Shooting Script

He frowned thoughtfully. 'I do not think there will be time for that to matter, perhaps.'

'This isn't going to be a one-day wonder – not now the Air Force has stepped in. Jiminez has got a long way to go – and he hasn't got very far yet, has he?' I made a small gesture at the radio in his lap. 'There'll be plenty of time for the reporters to get in. They're probably on their way already -somebody else will have picked up that broadcast.'

For a long time, he didn't say anything. I eased the Mitchell back on to her proper heading again and checked the time. It was nearly a quarter to five; under fifty miles still to go. I tuned the instrument lighting right down and stared carefully at the eastern sky. Was there just a hint of lightness there? Or just the distant clouds over the Repúblicamainland?

Then Luiz said: 'We will attack.'

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ten minutes later there was a faint but definite paleness in the east. Not enough yet, only enough to fool you that you might be able to identify something or judge a distance.

I let the Mitchell droop into a long descent, waited until she'd picked up a bit of speed, then eased back the port engine.

'Ten minutes,' I said. 'Better get yourself organised.'

'I can wait a bit longer.' He was staring ahead, for the first sure sight of the coastline in the dimness under the cloud that marked the land.

'Didn't they teach you how to address the aircraft captain in your air force?'

I caught the ghost of a grin. 'Of course – sir.'

'Once we cross the coast I'll start the starboard engine. After that I'll be making turns: you'll find it a sight more difficult to get into position then.'

'Sir.' He stood and carefully eased back out of his seat, picked up the Browning, and vanished into the dark cabin behind. I felt the slight tilt of his weight shift. A minute later, through one of the empty sockets in the instrument panel, I saw his shape moving against the transparent nose.

We were doing 165 mph, going down through 5,000. The coast should be about fifteen miles ahead.

A crackle and hum in my headphones told me Luiz had plugged in.'I'vegot the gun mounted,' he reported. 'Ready when you are.'

'Right. I'll open the bomb doors in a minute.' I didn't want the drag, but if the normal system didn't work I wanted time in hand to use the manual lever without delaying the attack. 'I hope I'll cross east of the town, then turn and pass north of the base at about a thousand feet. It'll be on our left. If the Vampires are lined up, I'll count them. Youlook around for any odd ones parked elsewhere. Got that?'

'Yes, Capitán.'

'We'll makeour run from the west. Don't shoot until then. They'll see us go past the first time, but they might not guess what we're up to. Bomb doors going open.'

I leant across and held up the switch. The sudden drag and the windy roar behind me told me they were opening. The speed dropped 5 mph.

Luiz said: 'Coast ahead.'

I looked up from the instruments, and there it was: a faint ragged greyness on the horizon with a thin, flickering line of breaking surf. I stared at it. 'Christ, we've missed the city entirely. There should be lights-'

'One does not switch on one's lights when there is shooting in the streets, my friend.'

I should have thought of that. The Santo Bartolomeans would be old hands at how to behave in revolutions by now.

But I still couldn't see the city.

Then a faint flick of light, brief as a flashbulb, over to port. I stared at where it had been, wondering about it, and if I was imagining a shapeless darker shape around it.

'A grenade,' Luiz said sombrely. "There is still fighting.'

I was two or three miles starboard of track. I turned gently due north to skim the edge of the city. Still about eight miles out, down to 3,500 feet.

Gradually the coastline hardened ahead. The paleness of beaches, the darker cliffs, the still darker shapes of trees above. Then slowly filling with dim colour in the greyness. And over to the left die city, the dark mass separating into a jumble of little blocks with light and shadow sides, like a child's building bricks.

Still with the occasional flash of a grenade.

When the coastline was on the nose, I reached for the starboard engine controls. The prop blades twisted to catch the wind, turned, vanished. The engine coughed, and caught in a clattering howl.

Luiz, with his clear view downwards from the bomb-aiming window in the nose, said: 'Passing over coast… now.'

I swung into the wide flat turn that should bring me to the road bridge west of the city – a good big landmark – and from there an exact course to the air base ten miles east.

I'd been half expecting, more than half fearing, runway lights. Which would show they had started flying already. But from about three miles out, there was just the sparkle of lit windows in the baseornees. No shooting out here; they knew Jiminez wouldn't be fool enough to attack a wakeful and well-defended base head on. Not in person.

As we closed I saw the dark hulks of the two hangars, the thin pale line of the runway, seen side-on – and definitely no flarepath. And searching desperately for the dim silvery patch that would be the parked Vampires.

Then, as the angle widened, they came into view just beyond the second hangar.

Luiz called: 'Target in sight! '

'Shut up! I'm counting! '

We skimmed the northern edge of the field, the Vamps half a mile to port, almost parallel… one, two, three… spaced about three-quarters of a wingspan apart, say thirty feet between each… four, five, six… the line bearing about 120 degrees from the front of the second hangar… seven, eight. Full stop.Eight.

'There's two missing!' I yelled. I looked forward, at the west end of the runway, at the taxi track leading to it – but nothing. In the hangars, under maintenance? Normally, yes -but today of all days Boscowould want one hundred per cent strength, and Ned must have had well over a day's warning to reach that.

Then we were past the field, heading into the dark west and I was counting the seconds before the turn back.

Luiz reported soberly: 'I could not see them.'

'We'll get the eight, anyway.' I was trying to work out the length of my target. A Vampire has about a forty-foot span, so eight times forty – plus the space in between, say seven times diirty, which is… call it 500 feet. A bit over a two-second run.

Then it was time to turn, gentle and slow, both engines throttled back and sliding down to attack height. The dull silver of the Vampires vanished behind trees, but the tall black hangars stood up clear. I levelled out at a hundred feet, aiming for the nearest hangar on a course of 120, waiting for the speedto settle at 150 before pushing up the throttles.

And I could taste it again: the old savage hunger of the hunter, still familiar after twelve years because I was still Keith Carr. The same hunger to reach out and kill, and the same certainty that makes you wait for exactly the instant, time flowing slow as a glacier, because you know you'regoing to kill… And I knew I was going to get this attack right.

Then, suddenly – fear. Because Ihad to get it right, Ihad to kill – every Vampire on the field and two I hadn't even found yet. Because this wasn't a private war any more, because if I let one escape, it could fire the lucky shot that was all that mattered to me now.

The cold sick fear of failure. And the Mitchell and her bricks seemed an old, frail, absurd weapon to throw against ten jets. She trembled under my trembling hands.