In Honour Bound

'You're not required to express an opinion.'

Barney smiled coolly. 'You won't hear an opinion from me, Mr Rossiter.'

'You can call me Ross, I've told you that.'

'I'd like a Redeye manual, it's a long time since I've seen one.'

'You trained on it in Germany. I read it in your file.'

'Oh, yes? Did the file go into the disappearance of the FCO chap on the jaunt in Libya or not? Well, it wouldn't want to upset you, would it, Mr Rossiter?'

'I'll tell you what it does say, Barney. It says "He's a cold bugger". Someone's Commanding Officer wrote that in. Those very words.' The twitch of a smirk on his face.

'Have you a Redeye manual?'

'Your bedtime reading.' Rossiter took the bruised, handled manual from his briefcase, gave it to Barney.

'And the Pakistan government?'

'If they heard anything we'd be out in five minutes.'

'British High Commission?'

'The resident spook's bringing in the hardware. He won't know what's in the package.' Rossiter came close to Barney. 'I hope we can work well together,' he said gruffly.

'I hope so.'

‘I gather your grandfather was in Afghanistan.'

'He died there.'

'I read that.'

'He died after they'd put his eyes out, cut his testicles off. It took a bayonet charge by a whole platoon to get his body back. He's buried there.'

'I didn't know.'

'Third Afghan War, 1919. Why should you have known?' There was a smile at Barney's mouth, a smile without humour. 'Do you like poetry?'

'I don't know a lot…'

'Try this…

'"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
"And the women come out to cut up what remains,
"Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
"An' go to your Gawd like a soldier…"'

Barney looked Rossiter full in the face, blue gimlet eyes piercing into the discomfort of the older man. 'He was too badly wounded to turn his own weapon on himself, but they heard him screaming before they went in with the bayonet to get his body back. I don't suppose that was on the file. I'll see you at dinner, Mr Rossiter.'

'I told you to call me Ross.'

But the door was already closed behind him..

Chapter 3

Rossiter was better with the sleep behind him, almost human and almost interesting to Barney.

'Look at it this way, Barney, from the point of view of the opposition. There are men like you, your age, your expertise, who command flights of Mi-24s, one flight or two flights, and you're going to let them know there's a different game being played, Redeye's game. For three years and more those bastards have been steaming up and down soaking up the small arms fire like it's a gnat's bite…and suddenly, out of bloody nothing, there's a sodding great ball of fire and Ivan's in a dive, and he's yelling and next thing he knows he's dead. They've had it very easy, those bastards, chopping up villages from five hundred feet. They're going to sweat a bit now, and they won't be so bloody happy saddling up in the mornings. Think what that's going to do to the hairies on the ground, too. Going to be bloody shouting and singing, aren't they, the hairies?'

Barney chewed at his toast, spoke through the mouthful. 'I want detail on the Hind.'

'I've got all that.'

'I want maps and photographs of inside, where it'll be used.'

'I have that too.'

'I'll want to feel the ground a bit.'

'It's the same this side as theirs, that's fine.'

'That's all I need for the moment, but I want it before we meet the group.'

'We'll clear out of this dump then, get ourselves off to Peshawar.'

'Peshawar's how far?'

'Three hours' drive, half a day in our tractor. Peshawar's where the main refugee concentrations are and the base camps of the Resistance, last substantial town before the frontier.'

'My father was born there. Are you going to wear that suit, Mr Rossiter?'

'Why not?'

'Just that you're going to be rather hot.'

Barney stood up, walked away from the table, left Rossiter to pay.

Rossiter sat stock still for a moment. Was the man laughing at him? Or just Rossiter's fancy? He got up from the table and his knee caught against the edge. The table shook and his coffee spilled on the white cloth. He caught up with Barney, in the passageway by the boutique.

'It's going to be good, Barney.'

'Of course.' Barney was smiling, and the light rippled in his eyes.

'Really good, I mean.'

'Or we wouldn't be here.'

Barney loosened Rossiter's grip on his shirt and made for his room. Rossiter went back to the coffee shop to pay their bill.

* * *

They drove west out of Islamabad at a steady trundle with taxis and cars and lorries chorusing their protest behind them. Rossiter confined himself to shouted insults when he was cut up by passing vehicles, otherwise was silent.

Beside him Barney sat with his fingers clamped on a typed Hind treatment to protect it from the gusting draughts spinning through the side windows. When Rossiter spared him a glance he saw only a forehead furrowed in concentration beneath the waves of falling fair hair. They'd said in London that the man would be good, said he was serious and not a bloody cowboy. He was hellish short on human relations, but they hadn't said that.

Barney read. Hare, then Hound, and ultimately Hip begat Hind. Hind version A introduced to the 16th Tactical Air Army in East Germany in 1974. Exceeded expectations as a battlefield helicopter. Big bugger, loaded total weight of ten tons, fifty-six foot main rotor diameter. Powerful bugger. Two 1500hp Isotov TV-2 turboshafts. Barney scanned the diagrams that showed the extent of the titanium armour plating guarding the gunner's and the pilot's cockpits and the engines, fuel tanks, gearbox, hydraulics and electrical systems. Maximum ground speed and maximum altitude, 200mph and 18,000 feet. Armaments: 32 x 57mm S5 rockets and Swatter or Spiral guided missiles and traversable four-barrelled 12.7mm machine gun with drums of 1000 armour-piercing of HE incendiary rounds. But in the design of the II Hind there was no infrared signature suppression. The engine exhausts that are the target for a homing ground-to-air missile were considered ill-positioned by the Western evaluation Safe against everything but the Redeye family. Barney drew quick strokes across the diagrams to measure for himself pilot and gunner visibility. He calculated speeds of descent and rates of climb. Finally he read that the defensive powers of the Hind lay in its own attacking and counter-attacking capacity. Anyone firing at a Hind had better be sure of knocking it right out. Anything less than a fatal blow would invite a lethal counter-punch.

Barney stuffed the file back into Rossiter's briefcase.

'It's a rather good weapon.'

'"Rather good" is a bit of an understatement,' Rossiter said drily. 'And in the European theatre, it looks after our tanks. Our tanks, and our helicopters that are looking after their tanks.'

'Even with a Redeye it's not just straightforward.'

'What's not straightforward?'

'You don't just aim Redeye into the sky when there's a helicopter above and blast away. There's a bit more to it.'

'You're going to teach the hairies that little bit more,' said Rossiter sharply.

'I'm going to try to teach them.'

'You're going to teach them. That's what you're here for.'

'There are decoy flares that draw off a missile. There are all sorts of procedures. The pilots will be trained for European conditions, they'll know their anti-missile flying.'

'You'll tell the hairies all that.'

'I'm saying it won't be easy,' Barney said quietly.

'I didn't say it would be easy.'

* * *

At Attock they crossed the spread of the Indus river, at Nowshera they passed the camps of the Pakistan tank brigades. Rossiter took the new road, half completed and bone shaking, driving into a storm of dust from the lorry in front.