‘Two.’
‘Still six.’
They heard the skis being raised to break the seal so that the plane was supported on its wheels. Then the skis were lowered again. The air crew were delaying, doing it strictly by the book.
With the Hagg semi-secured, Cain glanced around — his first chance to check the terrain.
Zia helping the pope from the Hagg. The sniper closing the crew door, turning to cover the people in the fuselage. Raul standing by the forward bulkhead, watching the scene with his fixed smile. The wild-eyed Bell buttonholed him, probably asking whether to kill them.
Raul said something and went up the stairs. The loadie got more straps on the Hagg, yelled at them to sit down, buckle up. People were descending from the flight deck and heading for the troop seats. Zia, with courtly gestures, assisted the pope to a seat and strapped him in.
They were sliding. At last! The distinctive gritty feel of huge skis moving on packed snow. They turned the big transport slowly — nursing torsional load on the shock struts or still attempting to delay?
As Cain slumped back against the curtain of red webbing, the sisters, Jane and Eve Rinaldi, entered the bay. Good God, he thought. They’d been hijacked along with the plane?
Eve mouthed the name she knew him as. ‘Mark?’ Then Bell herded her out of sight on the other side of the Hagg.
He and Hunt were now flanked by two hard cases. The one on his side was probably under twenty-five, a big man with a coarse face shaded by stubble and an expression as thick as his body. The second man was older, with Slavic looks and inquisitive eyes.
Both had 9mm Spectre sub-machine-guns. Cain knew the M–4. Its double-action trigger dispensed with safety mechanisms for instant firing. You cocked, then the hammer moved forward to stop near the bolt. Press the trigger and bang. The young oaf, jaw out-thrust, had the gun-muzzle aimed at his ribs.
Cain glanced at the second man who had a bead on Hunt. Neither of them seemed like culties. Had Bell used his military contacts to hire mercenaries?
They were running up. This would be seat-of-the-pants. Up here, thin air and soft snow retarded acceleration. You had to pry the heavy plane from the plateau below minimum lift-off speed. A pilot had told him one technique. Start with fifty per cent flaps, pull full back-yoke at 60 knots to clear the nose ski, then lower it back just above the surface and pop flaps to full. He didn’t care how they did it — as long as it happened before the cavalry arrived.
Stop stalling guys, he begged. Get us up.
As the JATO kicked in, he jammed his hands over his ears. With eight bottles adding 8000 pounds of thrust, they staggered into the sky.
He looked across at Hunt who glared back.
Well.
At least they were alive.
40
MAYDAY
They finished the climb-out, levelled off. The heavy airframe shuddered in turbulence and wind shear on the huge tail made it yaw. The loadie unzipped a flap in the insulation just forward of the port paratroop door. He pulled handles in one-to-four sequence to unhook the JATO bottles from the air deflector. Then he crossed the deck to do it on the other side.
Bell came through the bulkhead door, his M–4 dangling from its strap. He steadied himself against the Hagg, stepped over the tie-downs and worked his way back to Zia. He yelled in the general’s ear for a while. Zia looked back once at Cain.
Then Bell moved forward again to the loadmaster, borrowed his headset, spoke into it, came back to stand in front of Cain. ‘You.’ He jerked his thumb toward the nose.
Cain unstrapped, went forward on the shuddering deck and climbed the near vertical steps.
The flight deck was like Grand Central. Riding shotgun over the crew was Raul in a headset and two other heavies with M–4s. The three interlopers crouched in a row, like crows at a feast, on the edge of the bottom bunk. In the top bunk lay a girl who seemed to be mumbling in her sleep.
Nina.
Asleep or drugged?
Drugged, he suspected. The CIA would have told EXIT to knock her out for the flight.
Raul handed a second headset to Cain. ‘You can hear me?’
Cain adjusted the mouthpiece, nodded. The plane bucked and he grabbed for the top bunk rail.
‘Name, rank and serial number.’ Raul’s trademark smirk.
‘Ray Cain. EXIT Department D, Grade Four. Retired.’
‘You’re the one who replaced the president, I hear, and a very dangerous man.’
‘No more. I’ve been injured.’
‘I noticed the limp.’
‘EXIT was going to kill me. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Does that put you on our side?’
‘If it gets me away from here.’
The fixed empty smile. ‘I wonder. Can you give me one reason not to shoot you?’
A scream from the top bunk. Nina — up on one elbow staring ahead, disoriented — betrayal on her girl-child’s face.
One of the heavies rose and yelled, ‘Shut up.’
She saw his gun and screamed again, kicking out at him with her feet.
He thrust her back.
She began to hold her breath.
‘What’s going on?’ A new voice in the cans. Cain turned to see the copilot leaning forward to tap instruments in front of him. ‘Ball’s gone mad, my compass is spinning. And the bloody airspeed indicator’s…’
The engineer called, ‘Number two generator out light.’
The pilot stared at the engine instrument panel. ‘I think two’s flamed out.’
Nina was still holding her breath, her face going red, her hands fists and the knuckles white.
‘Confirmed,’ the engineer said. ‘Windmilling at thirty per cent RPM.’
The pilot eased the other three throttles forward.
‘Engine shutdown procedure, number two engine.’
They ran through the checklist.
Christ, Cain thought. Was it the girl?
‘Can’t be fuel,’ the engineer said. ‘Tank three shows 2000 pounds. Quantity gauge could be ratshit. Pulling circuit-breaker. Going for cross-feed.’
The engine roar was now asynchronous, out of phase to the ear.
Cain looked at the solid pale overcast and the uniform snow below. It seemed to stretch far into the distance. It was technically called poor surface and horizontal definition. It meant a lack of depth perception.
The more ominous term was whiteout.
The engineer was reporting again. ‘RPM on three fluxing out of limits. And the manifold switching’s gone mad. And the main tank pump switches keep flicking off. Jesus, how can they do that?’
Cain looked back at the extended cheeks of Nina, wondering whether to knock her out.
The crew comments were increasing in pitch.
‘Nacelle overheat light on three.’
‘What the hell?’
‘No visible smoke.’
Raul lurched to his feet, smile gone, ‘If this is some kind of trick…’
It clearly wasn’t. Cain waved at him to stay out of it.
Nina screamed again and one of the heavies hit her across the mouth. She cringed back in the bunk, eyes bright, hand over her jaw. On the overhead systems control panels, the occasional toggle-switch flicked over without human intervention.
‘Engine shutdown procedure — number three engine.’
The pilot was conserving airspeed, had the thing slightly nose-down.
Comments and commands became a babble.
‘Overheat light still on.’
‘First fire bottle,’ the right seater said.
‘Still on.’
‘Isolating wing bleed air.’
‘Still on.’
‘Hell. Is the wing on fire or what?’
‘Number four generator out light.’
‘Procedure for restarting two?’
‘Radalt’s jumping off the peg. Got to climb.’