The Henchmen's Book Club

by Danny King

  How did I feel about heights?

  “First strike operators away!”

  The brackets above our heads released and we plunged through the bomb bay doors and into the abyss in rows of three, two seconds apart.

  The air was crystal clear around us and roared past our visors as we dead-dropped a thousand feet from the Tupolev before our engines automatically kicked in and blasted us forward. Tiny wings unfolded behind our knees and our chariots began to respond as we pulled on their sticks to climb once more.

  We spread out to get our bearings before regrouping for our approach. A few more switches locked our guidance systems onto the C-17 Globemaster ten miles ahead and we accelerated as a unit on a count of three. Our chariots could travel just short of Mach 1 at this altitude, which closed the gap between us and the C-17 in no time at all, though we all had to remember to wear our thermals.

  It was only when we fanned out into our attack formation that I noticed there were now only eleven of us. Someone’s chariot hadn’t started. I didn’t know whose, but from the hastily redrafted orders that were now buzzing my left ear, I hazarded a guess that it had been someone in the third drop row, which meant either Mr Woo, Mr Hodgson or Mr Passey. Somewhat selfishly I hoped it was Mr Hodgson, as he’d voted against adding The Hound of The Baskervilles to our reading list.

  Not that I had much time to think about it. We’d been spotted by the C-17 the moment our engines started because a starburst of decoys exploded in the skies right behind its tail and two of her three F-16 escorts peeled away to engage us.

  “Break right!” Chariot Five told me and together we ripped through the blue and into the sun.

  The nearest F-16 chased us, but we were too small and too fast for his plane’s guidance computer to lock onto and without the time to reprogram it, he went route one and opened up with his 20-mm cannons.

  A stream of white-hot lead filled the skies around us but the spread smacked of panic fire. We were so many in number and swarming all over him that he failed to pick out any single one of us.

  After a few seconds of aerial mating, I swung around behind him and was rewarded with an urgent beeping in my left ear to tell me I now had missile lock. I wiggled my thumb to fire off four missiles and was momentarily blinded by their smoke trails as they raced for their target. The F-16 saw them as soon as they left my tubes and the pilot threw his plane in a desperate bank of rolls and turns as he fought to prolong his career in the US Air Force but it was to be in vain. More and more mini air-to-air missiles started homing in on him and when the first caught his wing, it knocked him into an unstoppable corkscrew that sent him spiralling towards the sea.

  The pilot ejected a moment before the second, third and fourth missiles struck home, obliterating his place of work in a flash of light, to join Mr Woo in the drink.

  The remaining missiles circled for a few seconds more, sniffing their own tails as they searched for another target before taking a shine to the poor unfortunate pilot himself. All at once they darted in his direction with merciless intent and I could hardly look when all four self-destructed just a few hundred yards short as Mr Smith in Chariot One hit the kill override. He’d said he would do this if this happened. All we wanted were the F-16s out of the sky and now we’d achieved this, why kill for the sake of killing? It was bad karma. If truth were told, I wasn’t that fussed one way or the other. The F-16 pilot was going to have his work cut out walking away from this day’s work as it was, so a couple of hours dying inch-by-inch in the frozen north Atlantic would’ve probably had him cursing Mr Smith for his clemency anyway.

  The other F-16 pilots didn’t have the same quandaries as they’d not been as quick with their ejector seats, so after just another thirty seconds of aerial ballet the C-17 found itself flying on alone – unescorted, unprotected and open for business.

  Phase one of Operation Sky Flame complete. Proceed with phase two.

  When the Chariots regrouped, we found there were now only nine of us. Two more had gone the way of the crabs, but such losses had been factored into the planning of this skyjacking so we had more than enough men to see through our objectives.

  We pushed our sticks in the direction of the C-17 and closed the distance in a little over two minutes. In all that time, we could hear the C-17’s pilot sending out Maydays to whoever was listening, which would have been quite an audience to be honest. Two carrier groups had straddled the Atlantic below us to underwrite this particular plane’s transit across the pond and they were no doubt scrambling as many fighters as they could into the air this very minute. We had time, but not an inexhaustible supply of it.

  “Flight KT-315, you are instructed to drop to twenty thousand feet and slow to two-hundred knots,” Mr Smith told the C-17’s pilot as we formed up around the plane.

  The pilot ignored us and continued to send his Mayday.

  “Flight KT-315, failure to comply will result in the downing of this plane,” Mr Smith warned him, but the pilot continued to do his own thing.

  All at once, the C-17 banked violently, throwing its wings at our starboard formation. He was too slow and too ungainly to catch us though so instead he took the C-17 into a steep dive to leave us in his jet-stream.

  “Take him,” came the order, so we dived after transport and fell some twenty thousand feet before levelling off at twenty-five. We descended on him immediately and despite another couple of abortive rolls the C-17 knew he couldn’t get away. All he could do was play for time.

  Chariot Four was the first to try reigning him in, trailing the C-17’s wing until they were like a shark and pilot fish swimming through an ocean of blue and white, but one particularly thick bank of cloud told for Mr Clarke as the C-17 flipped Chariot Four into the ocean with a flick of its portside fin.

  Chariot Six was next to try, along with me riding Chariot Five. We closed in on a wing each and synchronised our flight paths until we were within touching distance. I knew I was one turn of the stick away from total disaster, but a little LED light started blinking on my instrument display, so I flicked the limpet-switch and was sucked hard onto the wing. And not a moment too soon either. The C-17 rolled once more, hoping to bat me into the blue, but the pilot would’ve had more luck simply strolling out onto the wing to tell me to “clear off” because I was now stuck fast and going nowhere.

  Chariot Six had made it too and quickly got to work overriding the plane’s controls. Three minutes and a few magnetic cables later and the Globemaster’s pilot was suddenly redundant. We now had the plane.

  We took it down to the altitude and speed we wanted and the remaining Chariots formed up around it. Two of them rode up alongside the cockpit, while the remaining four dropped back to the plane’s rear. As hard as the C-17 tried, they couldn’t stop us from rolling open the rear doors by remote control.

  A volley of small arms fire immediately erupted from the cargo hold to scatter the trailing Chariots.

  “Flight KT-315, hold your fire. I repeat, hold your fire or we will retaliate,” those on board were told, but the crew were determined to go out draped in flags and continued trying to repel us, leaving ourselves no option but to do things the hard way.

  With Chariot Six flying the plane, I was surplus to requirements on the wings, so I deactivated my limpet and fell back a few hundred feet before my engine rebooted. I straightened up, stopped swirling and fired my boosters, clawing my way back through the sky until I came up beneath the plane where most of the other Chariots had clustered.

  Some foolhardy USAF Rambos were hanging out over the tail ramp emptying M4 Carbines in our direction, but it would’ve taken a lucky shot to nail us from that distance, so we sailed in zig-zags to draw their fire as Chariots One and Three climbed up and around before dropping behind the tail to strafe them with 9-mm hollow points.

  Several bodies fell out of the plane then Mr Smith put on a burst and took Chariot One right into the cargo hold.

  “I’m in,” came the staccato radio burst. With th
at as our cue, three more of us dropped around and accelerated into the back of the plane, crashing through crates and cargo netting before deploying grappling anchors to stop us from tumbling straight out again.

  I slapped a button on the side of my helmet to turn my black visor clear and unclipped my harness to roll out of my Chariot.

  Bullets were pinging all around me as the crew fired from deep within the belly of their aircraft, but their situation was only getting worse as their day wore on. Only ten minutes earlier they’d been a routine military flight, protected on three sides by the latest F-16 fighters and two carrier groups, now their escorts were gone, half their crew was dead, they’d lost control of their aircraft and armed raiders were on-board in numbers.

  I shook off my thick thermal gloves, flexed my fingers a couple of times, then tore out my Model 61 Skorpion machine pistol and began picking off targets.

  A square-jawed USAF Sergeant was crouching behind a tangle of netting and keeping Mr Smith’s head down with clip after clip from his Colt .45.

  I squeezed my trigger and ripped his foot clean off the end of his leg, before knocking his beret loose when he toppled into the picture. Now clear, Mr Smith jumped forward and took up position by a stack of netted crates.

  “Bogeys spotted at nine hundred miles. What’s your status FSOs?” came the request from the Tupolev.

  “We are moving forward. Bring down Mother,” Mr Smith shouted into his mic as he peppered the galley with his own Skorpion.

  “Roger,” the Tupolev replied, and began its descent.

  “Flight KT-315, you must give up or you will all be killed,” Mr Smith tried one last time, but he was found no takers, so the four of us lobbed stun grenades forward, squeezed our eyes closed as they detonated.

  We dispatched five airmen on our charge and a couple of Langley types who’d been overseeing the flight before securing the main cargo area. There were more airmen towards the bow, but they could stay where they were as far as we were concerned. We’d pushed into the aircraft as far as we needed to push. Now we got to work.

  Mr Woo and Mr Vasiliev took up defensive positions while me and Mr Smith secured the prize – a CSMK radar jamming smart missile. It had just been developed by the US Air Force and featured the very latest in cutting edge technology, similar to a Cruise Missile, only with one very important difference; it was radar invisible. Completely. Very handy in a day and age dominated by early warning systems and counter measures. If your target wanted to know what had happened, he’d have to ask Saint Peter when he saw him because he’d get no warning of any sort before the bomb hit. It was the ultimate tool of assassination. And those who held it were to be feared.

  “Mother, this is FSO One, we have the tube. Bring forward the dentist,” Mr Smith told the Tupolev, then muted his mic and looked at me. “Who comes up with these stupid names, that’s what I want to know?”

  I grinned through my visor then headed back to help with the winch. Chariot Twelve had joined us with two hundred yards of steel cable spooled around its rear. We anchored the Chariot, then threw the cable buoy out of the back and unspooled it until it reached the Tupolev.

  At this point, the Tupolev’s side door opened and the cable was attached and a rather reluctant scientist hooked on the end. A tiny motorised trolley whisked him over and we pulled him inside, unclipped him and pushed him in the direction of the missile. He scurried forward with his ratchets and screwdrivers and spent the next five minutes picking his way through the missile’s nose cone before finding the circuit board he was looking for.

  “Got it,” he announced, departing once more to leave Mr Smith to plant a packet of C4. Mr Woo and Mr Vasiliev now fell back and we reattached the scientist to the cable and pushed him back out over the ocean.

  “Mother, he has the chess board,” Mr Smith told the Tupolev, and we watched the scientist whizz back to the Tupolev and a cluster of arms drag him inside before the cable was cut free.

  “Delivered,” the Tupolev confirmed. “FSOs you are cleared to exit.”

  This wasn’t exactly something we needed prompting about. All five of us had spent the scientist’s journey time hastily cutting our anchor wires and shoving our Chariots onto the exit ramp, and so we were all set to go the moment the order was given.

  Unfortunately, as is so often the way with these things, we’d dropped our guard right at the death and a burst of automatic fire ripped into Mr Woo, throwing him backwards into Mr Smith and knocking them both off the tail board.

  Mr Vasiliev and Mr Jean immediately dropped and returned fire, but I’d already pushed my Chariot over the side and jumped out to follow it.

  “Leader down! Leader down,” I heard in my ear, along with a load of other garbled radio traffic as Chariots Three and Twelve fought to exit the plane. I was away and clear. I’d completed my mission and was now on to collect a very hefty pay packet. All I had to do was make it back to the Tupolev and dock.

  There was just one thing stopping me from doing that.

  “Leader down!”

  My boosters roared to life after falling a thousand feet and I threw the stick forwards, plunging my Chariot nose-first towards the ocean.

  Mr Smith was barely visible. A tiny black dot amongst an undulating backdrop of shadows and surf, but he quickly grew in form as I rocketed past him at four-hundred-miles-per-hour.

  He didn’t see me at first. I just cut past him in a blur, but then slowed and circled until I could get to within ten feet of him, but even then he still didn’t react. I guess this was a difficult time for him and he was probably fixated on other things right now, so I steered as close as I dared and called out to him over the radio to “look left! Look left!” but he didn’t respond.

  I fired off my reserve missiles, emptied my mounted 9-mm machine gun and even beeped my horn to try to get Mr Smith’s attention, but still he didn’t look.

  Barely five thousand feet below us now was the water and I knew we’d feel it on our ankles all too soon if I didn’t fire my boosters, but I couldn’t leave without Mr Smith. I wouldn’t be alive and still borrowing books if it hadn’t been for him. I’d be just a shadow on a charred corner of Africa without his warning. I owed it to him to try until the very last, but if he was determined to see what the Gulf Stream felt like, then I’m afraid he was on his own and good luck to him.

  See, the trick to saving someone where they’re falling is much like the trick to saving someone when they’re drowning; you need them to know they’re being saved so that they can co-operate with you. You can’t just grab them without them knowing it, because chances are they’re panicking and lashing out, and if they catch you a cropper in their death throes, then they’re likely to knock you out, spelling problems for you both. So plucking someone from certain death has to be done delicately.

  I continued to call Mr Smith’s name as we plunged towards the Atlantic but all I got for my troubles were whirling arms and legs, and cries of unadulterated histrionics.

  I took a deep breath, composed myself for one final go, turned my mic up full volume and spoke to him as calmly as I could.

  “Okay Mr Smith, you win, we’ll read It’s Not About The Bike next, if you just look left! Do it now! Do it now! Look left.”

  At last, this got through to him, probably because it was such a preposterously trifling concession to win in such horrifying circumstances, and Mr Smith’s visor finally turned my way. I beckoned him towards me as the Atlantic did the same and Mr Smith kicked, threw and shaped himself until I felt his arms wrap around my waist.

  I fired my boosters without waiting for him to get comfy and the kick almost dislodged us both, but we slowed our drop and circled above the waves at just a few hundred feet until our momentum once more took us up.

  “Mother! Mother! This is Chariot Five. Sound off beckon. I repeat, sound off beckon, I have FSO leader,” I radioed in, as we rocketed back towards where we’d just come from.

  After a torturous wait to see if they’d respond
, a homing signal finally lit up an LED light on my instrument panel, so I locked onto it and twisted back the throttle to singe Mr Smith’s ankles.

  “Be advised Chariot Five, bogeys at three hundred miles. You have four minutes to rendezvous. We can’t give you more than that,” the Tupolev told me.

  “We’ll be there,” I confirmed, hoping against hope that I was right, because I seriously doubted I had enough fuel to make it back to Petworth.

  We shot up into the sky crouching low on the Chariot to reduce the drag and eventually saw the Tupolev way off in the distance above us. They’d risen to thirty thousand feet and increased their speed to four-hundred knots, so docking was going to require some care.

  “Mother, we have you. Approaching from six o’clock. Make ready,” I radioed in, and sure enough a glint from their undercarriage told me the bomb bay doors were opening.

  “Chariot Five, we have you. Nice and steady now, welcome home.”

  “Thank you,” someone muttered in my ear and I realised to my surprise that it had actually been me.

  A vacant bracket descended from the bomb bay and willed us towards it. I took the Chariot up into position, almost to within touching distance, but then the machine shuddered beneath me. An electronic beeping laughed at us as my engines finally announced they were down to just fumes, and all at once we began sinking again.

  “For fuck’s sake!” I cursed, but my Chariot had spent its load.

  I had one chance to get on board, so I punched my buckle to unclip my harness and gunned what was left of the throttle, throwing us headfirst into the bracket.

  “Jump!” I shouted as we crashed metal against metal.

  We threw ourselves at the black steel and wrapped whatever we could around anything solid. Arms, legs and chins all clung onto the outstretch frame as my Chariot tumbled into a spin and fell away beneath us.

  Our colleagues saw what was happening and immediately retracted the bracket, pulling me and Mr Smith up into the belly of the Tupolev, as the plane banked to turn north. Sirens and warning beacons flashed as the bomb bay doors crept closed in our wake and the light thinned to a narrow streak before eventually it all went black.