Rogue Hercules

by Denis Pitts

  He, Martin Gore. A traitor.

  He was suddenly and intensely aware of the navy blue British passport number 823727 which lay in the flight bag beside him. The Smith Government of Rhodesia was illegal. Smith had rebelled against the British Government. Christ, he thought. The charges they will throw.

  Aiding and abetting and giving comfort to Her Majesty’s enemies. That would be the first of them. It was a Tower of London job, that was for sure. Martin Gore, you have succeeded in bringing disgrace on one of the greatest families of this realm. No punishment can be too great for you… I have, however, taken into account the hurt and humiliation which you have rendered upon a fine family… That would be the crime, of course, letting the side down. The Establishment got very cross when one of their own went out of line… The sentence of this court is that you shall go to prison for thirty years.

  The Hercules jolted slightly in a small patch of turbulence. Martin opened his eyes again and saw Harry making a miniscule trim adjustment.

  Thirty years. Bloody hell, he thought. He closed his eyes again and shuddered slightly. And then an even more overwhelming thought arrived in his mind. The penalty for treason in Britain was death. Martin felt very cold for a second or so.

  Bloody hell, indeed. Oh Gore, Gore, you tiresome impetuous twit, he considered. You’ve jumped right into this one, my son. Just like all the other times. Pilots are supposed to be cautious men who approach each situation with a logical analysis. And you, you great hairy chump, what do you do? For the sake of a few lousy dollars you are prepared to throw the whole damn lot away.

  ‘Six hours’ flying time left at this speed and height.’

  ‘Thanks, Harry.’

  If, he thought. Here goes If Sequence number 530. If I hadn’t made the biggest homemade firework in the history of the college, I would have gone to Oxford and joined the Foreign Office and I wouldn’t have needed to have joined the Air Force. If I hadn’t joined the Air Force I wouldn’t have been able to punch the Group Captain. Mind you, the bastard deserved it. And if I hadn’t taken that job with Idi Amin, I wouldn’t have hit the Sergeant and ended up in that Kampala nick with my balls tied to the chair with piano wire.

  Harry touched his sleeve. The co-pilot was pointing to the radarscope in front of them. On the extreme top he could see a yellowish line beginning to appear.

  ‘The Yemen coast,’ said Harry.

  Martin looked at his watch. ‘We’ll give Murphy ten minutes,’ he said. ‘If he hasn’t come up with something by then we’ll operate the doomsday business and blow the whole bloody lot up somewhere in the desert.’

  Harry shrugged his shoulders. Martin went back to Sequence If.

  And if, he realised savagely, if I had not put every penny I had on a twelve to one shot in the Derby, I wouldn’t have needed this bloody job. Your whole life, Mr Gore, has been governed, directed and generally buggered up by your own impulsive nature.

  So what could they do about it?

  One hundred and forty miles above the Arabian Sea, a Samov satellite rolled on to its belly from which it had been using a small, wide-angle lens to transmit weather information. Now, two alloy hatches slid open to reveal a new lens, 800 millimetres of it, which began to protrude itself obscenely towards the earth’s surface.

  A computer in Odessa which had ordered the change of lens now gave a further series of instructions to the miniature computer in the satellite. The lens began to follow the estimated track of Juliet Mike Oscar. At each tenth of a degree the camera shutter behind it opened and the image was transmitted immediately to appear on a television screen in Odessa. Several technicians and two satellite intelligence observers watched each changing frame on a series of repeater screens.

  When the satellite had passed well beyond the speed and range capacities of the C 130, a fresh set of instructions was passed through the computers.

  The lens re-traced its track, this time one degree to the west, and again, as it failed to find anything except a few freighters and the occasional fishing dhow, it widened the area of its search along either side of the estimated track.

  It took just under ten minutes to find Juliet Mike Oscar. It appeared first as a smudgy dot. The lens was adjusted until the shape of the aircraft came into fine focus.

  *

  Natalia Rogov was eating a lightly boiled egg in the Foreign Ministry canteen when she saw the air force officer crossing towards her through a mass of empty breakfast tables. He was one of the officers who had been sitting at the committee table, a young colonel with a pleasing, open face. He bowed slightly before he sat at her table.

  He was faintly embarrassed by the scent and sexuality of this woman, being himself married to a rather plain and square-shaped woman from Kiev, and he found difficulty in looking directly into her eyes.

  ‘We have traced the suspect aircraft, Comrade,’ he said. ‘Its behaviour is somewhat erratic, not as your estimate predicted.’

  Natalia tore a piece of bread from a brown roll and smeared it with butter.

  ‘Some coffee, Colonel?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘They eat well in this Ministry,’ she said. ‘Our canteen at the Lenin Institute is like a railway station snack bar. In what way erratic?’

  ‘It is heading in a curious direction.’

  ‘Towards Rhodesia?’

  The Colonel opened his brief-case and took out a set of photographs from a folder. He handed them to Natalia. They were still moist from the high-speed development process.

  Not apparently. It is a good fifteen degrees off the course it would need. And it would seem most likely that it has not enough fuel to get to Salisbury.’

  ‘So where then?’

  ‘Look carefully at the outer port engine. Satellite Analysis are reasonably certain that there are traces of a fire.’

  Natalia looked closely at the silhouette of the aircraft.

  ‘What, then, is its destination?’

  ‘That is anyone’s guess.’

  Natalia lit a cigarette and tapped her Faberge lighter on the bare plastic table. She was nervous.

  ‘My head, it seems, is on the block.’ She smiled. ‘The entire Praesidium is watching this.’

  She tapped Juliet’s profile with a long, carefully manicured finger-nail. It’s all on my recommendation.’

  ‘You could not know anything about an emergency in flight.’

  ‘Tchakev does not like me,’ she said quietly. ‘He keeps the dossiers and he has Comrade Gromyko’s ear.’

  ‘You still have the air force,’ said the Colonel.

  *

  Now she breasted the sky with matronly confidence, flying through air which was thin and cold and free from turbulence. Her crew had relaxed. Stubbles had climbed into the spare bunk at the rear of the flight-deck and was half dozing while his ears continued to monitor the sound of Juliet’s three remaining engines.

  Martin had ordered the engineer to rest. He had been up for most of the previous night repairing the broken oil feed and attending to countless other small jobs, and he would be needed again almost immediately after landing to attend to the replacement of number one engine.

  Harry, in the co-pilot’s seat, was maintaining a careful watch on the air waves, listening for any further mention of themselves. Earlier he had heard the Karachi controller order an alert and request a search for unscheduled zero zero two. He had appeased the controller with a short and thrifty message in which he had said, ‘Unscheduled proceeding.’

  The controller’s acknowledgement was laconic with only a hint of his true feelings. ‘Thank you, unscheduled, and good day.’

  The emphasis was on the ‘good’.

  Harry grinned. He was flying an aircraft which had disobeyed a clear instruction, which had broken rigid radar direction, noise abatement laws and which had caused an air-sea rescue alert. Christ, the paperwork, he thought. Copies to Civil Aviation Board, Pakistani Civil Aviation Authority, Air Registration Board, the International Airline P
ilot’s Association and God knows who else.

  Martin and Sorrel sat on the cabin floor under Stubbles’ bunk. He had taken her off the intercom system and was talking loudly into her ear over the engine noise. The others did not notice but he was gripping her arm firmly. She was looking pale and there was defiance in her eyes. His face was taught, the thin scar accentuated.

  ‘Now what in hell’s name is Murphy playing at?’ he growled. ‘Why the switch, why that business at Karachi? Christ knows, this is a hairy enough adventure without that sort of thing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A controller tries to abort us in the middle of a take-off roll — that’s unheard of, did you know that? Then fighters. We were blown from the very beginning. Now, who blew?’

  She was angry but she was becoming more and more frightened by the fury in his eyes.

  ‘How would I know?’ she said quietly. ‘Would you let go of my arm. You’re hurting.’

  ‘I’ll spank your pretty little arse if you don’t explain one or two things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like, does Ragnelli know about this flight?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘You would know. You do the paper work. Murphy can’t so much as belch without you knowing about it.’

  Martin was gripping the girl’s arm fiercely now. Now listen,’ he was saying. ‘I’m an English gentleman, believe it or not. But I’ll tell you this, young lady, I’m quite willing to shake you like a terrier shakes a rat until I get the truth.’

  Sorrel pulled away from him, snatching her arm free. It was her turn to be livid now.

  ‘Just try it, baby,’ she shouted.

  Martin saw Harry turn from the controls. There was an uncomprehending look on the co-pilot’s face.

  Sorrel pulled herself to her feet.

  ‘Oh no, buster,’ she yelled. Her voice was harsh and falsetto. ‘Tougher men than you have tried to beat me about. Just remember one thing and keep it uppermost in that shitty chauvinistic mind of yours. I know just how broke you are and how much you need that money. Come to think of it Interguns has a dossier on you Martin Gore that your creditors would just love to have in their pudgy little hands. And just one other thing. Like I said, it’s cash they’re paying at the other end in crisp green US Treasury bills. And the only way that you’re going to get that cash is by my releasing an agreed coded signal to the banks that are holding the buyer’s money. So don’t push me.’

  Martin reached up and grabbed her arm again and pulled her heavily down on the floor. He gripped her even harder now. She squealed.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ he barked at her. ‘Does Ragnelli know about this load?’

  The strength of his grip made her wince. Tears of pain appeared in her eyes. Then she began to cry freely and fluently.

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ she wailed. ‘Murphy is freelancing.’

  Martin ignored the tears. He became very thoughtful for a few seconds.

  ‘You mean the Mafia doesn’t know. Their weapons and their plane? Oh, Jesus Christ what have we let ourselves in for now?’

  He rose to his feet. The girl stayed on the floor of the flight-deck and sobbed into the crook of her folded arms.

  Martin returned to the captain’s seat.

  ‘Did you get the gist of all that?’ he said to a bewildered looking co-pilot. ‘Not merely is this the hottest cargo we could be carrying under International Law but Murphy has heisted it from the mob. Harry, dear boy, this whole bloody flight is doomed. Why did we ever get tied up with that bastard Ragnelli in the first place?’

  Harry shrugged his shoulders. Then he looked over Martin’s shoulders.

  ‘It ain’t just the mob who is after us,’ he said grimly. ‘We’ve got company, Martin.’

  He gestured with his finger out of the side panel.

  Flying on a parallel course, two hundred feet from their wing tip, was a long, graceful military jet with the bright red star of the Red Air Force on its pencil-shaped fuselage. Martin could see its captain peering out at them. The jet dipped and flew underneath them. He felt Juliet buck in the wash of its turbulence. He clipped off the auto pilot and flew her manually and watched, as a moment or so later the other aircraft resumed its level flight, this time on their port side.

  ‘What is it?’

  Harry fingered quickly through a recognition manual.

  ‘It’s a Myasishev Four,’ he said. ‘NATO code name Bison B. Long-range maritime reconnaissance. Pretty, isn’t she?’

  ‘What does the bastard want?’

  ‘There’s a whole swarm of Russians not so very far from here in Socotra, quite a big base they have.’

  Martin looked more closely at the Myasishev. There were several domes under its fuselage and he knew that they were filled with complex electronic equipment.

  He saw the Russian co-pilot pointing at the microphone which he held in his left hand.

  ‘Listen in,’ he said. Harry turned to the air-to-air frequency.

  A deep, heavily accented voice was talking to them. ‘Good afternoon, Juliet Mike Oscar. Do you require assistance?’ it was saying.

  ‘What do I tell him?’

  ‘Tell him no.’

  ‘No thank you, Comrade, all’s well,’ said Harry in a friendly voice and pushed the ‘receive’ button.

  ‘Juliet Mike Oscar, what is your destination?’

  Harry was about to answer when he felt Martin’s hand gripping his arm.

  ‘Tell him Addis Ababa.’

  Harry relayed the message and signed off. The other aircraft slid away to port, losing height gradually.

  Martin watched it and said quietly into the intercom.

  ‘Did you paint out all the markings last night?’

  ‘Every one. Wings, top and bottom, fuselage and fin.’

  Martin was silent for a few moments.

  ‘So how did that bastard know our call sign?’ he asked.

  ‘Shit, we are hot.’

  *

  The wind which had blown oven-hot across the desert all morning had dropped now, and the ancient city of Djibouti lay bleached and petrified under the fiery white noontide sun. The Tricolors drooped listlessly from public buildings already emptied of most of their bureaucrats. Few would move in that city from now until the cool of the evening. Traffic had ceased to bark along the dust-caked streets and the ebony-coloured gendarme in the traffic control box on the Avenue des Heros was wiping the sweat from the rim of his kepi before going off duty. A tape-recorded muezzin wailed the faithful to prayer from a glacial minaret on the Mosque of Omar, and the only other sounds were the crashing of shop shutters as the Levantine traders locked away their camel saddles, hand-carved ivory and tawdry souvenirs, and the slamming of cashboxes as the Armenians in the dark and mysterious money-souk locked away fortunes in grubby dollars, francs and pounds and all the garish currencies of the East.

  Soon Djibouti would die for four torpid, sweltering hours as it had done each afternoon since pre-history. It is a city built in the very pit of the cauldron of Arabia, in which the greatest luxury is a cooling wind from the sea which in summer is a rarity indeed, in which there is no respite from the glowing heat except a siesta, or death itself.

  But three men did not sleep this day.

  In his whitewashed villa on the mud-brown hills over-looking Djibouti, Alexander Turok, the Soviet Vice Consul to the French territory of Afars et Issis, of which Djibouti is the capital, studied a message which he had recently received in the daily noon transmission from Moscow. It was a short message, but it took him some time to decode it for his eyes kept filling with sweat and his steel-rimmed spectacles steamed up continually as he leaned over his deciphering manual.

  Turok was an elderly man with a large, steel-grey, Stalin-like moustache of which he was inordinately proud; he did all things methodically including the copious drinking of vodka which had led to this particular diplomatic posting.

  He finished decoding and went into
his bathroom where he took a towel and soaked it in cold water before wiping his head and neck free of perspiration. Then he went to his kitchen and took a bottle of Moscovitch vodka from the freezing compartment. He poured himself a generous measure and swallowed it in one noisy gulp. Only then did he return to his office to read the message.

  It read:

  *

  ATTENTION TUROK. URGENT. SOVINTELLIGENCE INDICATES C 130 AIRCRAFT FORMERLY OF US AIR FORCE EN ROUTE FOR RHODESIA LIKELY TO LAND AT DJIBOUTI APPROXIMATELY 12.30 HOURS LOCAL TIME TODAY TO EFFECT REPAIRS. THIS AIRCRAFT IS CARRYING A SUSPECT CARGO PROBABLY ARMS. YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO:

  I . VERIFY THE FINAL DESTINATION OF THIS AIRCRAFT AND REPORT IMMEDIATELY;

  2.STATE NATURE OF DAMAGE;

  3.REPORT ON ALL CO-OPERATION RECEIVED FROM AUTHORITIES;

  4.HAVING ESTABLISHED THESE FACTS BEGIN IMMEDIATE PREPARATIONS FOR SPONTANEOUS DEMONSTRATIONS BY POPULAR FRONT ORGANISATIONS IN YOUR TERRITORY TO COMMENCE ON NOTIFICATION= LITVINOFF.

  *

  Turok read the message again. His hands were shaking violently. He returned to the refrigerator and poured another, equally large, vodka. Then he picked up his telephone and ordered his secretary and the rest of his small staff to remain on duty. Few priority cables arrived at Djibouti. Cables from Litvinoff, the head of the KGB, were rare indeed.

  Turok went out to the patio of the villa and the fierce heat hit him as he looked out over the sleeping city. He saw beyond the docks the shape of an aircraft appear from the heat haze and he heard the soft throb of its three engines.

  *

  Charles Victor de Marchant, the plenipotentiary Minister of the Interior for Afars et Issis, also heard the engines and went to the balcony of his Ministry, a handsome and Napoleonic-styled building in the centre of Djibouti.

  Juliet Mike Oscar’s undercarriage dropped into landing position as he watched.

  De Marchant swore softly at the aircraft as it wheeled south towards Loyada airport.

  The Minister, a small, fussy man with a belly which bulged over the waistline of his pinstriped trousers, picked up one of the several telephones at his desk and called the Foreign Legion garrison on the outskirts of the city.