AFTER ROB HAD BEEN THERE for an hour, two security force officers appeared in the doorway. He watched as they made their way to Kilton, who pointed directly at Rob.
Red came across.
“Time to go, buddy. Are you ready?”
“What for?”
“You’ll find out soon, I promise. For now, just do what we say. This is gonna be tight.”
The wives appeared. A group of TFU officers moved toward the door. In the lobby, they waited for the security men.
Rob stared at the oil paintings of senior officers standing beside fighters and bombers of years gone by.
Each one staring proudly into the distance.
The men who had nursed new aircraft into the world.
Wartime aces and post-war test pilots.
Heroes of the work, whose diligence ensured the safety of ordinary squadron pilots and crews; the men who would climb into the machines for decades after those first tentative flights.
Mary looked worried.
“Are you OK?”
“I lost my way, Mary.”
“What?”
“This is what we do here. We make things better, not worse. That’s what Millie was trying to tell me.”
She held his hand.
“I know, darling. And the boys want you to have one more chance.” She paused. “But you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. And if you do, you promise one thing, Flight Lieutenant May?”
“What?”
“You come back to me,” she whispered.
A security officer reached Rob. “Let’s go.”
The group followed into the car park.
Red’s estate car was parked back to back with an RAF Land Rover. A couple of men in fatigues were working at its rear, pulling a canvas over and tying it down.
As they got to the car, a few things happened at once.
With the security guards watching, Rob was ushered into the back of Red’s car. Confusingly, the back seat was completely folded flat, and he wasn’t sure where to put his legs.
Then there was a scream.
He whipped his head around to see Susie on the floor, holding her ankle. The security guards bent down to help her.
At that same moment, Rob felt a firm grip on his arm. He looked up to see one of the NCOs in the back of the Land Rover pulling him roughly back through Red’s car. He landed with a thump in the dark interior of the wagon. As the canvas came down over the back, Rob glimpsed the back seats going up and someone he didn’t recognise, but who was about the same size as him, pulling on his RAF cap and settling into Red’s back seat.
It was the last thing he saw before the Land Rover engine started and the vehicle pulled away.
One of the men with him peeped through a tiny crack in the rear canvas.
“OK. The women are now getting in. Police are watching. Stand by.”
There was a tense pause.
“They’re going for it. Yes. They’ve got into their wagon, and Red’s pulled away.”
“Superb!” one of the men in the back said. “You owe me a pound.”
After several minutes of driving, the vehicle stopped.
Rob heard the Land Rover doors open at the front. Light flooded in as the canvas at the rear was pulled to one side.
An ageing warrant officer looked in.
“Your stop, Flight Lieutenant May.”
Rob climbed out and found himself at the back of the ramshackle Maintenance Unit. The men led him inside, where a small team had assembled to greet him. He glanced around; there were eight or so men looking at him, but no-one he knew well.
JR was not there.
“I’m Ted Durrant,” said a man sporting RAF wings and a moustache. “I’m one of the pilots here. It’s my job to brief you for your flight. JR apologises for his absence.”
It took Rob a second to process what he’d heard.
“My flight?”
The men looked at each other for a moment before the warrant officer stepped forward and addressed the MU men.
“None of you have to be here for this. If you choose to stay, you’re implicating yourself in a deception. It’s your choice, boys. No-one will think less of you for leaving. On the other hand, if you want to end the empire of that scheming bastard Kilton, then maybe you should stay.”
The men laughed and not a soul moved from his position.
Durrant guided him by his arm. “OK, then. Rob, if you’ll step over here…”
They moved to an old wooden table with a typical TFU tasking sheet and a chart with drawn-on lines. Next to the chart: the unmistakable sight of Red Brunson’s elaborate flying helmet and mirrored visor.
“Now, I should tell you, this wasn’t my idea,” Durrant said. “I believe it was cooked up by Brunson along with a couple of your colleagues at TFU, with the help of that young woman.”
“Susie?”
“Is that her name? Anyway, the idea, my friend, is to get you inside the Vulcan in place of Red for the final project flight.” He looked at his watch. “Which is due to launch in an hour. So, we don’t have long to get this right. And believe me, a lot needs to go right.”
“How will this ever work?” Rob said.
Durrant continued with his brief. “The two key elements are Red’s suggestion to Kilton that Stafford observes the flight from the co-pilot’s seat, not the rear bay. They’ve gone for it. Kilton will be at the navigator radar station. The second element is this.”
He picked up Brunson’s helmet.
“The mirrored visor,” Rob said.
“Correct. With the oxygen mask, it could be anyone under there. Brunson thinks Stafford would be unlikely to spot the difference.”
“But what about everything else? What about before the flight? Walking out together, the brief?”
“Red will use the fact that Kilton wants him to fly the Vulcan alone as an excuse to get in the cockpit early.” Durrant looked across at his colleagues. “Now, there is some choreography to carry out on the apron. Basically, swapping you and Red over. But we managed to smuggle you from the mess, so who knows? It might even work.”
“And if it doesn’t work? When I get back they’ll arrest Red. And you lot.”
“Then it’d better work,” Durrant said, with a flash of a smile.
Rob looked uncertain.
“Look, on the ground, every officer at TFU will back you up. The idea is to give Kilton a chance to personally reverse his decision about Guiding Light. He’s not a man to be overruled, but he should see the way out of the mess.” The man shrugged. “It’s all they could come up with. Red doesn’t know enough to persuade him.”
Rob stared at the chart, the brief for the trip, and Red’s flying equipment.
“Will I see Red beforehand?”
“Not for long. He’s created an additional checklist for you.” Durrant shuffled through some papers and handed Rob a handwritten list.
It included four circuit breakers with instructions to open them before he took his seat and a small power switch to locate on the rear Guiding Light panel. The function of the breakers and switch wasn’t clear, but it was obvious that the whole operation had been thought through.
He finished studying the list and looked up; the room was silent.
Durrant looked at him. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Rob. No-one will judge you here.”
“Thank you, Ted. But it would be out of character for me this week not to do something very stupid indeed.”
Durrant nodded with a smile. “Well, just make sure you come back. Either you’ll get your point across or you won’t. There’s no point in taking unnecessary risks.”
“What about my voice? Won’t that be a giveaway?”
“Only speak via the intercom and make it monosyllabic. The intercom makes everyone sound the same. Hopefully. I’d get airborne quickly. Once you’re up, you can reveal yourself, I guess. Not much they can do about it then.”