Special Deliverance

by Special Deliverance (retail) (epub)

  ‘Stabled, señor, but—’

  ‘We’ll go get it.’ They’d have known the snow was coming, of course… The nochero’s tack had been left handy in the outer part of its stable, but he told Paco not to bother with a saddle. These people often didn’t; and a lad who’d just murdered his father and was so crazed as to be about to take his own life in an utterly bizarre manner wouldn’t have given it a thought. Paco was fastening the throat-strap of the bridle, his hands shaking so much it wasn’t easy for him… ‘All right. We return now to the carnicería. Bring the horse.’

  Inside again, in the sweetish reek of blood, having tethered the other horse beside his own, he told Paco, ‘Now strip. Take all your clothes off.’

  ‘My — clothes?’

  ‘Do it. Take all your clothes off, then roll everything up in the poncho.’

  The boy hadn’t moved. Andy pointed the Winchester at his lower abdomen: ‘I don’t care if you live or die. As you didn’t care if I froze in there or drowned in the river. I’ll count to three. One…’

  Paco stripped. He was crying, and he stopped twice as if he couldn’t believe this was for real.

  ‘Bundle it now. Boots too. Tie it with the belt.’

  Francisca’s voice in his memory: Little boys pull wings off flies, don’t they?

  He motioned with the rifle in his gloved hands: ‘Out.’

  A step forward, pleading: ‘Don Andrés — señor — out there I’ll die!’

  Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings… Andy reached, pulled the bundle of clothes out of the boy’s arms, gestured again: ‘Outside.’ He pushed the door open, saw the two horses snow-covered and miserable; he felt sorry for the horses… ‘Out, damn you!’ Using the rifle as if it had a bayonet on it, slamming the door shut behind them both and unhitching his own horse. ‘Mount!’ He grabbed the nochero’s reins. When the naked, mewling boy was up, he turned the mare and urged her into a trot, leading the other.

  ‘Don Andrés — in the name of Christ and the Holy Virgin—’

  ‘Ride!’ He threw him the reins. ‘Stay in front now. If you want a chance of staying alive, do exactly what I say!’ Paco had no chance whatsoever of staying alive but if he’d guessed it he might have made a break, risked a bullet. Not that he’d have got far. The snow was thick, blinding, driven on an icy, gusting wind, the cold would be eating into the marrow of his bones. Andy handled both gates, making Paco ride through and then following, shutting them; even though a madman might have left them open. Conceivably — he thought, herding the boy along — he was the madman in this party. But he’d never thought more clearly or acted more resolutely in his life; this was what he had to do, he knew it and he was doing it, having no alternatives and his mind as it were anaesthetised… It occurred to him that she might have admired this if she could have seen it, seen the absolutely new Andrew MacEwan?

  A mile from the estancia he called, ‘Stop, Paco!’

  He’d thought the boy might not have lasted this far, might have slipped off sooner, might have died by now of the cold or of his own terror. He rode at him, cannoning his horse into the other, reaching to grab one long white leg and yank it upward, tipping the boy off then snatching the nochero’s reins and trotting clear… ‘Run! Run, Paco!’

  On his hands and knees in the thorn scrub. His scream was thin, a cat could have made more noise. Andy rode at him again, swinging the rifle as a threat but careful not to touch him with it. ‘Run!’

  He’d got up: fallen… Scrambling up again, stumbling a few steps then collapsing, up again as he heard the thudding hooves approaching. Stumbling forward… The thorns ripping at his feet and legs would be nothing, numbed by the cold he might not even be feeling them. He’d covered a few hundred yards, part of that distance crawling, before he went flat again and this time stayed there. Andy put the reins back over the MacEwan horse’s neck and gave it a whack across the rump; it trotted away into the whirling snow and he forgot it. He threw the rifle down, then opened the bundle of clothing and began dropping it item by item in a circle round the body, pausing only to take the storeroom key out of his own pocket and push it into one in the boy’s bombacbas. Why would a kid who’d slaughtered his own father ride out in a blizzard — with a loaded Winchester — and divest himself of his clothes?! Remorse, a madman’s torment? Only God himself, the peóns would say, crossing themselves, could answer such a question… Andy leant from the saddle for a final look at what was already only a hummock in the snow; then he turned his horse towards Strobie’s.

  *

  You couldn’t lean on the drill all that hard, they’d found. A little weight on it was OK, caused the heap of metal dust in first-stage drillings to pile slightly faster, but overdoing it was counter-productive. You could only experiment in this way in the first-stage drills of course, because when you were cutting into the inner casings you didn’t see it happening. But either the boffins had rounded off their stopwatch figures to provide those sixty-minute and forty-five-minute timings — which surely wouldn’t have been very scientific — or the missile casings on which the experimental drillings had been carried but had been of a different tensile strength. Presumably inner and outer casings were made of the same steel alloy, but Cloudsley had no recollection of this being mentioned.

  With a hundred per cent concentration, no hold-ups and tightening changeovers between operators and from one missile to the next, plus nobody allowing themselves to get hypnotised, he reckoned as the hours passed that they had a reasonable chance of just about making his 0700 deadline.

  Tony Beale finished stage one on missile three at 0355. Ten minutes outside the schedule. Cloudsley’s turn then, starting on number four and handing over after half an hour to Hosegood, who drilled into the air gap at 0504. About twenty minutes over, then. At 0540 Beale handed over on stage two of missile three to Cloudsley; and this was the part where you had to ease up as you came near the end. The diamond tip of his drill broke into the booster motor’s guts at 0602: he knew it was through because of the feel of it and the faint hiss of escaping gas; he pulled back quickly to get the hot probe out of it and to let it vent, also so as to move without delay to missile four for the first part of stage two. By this time they’d broken all the boffins’ laws on caution but it was still taking longer than it should.

  ‘Snow’s stopped.’ Beale added, ‘That’s not all, Harry. There’s Pucarás being moved out.’

  He’d been at the door, and made his announcement quietly, breaking foul news so gently it was — in the circumstances — ludicrous… Cloudsley stooped over the missile, sliding the bit in through the stage one hole, aiming for the geometric centre as he set the diamond tip against the inner casing. Hearing Beale mutter, ‘Lying real thick now. Suppose they can still get off the ground.’ He shut his mind to it — tried to, while Beale was packing the hole in missile three with the dental filling. In fact an early start to the pre-dawn flying was less of a menace — touch wood — than the snow was, snow thick enough to be imprinted with boot-marks but the snowfall finished, leaving the marks clear and the sky clear too for helos to come shuttling in. But forget it; forget everything on the outside, concentrate on this, just get on with it… He heard the other two checking over their Ingram pistols. It was two and a half minutes past six when he triggered the drill for the start of the last stage, last missile, the tiny spotlight focusing along the invisibly-spinning drill as he applied what experience suggested was about optimum pressure. Hosegood would have the tricky part on this one, when he took over in half an hour.

  At 0633, in fact. The change-over didn’t take more than a couple of seconds because the bit didn’t even have to be removed from the hole for it. Beale murmured, checking his watch, ‘Near done it, Harry.’ Cloudsley nodded. He’d taken the magazine out of his Ingram and checked it; now he slid it back in again. ‘Let’s have the rest of the gear packed up.’

  One battery was already finished with. They’d take these two out, but the spares buried out there in their C
zech-made pack would have to be left. Might lie there for years. Cloudsley went to the door and opened it an inch. Crouching with his eye to the crack, seeing aircraft moving on the field but needing to get the foreground picture into focus first. Snow lying deep and unmarked under the flood of light; and a dark streak around the outside of the wire where sentries’ boots had transformed snow into mush. A double-take on this; and a spark of hope. You’d land in that beaten track — OK, there’d be tracks on the inside of the fence, you’d have to trust to luck on that — land in the sentries’ pathway, and then numbers two and three would follow in father’s footsteps across the slip-road and into the dark. One smudged lot of boot-prints might pass for the spoor of a sentry who’d been taken short, retired into the dark to relieve himself. These characters weren’t expecting trouble; they’d think at least twice before annoying their NCOs by raising a false alarm.

  He felt better. In good heart anyway for knowing the object of the operation had practically been achieved.

  The fuel-truck, almost end-on from this viewpoint, was a dome of white under its heavy thatch of snow. Beyond it — a long way beyond it — he saw moving lights.

  Headlights, blinding… He took his eyes off them. Lights on the airfield were tractor headlights, tractors parked to provide light for ground staff working around the Pucarás. One trailer to each group of aircraft. Bombing-up, he guessed, to herald the new day with napalm. Allowing himself to look back at the other lights… Hosegood must have seven or eight minutes’ work still to do on that last missile, he thought. The thought linked directly to what he almost knew he was about to see — and did see now, with sweat ice-cold on his tense, crouched body. It was the van, the one in which the Argies moved personnel to and from this compound, coming slow speed along the snow-packed road.

  13

  Beale had screwed the suppressor on to the barrel of his Ingram. He’d also readied Hosegood’s for him and put it on the concrete floor beside him. Geoff was still drilling, having to take it carefully now, this final stage. Beale squatted near the missile’s head while Cloudsley, up front, watched through the top between the hinges of the little door.

  He pushed it shut.

  ‘They’re coming. Geoff, we’ll hold them off while you finish. Just keep at it.’

  The drill’s pinpoint of light and its reflection radiating from the missile’s shiny casing was the only break in the hangar’s darkness; with Geoff’s dark features, glittering slits of eyes spectrally illuminated in it.

  Cloudsley’s last sight through the slit in the door had been of four men with parkas over their overalls coming from the gates towards the front of the hangar. They’d arrived in the van, which had been moving off again along the service road as the four entered via the small side gate; a soldier had been taking his time over unlocking the big ones.

  Cloudsley hoped he wasn’t going to have to kill them. It wouldn’t be necessary if they put their hands up and stayed quiet and docile while the job was finished. If they were civilian technicians — Frenchmen, maybe — you might hope for than.

  But now he was hearing Spanish, not French, voices raised above the diesel’s racket. Right outside the hangar doors. And the sound of Pucará engines warming up. Earlier than ever: so that surmise had been correct. A crash — a boot, against the doors? — boomed through the hangar. Then rattling of the padlocked chains, a Spanish shout, other voices sounding angry. Cloudsley backed away — to give himself a clearer field of fire and to be less immediately visible when they slid the first door back. He heard Beale cock his pistol, and he did the same, drawing back the bolt-handle on top until the sear clicked in, engaging. As he did it, one of the men outside tried the right hand small door and found it was locked. Another burst of explosive Spanish — as Cloudsley went forward quickly to the nearer one and locked that too; he was still there with his hand on the key when an Argie tried it then yelled something and hit the steel with his fist. Beale muttered, ‘Silly cunts left their keys at home…’ Nothing was audible from close range, after that: only the steady pounding of the generator and the more distant but increasing noise of aircraft engines. Cloudsley moved back to his covering position, back from the doors, thinking Bloody lucky… Then his brain switched on again and he went to the right-hand door, the one they’d wrenched at first; because you were completely helpless if you couldn’t see out, see whatever might be coming, and a door they’d already found to be locked was a door they wouldn’t be trying again, surely. He waited a few feet from it, listening. This respite might not last long — if the keys were in the guardhouse, for instance — but the delay had already guaranteed the job would be finished.

  ‘All right, Geoff?’

  ‘Yeah. Coming along…’

  Outside, a car door slammed. Close: he guessed, the fuel-truck. Fitting the suppressor; until now he hadn’t had time for it. The point of using a suppressor was that the less noise and flash you made the less attention you might attract from elsewhere. Touch wood…

  He unlocked the little door. When they had their keys it could be the big sliding ones they’d be going for, anyway. Crouching, he turned the handle very cautiously, eased the door open about an inch.

  Three men — three of the four he’d seen coming in — were walking away towards the gates, swinging their arms and stamping their feet in the snow. Three soldiers were acting similarly in front of the guardhouse. The gates were standing wide open. Blinding flash of light — from the control tower, fifty yards right, other side of the road… Circling on, that lightbeam swept over the parked Pucarás — one on its own just near the road, then two separate groups deployed as if for take-off in two flights. He’d first seen them, and a tractor plus trailer with each group, when the van had come crawling up to the front of the compound and its headlights had washed over that area of the field, but now the revolving beacon lit it all brilliantly several times a minute, splashing over the front of this hangar too, lighting the compound and a wide radius of flat airfield… Those three men had stopped near the gates and turned to walk back again, still doing physical jerks to keep warm, hunching like gorillas against the wind. He was watching them, wondering how the keys could be so long arriving, when he heard the helo.

  Immediately, two conclusions: it was very close, or you wouldn’t be hearing it over the generator’s closer noise, and it was a Chinook — yesterday’s sound again.

  Another pair of headlights now — approaching from the right, low to the carpet of snow. He thought it looked like the staff car coming. Therefore, Roberto…

  Or the missing keys. Or both.

  Hosegood said sharply, ‘OK, that’s it.’

  ‘Quick as you like, gents.’

  Plugging that last hole, then turning the missile right side up. Even now there was no point letting the Argies know they’d be deploying a load of duds. But there was also the last of the gear to be packed… He changed his mind on that. There were tools and other items at the back of the hangar, and the drill, liner-upper and two batteries distributed amongst that lot might not be noticed, at least for quite a while, and later it wouldn’t matter.

  ‘We’ll leave the gear. Pull all wires out and mix it with that other junk.’

  He couldn’t help them, had to stay where he was and try to see some way out. Not that at this moment there looked like being one. The helo noise had faded: flown over, or something, and he hadn’t had any sight of it, his view from here being restricted. Those three were in a close group halfway between the hangar and the gateway; turning now to see the staff car arrive, and moving out of its way. And to the right he could just see the fuel-truck’s driver, using a broom to knock snow off his vehicle. Shoving with the broom’s head, starting avalanches that thudded down so he had to jump back as they fell. The staff car turned into the compound, cutting deep tracks in the virgin snow, and stopped in front of the guardhouse, one soldier saluting and the other moving across to open a rear door. A naval officer got out of the front passenger seat, and then Roberto
emerged from the back in flying kit plus brass hat. Closest view Cloudsley had had of the elder MacEwan. Big, with a wide, meaty face and a thick neck… The way the car had parked its headlights tunnelled across the compound’s northwest corner, lighting the area that was usually in shadow and shining directly on the other small door, the one which until now had been their private entrance and exit.

  In fact it wasn’t getting any better.

  A roar of Pucará engines from the field. Their departure was unlikely to be delayed much longer, he guessed, or Roberto wouldn’t have been togged up as he was. The machine on its own, parked so conveniently near the road, would almost certainly be Roberto’s. A minute ago its co-pilot or observer had left it and come strolling over to the compound; he was near the gate, chatting to other aircrew. Helo racket suddenly loud again… There seemed to be several different things happening at once, and trying to see a way through it, some way out, hadn’t as yet revealed even the beginnings of one… He saw the Chinook now, slanting down; he’d looked in the right place for it because that crowd of airmen had been looking up — as were the three technicians and others, including Roberto in the foreground, and another group of flyers drifting this way from the parked machines — the control tower’s beam flashing over them and circling on — and the tanker driver, who’d moved away from the front of his truck to get a view of it… Cloudsley’s own view was cut off as the helo lowered itself into a blaze of light at the compound’s western end.

  Beale and Hoscgood were behind him in the dark. He told them, ‘Chinook just landing, but these blokes are still waiting for the keys. Roberto’s swaggering around out there.’