Exclusion Zone

by Exclusion Zone (retail) (epub)

  ‘Okay, Sean,’ Noel said. ‘Have you worked with the new data-link system?’

  I glanced down at the tactical display. ‘I’ve had all the briefs, but I’ve not used it yet. Jane’s the expert on it.’

  ‘It’s a great system. Basically we’re interlinked on a secure data system with Fortress Operations, the radar sites and any airborne Tempests. What anyone else sees on radar, we see as well. Even when we’re radar-blind at low-level, we still get a picture from everyone else.

  ‘Right. Now let’s do the grand tour with a Fiery Cross for starters. Come down to eight hundred feet, bearing two-zero-zero.’

  We dropped behind the wall of the mountains into the valley behind Pleasant Peak. ‘See what Shark meant?’ Noel said. ‘Any Argentinian that gets this far can just tool along the bottom of the valley, pop over the top and blast the shit out of the place.’

  ‘Let’s do it.’ I rammed the throttles forward and threw the jet into a hard right turn, rolling inverted to leave the Tempest exposed for only a split second against the sky as we cleared the ridge. Then we were barrelling down the other side as I rolled it back upright.

  I glimpsed the spiked tips of Rapier missiles on the sites dotting the surrounding hilltops. They swivelled to track us as I pushed down lower, hugging the ground. I flashed over the airfield on a diagonal run across the runway, clearing the tower by a few feet.

  ‘Good work,’ Noel said. ‘Now let’s go and do the tourist bit.’

  I hauled back on the stick. The Tempest’s nose came up and we climbed back into the southern sky. I eased back on the throttles and the engine note dropped from a bellow to a roar.

  ‘Come right thirty,’ Noel said. ‘First stop, Goose Green.’

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise at the mention of the place.

  We followed the course of a long, broad inlet. Thick underwater forests of kelp darkened the sea close to the shores. Further out the grey water was studded with small islands. The low sun behind us cast the hawk shadow of the jet onto the water, and clouds of wildfowl looking as small as gnats fluttered upwards in alarm.

  I shifted my gaze ahead. A narrow isthmus, a ribbon of dark green and brown, lay across the grey water. A cluster of white-walled houses and sheds stood at the water’s edge, the corrugated roofs painted in weathered shades of red, blue and green. I craned my neck to look down as we flashed over the isthmus, but it was barely a mile in width. We were past in a flash and back over water.

  ‘This inlet leads into Falkland Sound,’ Noel said. ‘Turn to the south as you reach it and follow the coastline down.’

  ‘Can we have a look at San Carlos first?’

  ‘That’s on the way back. Stick to the itinerary.’

  I swung the jet around and followed the Sound southwards, skimming over a handful of scattered islands. The broken cloud opened into blue sky. The air was gin clear and I could see the curve of the earth as I gazed far out across the Southern Ocean. The water, so dull and grey only moments before, now shone the colour of jade, and the brown Falkland hills were tinted purple, orange and blue.

  I looked to my left. The southern half of East Falkland was a maze of tarns, lakes and inlets. Water and low-lying land seemed to merge. To my right stood rock stacks carved by the wind and scoured by the sea into strange tortured shapes. Stumps of white rock like broken teeth reared out of the ocean. Beyond them, the cliffs of West Falkland rose sheer from the sea, flanking deserted beaches of pure white sand.

  ‘Great place for a swim,’ Noel said, ‘if the water temperature was about fifty degrees higher. Not that it matters, if you want a suntan, there’s a sodding great hole in the ozone layer over here and you can burn in twenty minutes even if it’s freezing.’

  We tracked the jagged coastline of West Falkland back to the north and I took the jet down to a few hundred feet, just above the clifftops. The Tempest bucked and juddered in the turbulence.

  Sea lions lumbered from the rocks, splashing into the surf as the jet skimmed over them. Further up the coast, a colony of penguins scattered in alarm from their burrows among the tussac grass.

  ‘Take her up again,’ Noel said. ‘We’ll buzz the boys at Byron Heights. God knows, they need the entertainment. The only way in or out is by helicopter and they’re stuck up there for three months at a stretch.’

  A rocky crag capped the peninsula at the north-west tip of the island. Near the summit was a radome and a cluster of Portakabins.

  ‘Funny place for a building site.’

  ‘Don’t laugh, the poor buggers have to live in those. They even make the Q shed look good.’

  ‘So is that it?’

  ‘No, there’s a chain of islands stretching west another fifty miles or so, but no one lives on them, not even sheep. It’s a great place to watch albatross apparently… if you’ve nothing better to do. Okay, come right fifty. Next stop Pebble Island, that really is worth a look.’

  I took the jet down even lower. The beach of Pebble Island shimmered in the sunlight ahead. As it slipped away beneath us, the air sparkled with refracted light. ‘Wow, what is that?’

  ‘There’s some kind of mineral in the stone,’ Noel said. ‘Pretty good, isn’t it? Right, that’s enough sightseeing, we’ll take a blast up A-4 Alley, then head for home.’

  He directed me south over the mountains, then we doubled back on our tracks into a long, narrow, rift valley.

  ‘As low as you like and as fast as you like,’ Noel said.

  ‘I thought we were under normal operating restrictions here.’

  ‘Do you see anyone who’s going to complain?’

  He was right. A handful of sheep dotted the hillsides and seabirds clouded the shore. There was no other sign of life. I pressed down hard against the valley floor, feeling the walls of the ravine closing in around me.

  I pushed the throttles forward close to the limit, plastered in my seat by the G-force as I threw the jet left and right, following the curves of the canyon as the river snaked away towards the north.

  ‘The Argentinians made their attack runs on the ships in Falkland Sound from here,’ Noel said between grunts as he was hurled around in his seat. ‘They could fly the whole way out of radar sight, then hit the fleet like a fox in a chicken run.’

  As we reached the end of the canyon, I hauled back on the stick, pulling the jet over the ridgeline, then eased the throttles towards me. As we turned for home, the tactical display sprang into life, flashing a message alert.

  Noel interrogated the system. ‘Possible hostile approaching the Exclusion Zone at two hundred and fifty miles, high-speed, high-level. Bearing two-eight-zero. Investigate.’

  As Noel acknowledged the message, I was already pushing the throttles forward and banking the Tempest into a long turn to the west, to meet the intruder at the edge of the Exclusion Zone.

  I could feel the adrenalin jolt and my breathing was noticeably faster. I’d practised a thousand times on exercises, but if the hostile aircraft held its course, this would be the first time I had ever carried out a real intercept.

  ‘It shows what the data-link system can do,’ Noel said. ‘That jet’s way out of our own radar range, but Fortress just feeds us the picture.’

  I glanced down at the display and saw the contact marching steadily towards the computer-generated outline of the Exclusion Zone. ‘This is a bit different,’ I said, trying to hide the tremor in my voice. ‘In two four-month tours patrolling the air exclusion zones in Iraq, the only enemy aircraft I ever saw were troop-carrying helicopters, and they were careful to stay well the right side of the Thirty-second Parallel.’

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Noel said. ‘I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t turn and run as soon as he gets a sniff of us.’

  I hoped he was right. I’d no wish to go into combat for the first time relying on a nav I’d never flown with.

  I scanned the captions in front of me as I continued the climb. ‘Fuel should be all right.’ We cleared the coast of We
st Falkland and levelled off at twenty thousand feet.

  ‘Got him, eighty miles. High-level, descending. Heading one-zero-zero.’

  ‘Combat power.’ The engines howled their way up the octaves as I forced the throttles forward. The juddering vibrations of the airframe intensified and the acceleration pinned me against my seat. The two jets were now closing at one mile every three seconds. ‘Arming weapons.’ I heard the familiar growl of the Sidewinder aiming system, so sensitive that it was even detecting the latent heat of the passing clouds.

  ‘It’s coming up as a Mirage. Fifty miles.’ Noel’s voice remained flat and unemotional.

  I thumbed the radio button. ‘Fortress, this is Falcon 2–1. Aircraft identified as Mirage. Permission to intercept.’

  ‘Roger Falcon.’

  ‘Locked on.’ A T-bar began flashing over the arrowhead shape of the enemy contact on my screen. I imagined the cacophony of warning sirens in the cockpit of the Mirage.

  I switched to the international distress frequency. ‘Argentine aircraft, you are about to enter prohibited airspace. Change course or you will be intercepted and engaged.’

  I repeated the message three times, punctuated by Noel’s countdown. ‘Thirty miles… Twenty-five miles… Twenty.’

  I began to rake the sky ahead for the first telltale sign – a dark shadow, a glint of light or a vapour trail as the other jet descended through a condensation layer.

  ‘He’s turning away. Steer three-zero-zero. Fifteen miles. Got him visual yet?’

  ‘Nothing yet… Nothing… Nothing…’ A flash of sunlight flickered from the wing of the Argentine jet as it banked away from us. ‘Visual. I’ve got him.’

  ‘He’s heading for home,’ Noel said.

  ‘Let’s make sure.’

  As the Mirage completed its turn and streaked back towards the safety of the Argentine mainland, the missile seeker heads fastened on to the heat of its exhausts. The growl of the Sidewinder changed to a strident clamour. ‘Locked on.’

  I broke the lock at once and eased back the throttles. The scream of the engines in combat power faded to a throaty roar and the black speck ahead of me shrank and disappeared.

  I released my pent-up breath and touched the transmit button. ‘Fortress, bogie exiting stage left. We’re breaking off and heading for home, unless you’ve any more trade for us.’

  ‘Not at the moment, Falcon. Thanks for your help.’

  I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. I’d been close enough to my first taste of combat to feel the adrenalin surge – and the fear. On balance, I was glad it had not come to a fight this time. If I was ever to put my life on the line in air combat, I wanted Jane watching my back, not Noel, no matter how competent he might be.

  ‘Okay,’ Noel said. ‘Another triumph for truth, justice and democracy. Now let’s head for home.’

  My senses were still on hyper alert as I surveyed the sky around us, then pulled the jet back on to an eastward course. ‘Don’t forget San Carlos.’

  ‘I’ll give you a course for it, though there’s nothing much to see. Any particular reason?’

  ‘I’d just like to see it.’

  We circled over San Carlos Water, a deep natural harbour near the northern entrance to Falkland Sound. Its grey-green waters looked still and calm behind the sweep of the peninsula that shielded San Carlos from the current boiling through the Sound, but I knew that the protection it offered was illusory, for it lay open to the skies. I glimpsed a dark rectilinear shape out of the corner of my eye but we had flashed past it before I could be sure if I was seeing a wreck or a submerged rock.

  We flew on over the hills to the east. I was seeing them for the first time, but their names – Mount Usborne, Mount Kent, Two Sisters, Tumbledown and Mount Longdon – were as familiar to me as those of the hills back home.

  We flew on in silence, following the contours of the land down towards Stanley. A white road, a straight line ruled across the brown moorland, pointed the way. ‘Welcome to civilisation,’ Noel said. ‘That’s just about the only road on the island. And there’s the big city. There are three-quarters of a million sheep here, but only about two thousand people in the whole of the Falklands, and well over half of them live in Stanley, so it’s a great place for a big night out. Actually, it’s the only place for any kind of night out. There are a few pubs and a dance about once a month, if you can stand the excitement. The local talent is all tweed skirts, headscarves and cardigans but there are always the sheep if things get desperate.’

  ‘I grew up in the west of Ireland. It’s not so different.’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect, I come from Bognor. Right, let’s get back to base before any more Argentinians decide to play chicken on the edge of the Exclusion Zone.’

  He kept up a stream of talk as we flew back to Mount Pleasant, but I replied only in monosyllables, my eyes drawn back again and again to the dark hills to the north.

  As we came in on finals, I saw the red airfield windsock jerking and tugging. I lowered the flaps, feeling the straps of my harness biting into my chest as the jet decelerated. I lowered the landing gear, checked for the three green lights on the panel showing it was down and locked, then we swept in over the perimeter fence.

  Three times the wind forced the jet off the centre line. Each time I dragged it back, fighting the stick as the gusts threw us around, then I felt the thud as we touched down. The engines thundered under reverse thrust, adding to the vibrations from the brakes. We slowed to a crawl and I swung the Tempest around on the apron in front of the shack, facing back down the runway. I pulled to a halt, but kept the engines rumbling as I pushed the safe-arm pin into my ejector seat.

  A tractor approached, locked on to the landing gear and pushed the Tempest backwards into its steel shack. The ground crew dived for cover beneath the wings as the sirens howled and I raised the canopy. Then they scurried out to fix red warning flags to the missile heads.

  We ran through the checks, leaving the jet final-armed and ready to go as soon as it had been refuelled. Then I cut the engines.

  The silence was broken only by the whine of the electronics and the metallic clicking as the engines cooled.

  Taff stood at the bottom of the steps as I clambered out of the cockpit. ‘Nice landing, sir,’ he said, his face deadpan. ‘We like the undercarriage to have a thorough testing every now and again.’

  ‘Always glad to oblige, Taff.’

  The debrief of the sortie took almost half an hour. I heaved a sigh of relief when I finally could head for the changing rooms and strip off my sweat-soaked clothes. My T-shirt hit the floor with a slap. I kicked it into the showers, rinsed and wrung it out, then stood under the cascade of hot water.

  The near confrontation with the Argentine jet occupied my mind for a few minutes, but then my thoughts returned to San Carlos and Goose Green. I had glimpsed the narrow isthmus separating the two halves of East Falkland for only a fraction of a second, but when I closed my eyes I could clearly see the dark wooden jetty, the cluster of houses and sheds and, a little apart, two patches of ground enclosed by the neat fretwork of white picket fences.

  ‘That’s enough excitement for one day,’ Noel said as we got dressed. ‘And I hope those Argentinians take the day off tomorrow. I’m going up with Rees – he and I are pairing up from now on – and I’d like to get a few routine sorties under our belts.’

  ‘He’s a good pilot,’ I said. ‘You see him before a sortie and he looks so nervous you think he’s going to throw up, but once he’s in the air he’s as cool as anybody. And he certainly doesn’t fly like a novice.’

  Noel smiled. ‘I’ll let you know after tomorrow’s sortie. Now, I’m going to get a pot of coffee, put my feet up, take my brain out and watch daytime TV. Care to share my sofa?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve a couple of things to do. I’ll catch up with you later.’

  Jane was lounging around the crew room. ‘You had some thrills and spills on your run then? All I got
was the scenery.’

  I nodded, taking a swig of the coffee she handed me.

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘I’m going to borrow the squadron taxi. There’s a place I want to have a look at, a battle site.’

  ‘Bit unusual for you, isn’t it? I never had you down as a trainspotter.’

  ‘This is different.’

  She waited, but I left it at that.

  ‘Do you want some company?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather do it on my own.’

  She shrugged. ‘Why would I?’

  I checked, surprised at the edge in her voice, but she was already turning away.

  I looked around. Noel was sprawled on the sofa, staring at the television screen. Rees was making coffee for him, while Shark and Jimmy were facing each other across a chessboard. Shark’s smile as he surveyed the pieces was even more smug than usual, but Jimmy’s face was the picture of deep Caledonian gloom.

  ‘Where do you guys keep the keys for the squadron taxi?’ I asked.

  Shark looked up. ‘In the ignition. It’s in the rules of Military Vigilance: “All vehicles are to be parked facing outwards with the keys left in at all times.”’

  He leaned forward, moved his bishop and said ‘Check’, then turned back to me. ‘The last batch of new MPs obviously hadn’t read the rules either. On their first night on duty, they spotted that someone had left the keys in, decided it was a security risk and went round the base removing them from every vehicle. There was an alert that night and when we all came piling out of the building, no one could get to the QRA area because the keys were all in the guardhouse. It was lucky the alert was a test, not the real thing.’

  I walked outside. The sky was ice blue and the low sunlight threw the hills into sharp relief. The few clouds scudded swiftly across the sky, driven by the relentless wind.