them.
A Saracen armoured car replaced the bus, but drove closer to the steps. The bodies of Arie Benitz and Rebecca were moved awkwardly down the steps on stretchers by men who sweated but bore the load in silence, and pushed far into the recesses of the vehicle so that they lay among the welter of gas canister boxes, and the coils of machine-gun ammunition, and the trenching tools and the emptied cigarette packets and coffee cartons. On top of the Israeli and the girl the soldiers laid David and the Italian, who to those who handled him seemed unmarked except for the scratch on his face from his fall from the plane; no one looked for the cavity set deep in the sleek and darkened hair.
Then came Isaac's turn. Handcuffed now, his arms locked across the front of his body. To the troops who ushered him from the plane and on to the ramp at the top of the steps he seemed an unworthy opponent. But he intrigued them, a boy who fought without a uniform, in the absence of a commander, and received no wage for it, and they permitted him to pause there, as if to drink in the freedom of the air, accepting and assimilating the surroundings to which he had brought the Ilyushin. Then he saw, deep in the Saracen, the body of David, uncovered, grotesque in the angle of fallen head, and seemed to wilt. He did not travel with David; another armoured car was designated to carry him, and the soldiers hustled Isaac to it, hands under his shoulder pits so that he was near lifted into the back, and then with his escort he was sat upon a cool iron seat. The great, thickened, high-velocity-proof doors were closed on him, exchanging for the boy one prison for another.
From the Foreign Secretary's office overlooking the lunch- time crowds that surged across Horse Guards Parade the news of the conclusion at Stansted spread quickly. Permanent Secretaries wound up their meetings, Under-Secretaries cancelled their lunch appointments. In News Department they prepared themselves for the issue of the statement that would explain the course of action being followed by Her Majesty's Government.
There was no more discussion on whether or not the survivor should be returned to Kiev. That decision had been taken; News Department was concerned with drafting only the justification.
There was much fetching and carrying of United Nations debate transcripts, Security Council and General Assembly, that had concerned themselves with aerial piracy. From the Security Council meeting that had followed the Israeli military intervention to Entebbe in July of
1976
there was much to be taken that pleased those who would eventually fashion the Foreign Office release. The red pencils were busy underlining passages from the speech of Chaim Herzog, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. .. Those countries which fail to take a clear and unequivocal stand against international terrorism for reasons of expediency or cowardice will stand damned by all the decent people in this world and despised in history. There is a time in the affairs of men when even governments must make difficult decisions guided not by considerations of expediency but by considerations of morality… It is now for the nations of this world, regardless of political differences which may divide them, to unite against this common enemy which recognizes no authority, knows no borders, respects no sovereignty, ignores all basic human decencies, and places no limits on human bestialities.'
Also coming down from the shelves were the transcripts of the 1970 Hague convention called to discuss the 'Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft'. Article 6 was the one that most concerned the drafters.
Upon being satisfied that the circumstances so warrant, any contracting state in the territory of which the offender or the alleged offender is present shall take him into custody and other measures shall be as provided in the law of that state but may only be continued for such time as is necessary to enable any criminal or extradition proceedings to be instituted.'
It was agreed that a good case could be made out. It would be harder to explain the absence of an appearance before an Essex Magistrate's court, and the speed with which it was intended the surviving hi-jacker should be removed from British soil and begin his journey back to the Soviet Union, but the press conferences at Stansted should divert immediate attention from the one point of contention. Get rid of him first was the priority, before the protests were mobilized, before inter-government relations were strained.
There were one or two in the labyrinth of Whitehall who voiced concern at the planned culmination of the affair, but they were not overly loud with their anxieties, and were soon muted. Closed ranks and consensus opinion. More dignified that way.
Charlie was the last to leave the plane. They had let the photographers forward and he saw them in their broken ranks running towards the Ilyushin from the distant perimeter fence, hustling with their pronged tripods and cameras and cables. Those who were least encumbered with equipment, and remembered him as the man who had walked out across their lenses in the early morning had a chance to photograph Charlie. When he recognized their opportunity he raised his hand to cover his face, a reflex gesture. He would have been horrified to know that he had provided the Fleet Street caption writers with one of the day's many bonuses. The 'Shy Hero' was the title they put on the picture of the shambling figure walking away across the tarmac, his shirtsleeved arm raised, his trousers sagging on his hips.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was late summer afternoon when they flew Isaac out of Stansted.
He had only to walk from the midnight black police van to the stunted steps of the Hawker-Siddley jet. A cluster of men, some in uniform, the majority favouring well-worn civilian suits, were there to see him on his way. No farewells, only a series of curt handshakes between those who were staying and those whose work was not yet finished. They talked around Isaac, pretending to ignore him, not speaking to him as if to demonstrate their relief that the load was to be shed, the burden passed on. No more defiances from the boy, left behind in the small cell in the basement of the airport police station where he had sat and pondered on what awaited him, whiling away the hours for the details of the flight to be arranged. A child again, and not to be equated with the savage hostility that the fish-eye had mirrored. He stumbled on the bottom rung of the ladder, but there were hands on his arms that prevented him from pitching back, and the faces around him were stern and closed, as if unwilling to display their emotions or bare their thoughts to him.
There were five passengers in all. A member of the Russian Embassy staff who had been the first to climb on board; they had checked his name after he had proffered it with the list of Soviet diplomats available to the Foreign Office, found him described as a chauffeur. After him came a uniformed corporal of the Royal Air Force police, immaculate in his starched and pressed battledress, who had a cap with a red ribbon round it and a webbing belt that carried the white blancoed holster encasing a Browning automatic pistol. Next Isaac, climbing with difficulty as he trailed his right arm that was linked by handcuffs to the wrist of a second Service policeman. Two Foreign Office men, both from security though neither would have admitted it, hurried inside the aircraft before the door was closed and the twin rear engines started.
That was the last Charlie Webster saw of Isaac, the back view of the dark-haired, pale-faced boy illuminated casually by the rotating blue lamp of the police van. Charlie sat slumped in the chair in the control tower from which he had watched the departure. To some he seemed churlish in his rejection of the many congratulations that were showered at him when he was greeted by the politicians and the political aides, the senior policemen, the army officers and civil servants.
But Clitheroe had moved among the offended and Charlie had heard the words, hushed and discreet, of 'shock' and 'terrible strain', and 'it was necessary to deceive him, helped him in fact', and 'what you'd expect in the circumstances' and 'exhaustion' and 'be right as rain once he's had a good sleep'. From where Charlie sat he could see the Hawker-Siddley taxi and then thrust forward in the gathering, closing gloom for take-off, the flashing red hghts marking its progress down the runway. He watched it all the way through lift-off, stayed with it till there was just a moving star of light that faded along with the roar of the engines under power.
He reached for a telephone and dialled his home. Told his wife that he'd be home, but late, was irritable when she asked him where he was and where he'd been and didn't he know she'd been worried, didn't answer, and
