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.
He puffed out the ceramic fuse holder and the hangar was plunged into darkness, but the light of the floods through the open window gave him sufficient light to see what he was doing. He jammed the AK cartridge into the lugs of the ceramic fuse holder and snapped at Job.
"Stand back!"
The last vestiges of his panic were gone. He felt cold and resilient as a knife blade. His mind was clear and he knew exactly what he was going to do.
He thrust the loaded fuse holder back into its slot. A blinding blue explosion of light like a photographer's flashbulb lit the darkened room, and Sean was sent flying backward. He crashed against the office wall, half stunned, shaking his head, his vision starred with memories of the blue flash.
It took him a few moments to realize that the floodlights beyond the windows were extinguished and except for the fiery bead necklaces of tracer flying across the dark sky and the brief glare of exploding grenades and rockets, the base was in darkness.
"Get the men into the Hercules," he shouted.
Job was just a dark shadow behind the whirling Catherine wheels of fire that still disturbed his vision. "What? I don't understand," he stammered.
"We are getting out in the aircraft." Sean grabbed his shoulder and thrust him toward the door. "Get Ferdinand and his boys on board and move your arse."
Job ran, and Sean blundered blindly after him. His vision was returning swiftly. He turned toward the paler square of light that was the hangar doors.
"What about the prisoners?" Job called from the dark depths of the hangar.
"Turn them loose," Sean yelled back, and ran for the doors.
He was trying to recall everything he knew about the Hercules.
Although Sean had almost five thousand hours of flying time on multi engine types, he had never flown a Hercules or any other four-engined aircraft. He had, however, spent days on the flight deck of one while acting as an advisor to the South African Defense Force on antiterrorist opsin Angola and Namibia back in 1983. With a pilot's interest and keen eye, he had studied the pilot's procedures and discussed them with him in detail. He remembered what the man had told him: "She's a lamb. I wish my wife was so docile."
At the hangar door, Sean stopped suddenly. "Matatu is right, you're getting old, Courtney," he castigated himself, and spun around. He charged back into the dark hangar and almost collided with Job.
"Where you going?"
"I forgot the bag!" Sean yelled. "Get the men on board! "of The gunner's bag was on the desk where Sean had left it. He stuffed it under his arm and ran back to where Job was waiting for him at the foot of the Hercules" loading ramp.
"All the men are on board," he greeted Sean. "You should have let me keep the pilot."
"We didn't have time to convince him to cooperate," Sean snapped. "The poor bastard was in a blue funk."
"Are you going to fly?"
"Sure, unless you want a shot at it."
"Hey, Sean, have you ever flown one of these things?"
"There is a first time for everything." Sean pointed forward.
"Come on, help me clear the chocks."
They ran forward and dragged the wheel chocks clear. Then Sean led the way up the steep angle of the ramp and stopped at the top.
"Here is the control for the ramp." He showed Job the rocker switch in the side wall of the fuselage. "Move it to the "up" position when I have got the first engine started and the red light goes on in that panel. It will switch to green when the ramp is up and locked."
Sean left him and ran down the length of the Hercules" body.
The Shanganes were milling about uncertainly in the darkness.