Gavin Lyall - Judas Country

ELAL flight 363 was an old Viscount 800 they must have borrowed from Arkia, and late, just as you'd expect with the way they search passengers at Tel Aviv nowadays. It was pretty full, mostly with a returning old folks' pilgrimage, each carrying a bottle of duty-free brandy and a bundle of Jerusalem walking-sticks. Then a couple of American families – and finally Ken.

I was watching from the terminal restaurant, looking down to the tarmac. He and another man came out of the door, paused at the head of the steps, then Ken walked quickly down, carrying what looked like his old flight briefcase. The other man stayed up there, watching. Ken came across until he was almost at the immigration entrance below me, then turned and jerked a stiff two fingers at the man back on the steps. The man didn't react. Ken vanished inside.

Twenty minutes later he came out of the Customs hall with the briefcase and a battered brown leather grip I remembered him buying in Florence eight years before. He was wearing an old pair of khaki trousers, faded to near white, and a new white shirt. For a few moments he stood there, letting the crowd flow around him, not really looking for anything and maybe only smelling the air. To me, the scent was sweat and floor polish, but it could have meant something different to him.

He was a couple of inches shorter than me and now thinner as well. The long lines down the side of his bony nose were cut deeper, his eyes barricaded with sun-crinkles, and for the first time there was grey in his lank black hair. But he'd been moving easily, though maybe a little warily, and he was still Ken Cavitt. And I was very glad to see him.

He sensed, rather than saw me moving towards him and jerked around. His face was blank for a couple of seconds, and then he began to smile. That hadn't changed.

We shook hands, sort of politely, and I said: 'Hello, Ken.'

'Hello, matey. Nice of you to remember.'

'Oh, I hadn't got anything better to do today, so…"

'Sure, sure.' He looked me carefully up and down; I was still wearing yesterday's smudged khaki drill trousers and shirt. 'Millionaire dress, huh?' He tapped my stomach. 'And a deposit account.'

'I'll slim tomorrow.'

'What happened to your face?'

I touched my jaw carefully. 'Got slugged last night. I'd say mugged if they'd taken anything.'

'Weird.' He looked along the terminal lobby. 'Can we get a drink or ten in here?'

'It comes wholesale back in town, but we can run some taxiing trials here first.' I headed us towards the stairs up to the restaurant – the bar downstairs doesn't serve spirits – then took out a packet of menthol-tipped cigarettes and offered them. 'You still on these?'

'I gave it up. You can't afford to have vices, inside. Somebody gets a hold and screws you.'

I nodded and tossed the unopened packet into a wastebin alongside an airport cop, who did a double-take and then carefully ignored the bin until we were out of sight.

I ordered two Scotches and two Keo beers – an old pattern, but only with Ken. I hadn't drunk like that in two years.

He took a bite of the Scotch and shuddered violently. 'Christ! Is that what whisky tastes like?'

I sipped cautiously. 'It seems normal…'

'Hell, to think I've spent two years dreaming of that.' He gulped at the beer, then took another cautious sip of Scotch. 'I guess I'll get used to it again. Where are we staying? – the Ledra?'

' Nicosia Castle.'

He frowned. 'Why that dump?'

'It's a bit complicated. But about your licences: I talked to the Civil Aviation people before I left London, and-'

'Ah, that can wait. Just tell me how rich we are.'

It was a moment I'd known would come, but that didn't make it any easier. 'Ken – we aren't rich.'

'Not quite millionaires, then. Have we still got the same aeroplane?'

ït'sfunny how few British pilots say 'plane'; I don't myself. Somehow, it would be like calling a woman you loved 'a good lay'.

I said carefully: 'We don't have any aeroplane.'

His face was suddenly very calm. 'Why not?'

'We only owned half of it – and d'you have any idea what a hot lawyer costs in Israel? By the time I'd got through paying for your defence…'

After a time, he said slowly: 'I knew it must be adding up, but… you should have let me go down without a fuss. Came to the same thing, anyway.'

'It wasn't sentiment. The business wasn't the aeroplane: it was you and me, and damn-all use in jail. You can get an aeroplane any time at any money.'

'If you can show the bank a cargo contract… Why didn't you tell me? You were writing.'

'Didn't think it would make two years go any faster.'

'You could be right, there.' The loudspeaker gurgled an announcement for a CSA flight to Prague, passengers please go to… Ken cocked his head to listen, then shook it, annoyed. 'You get too used to listening for orders. So, we're broke?'

'Within a few hundred.'

'D'you mind if I say "knickers"?'

'Make it "cami-knickers" if you like; I don't shock easily.'

'It can't be that bad.' He gulped the rest of his Scotch. 'Or should I have given it back and taken a refund?"

'We'll live.' I waved for refills.

He stared into his empty glass, then grinned suddenly. 'Busted. Well, we've been there before. More comfortable, somehow.'

'And all we have to do is start again. I may have ballsed things up, but you can't fly a business one-handed.'

'I know… It's just that you sit there on top of that mountain and bugger-all to do – not even needlework or carpentry classes – and damn few to talk to, and you think "Well, at least Roy's making our fortune".'

'I know. Sorry.'

'Ah, the hell with it. What've you been doing?'

'A while with an air-taxi outfit, Aztecs and Comanches. Then a North Sea oil company – that's where I got rated on the Queen Air-'

'What's so marvellous about that?'

'Sorry, I hadn't told you.' Our drinks arrived, then I told him about Castle's aeroplane and the firm going broke. 'So we spend a few days here getting you back on the primrose path, then they'll tell me to fly the aeroplane home. You come along, you can fly every inch of the way and that's ten hours' free practice. After that, all you have to do is take a medical and instrument rating, get a type-rating and once they've looked at your logbook you've got your licence back.'

He nodded approvingly. 'And you'd got all this worked out?'

'I didn't know Castle was going broke, but I knew I'd have to fly back empty anyway.'

'Neat. What mark of Queen Air?'

'The 65-80. Lycoming 380's, no long-range tanks, usual ADF,VOR,ILS, weather radar that's trying to pick up dirty pictures.'

'Radar's improved since my time. What's the weather up to, here?'

I told him as much as I remembered about the met situation -I hadn't picked up a report today – as we walked out towards the taxi rank.

He listened carefully. 'It's funny – it's almost the thing you miss most, not knowing the weather, not getting a report. You can work out a bit for yourself, when you can see the sky, but not knowing what's really happening up there… then you feel cut off. Shut in.'

'Uh-huh.' We were almost at the rank, but then the Czech Tu-104 started its takeoff and we stopped to watch, as pilots always do. It did it the old-fashioned way, getting the nosewheel off early and running nose-high for a while before sagging up into the sky.

'Takes you back,' Ken said. And it did: that was the way we'd learned to handle the early jets in the RAF, Meteors and NF 14's.

'It's an old design. When did it first come out? – '53? – '54?'

'As a bomber, earlier than that…' he watched it howl ponderously away to the north-west, and his eyes were screwed tight against the bright sky.