"You have had your warning," he said. "My next offer is a bullet in the head."
Carlyle was holdinglis; injured hand to his chest, but his face was set and dark witk fury as he watched Sean place the bag on the desk.
"Keys!" Sean said.
"Get stuffed," said Carlyle. His voice was tight and hoarse with pain, and Sean saw that his broken finger was standing out at an odd angle and swelling like a purple balloon.
Job reappeared in the door of the office cubicle. "All secure," he said, and glanced at his wristwatch. "Four minutes to diversion."
"Give me your knife," Sean told him, and Job slid the trench knife from its sheath and passed it to Sean, hilt first.
Sean slashed the leather along the edge of the bag's steel frame, then pulled open the concertina hinge. There were half a dozen large looseleaf folders filling the interior of the bag, and Sean selected one. The file was covered in War Office red plastic and marked Top sEcRn. He glanced at the title page.
FWLD MAMAL FOR INFANMY USE OF TM SnNC&R mom GU
SURFACE-TO-AIR bUSS WE
"Jackpot." Sean turned the file so that Job could read it. It was a stupid thing to do. They were both distracted, turned toward the desk, studying the Me.
Carlyle launched himself out of the chair. He was young and fast.
The injury to his hand did not hamper him in the least, and he was across the narrow floor space before either of them could move to stop him. He dived headfirst into the frosted window "in the middle of the far wall. It exploded in a sparkling shower of glass, and Carlyle flipped over in midair like an acrobat.
Sean leaped to the empty window. Outside on the brightly fit tarmac of the hard stand, Carlyle rolled to his feet and ran. Job pushed Sean aside and stepped up to the window; lifting his AKM and taking deliberate care, he aimed at Carlyle's broad back as he sprinted across open ground toward the base of the control tower.
Sean grabbed the rifle and jerked the barrel down before Job could fire.
"What the bell are you doing?" Job snarled at him.
"You can't shoot him!"
"Why not?"
"He's an Englishman," Sean explained lamely. For a moment Job stared at him uncomprehendingly while Carlyle covered the last few yards and dived into the doorway at the base of the control tower.
"Englishman or Eskimo, we are going to have the whole Fifth Brigade down our throats in about ten seconds from now." Job was obviously trying to control his anger. "So what do we do now?19
"How long to diversion?" Sean asked to buy time. He had no answer to Job's question.
"Still four minutes," Job answered. "And it might as well be four hours."
As he said it, the sirens began to howl like wolves, bringing the base to full alert. Obviously Carlyle had reached the op room in the control tower. Sean stuck his head out of the shattered window and saw the guard turning out of the main gatehouse on the far side of the runway. They were dragging spike boards across the approaches to the gates to cut the tires of any escaping vehicle to ribbons, and Sean saw the barrels of the 12.7-men heavy machine guns depressing and traversing to cover the approaches. They were never going to get the trucks out that way.
"You should have let me sort him out," Job fumed. How could Sean explain it to him? Carlyle had been a brave man doing his duty, and although Sean's lines of loyalty to the old country had become blurred, he had the same blood in his veins. It would have been worse than murder to allow Job to shoot him down; it would have been a kind of fratricide.
Outside the hangar, the perimeter lights went on abruptly, flooding the high security fence around the runway and taxiway.
The entire base area was lit like daylight.
If the commandos of the Fifth Brigade were in barracks and asleep when the alarm sounded, how long would it take them to come into action? Sean tried to make an estimate and then, with self-disgust, realized he was simply avoiding facing up to his own indecision and lack of any plan. He had lost control, and it was all blowing up in his face.
In a few minutes from now, he and Job and the twenty Shanganes of his commando were going to be overwhelmed. The lucky ones among them would be killed outright and so avoid interrogation by the Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Organization.
"Think," he told himself desperately. Job was expectantly watching his face, waiting for orders. He had never seen Sean at a loss before. Ms unquestioning trust irritated Sean and made it even more difficult for him to reach any decision.
"What shall I tell the men?" Job prodded him.
"Get them-" Sean broke off as heavy gunfire broke out on the southern perimeter of the base on the opposite side to the hangar and out of their field of vision. Alphonso had been bright enough to realize that the plan lid been derailed, and he had started his attack a few minutes early
They heard the whoosh-boom! of RPG-7 rockets coming in through the perimeter wire and the duller thud-thud of mortar shells dropping in the base area. The 12.7-mm machine gun at the gates opened up, sluicing green tracer in pretty parabolas high into the darkness.
"How are we going to get out of here?" Job demanded.
Sean stared at him stupidly. He felt confused and uncertain.
anic welled up from deep inside him from a source he had never suspected existed. He didn't know what order to give next.
"Forget the bloody Stingers, just get us out of here." Job grabbed his arm and shook it. "Come on, Sean, snap out of it! Tell me what to do!"
"Forget the Stingers!" The words were like a slap across his face with an open hand. Sean blinked and shook his head. Forget the Stingers and forget Claudia Monterro. Without the missiles, Claudia would stay in the hole in the ground where Matatu had last seen her.
Sean glanced out of the open window again. He could see the gigantic tailplane of the Hercules and part of the fuselage; the rest of the aircraft was obscured by the angle of the hangar wall. The metallic silver skin of the Hercules glittered in the arc lights.
Sean clamped down hard on the hot effervescence of panic that threatened to swamp him and felt it subside. "The lights," he said.
He glanced around him quickly and spotted the fuse box on the office wall beside the door. He reached it in two strides and jerked open the cover.
The hangar had been built during Hitler's war, when the R.A.F had used Rhodesia as one of its overseas training centers. The electrical wiring dated from that era and utilized the old-fashioned ceramic type fuse holders.
"Give me an AK round," Sean snapped at Job. His voice was crisp and decisive, and Job obeyed instantly. He flicked one of the brass 7.62-men cartridges from the spare magazine in the pouch on his webbing.
Sean identified the main phase in the fuse box. The incoming current would be distributed directly from the transformer at the gates; if he could overload that, he would blow the flying fuse on the transformer box.