‘Got a message for your commander, when you’ve scraped him off the ground. Hands are very delicate things, and thumbs indispensable.’
Gripping the stick between his knees (definitely not in the manual) Dima lifted the PP-2000 and fired a round into the man’s left hand. The hand vanished. But he was still there. Dima fired into his right hand and he was gone.
At fifteen knots he felt the shudder that told him they had passed through ETL into full forward flight. Time to ease off the collective and lose pedal pressure but force the cyclic forward. Dima felt a surge of relief as the chopper powered forward and climbed into the sky.
‘Now: which way’s Russia?’
59
Iran Airspace
The Osprey back to Spartacus smelled of aviation fuel, medicine and vomit. The casualties were strapped down on stretchers, slotted into the framework of the hold to form bunks. The walls were draped with tubes. The medics were in the small folding jump seats that lined the sides of the hold, where they could check on their patients and adjust the drips hooked up to the overhead bars. Once in the air they paced the aisle in their beige overalls and blue plastic gloves, like mechanics with unusually gentle hands. One or two of those men weren’t going to make it. Blackburn thought of Cole, under the rubble, with his bullet in him. This wasn’t even friendly fire, it was vengeance.
Blackburn was on a jump seat at the back beside Ableson, a young staff officer on Major Johnson’s team. Ableson was one of those thin, clever ones who fought their war from behind a laptop screen. He said nothing at all to Blackburn the whole two hour flight, which was fine with Blackburn. Eventually he noticed a spare stretcher and asked Ableson if he could use it.
He went straight to sleep, and dreamed that he was a kid again in his own bed, sick and hot but feeling safe, his mother smiling, coming in with French toast and hot milk. ‘There’s a nuke headed for New York, Mom,’ he said. ‘We gotta stop it.’ She put a finger to her lips, still smiling. ‘Hush now. Eat.’
When they landed at Spartacus it was night. He offered to help unload the casualties, but Ableson hustled him away. After the camp outside Tehran, Spartacus felt like a giant military city teeming with personnel and kit. A place that a week ago had been almost like home was a hostile environment now.
‘I need to get cleaned up,’ he said to Ableson.
‘Later: they’re waiting for you. Need something to eat?’
Blackburn instinctively turned towards the canteen but Abelson steered him away.
‘I’ll bring you something.’
He escorted Blackburn to an unmarked Portakabin.
Somehow he needed to get the message across about Solomon.
Inside, waiting for him: Dershowitz and Andrews. Blackburn’s heart couldn’t sink much further but it managed a few more inches. Dershowitz was peering at his laptop and Andrews had a cell phone pressed to his ear. They were as he had left them, as if they had been waiting there for him the whole time, waiting to take him down. His own private apocalypse.
60
FOB Spartacus, Iraqi Kurdistan
Dershowitz glanced up at him and frowned.
‘You look like you need to clean up a little, kid.’
‘I was told to come straight here. And if it’s all the same to you, Sir, could you refer to me by name? I’m Sergeant Blackburn.’
‘Sure, kid,’ he smirked.
Andrews pocketed his cell.
‘Okay. So talk us through your day.’
‘Bad day at Black Rock, huh?’ said Dershowitz.
‘What?’
Blackburn wasn’t sure what that was a reference to, but it wasn’t good.
‘And if it’s all the same to you, kid, you can call me Sir, when you answer.’ Dershowitz slammed the table hard with the flat of his hand as he said ‘Sir’.
‘Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.’
Andrews looked as though he was suppressing a bad case of wind.
‘Just go from the top.’
He described the scene when he got out of the Osprey, climbing the avalanche of rubble from the shelled chalet and finding the door that led into the rear bunker.
‘Whoa. Hold up,’ said Andrews, making a stop sign with his hand. ‘Need to get a handle on your motivations. You took yourself off pretty fast into that wrecked building. That not a little reckless?’
He looked down and began typing furiously.
‘The conditions were such that it appeared the building might have contained an HVT and was liable to cave in.’
‘So in you went.’ Andrews with his smile again. ‘And was anybody home?’
They wanted detail. He gave it to them.
‘Sir, there were three fatalities. All recently deceased. One on the first floor of the house and two in the bunker, one of whom was in the pool, the other at the side. I concluded they had been struck by falling masonry during the bombardment.’
Dershowitz spoke without looking up.
‘So now you’re a pathologist. Lot of strings to your bow, Blackburn.’
‘Let’s talk about Lieutenant Cole. What happened?’ asked Andrews.
He looked from one to the other.
‘It’s a simple question.’
He decided to focus on Dershowitz, the more aggressive of the two. These men listened to liars for a living. Simple question. Simple answer.
‘I don’t know what happened to him, Sir. There was a further collapse. I figured my best chance was to find the escape passage I had seen on the plans.’
Dershowitz smiled. Blackburn didn’t know which was worse, his smile or his stony silence. The smile with the silence wasn’t much fun either.
Ableson knocked and entered without waiting. He was carrying a Coke and a burger wrapped in waxed paper.
‘Get the fuck out. Can’t you see we’re busy here?’
Blackburn almost felt relieved that he wasn’t the only focus of Dershowitz’s ire.
‘Tell me about Cole.’
‘What about him, Sir?’
Dershowitz frowned.
‘What’s that supposed to mean, “What about him”? He’s your CO for fuck’s sake. Don’t you give a shit?’
He picked up a waste bin and swept the Coke and burger into it.
Blackburn could feel the anger exploding inside him. He refused to give them the satisfaction of showing it. He had to stay in control. His head was pulsing with pain. He was by nature a truth teller. His mother always praised him for this, regardless of the misdemeanour. ‘Well, Henry, I’m not pleased with what you’ve done but it’s good that you have owned up.’
‘Your buddy Campo says he lost radio contact with you after you entered the bunker. He says he reported it to your commanding officer and that he, Lieutenant Cole, bravely decided to attempt to rescue you.’
‘There was a fall in the front of the chalet shortly after I lost contact with Campo, Sir. It was at that point that I decided that it was neither safe nor possible for me to go back the way I came and so I resolved to find an alternative exit, based on my reading of the plans we were supplied with.’
They stared at him blankly. Blackburn gave a shrug.
‘I had found the WMD in the bank in Tehran along with evidence suggesting two more. We had intel suggesting the chalet was a possible location — I wanted to finish the job I started in the bank.’
‘This isn’t a job interview, kid. Enough with the self-regarding rhetoric. Your CO died trying to rescue you.’
Rescue you. . Like fuck. But what could he say?
None of them said anything for several seconds.
Why are you so suspicious of me? Blackburn wanted to ask. What have I done that is so wrong? And the answer came straight back. You have killed your superior officer. That’s about as bad as it gets.