Zuiden got a signal through. It probably saved their lives. They spent a wary evening with messieurs of the GIGN. The renowned French ‘Third Force’ wasn’t charmed by the scene and the Groupe d’Intervention commander had never been shown a Blue Exemption Card. After much chatternetting on different frequencies clearance was confirmed — not only the exemption for murder and an embargo on investigation but also a requisition for logistic support. The commander’s attitude changed from revulsion and suspicion to affront.
Zuiden handled the cleaning of the site, using GIGN cover. Cain, playing dead, was lugged to the chopper in the body bag. They were flown with the corpses to a military compound north of Paris. Then continent-hopping began.
In three hours, they were on a cargo flight to Cairo. After an interminable wait in a baggage bay, they connected with a charter to Somalia.
The Mogadishu terminal was basically a dusty hangar. They slumped on a bench, exhausted, sweating with the heat. The only transport visible was a bullet-pocked truck and bus — both with windscreens shot out — and a white armoured personnel carrier manned by Italians in UN berets. Even children here, Zuiden told him, carried AKs and SARs.
The local contact’s khat-chewing sidekick took their civilian clothes with delight, as if assessing how much they would fetch in this Eden of bullets and loot. They were handed unmarked jumpsuits, float coats, foam earplugs and two dry contra-concave objects that once may have been sandwiches.
After another hour they were driven in a buggy far across the tarmac towards droop-bladed US Black Hawks that shimmered like mirages. Unexpectedly, they turned and headed towards a US Navy Grumman E–2C — a mini AWAC capped by a frisbee-like radar dome.
‘Hawkeye,’ Zuiden said. ‘Airborne control centre.’ Military things were his bag. He explained that it was packed with electronics and had a five man crew — two pilots and three acronyms — and that a further two carcasses wouldn’t help trim and takeoff weight.
‘So where are they taking us?’ Cain asked.
‘A CV in the Indian Ocean?’ Zuiden looked puzzled.
‘To a carrier?’
‘Hawkeyes live on carriers. But carrier transport is a C–2A.’ The surgeon ridged his brow and even the ridges seemed muscular. ‘Why didn’t they reroute a COD?’
‘Perhaps we’re in for some kind of comms op.’
They walked well clear of the arc marked by a threatening red line on the fuselage, climbed the steps built into the downward-hinged door and entered the dark tube. There was no room for them back with the NFOs so they were told to sit feet first on the floor by the rear bulkhead of the forward electronics compartment. They were handed webbing and told to lash themselves to the equipment racks.
They squeezed in earplugs. The engines ran up, the brakes released and the props chopped air. They powered forward, thrumming, left the ground fast, banked.
Soon Zuiden’s head lolled. Cain scrutinised the man’s brutal face. Although ominously tough, he was ageing now, not the young Turk he’d been in Antarctica. Both of them forty this year. Mine enemy grows older, Cain thought. It was simple for surgeons — kill or be killed. They were basic types, technicians. But dentists were taught to review their acts — to bear the liberal education and the angst.
He saw Rehana’s desecrated body, the man dying on his small-intestine quilt, the screaming mouth-hole of the Afghani.
He closed his eyes but couldn’t escape.
Had EXIT transformed the child he’d been into an over-civilised adult — for this?
5
BIRD FARM
The Hawkeye pilot, a first tour junior, was tense. He was 25 miles out and close to Bingo. He’d asked for an ASAP recover, but the CATCC controllers weren’t buying.
A section of Hornets were inbound after practice plugs. So was the tanker. The standard sequence was Hornets first, tanker next, hummer last. And although the unscheduled divert had drained their fuel, mother didn’t care. ‘Six zero three — climb and maintain angels eleven.’
His copilot said, ‘Boat’s out to kill us again.’ Then his NFO aircraft commander selected the front end to talk options. The back-seat driving only increased the pucker-factor.
Strike finally acknowledged that they’d soon be flying on fumes. They dirtied up and trolled in. Gear and hook down, 6 degrees, airspeed, distance… You had to come in just above stall and from three-quarters of a mile out, fly the ball. He watched his cross-hairs, concentrated on glide slope, centreline. Wind over deck: 30 knots slightly axial. If they boltered or had to wave off, they’d be below joker. He called up the mole hole. ‘Someone tell our guests to hang on.’
As always, the flight deck of the carrier looked like a postage stamp on approach, then got bigger very fast. Landing was the killer. The LSO gave points for each one. Would he score an okay three-wire? Cop a major deviation — turd brown? The hazardous thoughts were back. I have to land this pass. Better to die than look bad. He concentrated on getting in. Cockpit light amber: on speed. You couldn’t use instruments even at night. Too much lag, happened too fast.
‘Hawkeye, ball.’
Anticipate the burble. Pitch spot-on — tail-down for the hook because the arresting wires were two inches off the deck. Over the ramp — hit power and…
The plane trapped an uneventful two-wire, was snatched to a stop and his body, as usual, tried to fly through the windshield. He hauled back on the throttles, enormously relieved. As the wire started to drag them aft he raised the hook, braked and wondered how the freight had fared. On a COD they’d be belted into backward-facing seats. But cinched on the floor would represent a definite ouch!
Cain had discovered why naval aircraft design began with the undercarriage and airframe. He’d been slammed so hard on the landing that he was ready for a chiropractor.
‘Told you,’ Zuiden shouted. ‘Hear that? Elaborate wingfold on these. Double-acting hydraulic cylinders, skewed-axis hinges…’
Surgeons learned and loved all that crud. He didn’t share Zuiden’s lust for technical detail.
They moved on an unstable surface and finally were released onto acres of slowly pitching deck. Cain breathed in the smell of aviation fuel and diesel — blinked in the sudden glare of sun. Despite his earplugs, the noise was painful. He’d never been on a carrier.
He stared at the matt-blue chocked and chained fighters stacked with folded wings. Green-jacketed maintenance men stood on wing stubs, dwarfed by the forest of angled metal fins. He’d expected elegant plumage for the billions the planes must have been worth but even the cloudy-white Hawkeye looked smarter. He edged around its flat tail section which was labelled DO NOT PAINT.
He followed Zuiden past yellowshirts sorting out a tiedown. One yelled, ‘Like where are you going, dudes?’ and pointed them toward the island. A sign on it read: BEWARE OF JET BLAST, PROPELLERS AND ROTORS. Cain stared up to sailors watching from the superstructure’s catwalks, then at the wingless bridges with their sloping windows. Above it all, antennas and SATCOM domes seemed to scrape the ragged bottoms of the clouds.
He skirted plane-handling equipment, heading for one of the secured-back doors. As he stepped over the sill he lurched against the metal frame and realised how much the huge vessel moved. Inside stood a smart marine corporal who seemed to be some kind of honour guard but they were greeted by a thin lieutenant commander in crisp whites. ‘Afternoon, gentlemen. Scott Spencer, NSWC. I’m your nursemaid. And sorry about the transfer. One COD’s hauling freight. The other’s a hangar-queen.’ Creased eyes and a smile. ‘Follow me, please.’