Rogue Hercules

by Denis Pitts

  Sorrel’s eyes were on the captain. He was not sweating now. He was at one with the machinery around him, totally calm.

  ‘Five degree angle of climb. Thirty thousand pounds jettisoned. Ten thousand more will give you fifteen degrees, Captain. You will have 20,000 feet in thirty-five minutes, sooner if we get that prop to feather.’

  The aircraft was climbing very slowly. But she was climbing. No longer could Sorrel see the looming sea and horizon. Very slowly, still hammered by the wind, still juddering and buffeting in her near crippled condition, Juliet Mike Oscar pulled herself through the clouds into the clear air above.

  ‘Fifteen degrees of climb.’

  ‘Close fuel vents.’

  ‘All vents closed and secured. Pumps off.’

  ‘Stubbles?’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  ‘Don’t tell me there’s not an emergency drill to get that propeller turning. You must have something in that book of yours. And Sorrel?’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  ‘Somehow we’ve got to get a message to Interguns. Now I’m going to ask Harry when he’s not one hundred per cent busy to punch out a Selcal signal which should get through to Murphy if he’s awake. We’re going to have to take a chance even if the whole world gets to know. The message is going to read — now write this down — “Juliet Mike Oscar, one engine dead, propeller locked. Negative intended destination. Negative return Karachi”.’

  Martin swung the control column gently to the right, holding the aircraft in a steady climb.

  ‘“My destination now Muscat with ETA” — can you work that out Harry, please — “please advise urgently.”’

  Sorrel was writing quickly on a pad on the table in front of her.

  The Selcal system is used by airlines to speak to individual aircraft. It operates by a series of coded pulses, almost like a telephone. Within minutes, Sorrel’s clear voice was being beamed to Cairo Radio and thence by short wave to Naples.

  *

  It took twenty minutes for a reply to reach Natalia Rogov and the waiting air force officers. It came in a long, buff-coloured envelope and was delivered by a uniformed KGB man.

  Natalia opened it. The message contained on the yellow-coloured paper headed “From the Office of the Supreme Praesidium” was singularly short for a Russian official document. It read:

  ‘Proceed with the operation as outlined in N Rogov’s morandum today. The Ministry of Defence and Diplomatic Service and all intelligence units are to give the maximum assistance.

  ‘The maximum propaganda must be made of this American hypocrisy.’

  Natalia passed the paper to the two air force men. They looked at it briefly and smiled up at her.

  ‘Well, Comrades,’ she said. ‘Have you considered how this is going to be done?’

  *

  They had pulled themselves fifteen thousand shaking, shuddering feet from near sea level before Stubbles finally found the fault. A small, almost microscopically small piece of metal dust, shaken up by the sudden manoeuvring of the aircraft, had lodged in one vital circuit breaker in the panel of several hundred on his left-hand side. He had pushed each of these in turn and then, finally, almost in complete disgust, he had jabbed painfully at them with his thumb giving each a muttered curse.

  The thumb system worked. He looked at the other wall of the fuselage, at the feather-override panel. Suddenly a red light was flashing where there had been no light before. With his finger-tips, he pushed the feathering knob down.

  They all felt it happen at once. The unevenness disappeared from the engines and the vibration eased. Martin glanced through his side panel and saw number one propeller turn slowly and then gather speed. Automatically he adjusted his rudder controls to allow for the sudden new freedom. Number one was useless in terms of power, but it was no longer a dangerous hindrance.

  There had been little talk on the flight-deck during the gradual climb to safety. For one thing, no one was anxious to distract the engineer or to panic him into making a fatal mistake.

  The two pilots had been equally preoccupied as they took five-minute spells alternatively at the controls. The concentration required to maintain a steady climb with this almost impossible power configuration was desperately tiring, especially when they were never far from that speed at which Juliet Mike Oscar could stall and flip onto her back if the pilot was even momentarily diverted.

  But now it had eased for all of them. The aircraft was in level, steady flight, her agony finished.

  Martin made one final adjustment to the trim and checked the instruments one by one. He snapped on the automatic pilot.

  ‘How did you manage it?’ said Martin with relief in his voice.

  ‘Don’t ever ask me, Captain,’ said the engineer. He had taken off his shirt and was rubbing his body down with an oily towel. ‘Like I told you, this elderly lady, this alleged aeroplane should be in a geriatric ward.’

  ‘What caused the fire?’

  ‘A secondary bearing. A blocked oil feed I would guess. Must have been running white hot.’

  ‘After that abort signal at Karachi I smell sabotage.’

  ‘No way. I warned you that this aircraft is not safe. That engine should have been replaced before the Civil War. Just keep your fingers crossed for the other three. They sound all right to me but anything can happen.’

  Martin rose from his seat and eased himself down the three steps into the cargo department. He stood in the spot where he had been when the explosion took place. The can of Coca-Cola was on the ledge as he had left it. It was warm now and tasted sweet-and-sour in his mouth. He looked at number one engine. The cowling had blackened, except where the heat had peeled off the paint. Thin streams of black oil oozed from the rivets around the access hatches.

  He took three more tins from the ice-box and eased himself back up on the flight-deck. He handed Cokes to Sorrel and Harry and a Budweiser beer to Stubbles. They each looked at him with curiosity as he plugged in and started to speak.

  ‘Time, it seems, for a status report,’ he said. ‘We are in an unhappy status. We have lost too much fuel to make Salisbury. We are heading for Oman with a cargo and an aircraft worth 22 million dollars and we do not know what’s going to happen when we get there.’

  Sorrel interrupted. ‘You can forget Oman,’ she said. ‘Murphy sold them twenty thousand FN rifles with the wrong calibre ammunition two years ago. No, it’s got to be Rhodesia.’

  Martin ignored her. ‘Then we’ll just have to lose every trace of Interguns from this aircraft. Consignment notes, everything.’

  ‘And the logbook, the certificate of registration?’ said Harry. He sat watching the control panel, his voice acid with cynicism. ‘Come on, Martin, every crate in the hold has the company’s name stencilled on it.’

  ‘Give me an alternative?’

  ‘Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar. We’ve still got a valid end-user’s certificate. We were on our way to Cyprus when we ran into trouble. So we are landing for repairs. Simple.’

  Martin smiled at him. ‘You talk crap, my friend. Why the big production at Karachi airport? Like I said, I think we were blown. Every airport in the Middle East will know now that we ignored air traffic control instructions at Karachi. We’ll be held pending an inquiry and we’ll find ourselves locked away in some Arab jail for months on end.’

  There was new quality, near to hysteria, in Sorrel’s voice as she butted into the conversation again.

  ‘Can’t you get it into your heads, you two, that it’s Rhodesia that’s buying this cargo. They are expecting it. The money’s there, waiting for us. You’ve just somehow got to get to Rhodesia.’

  The men took no notice.

  Martin mused. ‘What about Israel?’

  ‘No, just look at your chart, my boy,’ said Harry. ‘With our present range we’d need to overfly Iraq, Syria and Jordan carrying a cargo of arms for a suspect destination. No, my love, those guys would not take kindly to our presence in their air space.’

&nb
sp; They thought for a few moments. Martin could hear Sorrel’s deep breathing in his intercom. He half turned to her and said quietly, ‘Miss Francis, I’m not concerned right at this moment with making money from this flight. My aim is to get the four of us safely on the ground. We don’t have enough fuel to get anywhere near Rhodesia. Surely you must realise that.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll give you the answer,’ said Harry brightly. ‘The insurance. The Middle East is full of remote airstrips with no radio, radar or any other facility. Look how easily the Israelis took out Entebee. Most of these countries are completely deserted except for a few shepherds. So we land, blow this whole pile sky high and leave it to Interguns to sort out.’

  Martin was considering this when a loud bell started ringing from the control panel.

  ‘Well now,’ said Martin quietly. ‘So Mr Murphy has finally woken up. Let’s hear what Interguns have to say about this.’

  *

  As the Corniche reached the second Naples junction on the autostrada, Murphy slowed it and turned off into the grubby outskirts of the city. He stopped on the hard, sandy shoulder of the road.

  He continued to talk into the telephone. ‘I’ll be with you in twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘Tell Juliet Mike Oscar to circle in its present area and await instructions. Call Bouzet in Paris and tell him to be wide awake when I call him. We have a crisis. Tell Mr Peterson in London that his consignment has been delayed for at least twenty-four hours.’

  He put the telephone back on to its cradle in the dash-board.

  Murphy turned to the girl beside him and awoke her gently with his finger-tips on her cheeks.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said very softly. ‘The sun is about to rise over Vesuvius. Let’s go for a little walk.’

  *

  The principle Air Attaché to the Soviet Embassy in the Mozambique capital of Lourenco Marques, Major Yefgeni Valentin Uglov sat on the step of his bachelor bungalow in the Embassy compound that morning and watched a small, furry spider amble across the notepad on which he was writing a letter home. It was early morning and already it was far too hot for him. Uglov was fair-haired and his white skin could not take the fierceness of the African sun.

  He was not a happy man. His movements were fretful and his face was set in a permanent frown. The Embassy gardens were rich with azaleas and orchids but he disliked them intensely because they attracted insects which he loathed.

  He flicked the spider from the writing paper, dabbed a prickly heat rash on his neck with a handkerchief soaked in toilet water, and continued his letter.

  *

  Oh my dearest Natasha [he wrote]. Soon it will be winter in our beloved Leningrad and I long for the first chill of winter, for the ice on the Neva, for ballet and the symphony, for The Hermitage and all those things I miss so dearly in my mother country. I dream nightly of walking with you along the Bolshoi Prospect.

  Sometimes I despair of Africa. I started here with fifteen trainee pilots, all Mozambiquans and ten MIG 21 fighters. Now I have seven pilots whom I can almost trust and five serviceable aircraft. But what pilots! They are daring in the air, but so dangerous and undisciplined that they terrify me for much of my life.

  They ignore all theoretical lessons. They break all the rules of the air. Three days ago, my star pupil, Umboto, flew very low over his village, showing off as usual, and succeeded in setting light to ten thatched roofs with a sudden blast of his after-burners.

  I chastised him and he, at least I am sure it was he, took his revenge by filling my cockpit with red ants before an official fly-past in front of the President himself.

  *

  Uglov rubbed the seat of his cotton drill trousers and winced with the pain of it. He sipped at a glass of iced tea which was already too warm.

  *

  No, my dearest Natasha [he wrote]. It is not easy. Today I am to lecture my pupils on the role of the Proletariat in International Socialism. I despair all the more because I know not one pilot will appear. For when they are not actually flying, it seems the only thing which they enjoy, apart from drinking and wenching, is marching up and down the Via del Revoluzion in their smart new uniforms like children, whistling vulgarly at the girls.

  *

  The telephone rang in the bungalow. Major Uglov closed the writing-pad and went indoors.

  ‘Comrade Major Uglov?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A message from the Ambassador. You are to report to him immediately.’

  There was no sign, hardly any indication at all, that this was the Naples office of Interguns Incorporated, a suite of rooms on the top floor of an apartment block overlooking the Piazza Garibaldi, its windows double-glazed against the fierceness of the traffic noise below. Reception was a luxurious office, with armchairs covered in real leather, a small and discreet bar in one corner and a long oaken coffee table. The walls were soft brown, hung with nineteenth-century Italian ship prints. A miniature antique brass cannon in a glass showcase was the only possible clue to the business transacted in this room.

  The office and the city of its location had been well chosen by Murphy. For one thing, Naples was convenient for the host of buyers who came to Interguns from Africa and the Middle East with discreet inquiries for arms. One of the adjoining rooms was filled with samples of small missiles, grenades and various small arms. The reception room itself converted quickly into a preview theatre in which the potential buyer could see any one of three or four hundred types of weapons in actual use on a videotape machine.

  The city airport with its lax, easy-going customs and immigration control, was ideal for the comings and goings of buyers, most of whom preferred to travel under questionable documents.

  Another room in the office was concerned entirely with communications. It was marked ‘Private’ and only the most trusted of Interguns employees were allowed to enter it. The three telex machines linked the Naples operation with Interguns offices in Brussels, London and Lausanne. A fourth relayed Reuter’s news. A large metal cabinet contained an ultra short wave radio with which Interguns could contact ships and aircraft in any part of the world.

  Murphy had driven to Naples that morning to meet with an emissary from Kurdistan who had an interest in a substantial order of anti-tank missiles.

  A blonde receptionist sat at a desk topped with leather which matched the armchairs. She handed Murphy a single piece of paper which he studied briefly.

  ‘Get Bouzet,’ he said to her tersely. He strode across the room and opened the door to the communications room. A dark-haired young man in a short-sleeved shirt was leaning over a telex machine.

  ‘What’s the code word for Juliet Mike Oscar?’ asked Murphy.

  The young man looked at a list on the wall. ‘Alabaster.’

  ‘Raise Alabaster as soon as you can. Tell them to stand by for instruction. They are not, repeat not, to land at Muscat.’

  The receptionist was holding the telephone for him when he returned. He grabbed it from her. Murphy was displaying little of the charm which he had shown the previous evening on the Via Veneto.

  ‘Bouzet, listen. I want some action. We have a friend in the Quai d’Orsay. He owes us several favours, right? Okay, this is the favour I need. We’ve got a Herc with a warm cargo. It left Karachi this morning for the unmentionable place…’

  Murphy paused and listened. His eyes suddenly flared with anger.

  ‘I know bloody well it’s an open line,’ he said. ‘There’s too much cash at stake to sod about. Tell our friend that I want landing permission for Djibouti. I want repair and refuelling facilities and a safe clearance out with no questions. It’s the only place they can safely put down. He’s got an hour to get this from the Foreign Ministry.’

  Murphy listened again.

  ‘Now listen, if he argues, tell him that a photostat of all his banking transactions with the Union Bank of Switzerland and ourselves will be on the desk of the French Ambassador in Geneva before cocktail time. Call me straight back.’ Murphy slammed the teleph
one down. Only then did he lean over and kiss the receptionist on her cheek.

  ‘Hallo, darling,’ he said. ‘Uncle’s home.’

  *

  ‘Circle, await instructions.’

  They were doing exactly that at twenty thousand feet over the Arabian sea. They turned steadily to the left, but Martin had allowed the wind at that height to move the aircraft gradually towards the Oman coast.

  The air was clean now, and Juliet Mike Oscar flew near to stalling speed, easily and lazily. They had cleared the area of low pressure and the storm was behind them. Harry studied a large aviator’s chart of Arabia and ringed industriously those possible landing places which they might use. He used a red chinagraph pencil and drew in each of the courses they might possibly need. He hummed softly, working methodically, stopping now and again to take a fuel reading or to skim his eyes along the other instruments.

  Stubbles, off the intercom now, tried to explain the intricacies of the engine system to Sorrel. She showed little interest, however. She was nervy and angry and glared across the flight-deck at Martin, who alone appeared relaxed and completely at ease on that flight-deck. He had fallen into the reverie which all flying men know, a time of gentle contemplation from which he could snap back into instant awareness in a matter of microseconds. His eyes were closed, his ears muffled against the engine noise.

  There had been little enough time for thinking from the moment that they had made the decision for Rhodesia. The girl had produced a set of charts which needed careful study. They could only guess at the weather from a few seemingly casual checks which they were able to take of the Indian Ocean plot in the meteorological office. A crew flying a consignment of weapons, especially of that size, was inevitably given special scrutiny.

  Harry had managed to explain away the extra fuel requirement by giving Madrid as the alternative airport on the flight. Had it been day time, the sharp eyes of the Karachi Criminal Investigation Department would almost certainly have pried much harder into her preparations.

  It was only now that Martin had time to reflect. He opened his eyes briefly and saw the instrument panel grinning at him. It was then, one hour and twelve minutes into the flight, that the singular and monumental realisation came home to him that he, Martin Gore, son of a distinguished soldier and statesman, was committing treason.