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Point of Impact

Page 15

by Point of Impact (retail) (epub)


  ‘The security aspects?’ Drew said blankly. ‘National security?’

  ‘The unauthorised acquisition of classified documents. The Military Police may want to talk to you about that in due course. In the meantime I don’t want to hear any more from you on the subject of the Tempest. From now on keep your mind on the job and your mouth shut.’

  Drew was about to reply when the bell rang.

  He opened the door. Michelle was on the step holding a bottle of champagne and a pair of chocolate handcuffs. She gave him a glorious smile. ‘I know you said you’d got your own equipment, but these might come in useful; if there’s a raid, I can eat the evidence.’

  She started to laugh at Drew’s look of consternation, then caught sight of Russell.

  Russell gave her an ingratiating smile as he stepped towards the door. He eyed the chocolate handcuffs. ‘Flight Lieutenant Power. I’m not sure your father would approve of the company you keep.’

  ‘I’m not sure the company I keep would be any of my father’s business,’ she said. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, sir, I’m not only past the age of consent, I’m also off duty this evening, but I’ll be sure to mention your concern for my welfare next time we speak.’

  ‘So what was that about?’ Michelle asked when Russell had gone.

  ‘Nothing much – another bollocking for daring to suggest there might be something wrong with the Tempest.’

  He kicked the door shut and took the champagne from her, raising an eyebrow at the handcuffs.

  ‘Don’t let your imagination run away with you,’ Michelle said. ‘The only things on the menu tonight are dinner and conversation.’ She looked around the living room. ‘Nice place, Drew. Does anyone live here or is it just a shrine to early Nineties Habitat?’

  ‘No, it’s definitely occupied. If you look closely you can see the imprint of a pair of mid-nineties RAF buttocks in the armchair.’

  She waited for him to pop the cork on the champagne. ‘How’s the investigation coming along? Was it worth going AWOL last night?’

  He hesitated for a fraction of a second. ‘There are one hell of a lot more Tempest incidents: eighteen in all over the last two years, nine of them fatal.’

  The laughter vanished from her eyes. ‘Jesus! Any idea why?’

  ‘None at all. The investigations are all being handled directly by the head of the AlB’s office…’ He paused to study her expression.

  ‘Just because his office is investigating it doesn’t mean my father’s personally involved.’

  ‘Oh come on, Michelle. That’s like the Prime Minister saying he didn’t know about it because it was only discussed in Cabinet.’

  There was a long silence and when Drew glanced up, Michelle was giving him a baleful stare.

  ‘All right, I’m sorry,’ Drew said. ‘No more barbed remarks about your father.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, relenting a little. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to give the information to my MP. I’ve arranged to see him at the House of Commons tomorrow evening.’

  ‘It’s not Tam Dalyell is it?’ Drew shook his head. ‘A pity. Don’t hold your breath then. Even if he does raise it for you, the odds are that the answer will either be waffle or they’ll invoke national security and that’ll be the end of his interest in the subject.’

  Drew shrugged. ‘I don’t have too many other choices.’

  She sipped her drink, studying him for a moment over the rim of her glass. ‘What about the press?’

  ‘That would really be stepping outside the system.’

  She almost choked on her champagne. ‘Unlike deserting your post, impersonating an officer and faking a problem with your jet?’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Of course you could always wait for the AIB to sort it out; that’s what they’re there for, after all.’

  His look was incredulous. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Why not? You’re surely not suggesting that they’re not even trying to find the fault?’

  Drew shook his head. ‘I’m sure they’re trying to find it, but I’m equally sure that they’re going to keep sweeping the problem under the carpet until they do.’

  ‘And what if that’s the best thing to do?’

  ‘And meanwhile, Tempests keep crashing and aircrew keep dying,’ he said. ‘How can it be the best thing to do? It’s already cost eighteen lives. God knows how many more it might claim.’

  ‘Including yours, perhaps. How can you keep flying an aircraft if you know – or at least strongly suspect – it’s flawed? How can you keep getting back in the cockpit?’

  Drew measured his words. ‘The thought had occurred to me, but what’s the alternative? Stop flying altogether? Leave the RAF? I couldn’t do it. Flying fast jets is risky. There’s also the feeling…’ He broke off and gave an embarrassed smile. ‘This sounds stupid…’

  ‘Go on,’ Michelle said.

  ‘I also have the feeling that if I stop flying I’m ratting on the mates who keep doing it. If I don’t go up, someone else has to fly my sorties.’ He struggled to say more, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t explain.’

  He drained his glass and poured himself another. ‘Anyway, lightning doesn’t strike twice, does it?’ His tone was brittle.

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ she said. ‘I remember reading a story in a magazine about a man who’d been struck by lightning five times.’ Michelle gazed into her drink, watching the bubbles spiralling to the surface as she swirled the glass around in her hand. After a while she put it down on the table and said, ‘I’m sorry, this stuff suddenly doesn’t taste right any more.’

  When she stood up to leave, Drew made no attempt to dissuade her.

  * * *

  To his surprise, Michelle was waiting for him when he and Nick pulled up at the squadron the next morning. Nick smiled to himself as he greeted Michelle and then disappeared inside the building.

  ‘How are you getting down to London today?’ Michelle asked Drew.

  ‘Catching the train.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift if you like. I’ve got to take a Puma down to Northolt this afternoon.’ She hesitated a second. ‘And what are you doing after you’ve seen your MP?’

  Drew shrugged. ‘Going home again, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you want to come and have dinner at my place?’

  ‘Back here?’

  ‘No, our house in St Albans. You could stay over and come back up with me first thing tomorrow.’ She bit her lip. ‘My father’ll be there as well.’

  ‘You didn’t mention this last night.’

  ‘It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.’

  ‘I’m not sure how thrilled he’d be to have me on the guest list.’

  ‘He suggested it, as a matter of fact. I told him you were going to be in London and he said he was keen to meet you.’

  Drew tried to keep the disbelief from his voice. ‘We didn’t exactly hit it off the last time. Why would he want to do it again?’

  Michelle shrugged. ‘Because you’re a friend of mine, I suppose. I don’t think he’s planning to size you up as potential son-in-law material, if that’s what’s worrying you.’

  ‘No, that’s not what’s worrying me at all.’

  Michelle gave him a look of exasperation and turned to walk away. ‘If the idea doesn’t appeal to you, Drew, just forget it.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he called after her. ‘Yes, I’d like the lift and the dinner very much.’ He pushed through the doors and walked down the corridor towards the crew room.

  Chapter Ten

  Michelle brought the Puma skimming in to land at Northolt late in the afternoon. Looking south, Drew could see the giants of the London skyline – the Telecom tower, the NatWest tower, Canary Wharf – lit by the afternoon sun.

  She followed his gaze. ‘Not bad is it? The tourists pay a thousand pounds for a sightseeing trip like this and you’re getting it free.’

  She shut the engine down and pulled off her flying helmet, then turned
to Drew and handed him a piece of paper. ‘Call me when you know which train you’re getting and I’ll pick you up from the station.’

  Drew caught the tube into London, picking up the Circle Line round to Westminster. He joined the queue of visitors to the House of Commons, shuffling through the electronic security gates and presenting their bags for inspection by the police. The benches in the lobby were full of people talking in huddles or gazing at the ceiling as they waited for their MPs.

  He gave his name to the clerk and sat down on the bench, looking curiously around him. Five minutes later, his name was called. He walked back to the clerk’s desk where Feather, more florid than in his photograph, detached himself from a group of people and held out his hand. He was wearing a regimental tie and pinstriped, three-piece suit.

  ‘Flight Lieutenant Miller, a pleasure to meet you,’ the MP said with casual insincerity. ‘Why don’t you join me for a drink and tell me what’s so vital to our national security that it won’t wait until my constituency surgery on Saturday?’

  He led the way to Annie’s Bar and bought Drew a beer, rebuffing his offer. ‘Regulations of the House, I’m afraid. Can’t have outsiders getting us drunk. We’re perfectly capable of doing that for ourselves.’ He gave a short, barking laugh, glancing surreptitiously at his watch as he did so. ‘Now, tell me how I can help.’

  Drew outlined the problem with the Tempest while Feather listened attentively and made a few notes.

  ‘You did the right thing coming to me, Flight Lieutenant,’ Feather said. ‘As a former military man myself, I know what courage it takes to go outside the normal channels. There is clearly a matter of concern here. Rest assured that I shall be raising it with the Minister at the earliest possible opportunity.’

  ‘On the floor of the House?’ Drew asked, not entirely won over by Feather’s smooth assurances.

  ‘Or in a written question. Sometimes these things are better handled that way, particularly where national security can so easily be invoked to avoid a direct answer to a spoken question.’

  He held out his hand. ‘Let me have all the documentation and I’ll see what I can flush out of them.’ Drew hesitated for a second, then handed over one of the photocopies he’d made in the Ops room when he got back from Buckwell.

  Feather scanned the pages. ‘That should be enough to set the ball rolling. I’ll drop you a line to let you know the response.’

  ‘I’m just worried that the MoD may try to sweep it under the carpet.’

  ‘Don’t worry on that score, young man. I have a reputation for straight talking,’ Feather said, allowing his gaze to settle for a moment on his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. ‘When Norman Feather gets his teeth into something, it takes more than a few pen-pushers and Whitehall mandarins to stop him getting at the truth.’

  He glanced at his watch again. ‘Now, I’m afraid you really must excuse me. I’ll show you out. This place is like a rabbit warren.’

  Drew followed him back to the lobby, where the MP offered a perfunctory handshake and a fleeting smile and then disappeared back into the maze of oak-panelled corridors.

  Drew stepped out into a damp, grey London evening. If Feather did not force something out of the MoD, it was beginning to look like the newspapers were his last hope. The thought did not please him at all.

  He phoned Michelle from the station, then caught the train to St Albans. She was waiting for him in a dark-blue Jaguar.

  ‘Very nice,’ Drew said as he dropped into the passenger seat.

  Michelle nodded. ‘And before you ask, yes, it is courtesy of the taxpayer.’

  She drove quickly across the town centre and down a steep hill past the abbey. At the bottom she slowed and turned in through a stone arch. The electronic gates swung silently open at their approach. She pulled up by the iron-studded oak door of a substantial manor house. A wisteria, its trunk as thick as Drew’s waist, twisted up the honey-coloured stonework and warm light glowed from the leaded windows.

  As he got out of the car he could hear the whisper of water somewhere beyond the sweeping lawns and glimpsed two ghostly white shapes unfurling their wings in the shadows by the trees.

  ‘Geese?’ he asked.

  ‘Swans.’

  ‘Is there a pond in the garden?’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, though we usually call it the lake.’

  She led him inside, through an oak-panelled hall and into a huge drawing room. Drew looked around. A log fire was blazing in the inglenook fireplace, its light reflected in crystal and porcelain vases. A series of portraits of long-dead nobles gazed sternly down from the walls, defying anyone to sit in the chesterfields or armchairs in their presence. Copies of The Field, Horse and Hound and Country Life were stacked neatly on the table, and a large, rather overblown flower arrangement stood on a plinth against the wall.

  ‘Very nice,’ Drew said, turning back to Michelle. ‘Does anybody live here or is it just a shrine to 1620s Habitat?’

  She smiled. ‘Careful, Drew, your chips are showing.’ She gestured to the sofa. ‘My father’ll be down in a minute. Make yourself at home, I’ll get you a drink.’

  Michelle sauntered out and Drew wandered around the room, pausing to peer at the photographs crowding the lid of the grand piano. Charles Power’s face stared out of many of them, expressionless but for the faintest of smiles. Drew picked them up one by one: Power with Margaret Thatcher, Power with Norman Schwarzkopf, Power with Prince Charles, Power surrounded by sharp-suited civilians, shaking hands with an Arab sheik.

  He looked round as Michelle came back into the room, followed by her father. Drew extended his hand. ‘Hello, sir,’ he said. ‘A pleasure to see you again. I was just admiring the room. Nice curtains.’

  Power exchanged glances with his daughter, but his urbane expression did not even flicker.

  ‘Right,’ Michelle said. ‘I’m going to let you two do a bit of male bonding, while I check on dinner.’ She picked up her glass and moved off towards the kitchen, ignoring the silent plea in Drew’s eyes.

  Power motioned Drew to one of the armchairs, then stood with his back to the fire. ‘So, Drew, you’re champing at the bit to get to Bosnia, no doubt?’

  Drew could not decide whether Power was being ironic.

  ‘Absolutely, sir. There’s no place I’d rather be.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Power said, deadpan. He pressed the tips of his fingers together and rested his chin on them for a moment, studying Drew like a surgeon planning his first incision.

  ‘Tell me, what do you know about Operation Brushfire?’

  Drew was startled by the directness of the question, but he kept his face straight. ‘Nothing at all. What is it?’

  Power was watching him narrowly as he replied. ‘A classified operation. I rather thought you might have got wind of it in the course of your freelance investigations into the safety record of the Tempest.’ Drew shook his head. ‘I don’t know what documents you’ve been shown, nor how you came to have access to classified information outside your own sphere of activities, but a man of your intelligence must realise how dangerous it is to base conclusions on partial knowledge of the evidence.’

  Drew did not respond.

  Power let the silence grow for a minute before speaking again. ‘If there is a problem with the Tempest, it must be dealt with. There is no dispute between us about that. Our only difference of opinion may be in how to go about doing so.’

  He reached for a drink, the ice clinking in the glass. ‘I know you’re acting from the best of motives. Drew, and I admire you for it, but there is a better way of dealing with this situation. The Tempest is not a perfect aircraft – none of them are – but it is a damn good one. We’re aware of the possibility of a problem, however slight it may be, and we’re looking into it with our customary thoroughness. If there is a fault – and so far the evidence is entirely circumstantial – then we shall find it. Have no doubt about that whatsoever.’

  ‘That’s very reassuring,
sir,’ Drew said, his tone neutral.

  When he spoke again, Power’s voice had taken on a harder edge. ‘Even supposing we accepted your hypothesis that there’s a mysterious fault with the Tempest, what would you like us to do? Take fifty per cent of our front-line aircraft out of service? How do you think it would be looked on if we were unable to meet our commitments in Bosnia or the Falklands? Do you imagine the politicians would be happy about that?’

  ‘We might find out the answer to that sooner than you think.’

  Power’s smile deepened. ‘I wouldn’t expect too much from Norman Feather if I were you. If you’d done your research properly, you’d have discovered that he’s not only a member of the Select Committee on Defence, he’s also a member of my club.

  ‘Norman spoke to me after your tête-à-tête with him earlier this evening and I was able to confirm that we have taken energetic steps to investigate the cause of the recent Tempest losses while maintaining our nation’s air defences in an efficient and – most importantly – cost-effective manner. There are plenty of politicians less responsible than Norman Feather, who would jump on any bandwagon to force through defence cuts: “If the planes are no good, then scrap the lot of them” – that sort of thing. Is that really what you’d like to see?’

  ‘Obviously not, but I think we’ve strayed from the point.’

  Power shook his head. ‘The point is that, in the present climate, it’s up to all of us to pull together. By spreading needless concern about the safety of the Tempest, you’re not only making waves for yourself, you’re making waves for your squadron and its commander. The Defence Review is imminent and we’re likely to lose another squadron… and see more redundancies among aircrew.’

  He left the threat hanging in the air. ‘We’re by no means unsympathetic and, as I’ve said, we’re all working flat out to ascertain the facts. But meanwhile, the best – the only – option is to carry on as normal. Flying has always been a risky business and there may or may not be an additional risk in flying Tempests, but that is nothing compared to the risk to the country’s security and our NATO commitments, if we ground them on the basis of nothing more than rumour and coincidence.’

 

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