‘Oh, jeezuss! I don’t want to lose you, Roz!’
‘You won’t lose me, Steve. Our lives are bound together by a power and for a purpose far greater than our need for each other.’
Steve nodded. ‘How come I get the feeling you’re suddenly a lot smarter than me?’
‘I always was, little brother!’
Steve ruffled her hair playfully and hugged her again. ‘Look after yourself. It’s a rough world out there.’
‘You too …’
They looked along the flightdeck. The five mexicans were clustered around Wallis. He looked towards Roz and beckoned her forward. Roz signalled she was on her way.
‘Do those guys know what they’re doing?’
‘They think they do.’ Roz kissed him quickly on the mouth then broke away. ‘Look after Clearwater!’
‘I will.’ If they let me … Steve followed her along the flight deck. ‘Listen! I know this is a stupid question but … will we see each other again?’
Roz favoured him with another enigmatic smile. It was getting to be a habit. ‘That depends on you.’
Steve stood on one side with Wallis as Roz wriggled into the prone position on the buddy-frame then had the flight-bag zipped shut around her. It was like a wind-proof sleeping bag with a clear plastic ventilated hood covering the head and shoulders.
Hannah and Coates went away first, then Nevill’s Skyhawk was hooked up. The engine went to full revs, there was a tremendous whoooshh! then Roz was gone, leaving wisps of steam curling from the vents in the catapult rig. Gone without an answering wave.
Steve let his hand drop, and swallowed the lump in his throat. The third Skyhawk with Cal Parsons on the frame and Watkins at the controls was brought forward and went off in its turn.
When the three Skyhawks carrying Roz and the five mexicans aarrived over The Lady from Louisiana, they found a reassuring number of camouflaged and helmeted Trail-Blazers on the roof. Hannah, flying the lead aircraft, made a low pass alongside the train to check the state of the flight-deck before landing with Parsons. Wallis had ordered them to go in first to make sure everything was okay. On receipt of their signal, Nevill would then bring Roz in, followed by Watkins and Coates.
Mr Snow, who had been cajoled into wearing another Tracker helmet, crouched in the duckhole with Cadillac as the latter, using his normal voice, talked the Skyhawk down onto the wire. Along each side of the flight deck, M’Call warriors dressed up in Tracker uniforms stood ready to pounce.
Mr Snow gazed at his protégé admiringly. ‘You amaze me. Where did you get all this knowledge from?’
‘Lots of people – but mainly from Brickman. We’re lucky he had an enquiring mind. Now – for the last time – close that visor!’
The three Skyhawks from The Lady’s own flight component which had been circling the train and making the occasional strafing run, came in ahead of Hannah’s aircraft in V-formation as he made his final approach. The two wing aircraft strafed the ground on either side of the train to prevent any Mutes taking a pot-shot at Hannah and his passenger as the Skyhawk floated in over the rear command car with its flaps and arrester hook down.
Cadillac leapt onto the flight deck and ran forward while two warriors hauled Mr Snow out of the duckhole. Taking care to keep clear of the whirling propellor, Cadillac freed the snagged cable then assumed the role of deck marshal, signalling the pilot to fold his wings and taxi towards the forward port lift.
Mr Snow and a hand of disguised warriors caught up with Cadillac as Hannah parked on the lift and cut the motor. To the mexican, the Blazers around the flight-deck seemed strangely disorganized but at that point in time he had no reason to suspect there was anything wrong. This was, after all, no ordinary fire-fight.
Unzipping the flight-bag, Cadillac glimpsed an unmistakably male figure inside. Parsons. By this time Hannah, his partner, was out of the cockpit.
‘Where’s the Brickman girl?’ demanded Cadillac.
‘Up there.’ Hannah jerked a thumb skywards as he helped Parsons extricate himself from the buddy-frame. He glanced at the masked figures crowded round the airplane and wondered why they weren’t facing outwards ready to gun down any Mutes who poked their nose from out under the train. ‘Who’s in charge here?’
‘I am,’ said Cadillac.
Parsons, now standing by his partner’s side, coughed. Covering his mouth he turned in towards Hannah. ‘Check the badge …’ he whispered.
Hannah’s eyes fastened on Cadillac’s uniform and saw it carried a badge of the 5th Signals Intelligence Squadron. The decoy outfit that had been jumped by the M’Calls and Malone’s renegades. ‘So what’s happened to the crew-chief?’
‘He’s been wounded. He’s in the blood-wagon.’
‘Then where’s the Flight Ops Exec?’ demanded Hannah.
‘He’s dead.’
‘Aww, shit – Pete Carmichael?!’
‘Yeah …’
Hannah took a step back. Parsons was seized but before anyone could reach Hannah, his pistol was out of its shoulder-holster and pointing at Cadillac’s face.
‘You just struck out, good buddy! That’s the wrong name and you’re wearing the wrong uniform! What the fuck’s going on?!’
Mr Snow raised his visor and pushed aside the warriors who were shielding him. ‘A battle, my friend! Which YOU are losing!’
The pistol wavered in Hannah’s hand as he tried to control an unreasoning urge to throw it away. His brain was telling him that it wasn’t a gun he had in his hand at all. It was a snake – coiled around his fist!
With a horrified yell he jerked his hand open and flung the hideous thing away. And as the pistol clattered across the flight deck, a voice filled his mind, banishing all other thoughts and feelings.
Do whatever is required to bring the girl to us …
Moving like a sleepwalker, Hannah reached into the cockpit and plugged himself into the radio circuit.
Circling above the train with Roz lying alongside his cockpit, Jake Nevill heard the hiss of static in his earphones as Hannah came through.
‘White Knight One to Mother Hen. The perch is green and clean. Bring the bird home to roost.’
‘Mother Hen, Roger.’ Nevill glanced over his right shoulder towards the Skyhawk flown by Coates, tucked in behind and below his starboard wing. ‘White Knight Two. Do you copy, over?’
‘White Knight Two. Roger. Will follow you in.’
Filled with a great sense of well-being, Hannah pulled off his helmet, dropped it onto the pilot’s seat and stood erect, ready and willing to face whatever lay in store. Parsons had also ceased to struggle. They were like poultry which, when seized by the feet and upended, accept the inevitable and go unresisting to their death.
‘Take them below.’ Cadillac turned to Mr Snow as the mexicans were led away. ‘Wait here!’
He ran back down the flight deck and jumped into the Deck Controller’s duckhole and plugged himself into the radio linking him with the aircraft overhead. ‘Lady-Lady to Mother Hen. Surface wind bearing two-seven-five, speed one zero. Call finals. Over.’
‘Mother Hen, Roger. Two seven five, speed one zero.’
Cadillac watched the Skyhawk bank left onto the short crosswind leg over the forest of larches beyond the rear command car. The third aircraft piloted by Coates was coming downwind west of the train to make the same turn.
‘Mother Hen turning finals, over.’
Cadillac was gripped by a rising sense of excitement. Everything was working out beautifully. And only he could have done it! And with Brickman gone there was no chance of anyone else stealing the limelight.
Once again, the three patrol aircraft swept in ahead, clearing the way as Nevill landed on. Then as White Knight Two, carrying Watkins and Coates, turned over the forest of larches, the trio of Skyhawks banked round over the twin rivers and swept back towards the train and the incoming aircraft.
On the flight deck, helmeted Blazers in full combat gear unhooked Nevill’s Skyhawk and
waved him forward. Two soldiers were already peeling open the flight-bag as Roz eagerly unzipped it from the inside.
Nevill cut the motor, threw open the cockpit cover and started to climb out. ‘Don’t bother with that! Let’s get this heap out of the way first! There’s two other guys on their way –’
A savage knife thrust to the heart, delivered by one of the masked uniformed figures, stopped him in his tracks as the three patrol aircraft zoomed overhead.
Exercising the same power that Clearwater had employed in her earlier battle against The Lady, Mr Snow reached out with his mind and filled the formation leader with an overwhelming unreasoning desire to destroy the plane now in his sights. It became the focus of everything he hated.
Coates, at the controls of the incoming Skyhawk, expected the formation to break away on either side of him. Instead, a hail of fire from the six-barrelled gun under the nose of the lead aircraft exploded through the windshield and punched a gaping hole in his chest.
Watkins, on the buddy frame, could do nothing but hang on helplessly, braced for the crash he was unlikely to survive. The pilotless plane side-slipped into the roof of the wagon-train, lost its starboard wing as it bounced off and cartwheeled messily into the ground.
Petrie, the bewitched patrol leader, pulled up into a tight loop, half-rolled off the top into a diving right-hand turn that brought him around onto the port side of his startled wingmen and pressed the gun-button. Nothing happened. The low-level strafing runs and the frontal attack on Coates had left him with an empty drum.
But both pilots, stunned by his downing of the Skyhawk, knew something had gone badly wrong. Petrie had flipped. But they had run out of ammunition too. And now that he was flinging his plane around the sky in an effort to ram them, the only thing they could do was split – and fast. Separating out, they opened the throttle and went down to treetop height where they were harder to spot and sent a May-Day to Red River.
Petrie followed. With each succeeding mile, the desire to destroy all blue flying objects faded, vanishing completely by the time he reached Red River. But by that time, the damage had been done: Mr Snow had achieved his objective – to empty the skies above the wagon-train.
Roz, stepping onto the flight-deck, knew who Mr Snow was before he cast aside his suffocating helmet, and as she clasped his outstretched hands their minds were instantly attuned. He looked incredibly old, his face was haggard and drawn, but there was still plenty of life in his eyes.
‘I thought you’d never get here.’
Charmed by the mischievous smile, Roz tightened her grip on his thin bony fingers. ‘We have waited a long time, Old One.’
‘Too long, my child. This tongue that greets you must bid you farewell with the same breath.’
Roz removed her helmet and brushed her fingers through her short auburn hair. Throwing her head back, she breathed deeply, relishing the cooling touch of the wind upon her face then, as her eyes opened, she found herself looking at Cadillac.
He too was bare-headed – and seemed to be struck dumb. For a moment their eyes remained locked together then Roz turned to Mr Snow.
‘Is this the warrior who is to become known as the Sword of Talisman?’
Mr Snow, amused to see that Cadillac had temporarily lost command of the situation, smiled broadly. ‘He has the makings of a warrior. With you at his side he may even become a great one. But for the moment, he is known as Cadillac.’
The old wordsmith beckoned them to step nearer. Without being bidden, they took hold of each other’s hand and knelt before him. Watched by a silent circle of warriors, he laid his hands on their heads and raised his face to the sky and uttered a silent prayer for divine guidance.
When it came, he closed his eyes and lowered his head. Roz and Cadillac felt their scalps tingle beneath his hands. ‘It is the wish of Talisman that you be joined together, in blood and breath, body and soul, for you are The Chosen, destined to raise his banner high and accomplish mighty works in his name! May his blessings be upon you from this day forward. I hereby bequeath to you all that was mine and entreat you to open your minds to the powers which only he can bestow.’
Opening his eyes, Mr Snow waved them to their feet. ‘Enough!’ He pushed them towards the Skyhawk that Roz had just arrived on. ‘Go! Before it’s too late!’
‘Go?! Go where?!’ cried Cadillac.
‘Go west, young man! Into the hills! Towards a new beginning!’
‘But …’ It was all happening too fast for Cadillac. He was already trying to cope with the revelation that this striking young woman had been chosen by Talisman to be – assuming he had interpreted the Old One’s words correctly – his life partner! Admittedly with her very first glance, she had reached into the depths of his being but even so … A commitment like this should not be rushed into. She had, quite literally, entered his life and his heart like a bolt from the blue but she was … Brickman’s sister! And now, on top of all that, the Old One had given his tail another unexpected twist –
‘But … my blood-brothers and sisters! This may be your dying place, Old One, but what is going to become of them?!’
‘Take a look around you!’ Mr Snow flung out his arms and swept the horizon.
Cadillac gazed around him and felt his blood run cold. Close enough to be seen by a sharp-eyed Mute but still a long way off were four more wagon-trains – moving in from the north, south, east and west. The clan could not retreat. It could only stand and fight.
‘It grieves me to go against you, Old One, but if I honour your wishes I shall be without a shred of honour myself. I brought our Bears and She-Wolves to this place. I cannot run from here and leave my clanfolk to die.’
‘“I-I-I this, I that”! Can you think of no one but yourself?’ cried Mr Snow. ‘Talisman has given this star-child into your care! The Path is drawn. Follow it and don’t look back!’
‘But –’
Mr Snow slapped him hard on the chest, forcing him to step back towards the Skyhawk. ‘The Clan M’Call is not going to die! It is going to become immortal! When the history of the Plainfolk nation is written – as one day it will be – our sacrifice here today will be remembered as one of the first glorious steps on the road to final victory!’
‘HEYY-YAHH!’ chorused the listening warriors.
‘But you still haven’t told me what I must do!’
‘Exactly! I’m through giving advice! Stop thinking about yourself and listen to the Sky Voices!’
Cadillac and Roz found a score of willing hands to help them position the Skyhawk on the unused catapult. Hannah’s craft parked on the adjacent lift proved to be in the way and was promptly tipped over the side. Cadillac checked the steam pressure read-out and explained the control panel to Mr Snow.
‘Are you sure you know which button to press?’
‘I’m just old, not feeble-minded, you impudent rascal! Don’t let this promotion go to your head!’ He accompanied Cadillac back to the Skyhawk; Roz was already in place on the buddy-frame but she had not closed up the hood of the flight-bag.
‘Does he know how to fly this thing?’
‘Oh, yes. That’s the problem. He knows a great many things but not enough about the things that really count.’ Mr Snow squeezed her shoulder affectionately. ‘I’m relying on you to drum some sense into him.’ He moved round the nose of the aircraft to bid Cadillac farewell.
‘I shall miss you, Old One …’
‘Nonsense! If that were true, it would mean you were not ready. Are you trying to tell me that all the years I’ve spent teaching you have been wasted?!’
‘No, but –’
‘Then be off with you!’ cried Mr Snow, hiding his deep love for the wayward, gifted child whose mind he had nurtured from the age of one. ‘We’ve got work to do!’
The command staff of True Grit, the wagon-train now rolling westwards along the far bank of the North Platte, saw the Skyhawk leave the deck. Tracking it through a telephoto lens, they watched it gain height in a clim
bing turn towards Wyoming.
The Flight Ops Exec tried to contact the departing aircraft on the standard frequency but there was no reply and it vanished in a bank of dense low cloud before one of their own Skyhawks could be put up to intercept it. The four approaching wagon-trains had been ordered to keep their aircraft grounded so as not to alert the M’Calls to their approach. CINC-TRAIN wanted to nail every single one – not send them running into the hills.
Aboard Red River, currently a hundred miles to the south east beyond the Nebraska/Kansas State line, Wallis was becoming increasingly worried. Fargo’s staff had been relying on Hartmann’s radio messages to tell them how his battalion was coping with the attack and now he had gone off the air.
His disappearance had coincided with the arrival of Roz Brickman and the team from the White House. Nevill had set down after getting the all-clear from Hannah and Parsons then things had gone haywire. There had been an inexplicable incident involving Petrie – one of the Red River wing-men loaned to The Lady to train up her own pilots on the Mark Two aircraft. An incident which had cost the lives of two of Wallis’s colleagues and had almost claimed two more.
The stunned Petrie, faced with the testimony of his fellow wing-men, could offer no explanation for his behaviour. There was a total blank in his memory starting when he began the run in towards the wagon-train. The next thing he could recall was tailing one of his wing-men back towards Red River and receiving orders to land on. Pending further investigation of the incident, Petrie was formally relieved of his duties and thrown in the slammer.
James Fargo, the wagon-master of Red River, could make neither head nor tail of it. Wallis, on the other hand, had been given access to the record of Jodi Kazan’s debriefing. The similarity between Petrie’s behaviour and the incident surrounding her pick-up by aircraft from The Lady were too striking to ignore. This was earth-magic. The work of a summoner. Probably Mr Snow. Had he also overcome Roz? They wouldn’t know the answer to that until someone on The Lady came back on the air. Or until – as seemed more likely – the four Trail-Blazer battalions now being carried into action by True Grit, King of the Pecos, Sands of Iwo-Jima and Overland Raider had retaken the stricken wagon-train.
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