Ivor Sibley said, ‘It’s not exactly a new concept – the idea of a performance enhancer for troops in field conditions. Something that gets them through high-stress combat situations. You know they gave them rum in the First World War before they went over the top? Well, this is the same without the alcohol.’
Johnny remembered Den Bramfield’s words in the office and light began to dawn. ‘Jungle Juice. So it was field-tested in Romania?’
Ivor looked a little embarrassed and Lady Viola, who had been cruising restlessly around them, her face looking more than ever sprayed with some brown, glossy chemical hardener, snapped, ‘Damn stupid name.’ She glared at Johnny as if it was all his fault. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘it’s very simple,’ in exactly the tones she’d used when he was ten and she’d tried to tell him how to get his pony to jump the huge fence at the end of the paddock. ‘What we need to know is which lines these bloody Americans are listening to, exactly what Hurst’s got and what else these dreadful peace women know. Shouldn’t be beyond you Johnny, I don’t think?’ but her inflection made it clear she wasn’t sure.
‘I can go back up there and—’
‘You do that,’ she said, ‘and Sibley, do keep your people under control. Now we’ve got to get on so off you both go.’
In the car going back there was tattered pride to paper over on both parts. Johnny felt as he always felt when leaving his mother’s presence, as if he was a cartoon character inflating back into shape after being run down by a steamroller. Sibley needed to move matters on. ‘What exactly did you have in mind next with these women?’
‘I said I’d take them for a flight round this Ramsgill Stray place. ‘I’ve got a share in a Cessna, but it’s down in Hampshire. It would make more sense to rent one up there.’
‘What would that cost?’
‘Maybe a hundred and fifty pounds for a couple of hours.’
‘Peanuts. Do it.’
Lanie had a big fight with Pacman that morning. ‘You shouldn’t go at Billy like that,’ she said after the boy left, eyes still tear stained, to go to school.
‘You should be backing me up. Ain’t right he goes round wrecking things.’
‘He’s got nothing else to do, Pacman. I ain’t either. This place gives me the goddam creeps. I wanna be back in Maryland.’
‘Well, why don’t you go and do that. You take Billy with you, you hear? I’ll go right in and fix it with Welfare. You say the word!’ He was shouting. ‘My mam didn’t do that to pop. She knew he was doin’ what he had to do. She stood by him.’
Not that again, Lanie thought. ‘It ain’t the same now, Pacman. You go talk to Welfare. Right now. I want out.’
He suddenly caved in. ‘I’m sorry, honey.’ He sighed and seemed to curve down shorter. ‘Yeah, I know. Look, when I get off shift, I’ll take you and Billy down the Commissary, get some of that Key Lime pie inside us.’
She nodded slowly.
‘Shee-it,’ he said, ‘I can’t. Not today.’
‘Oh, why not, Pacman?’
‘Big meeting. I forgot.’
‘Tell them you can’t go.’
‘I have to. Site meeting in the new bunker. Induction. They’ve got it all ready, the plans, everything. Starts at five.’
He went. Lanie, fuming, rang Heather. ‘Want to meet?’ she said.
An hour later, the two of them were sitting on the edge of Fewston Reservoir, talking. It was where they had first met, when Lanie – as a gesture, she said, of goodwill – handed over the Rage transcript, saying she’d found it in Pacman’s pocket. Mackeson had told Lanie to go on seeing Heather, to keep the contact going just in case it should be useful again. What he hadn’t allowed for was the effect on her. Here she was, actually talking to someone who actually listened, who didn’t steer the conversation away when she talked of how hard it was with the boy, with Pacman giving himself heart and soul to a goddam job.
She liked Heather. Heather was not some goddam automaton lobotomized Stepford Wife creation of the NSA. They met this time because Lanie wanted to meet, needed to meet. She told the story of their fight, of their ruined evening, of where Pacman was going to be instead: and Heather listened with sympathy and deep interest.
It had been Johnny’s intention to get there and get the paperwork done early, before Heather arrived, but he was frustrated by endless road works on the Ml. The light plane hangars faced the Leeds/Bradford passenger terminal across the runway. He saw the Citroën waiting and she got out as he pulled up.
‘Hello. I’m sorry to keep you,’ he said.
‘That’s OK. It’s interesting. I’ve been watching the planes.’ She smiled. ‘I keep feeling someone ought to come up and arrest me. I think it must be the effect of the wire fences.’
‘It’s a nice day for it,’ he said, and a terrible thought struck him. Inside, they were going to want to see his pilot’s licence, the licence which said in it Johnny Kay not Johnny Kennedy. He cursed the road works silently.
‘I’ll just pop inside and sort out the papers,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘I’ll give you a shout when we’re ready.’
He didn’t give her time to consider and was in through the door while she was still looking mildly surprised. ‘Morning,’ said a dark haired man wearing an airline pilot’s uniform jacket.
‘Hello,’ he said, looking round; the coast was clear. ‘I’m Johnny Kay. You’ve got a Cessna 172 for me.’
‘Tony Milburn. Come and have a seat.’
The formalities seemed to take an age. Through the window he could see her watching the planes. She kept glancing across at the hangar and then, finally, she turned and walked briskly towards it. He heard the door open just as he signed the form and pushed it across the other man.
‘OK,’ said the man, glancing down at it, then up over his shoulder as the door opened. ‘Just a quick check-flight, then, Mr Kay.’
He looked round and there was Heather. ‘I came to see how you were doing,’ she said.
Check flight. Mr Kay. His mind went numb then cleared again as he realized she hadn’t batted an eyelid at “Kay”, that she must be taking it as a matey alternative to Kennedy. Check-flight. Of course there’d be a check-flight.
‘Just one quick circuit to check you out on the avionics pack. I expect it’s different to what you’re used to,’ said Milburn.
You’re not fooling me a bit, thought Johnny. One quick circuit to check I’m competent and I’m not going to spread your Cessna halfway across Yorkshire is more like it.
‘I’ll take you through to the hangar,’ the man said, ‘Gavin will go up with you.’
He did the pre-flight under their watchful eyes, understanding perfectly well this wasn’t just the standard check on the plane but a further test of his own competence. He did the routine walk-round, checking the panel fastenings and peering into the mechanism as he waggled all the control surfaces in turn, then gave the undercarriage a hard stare. He pulled a step-ladder into place and climbed up to check the petrol tanks. Never, ever trust a gauge, his instructor had drilled into him. Gauges go wrong. Look in the tanks. See for yourself. He undid the fuel cap in the top wing section, peered in, struggling to see much in the gloom. He dragged the ladder round to the other wing and checked that side too. Finally, he looked in the cockpit for the fuel tester, a clear plastic cylinder with a tube sticking out of it, and used it to drain a sample of fuel from each tank. It was as it should be, light blue and clear with no dirt and no trace of the globules of water at the base which could spell sudden trouble.