Ground close watch it.
The situation, Quiller, is simply this. Even if you have only a one per cent chance of surviving the end-phase, London would appreciate your making the attempt.
One always has to paraphrase just a little, with Loman.
Then I'd called to Chirac to start up and I was here because I was an old ferret sharp of tooth and I knew my warrens and I'd run them before and I'd run them again because the chance I believe in is the one-per-center and that is the way of things, as I see them. Pure logic, of course: the high risks of my trade drew me to it and that is why I ply it, and the greater the risk the more I am drawn and when the risk is expressed as a one per cent chance of survival then I'm hooked and damned and hell-bound and don't get in my way.
Their mall heads, I suppose, were raised there among the shadowed crevices of rock as I drifted down, a great circular petal reflected in their gold-rimmed eyes.
Side of a dune and I was badly placed and pitched flat and the sand burst and I blacked out.
The supply 'chute was draped across a spur of rock like a sheet hung out to dry. The shroud lines were badly twisted and I had to cut some of them before I could free the two containers, and with each jerk of the knife everything went red again and I had to rest, leaning on the hot surface of the rocks. When I could manage it I dragged the canopy down and folded it and stuffed it into a fissure: all they needed was a landmark but we were all right at the moment because there were some vultures coasting not far away and they'd have sheered off if there were any aircraft about.
When I'd looked at the containers I went across to the niche in the rocks where I'd left my camp. Chirac had found the transceiver when he'd come for me last evening, and stowed it here out of the sun's direct heat.
Tango.
Loman wasn't going to like it.
He would have been trying to call me up, I knew that, but I hadn't set to receive before I'd dragged the canopy out of sight. Chirac would have picked him up in thegassi an hour ago and dropped him somewhere near base and since then he'd been trying to call me and by this time he'd be certain we'd failed and he was right and he wasn't going to like it when I told him.
Tango receiving.
I could hear them scuttling, perhaps in fright at his voice, sharp and metallic and amplified. I said I was in the target area.
What was the delay?
Bad landing
Are you injured?
No.
Then I saw the vultures drifting away and knew that there wasn't any doubt left: we'd hit a dead end. We'd thought this mission had an all-or-nothing end-phase, either I'd blow Tango Victor off the face of the earth or the opposition would get her and kill me before I could do it. The idea of a compromise hadn't occurred to us: that I'd get here for nothing, and too late.
I would appreciate your situation report.
Talked like a bloody schoolteacher. I'd soon stop that.
We've had it, Loman. The timer's been smashed.
Five seconds.
Please repeat.
I suppose he had a point. When you're sending the last signal of a mission you might as well make it clear what you're saying, if only for the record.
The supply 'chute came down on the rock outcrop and the impact has smashed the timing mechanism.
A longer pause. I waited, listening to the sky.
My lips tasted salty, had blood on them. It had been dripping on to the shale and I'd only just noticed it and I wiped my hand across, well, what would you expect, I'd hit the side of the dune with my face and opened the stitches.
Loman asked
What is that noise?
Helicopters.
Silence from the black speaker-grille.
In his mind he was trying to reorganize the end-phase, signalling London for directives, recreating the ruins I'd just told him about. And he couldn't do it.
How long have they been there?
About a minute and a half.
How far away?
Five kilometres, maybe six.
I watched them. There were three of them.
What is your situation appraisal?
I wiped my hand across my mouth again.
They got us on the scanners but not too accurately. They're starting a square search due east of me, three of them.
Are they moving towards your position?
No. Directly away, at right-angles.
I didn't see it could matter. I didn't see it could matter to him or the mission or London because if they found me I was a dead duck and if they didn't find me there wasn't anything I could do here. I wished he'd stop asking questions, too tired for it, not on form.
Are they military aircraft or civilian?
Oh for Christ's sake Loman we've had it, I've told you the timer's been smashed, didn't you hear me?
Are they military, or civilian?
I shut myeyes, let them water, sand had got into them when I'd hit the dune.
Ten seconds.
I can't see from this distance. They're close to the sun.
I am going off the air for thirty minutes but please keep open to receive.
Silence.
Thirty minutes: he'd signal London now for a directive, ask them what to do, but there was nothing to do. He'd tell Diane to use the phone and contact Chirac and request him to stand by with the helicopter but it'd only be a gesture because Chirac wouldn't be able to pick me up without exposing the target area and if he came in after they'd found me there wouldn't be anything to pick up anyway, nothing alive.
I opened my eyes and squinted towards the horizon. The three choppers were moving back along their initial course, farther south by one prescribed strip of their sweep. They could see these rocks but they couldn't see me because I was in shadow and sighting through a gap in the shale. I'd buried my 'chute under the sand before I'd come here, and last evening Chirac had taken down the fabric shelter I'd set up near the plane, so there was nothing for them to see.
The birds had come down five hundred yards away and I watched them. They'd obviously been there when I'd landed and the 'chute had startled them and now they were back, feeding on the pilot and navigator. The helicopter crews couldn't have noticed them or they'd come to investigate because they'd know that the presence of vultures marked the presence of recent life.
Urge to sleep now overwhelming. I took a final look at the timer to make sure it hadn't been the subject of hallucination but it hadn't changed: two of the brass lugs were snapped off near the flange and half the main body of the mechanism had been so badly impacted that I could see one of the intermediary gear-trains lying askew and thrown out of mesh. Strictly no go.
I crawled deeper between the rocks because of the dark nightmare shapes over there: they reminded me of terror and I didn't want them to see me, to come for me in my sleep.
My eyes closed and the great weight of my head came to rest against the rock-face, a last thought, we got close, tell London we got close.
Said I could hear him.
Caught me in a low sleep-curve, groggy.
Zenith 06.31.
I have been in signals with London.
They were still there, I could just catch their distant purring, throp-throp-throp.
Can you hear me?
Hear you.