Noises inside the wood alerted him to the steady approached of the second gunman, and he broke cover, running for the bridge, his footfalls muffled but his feet hampered by the virgin snow covering the track. In the distance he heard the sound of the Inverness express trains’ two-tone air horn, and the noise spurred him on. Behind him the gunman crashed through the bushes onto the track, caught sight of the running figure making for the bridge and set off in pursuit. Constantine reached the gate barring the way to stray cattle and unauthorised cars and climbed over, dropping to the other side. The bridge arched over the railway cutting, and Constantine’s legs protested as he ran up the slope, casting a glance over his shoulder at his pursuer; damn he was so close! Constantine stopped, raised the MP-5 and aimed just ahead of the running gunman, squeezing the trigger when he was certain he was aiming off the correct amount. The ‘dead-man’s-click’ is so called for those careless souls who forget to count their rounds, it is the sound that is heard when there is an empty chamber at the moment when you really could have done with another live round sitting in there, it is often the last sound the luckless mathematician hears. He froze for a split second and then cocked the weapon again, aimed and squeezed but received the same metallic click. His spare magazines were in the pockets of the coat hanging from the fence at the other side of the wood, so he turned and ran. His pursuer had clearly heard both clicks and knew what it meant, either a stoppage of some kind or an empty magazine, he ran even faster, denying Constantine the opportunity to stop and reload, should he have other magazines about his person.
On reaching the top of the slope, midway across the bridge, Constantine slid to a halt, feeling despair fill him, for at the far end sat the builders van, and its driver was lying to the side of the track, aiming straight at him.
“Drop the weapon Major… it’s no use to you now except as a club.” The man behind him was hardly breathing heavily at all as he called to Bedonavich.
“It was a good try, but it is over now… time is short Major, and we have much to speak of… and I do assure you that you will speak. So put your hands behind your head and stay perfectly still until I get to you!”
Constantine was panting with the exertion, and looking around desperately for some assistance, or a solution. The van driver was still covering him as the second man climbed over the gate, there was no one else around to help him, nothing he could use… and then a light shining from along the track caught his eye, and he had his solution after all. Leaping for the side of the bridge, he was pulling himself up onto the top of the bridge parapet when the van driver fired, hitting his lower right leg, shattering the bone and throwing him off balance, but it didn’t matter anymore thought Constantine to himself as he rolled his body towards the edge. The second man was shouting desperately as he rushed forward, with arms outstretched, his fingertips making contact with the wet fabric of Bedonavich’s jacket, and then the major was gone, rolling off into space to fall into the path of the Inverness express.
Two hundred and sixty-four miles due east of Christmas Island, the Royal Australian Navy, Collins class attack submarine Hooper was surfaced and hove to. Australia bought the licence to build the very capable, Swedish designed diesel boat but then the politicians did what they are best at, risking their own young men’s lives from the safety of comfortable offices. They built cheap, aiming unerringly for second best and accepting third. The boats propeller was noisy, as was her engine plant, and her systems were all out of date. The first boat, SSG 73, HMAS Collins, was completed in 1996 but outfitted with early 1980’s technology, including her vital sonars. It was political embarrassment rather than bruised national pride that funded the drive to put things right, in international war games it was said the Collins boats could be heard even before they’d cleared port. The government made much of its decision to spend a billion Australian dollars in a program to put things right, but kept silent over the fact that it would be spread over ten years.
As well as being noisy, the diesel plants were unreliable, as were the generators that were meant to charge the batteries on which the boat was totally reliant upon whilst dived below snorkel depth.
HMAS Hooper was sat on the surface because seals had failed in her snorkel, and air wasn’t getting to her diesels in sufficient quantity. Her generator in turn, was not producing enough current to charge the batteries, so here they were, just the other side of the Java Trench from a hot war zone with the engineering officer putting the damn thing back together after replacing the perished seals.
All non-essential machinery was shut down during the repair process and a silent regime enforced while the submarine sat on the surface. The sonar operators used their outdated equipment with skill, listening on passive systems for any hint of a threat, and the lookouts scanned the horizon with night viewing aids.
All credit to the men who crewed her; they persevered with the tool provided to them by penny-pinching bureaucrats, in the defence of their country.
Only marine life was out there, and no radars were detected by the time she was ready to get underway once more, two hours before dawn.
“Are you sure that bluddy dunny is going to hold together Tommo?”
The engineer eased his aching back and looked up at the snorkel.
“It’s not a bad design skipper, but the seals were made for arctic waters not the tropics, so they give out quicker.” He replied as he climbed down from his hazardous perch, back to the safety of the bridge. The powers that be knew of the problems with the seals, but they had bought in bulk at the start of the Oboe class replacement project, and were not inclined to dump the items for tropical ones whilst stocks remained. In peacetime it hardly mattered that they required replacement twice as quickly, but they were at war now and it mattered a hell of a lot.
The skipper clapped him on the back and ushered him below.
“Well done anyway, go and get some kip.”
Once the engineer had disappeared the captain took a look around; checking for any overlooked item that would rattle once they were dived. His mood was bad enough as it was, if they had to come straight back up to retrieve a spanner or the like, it would be absolutely foul.
Turning to his number one he nodded.
“Provided all this work wasn’t a waste of time, we’ll do a static dive with the snorkel raised; let’s not tempt fate, eh?”
“She should be okay sir; Tommo’s a good ‘un.”
“Start main engines and raise the snorkel.”
After the quiet of the past hours the big diesel sounded horrendously loud to ears grown accustomed to the silence, even through the soundproofing. After five minutes they had confirmation that unrestricted airflow was reaching the engine and the generator was feeding charge to the batteries