Shooting Script

He yanked off the emergency escape hatch in the side of the nose and climbed in for the Browning. I patted the side again – then took out a pencil and scrawled ten quick little aeroplane symbols just below the cockpit. If she hadn't got all ten, it had been my fault, not hers. She'd done all right.

Then we walked away from her.

By six, when the sun finally rose above the clouds over the eastern hills, we'd come perhaps a mile and a half. Along the beach, up the cliffs, then threading through overgrown palm plantations. It was heavy going, still soaked from the rain and scattered with uprooted bushes and blown-down palm fronds. By now we were probably out of danger from any ground patrols sent out from the base, and I hadn't heard any aircraft. But we weren't making much progress.

'At this rate we won't be in town until about nine,' I said.

Luiz stopped, and delicately patted his brow with a handkerchief. He'd taken the hurried going over rough ground well – he must have been nearly fifty, after all – but from now onthe day was going to start hotting up, and he was humping a 15-pound automatic rifle. I had the snake pistol; I had it in my hand, too, but only for snakes.

He said: 'What do you suggest, my friend? That we run?'

'We can go up to the road, or back down to the beach; walking on sand'll be easier than this.'

He looked reproachful. 'Another plot to get my feet wet. On the beach we will be a little obvious – and with no retreat.'

'All right: the road.'

'There, we may be able to borrow a car.' He hefted the Browning expectantly.

'That's not exactly helping the formal dress image,' I growled. 'Throw the damn thing away.'

He frowned. 'When we reach the road, perhaps. But Jiminez could use it,'

'If you're expecting to walk down theavenidasof the west town withthat-'

'It would be quite fashionable, today.'

'One day a year, pheasants suddenly get fashionable, too.'

It took us about a quarter of an hour to zigzag inland and find a road: a straightish, narrowish, newish concrete affair.

I looked up and down it, saw nothing, and asked: 'D'you know where this road leadsthat way?' I nodded west, away from the city.

Luiz just shrugged.

I said: 'It's your country, isn't it?'

'I do not remember every road, my friend. Anyway' – he tapped a neat brown Chelsea boot on the concrete – 'it is new.'

I scowled at the road, then the map. But air maps don't bother much with roads: they aren't usually much use navi-gationally. 'If it's the usual route from the air base to town,' I said, 'it's not going to be healthy for us. But if it's just the coast road…'

He shrugged again. 'We can sit behind a bush and see.'

'We aren't making much progress sitting behind a bush.'

'Quite true.' He lit a cigarette and waited for me to make a decision.

'Ah, hell,' I decided finally, 'we'll risk walking. Throw away that blasted field gun.' I offered him the snake pistol.

Reluctantly, he laid the Browning and two spare magazines down behind a tree, studied the place carefully, then took the pistol and shoved it in his hip pocket. We started walking.

For five minutes nothing happened. Then a car appeared, coming from the city. We hopped behind a bush, but it went past like a scared rabbit. All I could see was the orange roof that labelled it a taxi.

Luiz said thoughtfully: 'The taxi-riding classes are leaving town. That is a good sign.'

We walked on. Ten minutes later I heard another car, coming slower, behind us.

Luiz looked at me. 'Shall we try to beg a ride? Or borrow the car?'

I glanced at my watch. It was nearly half-past six. 'I suppose we'll have to.'

He pulled out the snake gun and held it behind his back. 'If I still had the Browning, it would be much simpler.'

'If you had that thing, you'd have had to shoot anybody who saw you with it.'

The car swung into sight; a white Mercedes saloon. Not likely to be one of Jiminez's supporters, but not an official Air Force car either.

Luiz stepped forward and waved a hand in gesture that was friendly but commanding. The car slowed, then suddenly stopped a good twenty yards off. The front doors jumped open.

An airman with a sub-machine gun piled out of one; Ned, in flying overalls, with a streak of dried blood on his face, and the stubby revolver in his hand, out of the other.

Twenty yards was much too far for the snake gun; the machine-gun made it even farther. Luiz sighed and I heard the pistol clatter on the concrete behind him.

Ned walked slowly forward and there was a grim, satisfied smile on his face. 'The gallant aviators themselves,' he said quietly. 'I'mso glad to meet you.'

Then he swung the gun.

TWENTY-NINE

I didn't go out, but I didn't bother to notice much of what was happening until I was seated in Ned's suite at the Americana witha tauglass of Scotch in my hand. Seven in the morning is a little early for the first drink of the day usually, but usually I don't seem to have toothache in every tooth I own and several sets borrowed for the purpose. The gun barrel had clipped me just on the left jawbone.

Ned was on the telephone; Luiz was standing by the window staring out over what he could see of the city. The guard was just inside the door, still with his sub-machine gun.

Ned put down the phone and said: 'A short delay before we meet the General. Better think up something good.'

Luiz turned round. 'Ah, we are to meet the newpresidente?'

'I came in to report to him personally. It's nice to have you two on the credit side of the sheet.'

'Tell me something, Ned,' I said out of the corner of my mouth, just like any amateur George Raft down in the casino, 'was that the usual road from the base?'

He looked at me. 'No. You were just lucky to meet me. Your pal Jiminez started shooting up our people on the normal road just before first light. That's what I was taking off so early for: clear the road-block. And why I had to come into town on the coast road.'

Luiz sighed. 'Just lucky. I understand.'

'How many did we get, Ned?'

He looked at me hard for a while before answering. 'All bloody ten,' he said slowly. 'Three need engine changes. Three, maybe four, are complete write-offs – that includes mine.'

'Glad it didn't include you,' I said politely.

'Yeh – I noticed how bloody careful you were. Just tried to chop me up with the prop.' He shook his head disbelievingly. 'I never thought I'd see a man like you take a risk like that, Keith.'

Luiz murmured: 'I also found it somewhat surprising.'

Ned came over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Swan beer. 'It don't look like I'm going to be flying today, so…' He started pouring. 'Bricks. Bleedingbricks. You should've been in jail, Keith. I knew you'd be coming back, but I knew you hadn't got any bombs. Them bricks was all your own idea.'

He turned away, then back again, and said quietly: 'In case it interests you, I was just off the ground when you hit me. So you can count me. That makes five, don't it? You're finally an ace, Keith. But round here, aces count low. Bosco'll tell you just how low.'

I shrugged. 'It's over now, anyway.' I glanced as casually as I could at the guard by the door. He was propping up a wall, the sub-machine gun still in his hands, but gazing at the carpet with an expression left over from the Stone Age. If he understood English, I was going to lose an expensive bet, but I was prepared to have a side bet that understanding wasn't something he specialised in anyway.

I said: 'So where's the Dove, Ned? Still at the airport or over at your base?'

He stared at me. 'What the hell are you worrying aboutthat for?'