounded trousers. Nothing he had said had carried friendship, sympathy or understanding. He could not be an ally. A functionary, that was what the man Charlie was. The one who had been sent to do the work.
The man that followed him was different, sharper on his feet, quicker in his movements, harder eyes. Poised, intense. He was an opponent, to be watched. But this was the man sent by his own people, the one they had to hear before he took Rebecca past the trolley barricade to the place of privacy in the far end corridor, beside the back toilets, close to the rear door. Not now, Isaac, shut it out: the time comes fast enough.
Charlie began to walk down the aisle of the plane, slowly, gently, so that there could be no doubts about his intentions. Then he stopped where all could see him, reach into contact with him, his hand resting relaxed on a seat-back. Confident, friendly, assured.
The famous smile, winning friends, putting the fears at ease, the man who was in control, looking to the passengers as his priority, avoiding Isaac with his pinched and sprung intensity, and his submachine-gun. Not looking back at the drab girl with the pistol.
'Hello, my name is Charlie Webster. Just 'Charlie', they generally call me. I'm with the British Foreign Office and I've come to take you off the plane. It won't be immediately, but it'll be very soon. You just have to be patient for a while longer. I know you've been that already – fantastic – but just a little bit longer while we sort some things out with the gentleman and the lady. Please stay in your seats, don't move at all, and remember that it won't be long now.'
There were some who found his Russian difficult to follow, so there was a chorus of explanation as the word was passed back among the rows of seats till all comprehended. The applause came suddenly and spontaneously, sixty men and women and children hammering their hands together and shouting their support. Charlie blushed and smiled again, and put up his hand without avail to halt the flood of gratitude sweeping down the cabin. He looked for someone to speak to, and was grateful for the presence of the girl pilot, still staring to the front, hands moving in rhythm with the others, tears on her cheeks, losing the fight with her emotions.
Charlie said, 'You are Miss Tashova. I want you to know that everyone in the control tower, all the authorities that are gathered there, have expressed their great admiration for your achievement last night. The landing was brilliant, absolutely bloody brilliant, if you'll excuse me.
They are looking forward to congratulating you personally.' Just once she slipped a glance to him, without commitment, without dropping her reserve, then gazing again into the dour material of the seat-back in front of her.
Keep it going, Charlie, keep it moving around, gentle and natural. Make the two of them believe it's all over, that it's finished, out of their control. No negotiation, no concession, just that tbe game's gone, the whistle's blown. 'Taking the initiative', the boffins would call it, and holding it so that Isaac couldn't wrest it back. Silly little bugger, should have known his bible, rule one,
'Never let the bastards with the open faces and the empty hands on board.' Curtains after that, Isaac, old sunshine.
He moved forward two more rows. Closer to Isaac, closer than he had ever been, where he could see the confused and shadowed face with its sheen of sweat. Able to focus on the gun, understand its cooling system, its front needle sight, its age and peeled paint work. Shouldn't dwell on it, though, shouldn't show apprehension, like a policeman that edges along the windowsill towards the man determined on suicide, and who must talk calmly and be mundane, matter of fact. As he turned to the nursing mother the style of the gun was imprinted on his mind, the knowledge that a flick of the trigger, casual and involuntary or predetermined, and the magazine would be unloading in a cascade of shells hurtling through the trimmed airspace between him and the squat, tensed, curly-haired boy. He tapped the baby's head with his left hand, trying not to draw away from the stench of the unchanged clothes, attempting to weave the web of normality.
Just keep it going, Charlie, ever so slow, ever so gradual. In front of him the children, the school kids, still quiet, and waiting for you, Charlie. Had to get beyond them, had to impose himself between the boy with the gun and their soft flesh that would be ripped and carved by a single volley. Winked at a couple of the little brats. Eight or nine more rows, that would be enough, then he'd be a shield for the kids, then he could talk of who left the plane first, then he could believe that it was finished.
All the time moving, edging closer to the boy with the gun, soft voices, controlled smile, creeping nearer, insidious, and deep inside his heart pounding and his muscles taut and stretched, and his eyes on the gun. Don't lose sight of that gun, Charlie, don't take your bloody eyes off it.
Gendy Charlie spoke to Isaac, spanning the few feet of carpet with his words, making the contact. ' I've brought Colonel Benitz to see you, Isaac. He's from the Israeli Defence Force, and he's a fighter, he's like you. Listen to him, Isaac. Listen to what he tells you.'
It took Charlie time to realize that Benitz had begun to speak behind him. A different voice, and words that he could not understand, a language that was strange to him and incomprehensible.
Benitz turned back towards the open door and the cockpit entrance. Gazed down the length of the aisle towards the girl.
'Come here, Rebecca. Come close to us where you can hear what I say.' A cool, spring voice, an instruction in the Yiddish tongue, 'Come nearer, so that I do not shout.' Looking into her eyes, absorbing the creased lines of her tiredness, and her faltering step. The girl who wanted to come to Israel, who wanted to take her place amongst his people, bear her children there. 'Keep coming, Rebecca, keep coming, you have nothing to fear from me.'
He saw the way she looked at him, as if the flood-gates of her misery might now be broken down, saw the relief catch at the curls of her mouth that now, after all the hideousness and pain, she had finally found her friend. And they had told him on the telephone that these young ones would be sent back, would be returned to the land of oppression, and to cells, and to death and to the quicklime pits. He wondered as she came towards him where she had started, where she had begun the journey that had brought her here. In the arms of one of the boys? Or something more rare – had there been the driving inner commitment, the force that sharpened the men that he led, the men of the storm squad? And he would not know, would never know, because now there was no time.
When she reached him Benitz put his arm around her shoulder, draped loosely and carelessly, glanced once at the pistol held in her hand and mingled with the folds of her dress, worked his fingers into the muscle of her shoulder, the gesture of reassurance, and saw Isaac straighten as if his fear too was waning.
'We know what you sought, we know what you have accomplished.' Arie Benitz spoke with a simplicity, with the humility of the funeral oration at the graveside of a soldier of Squad 101. 'We know of it and we marvel, and are proud. We understand the depth of despair, the pain and the agony that will have been yours when the welcome was of guns and armed men and tanks. We understand why you felt driven to take the life of a man who now lies outside and dead. We understand.' Both of them were looking at him, both watching, and the gun barrel of Isaac lowered so that the muzzle aimed at the slight space between his feet. 'In many ways we can struggle against our opponents. The battle may be offensive, it may be passive. There are those that fight in the front line, those that are far to the rear. There are sudden victories that can be won, and there are those that are secret and quiet and without garlands.
There are times, too, when the victory must be purchased, times when great sacrifice is demanded. Those are the sad times, the times when our people weep upon the coffins.. The tank commanders who held the Golan at Yom Kippur, when the Syrians came, for them there could be no relief, no reinforcement, no supply. They were pitifully few and they fought till their shells were expended, and then they fought with their machine-guns, and when the magazines were empty then they threw their grenades. And they died by their broken tanks. They died because it was required of them. And there was no fear, no terror, no panic. They died because Israel needed their lives, needed them as currency to pay for the ultimate victory. They won us time, and when we returned we stood in awe and understood what these few had achieved for us, and we buried them in the military cemetery on a hill outside Jerusalem, and there are flowers there, and men come with their women and children to stand in silence beside the stones.'
Only Isaac and Rebecca understood his words, but the plane was hushed, as if all were sensitive to the moment.
'We do not share our fight We do not rely on allies. We stand by ourselves and expect favours from none. It is
