Stafford didn’t reply; he was too busy being terrified.
“You’re a fool, May.” Kilton spoke calmly. “A cowardly, ill-advised fool. Real men take risks every day for what we believe in.”
The aircraft hit a pocket of air and thumped down before recovering.
“For Christ’s sake, Mark.” Stafford’s voice croaked from the darkness behind. “End this.”
The aircraft rolled, sweeping into a larger valley complex. It looked like a dead end ahead, but Rob had been here before and knew it opened up at the last minute. He’d never flown this low before. He hoped the aircraft was not about to be taken beyond its performance limits.
“Maybe we’ll all die?” Rob said quietly, while looking at the tight passage ahead. “It would serve my purpose, wouldn’t it?” He looked across at Kilton. “The boys know enough now, and this crash would be the final nail in Guiding Light’s coffin. You wouldn’t be around to cover anything up.”
“You’d kill yourself to prove a point?”
“I don’t think you realise what I’m living with, boss.” The walls of rock were fast approaching dead ahead. “I ended it for Millie, didn’t I? I played your game. I took us back down to three hundred feet, against his wishes. I ignored him, even belittled him, with you. You really got me, didn’t you? But now, in a simple moment, I can make it right.”
The Vulcan reacted to the sharply changing relief. The wings rolled just as the valley opened up. Kilton’s hands moved to the panel in front to steady himself, and the huge Vulcan banked steeply left, then immediately right to negotiate the tight channel.
There was no bang, no sudden moment of black.
Rob moved his hand to the control panel, and this time dialled them down to a hundred feet.
The aircraft shifted down among the trees and meadows; the ride became bumpier and more violent.
“That’s enough, May!” Kilton bawled. “We’re lower than the bloody wingspan, you fool!”
Rob stared straight ahead, still covering the controls.
This is why Susie, Red and the others were urging caution from him.
They must have known it would come to this.
“Look, maybe I was too harsh on you,” said Kilton. “I can reverse the transfer. Have you back at TFU. But you’re wrong about Guiding Light. If we wait for perfection, it will never get released. We’ll never equip with it and we will lose the chance to take the Soviets down. Think about the bigger picture, for Christ’s sake. Take us up, Rob. You’ve proved your point.”
Rob didn’t move his head. He kept his eyes on the flight path ahead.
“I don’t think so.”
“Christ, Kilton, that’s it,” said Stafford. “Get us out of here. I don’t care what it takes. May, I will personally stop production of Guiding Light. I promise.”
Rob looked across at Kilton. “I need to hear it from you.”
The aircraft plunged, and Rob grabbed the control column, but it was just the laser guiding them down a gully. Rob released his grip and allowed the computer to continue.
“I’ll say no such thing. You think I’m scared, May? I faced death every day in 1940 and didn’t back down once. Your generation don’t know the half of it. You’re a coward, and you don’t deserve the freedom we fought for. And you’re a naive fool for thinking the enemy is not coming for us again. And when he does, you’ll be begging for Guiding Light to keep you safe from his missiles.” Kilton turned his head around, although Rob doubted he could see Stafford in the back. “And as for you… You were never cut out for the front line. Shut the hell up and speak when spoken to.”
Rob’s blood pumped around his body, his legs shaking with adrenaline. He concentrated as hard as he could on keeping the aircraft flying.
“I don’t think you understand,” Rob said. “I can’t go back having failed. I don’t care about my job, or even prison. The only thing that scares me is going to sleep every night for the rest of my life knowing I failed Millie in every possible way.”
“Take us back up, May. This is your final warning.”
“Or what, sir? I think you’re out of options.”
“He’s right,” Stafford shouted. “Give in, for Christ’s sake, Kilton.”
The aircraft rolled right, and the nose pulled around, wrenching them into a wider valley with a lake.
Rob’s left hand squeezed the control column while his right hand rested on the throttles.
A strange sense of calm washed over him. Kilton had nowhere to go; he would know that any attempt to interfere with the flying controls would end in disaster.
The Vulcan shot over the end of the lake, then rose and fell over a small hill.
The wings rolled left and they headed toward the deepest section of Welsh hills.
Rob’s mind turned over, trying to work out how to bring this to a conclusion.
But Kilton was on the move, unstrapping from his seat.
The TFU boss lunged across the cockpit. His hands landed with a thud on Rob’s stomach.
Rob grabbed the stick, ready to fight for control.
But Kilton’s hands didn’t go to the control column or the throttle.
Rob looked at Kilton’s head, his dark eyes just inches from Rob’s as he leant across at full stretch from his seat.
“What the hell?”
Kilton smiled.
Rob lowered his head to see what Kilton was holding.
Both his hands were on Rob’s ejection seat handle.
“Shit.”
Terrified, he stared back at Kilton. “It’ll rip your arms off!”
“No, Rob. I’ll have one second. You should read the pilots’ notes more carefully.”
The aircraft rolled into a steep right hand bank; an ejection now would surely be fatal.
Rob grabbed Kilton’s fingers and attempted to prise them off the yellow-and-black cord.
“No! Not now!”
Kilton actually laughed at him and yanked the handle firmly up.
There was a loud bang above them, and Rob looked up to see nothing but grass.
With that sight, he knew his life was about to end.
No more decisions to make; it was over.
The seat erupted underneath him.
33
FRIDAY 14TH JULY
One Week Later
MARY HADN’T MOVED for some time. She let her eyes rest on the changing morning sky. The fiery reds of dawn had replaced the first rays of pale white light.
Over the past week she’d become an expert at mornings. She now knew her blackbirds from her greenfinches just by their call; the birdsong that had for so long just been a background noise in a busy life.
A busy life, until time had stopped. One week ago.
There was a tap at the door. It opened, and a small, pretty woman with a black bob of hair entered the room.
Mary smiled, glad of the company.
“Morning,” they said to each other, and Mary went back to studying the sky.
“Newspapers?”
Susie offered a small pile of the dailies, but Mary couldn’t bring herself to read anyone else’s news.
“The story’s appeared,” Susie said.
“Oh.”
“The local MP is a bit rattled. He’s spilled a few beans.” Susie proffered the papers again.
Mary struggled to focus on the print.
“Would you mind reading it to me?”
“Of course.”
Susie sat on the edge of a high-backed, green-cushioned chair and opened The Daily Telegraph.
The headline at least was clear.
MP TO QUESTION MINISTERS OVER SECOND RAF BOMBER DISASTER.
Susie read the article aloud. “Wiltshire Central MP, Sir Alan Giddings, is to raise the recent brace of fatal RAF crashes with ministers in the House of Commons, later today. Yesterday, it emerged that the Vulcan bomber crash, which occurred in mid-Wales a week ago, was the second such loss from the same RAF station in the space of a fortnight. The spotlight is now on the secretive RAF West Porton, north of Salisbury and in the heart of Sir Alan’s constituency.