Gerald Seymour - Kingfisher

Her hand flew from his sleeve, leaving him free to walk on unimpeded. If Isaac had heard he showed no sign of it- stern faced, regular stride. All three of them continued their way across the tiled floorway.

Beyond the doors there was an airline official, bored and uninterested, who checked their tickets and the boarding passes and matched their names written there against the plastic-coated identity cards, not troubling to marry the Polaroid photographs with the actual likenesses. Further on, the high arch through which passengers had to pass and which showed whether they carried metallic objects in their pockets. This was the realm of the frontier guards, pistols hanging on their hips, and clean uniforms with wide-peaked caps. The man in front of them was stopped when the small green light that the guardsman watched changed abruptly to flashing red and his body was searched till a cigarette packet was retrieved from his trousers and he was shown the silver paper wrapping that had caused the detector to activate. Thank God we carried nothing, Isaac said to himself. Then it was their turn, and the light stayed green, and they walked past the guard, and on.

All of them braced themselves, shoulders stiffened as if to ward off a blow, as if they were expecting a shout from behind. But there was none, just a sun-filled lounge, with the ashtrays overflowing and paper on the floor, and dust and grime, and children shouting and running between the wooden benches, and a teacher's command. Across the room from them were the windows through which they could all see the tidy, painted profile of the Ilyushin 18 turbo-prop airliner, due to depart for Tashkent in thirty-five minutes.

In a tight phalanx the little group approached the forward steps of the aircraft. All of them sweating from the slight exertion of the walk across the apron. The captain to the front, straight backed, grey hair thinning, uniform pressed, rank denoted by the gold rings sewn to his tunic sleeve, carrying his cap easily in his hand. A pace behind him the navigator with his briefcase filled with the maps that covered the air routes of the southern area of the Soviet Union over which they would fly to Tashkent. Alone, not seeming to wish to engage in conversation with her male flight deck companions, was the co-pilot. Anna Tasnova's skirt rode high on her knees as she maintained their pace. She felt once at the knot of her thin black tie, unnecessary and unfeminine she thought it, but if it were decreed that it should be worn then it was her obligation to make certain that it bisected her collar with precision. The two flight stewardesses, acknowledging they were not part of the cockpit club, came last, handbags on their shoulders, talking of men and prices, and hotels, and the boredom of it all.

At the bottom of the forward steps the captain waited, a fixed smile on his face, for the young technician in overalls to hurry down the stairs. The boy should have waited for them, should not have obstructed and delayed their boarding. He seemed in a rush, and bounced against the captain's shoulder. No apology, just something indistinct mumbled from behind his teeth.

'Dirty little bastard,' the captain said. 'Soap and water, but perhaps he's never heard of them.'

The navigator laughed cheerfully, all the more for the sneer of distaste on the co-pilot's small mouth as if the retreating, jogging boy had left an odour behind which would contaminate all of them.

'We'll be off on time today, sir.'

'Well, don't blame me for it. Accidents happen even to the best of us.'

More smiles, and a moment of gallantry from the men – stepping aside that Anna Tashova and the stewardesses should be first on the steps.

The major of the Committee of State Security – KGB- worked from a smaller and less imposing building than his colleague in the militia security police. The address was not listed in the telephone directory, and was known only to those civilians who had a need for the knowledge.

The major was a frugal man who seldom took more than thirty minutes for his lunch, but since the arrest of Moses Albyov and his subsequent suicide he had not left his office, sleeping the previous two nights on an army bed that graced one corner of the room.

At half-past three the grey telephone on his desk, the direct line that by-passed the switchboard, rang out. A short message and from militia headquarters.

The Jew had been identified.

Quite clever really. The photograph they had taken of him showed indents at the sides of his face from the arms of spectacles, recent enough, but not worn when he had been brought in. One of the patrolmen from the car had said he might have been wearing them when he was taken; and the wounded policeman's description on which the arrest had been made, that had included spectacles. They had found them in the gutter where the street sweeper had pushed them, and the luck was that the lenses were still intact. The major had been kind enough to say that it would be police work that would identify the boy, and that was what it had been. A photograph of the glasses, an analysis of the lenses, a photograph of the boy, and twenty-five detectives touring the city's eye clinics. It was faster than doing it with the boy's teeth: fewer spectacle wearers than those requiring extractions and fillings.

And now they had a name, and were cross-checking with the statutory civil authority dossier.

Moses Albyov, residing at 428B Avenue of the First of May; a workers' quarter in the northern suburbs, he was informed, and also that there was no previous record of violence, and that two cars had left for the address and would be there within a quarter of an hour. Smash the little bastards, he thought, smash them till they screamed like the rats they were. Not long till they'd have their hands on them; the Albyov parents would tell of the associates, would have them all in the cells by dawn.

No delays on the departure of Aeroflot flight 927 to Tashkent. On time, on schedule. The passengers walked the hundred yards to the plane, in untidy caterpillar file out across the tarmac, heat streaming back at them from the great, open surface, burning through the soles of their footwear, driving their eyes together with everything beyond the middle distance dissolving into a haze.

'The seats run A-B-C down one side of the aisle, and D-E-F on the other,' David said to Isaac.

They were near the plane now and walking to the rear exit where the steps had been wheeled up, and there was an angle of shade thrown by the single high-tail structure. 'Yevsei told Rebecca the package would be on the right-hand side, level with the nineteenth row, and would be under the blankets, the blankets that they store in the luggage shelf at the top. We must get on the plane quickly, before the herd, so that one of us can sit in that row and the rest close by. I Will try and see that it is me. When I take the package I will go to the toilet at the back to get the guns assembled. Give me two minutes, then come and knock at the door. Quite soon we will go, after ten minutes, when the seat belt sign is off.'

David was the first of the three on to the steps, Isaac close behind, Rebecca separated by a dozen passengers. David climbed steadily, his speed dictated by the pace of those in front. To any passenger who glanced casually among his fellow travellers David would have aroused no particular interest, his inner tensions successfully masked. He seemed confident and relaxed as he ducked his head through the low doorway. He hesitated for a moment, sizing up the long cigarlike interior of the plane, with the duck-egg decor and green-backed seats stretching away from him to the distant cream-painted door that was half-open, so that he could see the silhouettes of the shoulders of pilot and co-pilot. Isaac nudged him, and he walked down the aisle, noting the row numbers. Row 19, aisle seat C. Isaac opposite him, Row 19, aisle seat D. The package would be above Isaac, and the boy hadn't look for it, was settling in his seat, fastening his safety belt.