Kingfisher

by Gerald Seymour

  The three of them were together now, sitting crosslegged or sprawled on the bare boards of the floor. David was talking.

  'We must continue the fight, we must not give way to them. Whatever they do to us we must not allow them to destroy the group. If we have to go underground then that is what it shall be. If we have to try to go abroad then we must attempt it, through Czechoslovakia or Rumania. We must not lie down . . .' Rebecca had not heard him talk in this way before, realizing that he had no plan, nothing to offer. There was a strain in his voice, and he spoke louder than the level to which she was accustomed, his words coming staccato as if only through speech could he believe in himself. And Isaac was fidgeting and restless, unable to hide his frustration.

  'We have not the wherewithal to fight - no equipment,' said Isaac. They would hunt us till we were run down. Always they would be after us. We could not strike back.'

  'It is certain they have Moses?' asked Rebecca, seeking the consolation that would come if there were any hesitation in the reply, and knowing from the way David ignored her that there could be none.

  'We cannot just surrender,' said David. 'Not just because they have taken Moses ...'

  'Forget Moses, obliterate Moses. He's in a cell now, screaming to them, and it was he who lost his clothing, the one that could not hold the gun . . .' Isaac was shouting. And David shouting louder.

  'You cannot say that. How can you say that?'

  'Because it is true. Because he has no further part to play with us. Because it is as if he had never been part of us.' Isaac steadied, swept the control back through himself. He had no wish to launch his idea in controversy; he wanted their minds receptive. 'We could fly out,' he spoke with great deliberation. 'We could take a plane. We have a gun. It has happened before .. '

  'Impossible, we could never ...'

  'Where would we go ...?'

  '... and it has been successful, and .. .'

  'How to get aboard? You cannot just carry guns . .

  'We have no time to plan ...'

  '. . . we could do it. Don't you see the possibility, don't you see the opportunity?'

  They had all shouted together, each seeking to denounce the words of the other, their minds racing with objections, clarifications. And then silence. Isaac, his mouth closed, but smiling and knowing that by accident he had chosen his moment well. David blinking and trying to think through the turmoil in his mind. Rebecca shuffling on the boards, wanting to speak again, not knowing what to say.

  When Isaac spoke again it was still slowly, demanding no interruption, assessing his right to be heard out. 'We can take a plane. Fly it out. To the West. Then on to Israel. All of us together we can go to Israel. We have not much time, and we would have much to do in preparation, but it could be done. And none of us has another thought, any other prospect.'

  It seemed an age to David since he had listened to the ideas of another member of the group.

  He was strained, choked with the words that were hard to enunciate, and bowing his head in a gesture of deference.

  'We are listening. We want to know what you have thought of. Tell us.'

  There was a hesitation, then Isaac began to speak.

  'We have to take a plane. Divert it from an internal flight, because it is easier for us to buy the tickets for a flight inside Russia. We have to find one that has the range to take us to the West. To the BDR, or to Greece, or to Italy - it is not important. There are many places. Once we have landed and we are beyond their reach it does not matter. From there we can go to Israel. We should not fly directly there. Two reasons. It would be hard to find a plane with the necessary fuel, and too long we would spend over our airspace, and that of our friends and comrades.'

  Sarcasm and confidence, Isaac blossoming at his opportunity of holding the ring. 'First to the West, the nearest frontier, the nearest landfall, reach it while they are still confused, and there we will find petrol and friendship. We already have the gun, and one gun is enough if it is in the cockpit, beside the pilot. They cannot risk anything, not with the passengers to think of. They must follow our instructions. And we must go tomorrow. It will involve other people. All our parents have their savings and we will need those. We must have that money for the tickets. They are all good people - David's, Rebecca's, mine ... if we ask they will not query, they will know there is necessity, they need not know the reason. David, it was you that said we cannot just remain here, waiting for them to come for us. We are agreed on that. We have to go, and this is the way to go."

  "I have never been in a plane,' Rebecca said. And the two men laughed at the innocence of the remark, breaking the tension.

  'We must have tickets. There is no other way,' Isaac went on. T have been to the airport at Kiev twice to fly when we have had holidays, student holidays on the southern coast. It would not be possible just to run to a boarding plane and climb aboard. Too many guards, and all armed, and there is no access to the place where the planes are parked. We would have to board as normal passengers. No other option. But there will be no problem, not if the destination of the plane is far from the frontiers. And if there is suspicion then a bribe will see us through.

  'We let the plane get airborne, let the pilot start his journey, then we rush the cockpit. After that it is simple.' He paused, looking from David to Rebecca, stared hard at their eyes, burning the doubt from them. 'That is my plan. And what else can we achieve? Surely this is the gesture, on the grand scale, beyond the life of a mere policeman. Beyond the lives of a hundred policemen.

  People in many countries will know that the Jews of Russia are not dead and lifeless people, that we have something left to offer.'

  'We would need more guns,' said David, pensive now and far away. The primary decision had been taken and he was seeking the answers to the questions of detail.

  'We have one gun . . .' resentment from Isaac.

  'We do not attack you, Isaac.' David was quick to calm him. 'I think I know where, and without risk. But we must have more. I think I know where it is possible.'

  'In the West they have checks and searches - we have heard that on the radio. Because of the Palestinians they take precautions that people do not carry guns on to the planes. And it is the same here.' Her first intervention, and Rebecca hacking at the artery of the plan, where Isaac had been vague, because he did not possess the answer.

  'They have checks,' 'Isaac conceded.

  'How do we get past them?'

  Isaac paused, aggression pushing out his jaw, hardening it, 'I don't know. I have not had time to think of the small points.'

  David smiled, as if he were the old one among them, and solutions were more simple to him than the others. Not that there was any significant age difference, just that he was accustomed to taking control and the uncertainties of the last few minutes were banished. 'There was a report on the BBC many months ago. One of the planes, a British one, was taken by the Arab terrorists.

  There had been great security at the airport, all the passengers were thoroughly searched, and yet they had their guns when it came to the moment of taking the plane. The way they did it was simple. They had a friend, a friend who worked at the airport, and was therefore outside suspicion. It was he who placed the guns on board and hid them, all long before the passengers boarded. What had the Arabs to do? Only to go to a prearranged seat and find the bags. It was all on the BBC. And there is a man who is known to us, isn't there? Yevsei Allon, isn't that the name of the boy, Rebecca? In your class in ninth and tenth year. He is at the airport at Kiev ...'

  'But he is in the freight and the cargo. He would not have access to the cabins of planes.' An interruption, as if she were willing the project not to work. For it was out of the fantasy stage now and becoming something sharper, keener, more dangerous.

  'He will have to find a way, Rebecca, and it is you that must persuade him. You are the one that knew him best. You are the one that he will listen to.'

  'We rely on you.' Isaac was close beside her, hand
on her shoulder where it had not rested before. 'And we must rely on your friend. Otherwise we will not board the plane, and if we do not then we shall be taken. That is certain.'

  David rose from the floor, dusting the dirt from the seat of his trousers, pushing away the coil of hair that had slipped on his forehead. 'Rebecca, you will see Yevsei. Do not hurry yourself, or rush him, but put him in debt to you. Make him a favour that he must repay, and then arrange a rendezvous again tomorrow morning. By then I will have the guns. Isaac, you must go to the Aeroflot booking centre, the big one on Kreshchatik where they will be busiest. A flight tomorrow afternoon that goes far into the interior. A four-hour flight we will want, not less, so we have sufficient fuel. It is for you to decide where we go, and the way you will purchase the tickets. But it must be in the afternoon - if that is not too late.'

  'Where do we sleep tonight?' Rebecca asked.

  'You, I don't know,' and David laughed, a twist in his lips. 'Isaac and I, we sleep here, and this is where you should come when you have finished with Yevsei. If they have broken Moses then they will come in the morning for us ... to our homes. Rebecca, you understand what confronts us? You know what is the future if they take us? Basement cells and interrogations, and then they will shoot us or hang us, as the will takes them. There is no mercy, no clemency to those who seek to kill the pigs, not if one is on his back in the hospital and perhaps about to die. Yevsei is important to us, do not forget that. If you want to grow old, to bear children, if you want to know the breadth of Israel - then Yevsei must help you.'

  They were all on their feet and moving towards the door. He put out his arms and took her, lightly holding her shoulders and urged her towards him, so that her forehead was against his mouth, and he kissed her gently, just below the hairline and for the first time. 'Tomorrow night we will sleep in the West. Do not forget that. Tomorrow we go.'

  The two men watched her as she broke away and went down the path towards the track that would take her to the main road. She did not look back, and her shoulders were hunched except when they straightened and rose in small convulsions, the action of one who is crying. Then she was gone, lost in the trees. Neither boy looked at the other, avoiding a meeting of their eyes and feelings. Had chosen the easier road, both of them. Had given themselves tasks that were not comparable to hers, and felt a clutch of guilt, shared and unspoken. The clinging silence of the forest spread across them when her footsteps had died and faded. Brave little girl, Isaac thought, if she will do this for us, brave little girl, not that he'll have an easy time of it, old Yevsei, not that the winning and wooing would be simple, or painless.

  'Will it work, Isaac?' asked David, staring beyond him into the undergrowth.

  'There is no alternative. This way offers us a chance. Not a good chance, but something.

  Without it we are condemned.'

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was two years since they had given Charlie Webster a room of his own.

  He hadn't really known whether to be flattered or grateful or what. It gave him a certain importance to be able to turn a key in the door when he went off for lunch, leaving an empty desk behind him as he headed for the lift and the fifteen-floor descent in the tower block that overlooked the Thames. Not that many of the deskmen for the 'Firm' enjoyed the privilege of only themselves for company. Trouble was that he could never quite satisfy himself as to whether the room was in recognition of the work he now did or simply a reward for services rendered.

  'Foreign Office', Charlie called himself to those who asked but who did not know him. 'Well, not exactly Foreign Office,' his wife would say, 'but something like it, to do with Foreign Affairs anyway.' Fact was he never went near Whitehall. Too public. You couldn't be certain there wouldn't be some of those bloody agency photographers hanging about waiting for an ambassador or something, and he didn't want his photograph plastered all over the front pages just because he happened to be following a Venezuelan or a Zambian diplomat into the place. But since they came under the Foreign Office wing, and that was where the Under Secretary who now headed the Department had worked before his transfer, it was most convenient for members of the Secret Intelligence Service to bracket themselves with the herd of diplomats and civil servants who ran the public side of Britain's dealings with overseas governments.

  Charlie worked to the Soviet Desk. Nine of them in all, answerable to Cecil Parker Smith, obe, mc, and most of them concerned with things military. That put four in the same room where they fiddled in each other's hair and didn't get much done, and thought they were the cream for the cat.

  Two more on politics, the heavy fellows who spent their time reading the speeches of the Kremlin men, poor buggers. One for economics: he had a room to himself, and needed it, kept him going flat out, flogging his way through text books and brochures and progress reports. Then there was the one they called the Real Estate Man; he was the speculator, and his job was to predict long-range changes in Soviet attitudes and postures; worked to the letter of his brief and kept his thinking right in the far term, to the extent of sitting most of the day with his pipe in his mouth watching the pleasure boats negotiating Lambeth Bridge.

  And there was Charlie, the ninth.

  Last Christmas party, all a bit drunk, they'd christened him 'Double Diamond'- seen it as a hell of a laugh - and he'd looked blank, and they'd explained. 'DD'- those were the initials for his work. He'd still looked vacant and wondered why grown men always spent the last two days before the holidays dropping everything to gum paper streamers together to drape across the ceiling, and they'd shouted, 'sub-Desk Dissidents'. They'd all thought it hilarious, falling about over themselves. But that was his charge - sub-Desk Dissidents.

  There was something to find out: couldn't doubt that. There were groups, cells, sections - call them what you want-that were alive and well and kicking faintly" inside the womb of the big red monolith. Not as many as there had been a decade before, but certainly some still there. Problem was that Charlie's job was to put them in perspective, extract any relevance from them. Much of his material came from emigre groups either in London or scattered across the cities of Western Europe, hopelessly unreliable people who would have you believe the whole bloody place was on the point of mass insurrection if you could only drop a Hercules load of Stirlings and FNs and grenades into People's Square, Novosibirsk. You had to weed and prune. Use the cosmetics to brighten the facade, and then search the cross-references and the files. Slowly, patiently - that's the way you touched on the subtle signs that pointed the way to the trends so beloved by his masters. Ukraine was usually fertile. There were bits and pieces from the Baltic; quite a little set-to they'd had in the Department over the Russian war ship that tried a flit to Sweden and that took a hammering from its own air force and turned back shot up; sub-Desk Military said it was theirs, Charlie claimed it too. Parker Smith sat for half a day on it while nobody spoke in the outer offices, then did his Solomon and gave it to sub-Desk Military. Followed by appeasing Charlie, told him he was doing too much valuable work for him to mess about working on something that was common knowledge to every European NATO set-up. Quite a ripple they'd had over that one. Bit of activity last year down in Georgia; Charlie had liked that because it came right out of the blue. Hadn't expected anything on that sort of scale, not a dozen bombs, quite excited him. He'd wondered what sort of devices they used, where they'd learned the trade.

  He realized it was the technique, the string and the Sellotape, the timers and detonators, that absorbed him. Should have been ashamed really - and him supposed to be an analyst.

  It was interesting work in its way, but Charlie had to pinch himself from time to time to make sure that it was actually important. He'd done enough in his life that was classified as vital, in the

  'national interest'. Cyprus had been special, because attitudes were different then, and he was younger, and public opinion accepted that young men would go abroad and die in the sunshine for the preservation of something or othe
r. Aden, too, though nastier there, and the last of its type, and people beginning to bore at the concept of 'our lads overseas', but a serious place where survival took skill if you did Charlie's work. And Ireland wasn't pretty, not in Dublin, and you had to know what the Provies were at, and you spent your nights low down in cars outside the pubs watching for who went in and who came out, and who was talking to whom, and had he done it before. That was important all right if you wanted a man to be able to take his missus for a Friday night jar in the local in Birmingham, or Manchester, or Glasgow or Guildford. Had the

  '74 campaign and the '75 campaign, and the bombs taking off the arms and legs, and the glass scything the faces, to show for justification of spending his evenings watching the Paddys at their booze. But hard to convince himself that what he did now was of value. Nice to know, of course, that Big Brother was having difficulties as he sat all serene behind his watch towers, his mine fields and barbed-wire fences. Nice to know that the mosquitoes were out and nibbling, that he was scratching a bit, that he'd be

  turning over in his bed and cursing.