by James Blatch
“Mark. Red Brunson isn’t here. I think we have a problem.”
Stafford didn’t take his eyes off Rob, and Rob continued to stare back at him, no longer covering the controls. Any serious problem from Guiding Light now would consume all three of them.
Rob raised his hands up to emphasise the situation.
He pushed his loosely hanging oxygen mask over his mouth and spoke, with no attempt to disguise his own voice. “I think we’ll stay low,” he said, slowly and deliberately.
The aircraft continued to clank about in the thick surface air, but despite the rough ride, Mark Kilton had unstrapped. His face appeared between Rob and Stafford at the top of the pilots’ ladder.
Rob moved his right hand to the control column; his left hovered over the Guiding Light control panel by the side of the seat.
Rob reattached his oxygen mask and faced front. “If you try to take control, I’ll push us into the ground. If you try to cancel Guiding Light, I will push us into the ground.”
He could hear the desperation in his own voice.
Kilton shook his head, contempt burning in his eyes.
“Are you out of your mind, May? How the hell did you get in here? Where’s Brunson?”
“Red thought it best that I got a final chance to demonstrate Guiding Light to the only two men who can stop it.”
“Did he? Well, that’s another career ended. What is wrong with you stupid people? Now, for Christ’s sake, get us away from the ground.”
“Is there a reason why we shouldn’t be putting Guiding Light to the test, sir? Do you need me to climb away and leave this to some other crews?”
“Climb the bloody aircraft to one thousand feet as ordered. That’s a final warning, May.”
There was the merest edge of desperation in Kilton’s voice. Rob enjoyed it. He saw an image of him standing naked in front of Kilton in the changing room.
“I’ll ask again, boss. Why do you need me to climb? Is there a problem? Is there a specific reason why we shouldn’t trust Guiding Light to keep us safe at low-level?” He looked across at Stafford as he spoke and then noticed Kilton looking at the flying controls. Instinctively, he turned back to the front and covered the throttle and control column with his hands.
They swept left into a valley, then rolled right. The hills had become steeper. So far, the nimble airframe was coping well.
“Ewan, pull the stick back,” said Kilton.
Rob looked across at the Blackton MD. “We’re doing three hundred and twenty knots at three hundred feet. If you try to fight me for it, it will all be over in an instant.”
Stafford’s eyes were still bulging; the man looked terrified. He looked down at the stick and then back to Kilton and shook his head.
“Right,” Kilton said. “Stafford, get out of that seat.”
Kilton stripped off his rear crew harness.
Rob looked across, alarmed to see Stafford actually unstrapping. Eventually, Stafford’s hands moved to the five-point quick release; he seemed to be having trouble.
The TFU boss heaved himself up the ladder, shoving Rob in the process. Rob held the stick firmly, ready to fight physically for control if necessary, but Kilton ignored him and fumbled with Stafford’s straps, eventually freeing the civilian.
Stafford extricated himself from the cockpit and disappeared behind into the gloom. Did he know how to put on the rear crew harness that Kilton had discarded somewhere? No time to brief him now.
Kilton clambered through and got himself into the co-pilot’s seat.
While the TFU boss fiddled with the ejection seat pins and switches, Rob tried to anticipate his next move.
He needed to make it too risky for Kilton to attempt to take control.
He moved his hand down to the panel by his left side and dialled the target height down to one hundred and fifty feet. The aircraft suddenly lurched down and Kilton looked up in alarm.
The ground flashed past, and Rob realised he had set the Vulcan on a flight path at the extremes of its abilities; he could not afford to take his attention away.
“Robert,” Kilton spoke calmly, with a softer tone. “I know you’re upset. We can talk about this. In a moment, I’m going to take control and I need you to keep your hands away from the controls.”
“Sorry, sir, I don’t think the promise of a talk is enough.”
The aircraft continued its descent. Rob saw Kilton in his peripheral vision, tensing himself, just as the jet levelled again. The manoeuvre sent both men up in their straps.
Rob heard a clunk behind. He craned his neck around to see Ewan Stafford recovering himself, after being knocked off his feet.
An image of Millie flashed into his mind.
“We’re at the mercy of Guiding Light, now.”
Rob nodded ahead at the unreal sight of mountain sides looming above them and the aircraft rising and falling to avoid the higher trees.
“Even the slightest aberration from the laser and we’ll be dead in an instant. You might get a chance to eject, I suppose.” He looked back toward Stafford, who had now got himself into a seat, and had managed to connect his PEC. “But as you’ve taken Mr Stafford’s ejection seat, he will of course go down with the jet, should Guiding Light have any issues.”
“For Christ’s sake, Mark,” Stafford squawked over the crackly intercom, “take over control. I’ve had enough of this.”
“Then you agree there’s a problem?” Rob asked.
“Shut up, Ewan!” Kilton barked.
Kilton twisted in his seat, his eyes burning into Rob.
“This is simple, sir. If this system is safe, as you and Mr Stafford have told us, then there will be no issue. We have full tanks and we can fly for three hours at this height, just as RAF jets would be required to across the Soviet Union.”
“This is dangerous, May, and you know it.”
“Dangerous, sir? Is it?”
Kilton stared at him.
“I’m waiting,” Rob added, liking the way he sounded in control.
Kilton shook his head, smiled and grabbed the co-pilot’s control column, wrenching it back toward him.
The Vulcan’s nose pitched up.
“NO!” screamed Rob, and he rammed his column forward in an explosion of anger.
He must have taken Kilton by surprise, as the column moved all the way forward, Kilton’s hand slipping from its grip. Suddenly, they were plummeting again, the ground filling the windshield.
Shit.
Rob eased the stick back and looked across; Kilton was pale, his hands in the air.
“OK, OK, OK. For Christ’s sake, May, you nearly killed us.”
Rob looked down to check that Guiding Light had remained engaged. It had.
He looked across in time to see Kilton’s hand move back to the control column. Rob shook his head, and flexed his fingers, as if to demonstrate his readiness to dive them into oblivion.
But Kilton simply pressed the autopilot cancel switch on the far side of the column.
Nothing happened.
Rob felt the control move. The autopilot was still in control, still connected to Guiding Light.
Red’s tricks with the circuit breakers had worked. By following the scrawled checklist, he had disabled all the safety systems that would normally cancel the automations.
“It’s no good, sir. You’re along for this ride whether you like it or not.”
He released his grip and let the Vulcan sink again, settling into its bumpy ride at one hundred and fifty feet.
The hills loomed around them. The Vulcan banked right, then rolled left, with extra power fed in. It wrenched them around an outcrop into a narrow valley.
Rob looked ahead and wondered if they would eventually fly into a position the aircraft was simply not capable of getting out of. Even a fully working Guiding Light had its limits.
He glanced back at the TFU boss. The blood had drained from his cheeks, and he stared back.
“You know this system is flawed,”
said Rob. “You know it killed Millie and yet you expect us to sit back and watch you roll it out into service?”
“Us? Who else is in on this lunacy, May?”
“Are you still trying to work out who to punish, sir? You’d be surprised how few friends you have left.”
The aircraft rose sharply. They were pinned in their seats for a couple of seconds before it rolled right and descended, sending their stomachs floating up. Rob felt sick again.
“You’re pushing it too far, May. Climb and let’s talk.”
“I don’t think so, sir. Let’s talk now. Tell me about the 8.75 figure. We derived it, thanks to Millie, from the mainframe computer operated by the maths department at Oxford University. But you must have your own version of this figure from the hours of tapes sent to Cambridge. What is it? A number low enough to disappear into the background of statistics. Was that part of your calculation? A price worth paying. Just like the V-Bomber rear crews at low-level without an effective escape system? The same thing all over again. I wonder if you still think it’s a price worth paying, now that it’s your life?”
Kilton stared at him.
“So bloody what?” he said, eventually. “That’s what you flew halfway across southern England to find out? Who the hell cares? No system is one hundred per cent safe, May. Aircraft crash. Men die. That’s what you signed up for. You’re a fucking wet blanket, and if I didn’t know it before, then I do now. You have no place in the military.”
Rob was momentarily lost for words. He had expected some sort of argument about the facts, not a callous dismissal of the consequences. He turned his head back to try and make eye contact with Stafford in the rear crew compartment.
“You as well, Mr Stafford? Are Guiding Light crews expendable for your success?”
Stafford didn’t reply; he was too busy being terrified.
“You’re a fool, May.” Kilton spoke calmly. “A cowardly, ill-advised fool. Real men take risks every day for what we believe in.”
The aircraft hit a pocket of air and thumped down before recovering.
“For Christ’s sake, Mark.” Stafford’s voice croaked from the darkness behind. “End this.”
The aircraft rolled, sweeping into a larger valley complex. It looked like a dead end ahead, but Rob had been here before and knew it opened up at the last minute. He’d never flown this low before. He hoped the aircraft was not about to be taken beyond its performance limits.
“Maybe we’ll all die?” Rob said quietly, while looking at the tight passage ahead. “It would serve my purpose, wouldn’t it?” He looked across at Kilton. “The boys know enough now, and this crash would be the final nail in Guiding Light’s coffin. You wouldn’t be around to cover anything up.”
“You’d kill yourself to prove a point?”
“I don’t think you realise what I’m living with, boss.” The walls of rock were fast approaching dead ahead. “I ended it for Millie, didn’t I? I played your game. I took us back down to three hundred feet, against his wishes. I ignored him, even belittled him, with you. You really got me, didn’t you? But now, in a simple moment, I can make it right.”
The Vulcan reacted to the sharply changing relief. The wings rolled just as the valley opened up. Kilton’s hands moved to the panel in front to steady himself, and the huge Vulcan banked steeply left, then immediately right to negotiate the tight channel.
There was no bang, no sudden moment of black.
Rob moved his hand to the control panel, and this time dialled them down to a hundred feet.
The aircraft shifted down among the trees and meadows; the ride became bumpier and more violent.
“That’s enough, May!” Kilton bawled. “We’re lower than the bloody wingspan, you fool!”
Rob stared straight ahead, still covering the controls.
This is why Susie, Red and the others were urging caution from him.
They must have known it would come to this.
“Look, maybe I was too harsh on you,” said Kilton. “I can reverse the transfer. Have you back at TFU. But you’re wrong about Guiding Light. If we wait for perfection, it will never get released. We’ll never equip with it and we will lose the chance to take the Soviets down. Think about the bigger picture, for Christ’s sake. Take us up, Rob. You’ve proved your point.”
Rob didn’t move his head. He kept his eyes on the flight path ahead.
“I don’t think so.”
“Christ, Kilton, that’s it,” said Stafford. “Get us out of here. I don’t care what it takes. May, I will personally stop production of Guiding Light. I promise.”
Rob looked across at Kilton. “I need to hear it from you.”
The aircraft plunged, and Rob grabbed the control column, but it was just the laser guiding them down a gully. Rob released his grip and allowed the computer to continue.
“I’ll say no such thing. You think I’m scared, May? I faced death every day in 1940 and didn’t back down once. Your generation don’t know the half of it. You’re a coward, and you don’t deserve the freedom we fought for. And you’re a naive fool for thinking the enemy is not coming for us again. And when he does, you’ll be begging for Guiding Light to keep you safe from his missiles.” Kilton turned his head around, although Rob doubted he could see Stafford in the back. “And as for you… You were never cut out for the front line. Shut the hell up and speak when spoken to.”
Rob’s blood pumped around his body, his legs shaking with adrenaline. He concentrated as hard as he could on keeping the aircraft flying.
“I don’t think you understand,” Rob said. “I can’t go back having failed. I don’t care about my job, or even prison. The only thing that scares me is going to sleep every night for the rest of my life knowing I failed Millie in every possible way.”
“Take us back up, May. This is your final warning.”
“Or what, sir? I think you’re out of options.”
“He’s right,” Stafford shouted. “Give in, for Christ’s sake, Kilton.”
The aircraft rolled right, and the nose pulled around, wrenching them into a wider valley with a lake.
Rob’s left hand squeezed the control column while his right hand rested on the throttles.
A strange sense of calm washed over him. Kilton had nowhere to go; he would know that any attempt to interfere with the flying controls would end in disaster.
The Vulcan shot over the end of the lake, then rose and fell over a small hill.
The wings rolled left and they headed toward the deepest section of Welsh hills.
Rob’s mind turned over, trying to work out how to bring this to a conclusion.
But Kilton was on the move, unstrapping from his seat.
The TFU boss lunged across the cockpit. His hands landed with a thud on Rob’s stomach.
Rob grabbed the stick, ready to fight for control.
But Kilton’s hands didn’t go to the control column or the throttle.
Rob looked at Kilton’s head, his dark eyes just inches from Rob’s as he leant across at full stretch from his seat.
“What the hell?”
Kilton smiled.
Rob lowered his head to see what Kilton was holding.
Both his hands were on Rob’s ejection seat handle.
“Shit.”
Terrified, he stared back at Kilton. “It’ll rip your arms off!”
“No, Rob. I’ll have one second. You should read the pilots’ notes more carefully.”
The aircraft rolled into a steep right hand bank; an ejection now would surely be fatal.
Rob grabbed Kilton’s fingers and attempted to prise them off the yellow-and-black cord.
“No! Not now!”
Kilton actually laughed at him and yanked the handle firmly up.
There was a loud bang above them, and Rob looked up to see nothing but grass.
With that sight, he knew his life was about to end.
No more decisions to make; it was over.
The seat erupted u
nderneath him.
33
Friday 14th July
One Week Later
Mary hadn’t moved for some time. She let her eyes rest on the changing morning sky. The fiery reds of dawn had replaced the first rays of pale white light.
Over the past week she’d become an expert at mornings. She now knew her blackbirds from her greenfinches just by their call; the birdsong that had for so long just been a background noise in a busy life.
A busy life, until time had stopped. One week ago.
There was a tap at the door. It opened, and a small, pretty woman with a black bob of hair entered the room.
Mary smiled, glad of the company.
“Morning,” they said to each other, and Mary went back to studying the sky.
“Newspapers?”
Susie offered a small pile of the dailies, but Mary couldn’t bring herself to read anyone else’s news.
“The story’s appeared,” Susie said.
“Oh.”
“The local MP is a bit rattled. He’s spilled a few beans.” Susie proffered the papers again.
Mary struggled to focus on the print.
“Would you mind reading it to me?”
“Of course.”
Susie sat on the edge of a high-backed, green-cushioned chair and opened The Daily Telegraph.
The headline at least was clear.
MP TO QUESTION MINISTERS OVER SECOND RAF BOMBER DISASTER.
Susie read the article aloud. “Wiltshire Central MP, Sir Alan Giddings, is to raise the recent brace of fatal RAF crashes with ministers in the House of Commons, later today. Yesterday, it emerged that the Vulcan bomber crash, which occurred in mid-Wales a week ago, was the second such loss from the same RAF station in the space of a fortnight. The spotlight is now on the secretive RAF West Porton, north of Salisbury and in the heart of Sir Alan’s constituency.
“Details of the accidents are scarce. An official spokesman for the MOD has told The Daily Telegraph that due to the nature of the work carried out at West Porton, they would release no formal details; however, the public can rest assured the trial that linked the two accidents has been halted.