Shooting Script

I said: 'Unless you wanthim as a souvenir.'

She frowned, trying to adjust to the idea. Then she said slowly: 'But a principle of good counterespionage is never to give the enemy even a negative report – unless it is deceptive, of course. Do we wish him to report failure?'

'But his pal got away anyhow; we can't stophim reporting. Just hope he knows dictators well enough to be scared of saying he fell down on the job.' I walked over to the man and, standing clear of his breath, ran my hands through his pockets. As I expected, I came up with a passport.

I looked up in time to catch a stare of sullen hatred. 'Now look,' I said quietly, 'I just saved yourlife. Not your job, perhaps, but at least your life. Don't come looking for this passport: I'll burn it. And don't come looking for me; you aren't good enough. Vamos, amigo.'

He went, reluctantly-and unbelieving at first, then accelerating. By the time he reached the trees he was in top gear.

I tapped the passport against the knife, still in my hand. 'It'll delay him, even if he dares go back there. And taking a man's passport is a pretty childish punishment: he'll hate to admit to it.'

J.B. said: 'What I don't see is why they didn't use guns. I mean, if they used one at a busy airport like Kingston at around nine o'clock, why not on a deserted airstrip at one in the morning?'

The legal mind.

I said: 'They weren't after me – just the Mitchell. Going to slash her tyres. They didn't know I was here at all. Spent an age standing out there arguing if it was the right plane. I suppose the markings threw them off.' I nodded at that 'Amazonian' insignia on her flank.

Whitmore said: "That'd have fixed her, huh? Slashed tyres?'

'No spares. They must've guessed that. But I could get some in a few days. They should have guessed that, too.'

'A few days is all they need.'

'What d'you mean?'

He jerked his head.'Juanita- she got a radio message from her old man. He wants the attack for' – he looked at his watch – 'thirty hours' time.'

After a while, I said slowly: 'Well, if the bombs are here by then – and I can rig a fusing circuit-'

Whitmore said flatly: 'No bombs. ' Then to J.B.: 'Tell him.'

She unfolded a copy of the Miami Herald and read tone-lessly: ' "Four aeroplane bombs were found hidden under the nets of a fishing boat boarded by a Guatamalan Navy patrol boat in the Gulf of Honduras last night. The destination of the bombs is not known for certain, but it was surmised that they were headed for anti-Castro rebels in Cuba or possibly even Florida…" Well, they're wrong.'

'They aren't likely to be wrong for ever. What happens when the boat crew talks?'

Whitmore said: 'They didn't know. We were dealing with a guy in Kingston and he was sending out a boat to meet 'em halfway.'

Then I remembered Agent Ellis and his 'holiday'. If the FBI had once had contacts here, Ellis was old enough to have known them – and bright enough to have remembered them.

He should be able to claim expenses on this holiday.

But I just nodded and said: 'Well – that seems to do it. So Jiminez can't move. Anyway, we could have a hurricane here tomorrow.'

Luiz said quietly: 'That is exactly the point, my friend: the hurricane. The Repúblicahas had bad winds and rain all day. Telephones are out, roads are blocked by landslips, communications are mostly gone. The army is stranded in the hills, the jets have been grounded all day. That is what Jiminez wants: he can take over Santo Bartolomeo before anybody knows.' He sighed. 'It makes sense… so he moves at midnight. In twenty-three hours' time.'

'It makes sense if the Vampires were blown around, or if Ned flew them off the island-'

"The message,' Miss Jiminez said, 'says they are still there and they were not harmed.'

'Then tell him not to move! Christ, with the Vamps loose-'

'Capitán,'she said calmly, 'we have solved the problem. You will drop mortar shells instead.'

Whitmore said quickly: 'Seems there's a shipment of 3-inch mortar shells on the way to Jiminez. We can get 'em diverted here before tomorrow night.'

Miss Jiminez said: 'For the same weight, you can carry nearly two hundred shells. In fact, it might be better than bombs anyway.'

I looked carefully around them. 'Mortar shells?' I said. 'Two hundred of them? How do I attach them to just four shackles? And fused, I suppose -live, before I took off. It just needs one to shake loose among two hundred… I want a fast take-off, but not without the plane.'

Miss Jiminez gave me a look that made it clear Clausewitz wouldn't have condescended to fight in the same war as me. Even on the other side.

J.B. said: 'Well, no posse, no horse – better turn in your badge, Carr.'

Whitmore heaved his shoulders, growled: 'I suppose we could always throw rocks at them.'

'We'd bloody well better, if he's really going to make hismove,' I growled. Then an idea struck. 'Although bricks would be better.'

They stared at me. Whitmore said: 'Bricks? D'you mean that?'

'Yes, I mean it.'

'Bricks? What'd they do to jets?'

'Ever seen a jet fighter that's hit a brick wall at 150 miles an hour?'

After a while he said: 'Yeah – I mean no, but I get the idea.'

'It works the other way round, too. We throw the brick wall at the jets – at ISO miles an hour.'

J.B. said: 'D'you think a brick would knock out a jet?'

'Hell, you run into a bird at that speed and it'll knock a hole in a metal skin. And Vampire fuselages aren't even metaclass="underline" they're plywood. With a lot of delicate stuff inside: radio, hydraulics, ancillary drives. We won't turn them into scrap, like a bomb would, but I'm damned if I'd fly a fighter with several brick-sized holes in it. We'll wreck some and knock out the rest for several days – and that's all you need, isn't it?'

Luiz said: 'One day is probably all we need.'

Whitmore asked quietly: 'How about loading bricks on just four shackles?'

'Yes.' That was a point I hadn't thought out. There was another silence while they let me get down to it.

Suddenly I remembered I was giving up smoking. 'Anybody got a cigarette?'

Without a word, Whitmore handed one over: Luiz flicked a Zippo under my nose.

'Thanks.' I went back to deep thought. It was very quiet in the cold, still glare of light from the headlamps. The things in the trees had given up squawking and squealing and either got down to business quietly or knocked off for the night. The stars were still there, but somehow flatter and dimmer, as if already touched by the dust of the coming day. I didn't know anybody up there.

Whitmore said gently: 'Well, fella?'

'Nets,' I decided. 'Fisherman's nets.'

'Huh?'

'When I first came out here, I knew a pilot who was using an old bomber to fly nitro-glycerine up to a mining company in the Andes. You know hownitrobehaves? Well, he slung it in a fisherman's net in the bomb bay. So it was a sort of hammock, cushioned against rough air bumps. But if he got stuck in really bad weather, he could open the bay doors, press the shackle release – and nonitroto worry about.'

'And it worked?' Luiz asked.

'Fine. Until one day some fool pressed the release when they were still refuelling on the ground. That was five years back and on a clear day you can still hear the echoes. But he wasn't a particular friend of mine anyhow.' – A short silence. Then Luiz said quietly: 'My friend, are you cheering yourself up with these little stories?'

I grinned. 'Sorry. But I think we can do the same thing. Except use several nets, stretched along the bomb-bay in layers. With bricks on each. Then I can release them in sequence, one-two-three-four, right down the Une.'

Whitmore frowned. 'Would that give you enough spread to hit eleven jets?'

'I think so. The bricks'll be pouring out of just one end of the net, so that'll give them a spread. And they aren't streamlined, so some'll topple and slow up a bit, some'll fall end-on, and that'll spread them a bit more. And I'll be going in low -hundred feet or so – so they'll still have most of their forward speed. So those that miss will probably bounce or slide, and that could rip off a wheel – at 150.'