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‘Now.’ The Frenchman’s firm command yanks Kelvin back to reality. He pushes the throttle levers forward. The four General Electric turbofans bite the air and jolt the Galaxy onto the runway.

Gerhard braces himself within the open hatch as Cobbin straps in to a nearby jump seat. ‘Make sure it’s in position. And easy with the throttle —’

‘I know what to do.’ Gerhard fails to disguise the anxiety in his voice as he pushes the throttle lever forward. The Mack gathers speed, rumbles towards the runway’s threshold — then lurches to a stop.

No! Too much throttle. Fear slices through the Austrian. His hand shakes as he stabs the red starter button and focuses on the truck’s exhaust stack, watches for the burst of smoke that will tell him the engine is running.

He sees no smoke. The truck’s out of position and its engine is dead. In fifteen seconds everyone on this plane will be too.

The Galaxy accelerates as 164000 pounds of thrust shove 350000 kilograms of aircraft down the runway.

‘What’s happening? Is it in position?’

No, it isn’t. It’s not even close. Gerhard ignores Cobbin and pushes the red button again, looks back at the Mack truck.

Diesel smoke blasts from its exhaust stack. The engine’s running. There’s no time to be relieved. He very gently presses the throttle lever forward. The Mack accelerates towards the runway.

The Galaxy’s nose tips up and Gerhard’s view of the truck is obstructed by the jet’s wing. He looks right.

The F-16s clear the line of parked C-130s. Side by side they pivot, bring their weapons to bear on the Galaxy as it rushes along the tarmac.

The fighter jets’ Gatling guns erupt. Blurs of white light streak across the airfield. Gerhard involuntarily flinches as the rounds thump into the Galaxy’s fuselage.

The big jet’s wheels leave the tarmac and it lumbers into a steep climb, engines whining in four-part harmony. Gerhard’s thumb touches the green button at the top of the remote. His eyes find the Mack as it races onto the runway. He can’t press the button until it’s in position, and it’s not there yet.

A flash from the wingtip of the closest F-16. A Sidewinder missile rockets towards the Galaxy. Gerhard sees it and knows he’s out of time. He closes his eyes and mashes the green button and prays it works.

The earth quakes and the first half-kilometre of runway disappears. In its place burns a crater the size of a football field. Chunks of dirt and bitumen rain down from the mushroom cloud that billows into the sky above.

The F-16s make it into the air, but not in the way they were designed. The explosion picks them up and flips them over like leaves in a summer breeze, scuttles them across the taxiway on their canopies, slams them into that line of parked C-130s.

Halfway to the Galaxy, the Sidewinder missile is enveloped by the explosion and vaporised.

The blast wave hits the Galaxy like a runaway locomotive, violently shoves up its tail. Its vast wings flex to the edge of their design parameters and the airframe groans like a prehistoric beast in its death throes.

‘That’s me!’ On the flight deck Kelvin seizes control of the aircraft. Jeez-us! The Galaxy’s nose points at the ground, the view beyond the windscreen showing nothing but suburbia, row after row of sleeping houses, not what you want to see when travelling at 320 kilometres an hour, barely 2000 feet off the ground.

He has ten seconds to get the jet level. Feet stroke the rudder pedals, right hand caresses the throttle levers, left hand plays the flight stick. He works the controls with finesse.

The Galaxy’s nose pulls up, but rises too far. In an instant it wipes off the plane’s speed. The air stalls under the wings and steals their lift. The engines scream but the aircraft isn’t moving forward. It hangs in the ink-black sky, nose pointed at the stars.

Tail first, the aircraft drops in a lazy arc towards the houses below. Kelvin goes in search of lift. Finesse abandoned, he fights the controls, tries to bring the nose down, get the jet horizontal and reset the wings’ angle of attack.

He kills the power. The plane falls. He works the stick. The nose tilts down, but slowly. It’s 700 feet off the ground. He plays the flaps. The nose drops again, the aircraft almost horizontal.

Close enough. Kelvin jams the throttle levers to full power. The engines run up, shove the aircraft forward. It gathers speed. The wings grab air, regain some lift. The Galaxy slips out of the stall, but it’s low. A hundred feet above the rooftops, if that. He’s about to drop this thing into some poor schmuck’s swimming pool.

The Galaxy skims the rooftops. Jet wash blows off tiles like they’re confetti. He’s certain he hears a dog bark. He eases back on the stick. Nothing. He does it again. ‘Come on!’

The heavy nose rises. Slowly, then faster. The Galaxy climbs.

‘Christ.’ He hasn’t taken a breath in what feels like a week. He exhales, his right hand gripping the control stick so tightly it’s numb. He releases it and looks at the Frenchman.

Henri’s unruffled, like the whole thing was no big deal. He turns to Kelvin with that strange half-smile and nods. Kelvin’s sure this is Henri’s version of high praise, but right at this moment he doesn’t care. He turns back to the controls and scans the instruments with a practised eye. ‘Doesn’t look like we picked up any serious damage. I’ll check once we’re on the ground.’

‘Good.’ Henri speaks into his headset’s microphone. ‘Cobbin, how’d it go down there?’ Kelvin can’t hear Cobbin’s reply but he can hear the Frenchman. ‘Okay, close the hatch.’

Kelvin sets the Galaxy on a southward track. Saving their arses had momentarily taken his mind off his situation, but now all he can think about is how these people just blew up an air-force base. An air-force base! He knew they were up to no good, but christal-mighty! He had no idea. Yes, Kelvin wants the million bucks but not like this. He needs to find a way out of this, but how does he escape these people without bringing his already shortened life to an even more premature conclusion? He doesn’t know, but needs to find a way. Fast.

* * *

Gerhard stands by the open hatch and watches the mushroom cloud shrink into the distance. The 100 kilograms of C-4 plastic explosive strapped to the underside of the Mack’s tanker had worked as planned, or almost as planned. The Mack was supposed to detonate in the middle of the runway, but Gerhard didn’t quite get it there. Still, no one would be following them from that runway tonight, which was the point. He turns to Cobbin and grins. ‘So, I did okay?’

Cobbin answers by gently pushing Gerhard in the chest. He falls out of the hatch, his mouth open in a soundless scream.

Cobbin watches Gerhard drop into the darkness then turns and hits a button beside the hatch. The door swings shut and settles into the fuselage as he speaks into his headset’s microphone. ‘It’s done.’

* * *

Henri leans back, closes his eyes, and his thoughts, as they so often do, lead to his wife. On this mission he will push the envelope as far as he can because he does not fear death. Death cannot be worse than the pain he endures every day since she passed.

He knows he should he happy with this success but he isn’t. He’s struck by the unease he always suffers when things go too well. Where will the error occur? The error that derails the whole enterprise.

Le doute fou. That’s what she called it. Foolish doubt. With a quiet word she could always dispel his concerns. If he concentrates hard enough he can almost hear her say it.

2

The sea of glass LCD screens lights up the flight deck of space shuttle Discovery like it’s a Christmas tree, albeit the most expensive and complicated Christmas tree ever devised.