Shooting Script

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.'

Whitmore looked around at each of us in turn. 'Well,' he said finally, 'that seems the best we can do – right?'

Miss Jiminez said: 'You are really going to drop just bricks on these aeroplanes?'

'We ain't got anything else, honey. You heard what Carr said; it adds up. Anyhow – if he just knocks out half of them, we're fifty per cent ahead of the game. Your old man's going to move anyway, right?'

She frowned. 'He seems to be taking the "calculated risk": that he will gain more from the hurricane than he will lose from Capitán Carr.'

I said: 'Thanks.'

'All right, then,' Whitmore said soothingly. 'Tell J.B. what you need and she can track it down in the morning.'

'I need four nets – strong, but not too big. You'll get them in Kingston or Mo Bay, probably. Then I'd like the remains of that drum of control cable your boys were using to rig the bomb release. And the bricks. Say two thousand pounds of bricks. Don't know where you'd get them.'

Luiz said: 'Roddie used some bricks for the foundation of his church.'

Whitmore snapped his fingers. "That's right. We're tearing the thing down tomorrow anyway. We just send the bricks along here.'

Luiz smiled, a little wanly. 'There is a philosophy there somewhere, Walt. An illusion of a church is used for a real bombing raid.'

'Hell, are you getting religion?'

'No.' Luiz shook his head. 'Come to think of it, it is not a new philosophy.'

TWENTY-THREE

The glow of the station-wagon's lights faded up the coast road. J.B. watched it out of sight, her hand on the Avanti's door.

Then she said: 'So you talked yourself right back into the war. Nobody else would've thought of bricks and nets; the whole deal would've been off.'

'A good deputy's supposed to put up ideas to the sheriff, isn't he?'

She may have winced. 'I might have been wrong about you, Carr. You've really worked on this thing, you really want to go… Why?'

I took a deep breath. 'I suppose, because Ned Rafter's there.'

'You mean it's just a private war between you two?' She looked at me curiously, her face very still in the soft underglow from the car's headlights.

I shrugged. 'I suppose, in a way.'

'Just because he beat you? Took your plane off you? So now you've got to beat him?'

'No.'

'He called you a killer.'

'Ah, he's been seeing too many movies. There shouldn't be anybodybut killers in fighters.'

'The boy in that jet over Santo Bartolomeo.' And her voice was as cold and distant as the tall night.

I nodded. 'That's right. You'd thought I got into combat in Korea by accident? That I'd shot down three Migs by mistake? Of course I'm a killer; it was my job. And it's the only way I can fight a war – if I'm fighting one.'

'A private war.'

I blew up. 'Christ, so what about your tall friend? I know why Luiz is in it – but Whitmore isn't exactly a great liberal leader.'

She stared. 'At least you're right there. Whenever he talks politics he ends up about three goose-steps to the right of the Nazi Party.'

'That's what I guessed. Well, that shouldn't put him behind Jiminez, but there he is, all right. Ifthat isn't a private war…'

'You didn't fenow?'

'Know what?'

'I heard himtell you. He's got $250,000 in profits frozen in the República.And he's also got a piece of paper saying the first thing Jiminez does when he takes over will be unfreeze them. Along with your aeroplane.'

I just nodded stupidly. But hehad told me about that money, back in the bar at Santo Bartolomeo. I said slowly: 'And I thought he just wanted to play Bolivar Smith in real Ufefor once.'

'Well, maybe… but not at less than his normal rates.'

I found myself laughing softly. 'Well, it sort of restores yourfaith in human nature. What's good for Walt Whitmore is good for the República.'

She looked up sharply. 'You aren't exactly a great Jiminez-for-Presidente man yourself, are you?'

'I don't give a damn about Jiminez; never have. It's not my business. Not my country.'

'So you're just going because you want to get that man Rafter.'

'Well, somebody's got to, haven't they?'

There was a long silence. Then she said curiously: 'Just what d'you mean?'

'Somebody'sgot to stop Ned and those Vamps getting off the ground when Jiminez moves. I'd just as soon stop Jiminez moving – but I can't. So somebody'll get killed. Somebody'll poop off guns in the streets, stick somebody else against a wall. All right, so that's normal. But the Vamps aren't.'

She frowned. 'I still don't get it…'

'You wouldn't. Not you, not Whitmore, not Jiminez, not even the generals. None of you's seen a real pro like Ned leading a squadron on ground-attack. But I've seen it. I saw Ned and just five planes behind him take out a village in Korea. Napalm and cannon fire. It took them forty-five seconds and then there just wasn't any village. Imaginehim and ten planes loose over a nice crowded target like Santo Bartolomeo. No anti-aircraft fire, and maybe six or seven missions a day. Their base is only a few miles out. After that, the town'll just be a dirty word in the history books. And win, lose, or draw won't matter. There won't be the pieces to pick up. Nor the people.'