She struggled to bring my hand to her lips. ‘I know he will … I trust you … Nick … I … always have …’
I smiled at her.
‘You … and Mong … the only men … I ever … trusted …’
She tried to give a smile back.
I let go of her hand and placed it in Genghis’s palm. He gave it the gentlest of squeezes.
22
First light was peeking over the horizon to our left as India’s bright blue sky and sun prepared to visit Africa again.
Joe was far out to sea. I could just about see the coastline on our right as I moved my head level with his.
He locked eyes. ‘How is she?’
‘Not good, mate.’
He nodded slowly, letting whatever that meant to him sink in. He pulled on his sun-gigs. ‘It’s best looking for these fuckers with the sun behind us. Like a fucking dogfight, man.’
‘That’s exactly what it’s going to be.’
I was sure I could see a slight twinkle in his eye behind the shades.
He kept on scanning the area. I joined in, looking for a little dot in hundreds of miles of empty sky.
‘Just one thing, Nick. What happens if my aircraft gets damaged? What the fuck would you do about that, man?’
I turned to face him. There was a big smile on his leathery face. ‘You going to pay me, man? These fucking things cost over a million dollars. Can you believe that shit? I got a fucking big loan on it, man.’
I smiled right back. ‘You won’t have any worries on that score.’
He got back to the business of flying and monitoring the sky ahead of us.
‘Where are the fuel tanks on those Skyvans?’
Both hands came off the controls again as he started to explain with his hands as well as his mouth. It was like I’d opened the encyclopedia at ‘S’.
‘On that fucking thing? Two Garrett turboprop engines, each driving a three-blade, variable-pitch propeller. Fuel in four tanks, in pairs on top of the fuselage between the wing roots. Each pair consisting of one 182-litre tank and one 484-litre mother. Total fuel capacity, 1332 litres. That’s a lot of fucking fuel, man.’
‘What’s its range?’
‘With maximum payload, about eleven hundred klicks. But there’s no maximum in that shed, man.’
‘Their tanks won’t be full unless they refuelled at Mog …’
‘No, man, but we didn’t either, and they might have extra tanks …’ He brought his hands down to make sure I was following all this closely,‘… in the spaces between the fuselage frames on each side, beneath the main tanks. There’s provision for another four hundred litres. But fuck it, man …’ He put his arms up as if he was firing a rifle. ‘You drill that area and you’re going to hit tanks. That’s all you need to know, man.’
I picked up the AK and tapped the mag. ‘You got tracer in this?’
‘No, but you’d better check.’
I grabbed the magazine with my right hand. I pushed the release catch forward with my thumb and released it from its housing. The selector lever, a long spring-loaded arm, was in the upper safe position. I pushed it down to the fully automatic position before pulling back on the cocking handle to check no rounds were in the chamber. I released the handle, fired off the action by pressing the trigger, and replaced the selector lever back to safe.
Tracer are built with a hollow base filled with a pyrotechnic flare material, often phosphorus. In US and NATO standard ammunition, this is usually a mixture of strontium compounds and magnesium that yields a bright red light. Russian and Chinese tracer generates red or green light, using barium salts. Whatever the colour, the point was that it burnt intensely.
I pushed the first round out and used it to start flicking the rest out by the base as the spring forced them forward. I aimed them at the right-hand seat.
I couldn’t remember the flash point or the initiation temperature of Jet A1 fuel but I wasn’t taking any chances and neither was Joe. He kept looking at the rounds as they fell onto the right-hand seat. I didn’t want a big fuck-off firework display. I wanted holes. And the AK 7.62 short would make much bigger ones than Genghis’s M4 5.56.
I got to the last round. They’d all been bog-standard plain ball.
Joe sparked up. He was suddenly in full-fight mode. Very calm. Very precise. No profanity. ‘Got him. Half right of the nose. Maybe a klick ahead. Two hundred metres below us. He’s following the coastline.’
I hit Joe on the shoulder. ‘Well, let’s go get the boy, then.’
‘Fucking right, man.’ There was no smile this time.
I started to move to the rear. Joe came back on my cans. ‘You sure this Mr Big Shot will pay for my aircraft if it gets broken? Tell him, if he doesn’t, I’ll reload that fucking mag and come looking for him.’
My cans filled with his laughter as the prop pitch changed, the aircraft banked to the right and we started to descend.
23
I kicked all the shit further back to clear a space and opened the shutter. A gale rushed in. It was like standing at a station with an express train thundering past. I tried sticking my head out. My face got buffeted like I was in freefall. I couldn’t see through my streaming eyes.
I pulled my head back in. All the wrappers from the field dressings and all other bits of crap were caught in a whirlwind around me.
Mr Lover Man had taken my place between the cockpit seats. He shouted at Joe: he wanted to know what was happening. He followed Joe’s pointing finger to the Skyvan on our right. Then he looked back at Genghis working on Tracy.
I cleared more shit out of the way. I wanted a good stable platform for the weapon.
Mr Lover Man tilted his head so he didn’t bang it on the top of the fuselage and stormed towards me. Joe gave me the heads-up in my cans. ‘He doesn’t like you, man. He’s fucking mad. Those hands are massive. Be careful.’
I came forward to meet him. I wanted metal fuselage between me and the sky in case he got weird and tried to chuck me out.
I pulled one of the cans off my ear. ‘Listen, this is the only way to stop them. We don’t know how much fuel they’ve got. We don’t know if we can outrun them. They might have extra tanks. We don’t know what they’re up to. We don’t know what they’re going to do when we get there. So we’ve got to stop them while we can.’
A big finger jabbed into my chest. ‘You kill Stefan …’ It pressed even harder and his face came closer. ‘I kill you.’
I let him get on with it. Now wasn’t the time. Let him make the threat. If I fucked up, we’d see. I nodded and turned back towards the open door. He was good at jabbing and doing the threats but he wasn’t exactly pushing me out of the way to take the shots himself.
I put the can back on as I reached the howling gap. ‘All sorted. Where the fuck are they?’
I was looking out as best I could, craning my neck beyond the cargo door. All I could see was clear blue sky, and ocean below.
‘They’re still half-right. They’re about half a klick forward and higher.’
‘OK.’
I hauled myself back inside. I braced my back against the fuselage opposite the opening, my knees up and my elbows just inside the creases of the knees so I didn’t have bone on bone. I wanted good firm support for the weapon. Legs pressed together, I got the butt of the AK in my shoulder. As the aircraft bumped and buffeted, I pushed the safety to first click.
I was going to have to be good. The AK was designed to deliver massive firepower by hundreds of thousands of Russians advancing over the plains of Western Europe, brassing up whatever was in their way. The AK is at its best firing short bursts on automatic at ranges below about fifty metres. Beyond that, they go wild.