A rip-string and I pulled it, opening the polyester like a sardine-tin, putting the lid on its back and scooping sand in before the wind could lift it. The 200 °CA was on top and I took it out and stood it on the lid and pulled up the telescopic aerial, not hurrying, just a routine movement of the hands and perfectly confident, Loman. was experienced and the only time he'd ever lost a base was in Bangkok and we weren't there when it was blown and besides she had a gun, the big Colt that Chirac had lent me, hold it with both hands if you want to and be ready for the recoil. And anyway I'd asked Loman not to leave base because one gun wouldn't be enough if she were alone and they raided the place, feet on the stairs and the door kicked open and the first one going down but after that she'd lose her head and just go on pumping the thing wild with her eyes shut and they'd reach her before the sixth.
Chrome of the aerial shining, the low wind moving its tip.
3 MHz.
Channel 2.
Mike.
Tango.
It sounded strange, a human voice in so desolate a place.
Tango. Tango.
The same stars, these same stars, would be there above the gilded cupolas where the rats ran among the rotting palms. The town would be asleep.
Eyes closing and I opened them again quickly and took a breath, steadying. Fifty-six hours ago I'd got off the plane from Tokyo and the metabolic clock was still trying to get the time right, a feeling of not quite being here, of not being anywhere, just afloat on some kind of tide.
Tango. Tango.
A domed ceiling and a cracked mosaic floor, three faded Arabesque screens and the shabby appurtenances of a fifth-class hotel.
The other end of the lifeline.
What frequencies would you use in this area?
7 MHz for daytime propagation conditions, 3 MHz at night.
Tango. Tango.
The sand blown by the wind, its fine grains hitting the side of the polyester box with a dry whispering, the only answer.
Already in the past hour the sand had almost covered the spread of nylon: in the starlight I could just make out the few dark folds that remained. Soon it would cover the harness, then the box, and then if I went an sitting here like this, like a man in prayer, it would cover me as well, a desiccated mendicant forgotten by his gods as he intoned for their deaf ears the mystic word, until he was buried, grain upon grain, beneath his sins.
Tango. Tango.
One of them would be there. Loman might have had to leave base to contact Chirac or use a phone if the wire had come adrift again on the junction-board or he could have gone down there to the hall to fix it but in that case Diane would be manning the transceiver, and would answer.
The wind gusted, scattering the sand.
A faint gleam on the aerial and the chrome rims of the dials. It was a good-looking set: a matt-black case with a neutral grille and the controls tapered and finely-knurled, the on-off switch recessed so that a chance movement wouldn't activate it. The illuminated dials were dark.
No adequate excuses. Flight-disorientation, the blast-wave, the general wear-and-tear of getting here alive. Not really adequate.
I put the switch to the “on” position and checked the frequency again at 3 MHz.
Tango.
Tango. Base receiving.
A good signal, loud and clear.
I'm down.
Are you in the target area?
I don't know.
He waited and I didn't say anything so he came in again.
Do you have any problem?
Not really.
He waited again.
I wasn't being very communicative. You're supposed to volunteer a bit of information, not leave your director to tease it out of you. Thing was, I wanted to go to sleep now.
Was the drop made successfully as concerns bearings?
Oh yes.Put the little bastard out of his misery or he'll keep you talking all bloody night.On Chirac's reckoning I'm somewhere near the target, but it's too dark here to see anything. There aren't any rocks on the skyline. Going to take a dekko in the morning.
Silence again.
Are you perfectly fit?
What?
Are you in a fit physical condition?
Of course I am.
Bloody sauce. Resented that. I told him:
Listen: there's a telescopic rifle in Kaifra. Christ sake watch out for it. And the Mercedes is a write-off.
He was thinking about this.
We heard some shots.
Kaifra was a small-oasis town and you'd hear the stuff coming out of.44 Magnum wherever you were.
They were the ones.
You are not wounded?
No. Another thing is that I think there's more than one network trying to penetrate our operation. Been working a few things out and there's one or two inconsistencies.
He considered this.
You're talking about their apparent indecisiveness during the pre-jump phase?
Their inconsistency.
Yes. This has already been the subject of signals with Control but we're glad to have you confirm.
A pat on the head for a good little ferret, dear Lord you banish me unto the wilderness and the only company you can find for me is Loman's.
One star, the bright star that had guided me here, was going on and off at intervals and I took note of it.
When will you start looking for the objective?
At dawn.
Not before?
Rather quick.
It's too dark. Instructions?
On, off. On, off.
It wasn't the star doing it. I was doing it myself. The star was lying exactly on the horizon and my head kept going down, fatigue, reaction setting in, so the star looked as if it were goingon and off.
Silence. He was sulking.
No instructions.
Tango out.
Quick fade of the image: the dome and the arabesque screens.
Mike back into the recessed clip and the switch down and next time don't forget to turn the bloody thing on when you want to call up base, save a lot of worry, I thought they'd had it, both of them, thought we'd all had it.
'Loman could do the worrying now. He'd got his executive into the field but the bearings were all to hell and we'd got to cool our heels for another three hours before we could get moving again and in three hours the opposition could make up a lot of ground. There'd been no security blackout for the take-off from the South 4 strip: London could have sent in a unit of screened ground-staff with a pre-arranged access to facilities but even then there would have been people at South 4 who knew that a glider had gone up, and short of requesting Petrocombine's co-operation in treating the event as a para-military secret it would have been impossible to keepthe thing hush. The opposition cells would be routinely combing the area for items of intelligence and if they picked up the news that a glider had been towed airborne they'd want to know where it had landed and if they drew blank at all the local airstrips they'd assume there'd been a desert drop and they'd send for a direction-finding unit, fully urgent, because radio would be the only means of communication between the field and base.
Once the opposition set up a D/Fing operation in a town as small as Kaifra I'd give our base twenty-four hours before it was blown.