Exclusion Zone

by Exclusion Zone (retail) (epub)

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’ I glanced at the fuel gauge again and felt the knot in my stomach grow tighter. Another red warning light was showing on the panel. We were now running almost empty, with only a few minutes’ fuel remaining. I jabbed the radio button to call the tower again. ‘Falcon Two on finals. We’re out of fuel and very low on hydraulics so we only have this one shot at it. We’ve also no flaps, so we’re coming in fast.’

  A different voice cut in. ‘Sean, this is Noel. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. I’d rather have you eject if you have any doubts. Throw the jet away and we’ll pick you up in a few minutes.’

  ‘Thanks, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have all three of us back, though at least one of us will be in pretty ratshit condition by then.’

  Noel’s only answer was a terse, ‘Roger, your decision.’

  As I broke the connection I heard Jane’s voice, low but urgent, over the intercom. ‘Sean? It’s your call, but—’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to be a hero.’

  There was a momentary silence. ‘Okay. Go for it.’

  ‘Right. Be ready to eject the instant anything goes wrong. Don’t wait for the word, just bang out.’

  My breathing was now very fast and shallow and I forced myself to take a few slow, deep breaths, holding each one for a couple of seconds. There was no time for any other preparations. We were now skimming over the plain towards the airfield. The handling of the jet seemed even more sluggish and I cast an anxious eye towards the wing, fearing that part of it might be breaking up. There was no sign of any further damage, but as I nudged the rudder again to line the jet up on the runway there was a yell from the back seat.

  ‘Shit. Hydraulics are almost out. We’ll have to come out.’

  I tried the stick again. It felt as if it was buried in wet concrete, but the nose came round a fraction. ‘We should make it, there’s still some response.’

  Jane said nothing. It was my decision to make, but I was only too well aware that not one, but two lives rested on it. I had perhaps five seconds.

  Smears of blood on the canopy had dried fast in the rush of the slipstream. In places flakes of the dried blood had been ripped away by the wind, but my vision ahead was still obscured.

  Peering through it, I could make out the emergency crews, ambulances and fire engines lining the runway, and a Sea King idly hovering, ready if we fell short or overshot and had to eject.

  There was mercifully little crosswind, it was blowing almost directly down the runway, but it was still a battle to hold the jet level as the faint outline of the perimeter fence began to show. I coaxed one last effort from my tired muscles, forcing the stick over as the smallest gust of wind set the plane juddering and the wing dipping dangerously towards the ground.

  The floodlight stanchions at the edge of the airfield loomed large, then disappeared beneath us. I touched the stick to make a minute correction to our course. ‘Hold on, Jane, this is it.’

  The jet dropped onto the runway with a crash, lurched back into the air and thudded down again. The nose dipped and then jerked violently upwards. The crack in the Perspex canopy opened wide enough for me to glimpse daylight.

  With no steering, I could only straighten the jet by using the right and left brakes. As the jet veered to the right I stamped down hard on that brake. It swung back, but too fast, and I had to stomp on the left brake to correct it. We sped on down the runway, lurching from side to side.

  I jerked the throttles to the left to deploy the thrust buckets. The only response was a flashing warning light. The lack of flaps had forced me to approach much faster than usual. We were now racing down the runway at high speed with no steering and no thrust buckets to slow us down.

  All we had was whatever hydraulic fluid was left in the emergency reservoir. In theory it was enough for twenty uses of the brakes, but I’d already used a few just trying to keep the jet on line.

  ‘Take the cable,’ Jane yelled.

  ‘We’ve got to get to the fucking thing first.’

  I stamped on both brakes at once, trying to drive them through the floor. Almost at once, there was the stench of hot metal and burning oil. The carbon brakes grew hotter and burst into flames, and smoke began filtering into the cockpit.

  There were a few moments of absolute clarity, as if my senses had accelerated to match the speed of the jet. I had time to notice the fire crew crouched by the runway, the fire chief’s mouth opening and closing soundlessly, shouting orders to his men as we flashed past. I saw the emergency trucks racing us down the runway, but the flash of their blue lights seemed as slow and measured as the beam of a lighthouse. The radar dish on top of the tower mimicked the pale round faces behind the blue glass, tracking us as we hurtled past.

  Then the frozen motion dissolved in an avalanche of speed and noise. I heard a bang and felt the jet take a violent lurch to the left. The blazing, shredded tyre disintegrated, throwing off smouldering fragments of rubber. The wheel dropped and gouged a furrow out of the concrete, sending up a torrent of sparks.

  Reacting by instinct, I released the left brake for a second, then jammed it down hard again as the jet swung back onto line. The end of the runway was racing towards us. The jet still veered from side to side, slower now, but too fast to stop in time. The stench of burning oil and rubber was overpowering, the heat from the burning brakes and flaming tyres palpable even inside the cockpit.

  There was another bang, and another. The jet lurched again and the nose dipped. The violent deceleration hurled me forward and the straps sliced into my flesh. The grinding din of metal on concrete doubled and trebled in volume, and fountains of sparks showered around us.

  The noise reached a terrible crescendo as we slewed across the apron. I saw the black edge of the peat ahead of us and the barbs of fencing wire just beyond. Then the pressure on my chest ceased abruptly and I slumped back in my seat. It took a moment for me to realise that we had come to a halt. I hit the crash switches, killed the remaining fuel flow and electrics, and pressed the remaining fire button for good measure. ‘Safe-arm the seats.’

  There were a few seconds of near-total silence and then I heard the clamour of sirens and the screech of the fire trucks’ brakes as they ground to a halt around us. Thick, oily black smoke was now filling the canopy. I heard Jane’s voice. ‘The canopy, Sean. The canopy.’

  ‘I can’t. We’ve no hydraulics.’ I stared down at my hands, still gripping the useless stick as if my life depended on it.

  It was a moment before I could release my grip, my fingers cramped with pain. Through the blood smears, smoke and flames, I saw white, moon-suited figures running towards us. There was the whoosh of foam as the fire crews went to work on the blazing brakes and tyres, and a clang as metal ladders were thrown against the side of the jet.

  The face of one of the fire crew peered in at me through the Perspex, even more remote behind his visor. ‘I can’t raise the canopy,’ I yelled.

  He nodded and gave a warning shout. The other fire crew backed away, still training their hoses on the flames.

  Holding the emergency canopy handle, attached to a length of cable, the fireman jumped down from the ladder. As he began to sprint away from the jet, still holding the cable in his hand, I shouted ‘Heads dow—’

  There was a deafening bang as the explosive strip embedded in the canopy detonated and the Perspex disintegrated.

  I felt strong hands lifting me and carrying me down. I looked around me, dazed and disorientated, trying to make sense of what was happening. Then my head began to clear. As the fire crew hurried away from the jet, staggering a little under their burden, I could hear and see their feet crunching on shards of glittering Perspex as if we were crossing the surface of a frozen lake.

  I glanced back towards the Tempest. It looked a wreck, smoke-blackened, battered and covered in dirty grey foam. There was no sign of Jane. I looked around wildly. ‘Jane? Where’s Jane?’

  ‘Your nav? She’
s all right. She’s just over there.’ The fire crewman nodded towards my right.

  She was also cradled between two fire crew carrying her towards the waiting ambulance, but she raised her head and looked at me.

  An impassive team of medics loaded us into separate ambulances for the run to the medical centre. Apart from fatigue and a residual headache from the blast that had detonated the canopy, I felt okay, but it was a good hour and a half before they could be persuaded to release me. As I came out of the Sick Bay, Jane rushed from the bench where she had been waiting and hugged me so hard she almost lifted me off my feet.

  ‘You beauty. Give me a kiss, you Pommy bastard, you. That was one ballsy landing.’

  ‘For a crap nav, you didn’t do too badly yourself.’

  She laughed and aimed a cuff at my head, then thought better of it. ‘Perhaps not. If your head aches like mine, you won’t be too amused.’

  We were both still elated by the adrenalin rush of survival, talking, laughing and joking as the ambulance took us back down to the QRA area. At the far end of the airfield a mobile crane was lifting the wreckage of the Tempest from the runway.

  ‘Taff and the ground crew are going to love us for that,’ I said. ‘I doubt if they’ll ever get that heap of scrap airworthy again.’

  The battle-damage repair crew were already at work, jackhammers clattering as they dug out the sections of runway gouged by the wheels of the Tempest and began to replace them.

  ‘Good time for an Argentine invasion,’ Jane said.

  ‘It’ll be fixed in a couple of hours.’

  Noel was waiting to greet us as we headed for the changing rooms. ‘Top job,’ he said, gripping our hands in turn. ‘Both of you. I wouldn’t have fancied getting that jet down in one piece. The Boss would have been here to add his congratulations, but he’s been knee-deep in signals traffic for the last couple of hours. God knows what’s going on.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, well done. Get cleaned up and I’ll treat you to a celebration cup of coffee. Anything stronger’ll have to wait until we come off QRA.’

  Tired and sweaty, we both risked a quick shower. My exhilaration soon began to fade. My head ached and my arms and shoulders were sore from the strain of battling the crippled jet, but it was the image of Argentine trawlermen drowning somewhere beneath the black scum of oil covering the ocean surface that kept coming back to me.

  The light was already fading by the time we headed through to the crew room. We ate the food sent over from the Mess without enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s like Britain in the 1950s.’

  Jane looked up from her resigned contemplation of her plate. ‘The Falklands?’

  ‘The food.’ I pushed my plate away and stared out into the darkness.

  I could sense Jane watching me. ‘Not still thinking about the bird strike?’

  I shook my head. ‘Those poor sailors. My grandfather served on a destroyer in the war. He escorted a lot of convoys on the suicide run through the Arctic into Murmansk. He saw a lot of ships sunk and a lot of men drowned, but the thing he most remembered was the sinking of a British cruiser.

  ‘It was deep in the Arctic winter and the superstructure of the ship was smothered in ice. There was a heavy sea running and a stiff wind out of the north. The cruiser was ripped apart by torpedoes. It went down stern first in seconds. The oil slick flattened the sea, just like it did today. He said that all he could see floating in the oil in the middle of the Arctic Ocean were hundreds and hundreds of pith helmets the Marine bandsmen wore on tropical duty. Those hats bobbing silently on the sea moved him more than all the lifeless bodies he’d seen.’

  The door banged and the Boss strode in to the room, his face grim. ‘Briefing in two minutes, get the others.’

  We exchanged a questioning glance, then leapt to our feet. Most of the guys were in the TV room but Noel was dozing on his bed and I had to shake him awake. We hurried into the briefing room where the Boss was staring at a handful of signals spread out on the podium in front of him. As I walked past him I could see the heading: ALPHA EYES ONLY, the highest security level.

  He began to speak before we were seated, his voice cold and measured. ‘We’ve received a series of flash signals from London over the past few hours. All contact with the nuclear submarine HMS Trident has again been lost. It was operating on the edge of Argentine territorial waters, monitoring and tracking the exercise being conducted there. The last recorded contact was at 1800 hours local time yesterday. Since then it’s missed two routine communication slots.’

  I had stopped listening. All I could see in my mind were the two Argentine helicopters and the oil slick spreading slowly over the surface of the ocean, studded with the debris of a wreck.

  I felt Jane’s hand on my arm. ‘Sean, what’s the matter? You’re as white as a sheet!’

  ‘That wreck.’

  She stared at me for a moment, then the realisation hit her. ‘Oh, shit. The helicopters.’

  I nodded. When I looked up, the Boss had fallen silent and was watching us. Slowly, haltingly, I repeated the details of what we had seen. I raised my eyes to meet his. ‘I just didn’t realise. I knew something wasn’t right, but…’

  As he hesitated, Noel stood up. ‘That’s bullshit, Sean. You had no reason to believe anything was wrong. We intercepted signals apparently coming from a trawler in distress and you then found two helicopters searching the area, an oil slick and the debris from a wreck. It could all be a false alarm. An Argentine trawler really could have gone down there, and the Trident may yet resume contact. There are a hundred other reasons why they could have missed their slots.’

  I could not keep the scepticism from my face.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘what action could you have taken? We can’t shoot helicopters down because they’re acting suspiciously.’

  I shook my head. ‘I could have done something.’

  The Boss cleared his throat and spread his hands palms down. ‘Let’s save the post-mortems until later, when the situation becomes clearer. For the moment, I’m moving you up to RS 5. I want two crews sitting in those jets, ready to go at all times.’

  I was the first to break the ensuing silence. ‘What about Cobra Force?’

  The Boss lowered his head a little, as if ducking the expected response. ‘They’re on standby.’

  ‘Standby? We need more than that, Boss. We need them here, on the way, now.’

  ‘Sean, you know the position. Don’t you think I’d have those troops here if I could? But the MoD simply won’t countenance two squadrons and two thousand troops being flown out here just because the Trident has missed two call-in slots. After all, it’s not the first time it’s happened.’

  ‘Which makes it all the more unlikely that it would happen again. Boss, you’ve got to persuade them. It’s our job to defend these islands. The cost to the MoD of an emergency deployment is a couple of million pounds – small change in the defence budget. If it’s a false alarm, that’s all we’ll lose. If it isn’t, we could lose the Falklands. The cost of that would be billions.’

  He pursed his lips. ‘I hear what you say, Sean, and I understand why you are personally so agitated about this.’

  I was halfway to my feet when I felt Jane’s restraining hand on my arm, her fingers digging in to the flesh. ‘Don’t, Sean.’

  Noel had already stood up again. ‘We’re here to fight the Argentinians if necessary, not bicker among ourselves.’ He paused to glance at each of us. ‘But I have to say I share Sean’s concerns. If Trident is out of action, where are the other nuclear subs?’

  The Boss consulted his papers. ‘The Barents Sea, the Gulf and the Western Approaches.’

  Noel’s ruddy face deepened another tone. ‘Then if the Trident is out of action, we must have that Cobra Force. We’re sitting ducks otherwise.’

  The Boss’s voice showed his exasperation. ‘How many times do I have to say this? I’ve argued the case with all the force I can muster, but you know as well as I do that decisions on
deployments of the scale of Cobra Force are not made by Group Captains. Cobra Force has been placed on standby. At the first signs of any unusual Argentine activity, it’ll be mobilised immediately.’

  ‘By which time it could be too late,’ Noel said.

  The Boss ignored him. ‘We’re now in a state of high alert. We’re bringing the standby jets up to readiness. Each of you will go directly to the armoury to be issued with your personal weapons. Make sure you carry them at all times. That is all.’

  As we got to our feet, Noel’s voice cut through the silence. ‘Falcon Two and Three will take the first spell in the jets. As soon as you’ve collected your weapons, the rest of you get all the kit you need in your aircraft, ready for a rolling take-off, if necessary. One and Four will do the second shift, then Five and Six. I’ll sort out the rest of the rota later. Four-hour shifts. Keep alert.’

  Chapter Nine

  The base was in total darkness, but the silence of the night had been ripped apart. Sea Kings clattered overhead, trailing loads on steel cables, as additional Rapier missile batteries were deployed to their preset positions. Vehicles, lights extinguished, sped to and fro, disgorging troops who scattered to every part of the perimeter, boots pounding on the concrete. Stripped-down Land Rovers roared along the runway, each manned by a soldier with a loaded GPMG.

  ‘Where the hell did those things come from?’ Jane said. ‘I’ve never seen them around the base.’

  I could see the faint outline of troops behind the blue glass of the tower, and more fully armed Marines, their faces smeared with cam cream, manned the sangars around the armoury and the bomb and fuel dumps.

  We gave the number of the day to the guards manning the gate in the barbed wire surrounding the armoury, and hurried down the ramp into the underground chamber. Two NCOs were issuing weapons. I signed my name on the form thrust in front of me and holstered a pistol.

  We collected our kit from the Q shed, then ran up the ramp to the Tempest shack. I heard Taff’s voice bellowing orders. He was standing with his back to me, gesticulating to the jet with one hand. In the other he held an SA80.