Exit Alpha (37 page)

‘Then why does she need to land here?’

‘It’s difficult for an airship over the poles. The altitude. The cold. Need a ground crew standing by. We’ll top up her helium, her fuel. She’s stripped down for the flight. No showers or amenities on board. Water’s heavy, used mainly for ballast and 40 per cent antifreeze, of course. And their galley’s just a cook-top. So we’ve got everything they need.’

‘And who’s Patrick Flynn?’ Hunt said.

‘Well may you ask, dear lady,’ Reilly, charmed by her beauty, was delighted to digress. ‘As you might know, the old country’s now reversed the diaspora. The wild geese are flying home. New tax breaks. The wooing of high-tech industry. And when Flynn moved his company to Dublin, he became our greatest software genius.’

‘And his hobby’s airships?’ Cain asked.

‘
Hobby
? Good God, man.
Crusade
!’

He’d blotted his copybook again.

‘The twenty-first century will be the century of the airship. And with luck, you might have the privilege of seeing Baby tomorrow. That’s if wind-speed’s below 30 knots so she can dock. But our base met officer’s forecasting over 60. We might have flogged ourselves ragged for nothing, mightn’t we, lads?’

His men made a disappointed sound.

‘Still,’ he slapped his knee, ‘we shall see.’

Cain was hoping for a whiteout or blizzard. Anything to stop the choppers coming in.

I
t began as a distant drone unlike the sound of a conventional aircraft. Far across the snow at the docking tower, the ground crew gave a ragged cheer.

To avoid further alarming their hosts, Cain and Hunt hung the M–4s by their combat straps beneath their parkas and placed the remaining mags in inside pockets. Then they went out to see the ship arrive. It looked enormous, even from a distance, upper half white, lower red. And for a long time it seemed to hang static in the sky. But it steadily came closer, holding just below the cloud cover, crabbing into the crosswind, fighting drift.

Even the pope came out to watch. As he shuffled over to join them Cain was relieved to see he wore full Antarctic kit.

They left the encampment, taking the priest’s arms to help him along, and followed the blizz line to the tower. The old man was as thrilled as the ground crew. ‘What a magnificent sight.’

Had the weather been better, it would have been spectacular — a majestic craft with sun glinting off its hide, its great height and length set off against the blue. But the sky was grey and visibility decreasing.

‘I’ll try and get you on board it,’ Cain told the pope. ‘If EXIT attacks us, they’ll kill you.’

‘I’ve had my life,’ John puffed.

‘That’s all very well. But you can’t even get your breath. Your legs are bad. You’re hurting. And I want you out of here.’

The giant shape approached, losing altitude.

Hunt said, ‘It’s enormous.’

Its size and slowness gave the impression of absolute calm and lack of haste.

As it made a slow sweep around to come up into the wind they could see its features clearly. The line of windows in the lower side. The protruding half-gondola near the nose. The vectored thrust engines on outriggers with their propellers in circular ducts. The side thrusters and, at the stern, huge rudders and elevators.

Ropes were dangled, ballast vented and a tricycle undercarriage lowered from the belly that had incongruous swivelling wheels. Almost immediately it was retracted as if they’d decided it was too dangerous to land. This had to be the vulnerable time — the great shape a wind trap, at the mercy of gusts and turbulence.

Reilly, standing near the tower, yelled commands into a field radio and gave signals to his men who lumbered after the ropes. Soon the thing hung above them like a cloud, the ribs of its frame clearly defined through its envelope.

As its low-revving main engines ticked over, the bow thruster roared. Slowly the great cigar approached until the connection on the front of its nose mated with the cup device on the tower. As clamps closed and the nose was secured, the whine of the bow thruster died.

But in the blustery wind, the tail began to lift. The ground crew hauled on the ropes like ants while the big rear thrusters swivelled on their outriggers until their ducts were almost vertical, the props inside them facing down, correcting aerostatic lift with dynamic. Slowly the ship levelled again.

Then a wind-shift buffeted the envelope and it began to swing. Two of the crew on the ropes were dragged in an arc across the snow. The strong tower’s guy-wires snapped taut on the windward side.

Cain watched uneasily. The engines still ran. Could they feather the big props? He didn’t know. The ship swung around its mast. Hoses with end couplings dropped from the belly.

Reilly called instructions through a megaphone. ‘Ease her. Connect fuel and gas lines.’

In the thin air, the undermanned, exhausted ground crew fought to service the ponderous ship. Someone on the supply sled had the compressor going. Others pulled hoses towards the connections dragging through the snow.

Through an open hatch underneath, a winch lowered a man to the ground. He unhooked as a quad bike hauling a sled full of webbing-cinched stores arrived under the craft. A man on the sled loaded the hook with stores and the first consignment went up. A tag fluttering on each batch probably listed the weight.

The hook descended again with a second crew member. The airship now swung sluggishly, making the transfer harder.

The two men who had alighted crossed to Reilly, spoke for a minute. Reilly pointed at Cain. One headed over to him.

‘Bit brisk.’ The words became mist in front of his face. He held out a mitten to Cain. ‘Ken Duckworth. Second Officer. Or First Mate if you prefer.’ He was a plummy Brit with a nasal drawl that, unlike Rhonda’s, seemed more practised than innate. The thin face behind the glare-glasses featured a long iced moustache. ‘I gather you’re from some dreadful covert outfit.’

‘Yes. Ray Cain. Registered assassin.’

Duckworth’s uneasy look. ‘I’m told some of our blokes have bought it.’

Cain winced at the ancient expression. Did the flake think he was Biggles? ‘Three.’

‘And I believe you killed the prats who did it.’

‘My job.’

‘And now you want our help?’

He pointed to Hunt. ‘We’re both fit enough to stay here. But this man needs to go with you.’ He indicated John. ‘He’s eighty. Can’t handle the altitude.’

‘Oh yes?’ He was suddenly uninterested, a person put-upon. ‘We have strict weight limits unfortunately.’

John put his glove on Cain’s arm. ‘I’ll be all right.’ A fit of gasping.

Duckworth said, ‘Who are you, sir?’

John wheezed, ‘A Catholic priest.’

‘Priest?’ Duckworth frowned. ‘Have to confer with the Old Man on this.’

As the other man came over, Duckworth turned to face him. ‘Spot of bother here, Skipper. Eighty-year-old Catholic priest requesting a berth.’

‘Priest?’

‘This is Captain Patrick Flynn,’ Duckworth said. ‘You are . . .’

Cain suffered introductions. ‘Ray Cain. Karen Hunt. Father John.’

Flynn, a tall, keen-eyed Irishman, in contrast to his second officer gave no display of self-image. He looked at the pope suspiciously. ‘Could I trouble you to remove your face mask, Father?’

The pope struggled to do it.

Cain helped him get it off then undid the neck of his windsuit, got his finger around a chain, pulled out the crucifix he knew it held. ‘He
is
a priest.’

John lowered his goggles and squinted against the glare.

Flynn peered at the aged face with a startled expression. ‘And what would a priest be doing at this place you came from?’

‘He was abducted for political reasons,’ Cain said. ‘He managed to escape.’

‘I’d like to hear it from the father if you don’t mind.’

‘I was a cardinal in the Vatican.’ John pushed the crucifix back in, breathing hard. ‘They wanted me removed.’

Flynn’s incredulous stare. ‘And did they, by any chance, pretend — you’d died?’

‘They did, I’m afraid. I’m told my funeral was quite elaborate.’

‘I can’t believe this.’

Duckworth glanced at Flynn, puzzled.

‘My dear mother, God bless her,’ Flynn explained, fighting for breath himself, ‘is devout. Was in Rome for the coronation of John Paul I. Had tremendous hope in his pontificate, couldn’t believe it when he died. Still has pictures of him in her house after all these years — pictures I’ve seen a hundred times. And . . . when you took your face mask off . . . I . . . saw . . . those pictures.’

That’s torn it, Cain thought.

John looked at him for permission.

He said, ‘Your call.’

The pope turned to Flynn, nodded.

‘You’re . . .’

‘God’s postman, yes.’

‘The . . . Holy Father?’

‘Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice. Then I drew the short straw.’

Duckworth’s eyes popped. ‘He’s the pope?’

‘My friend is right,’ John gasped. ‘I won’t last much longer here. I don’t wish to be a pest but if you could . . . give me a lift out of this . . . beautiful terrible place, I’d be grateful.’

Flynn dropped to his knees and grasped the pope’s glove. John blessed him.

Cain muttered, ‘Lid’s off now.’

‘I’m tired, Ray. I can’t take much more.’

Flynn was up again, eyes wide with reverence. ‘We’ll get him straight into the ship. We’re not pressurised but we have oxygen.’

As they began to help him away, John turned back to Cain. ‘Can you bring my manuscript, my things?’

‘Travelling.’ Glad and relieved, he shuffled toward the vans.

By the time Cain and Hunt saw the bag with the precious manuscript winched up, the weather was closing in. The more distant men in the team were intermittently obscured by ground drift. Visibility here was decided by the amount of blowing snow. The ship seemed fuelled but helium hoses still dangled. The last of the canvas bags were assembled below the hatch.

Cain said, ‘One problem less.’ Fine drift blew in his mouth as he spoke.

‘Long as they don’t know he’s on board.’

‘We’ll have to slot the bodies so there’s no head-count.’

‘Too late. Listen.’

The noise of the airship’s engines had been joined by a far-off
thock-thock
.

He yelled across to Reilly, ‘Chopper coming in. It’ll be EXIT. Tell your men to take cover.’

He wrenched at his heavily padded parka to get his weapon clear and ran for the supply sledge, wanting to steady the gun on its tray. He could see nothing yet. Just the airship floating above a white sea.

The striped Sikorsky came arcing over about 15 metres up, its downwash cutting a saucer of clear ground through the drift. It circled the airship at a distance, as if instructed not to impede the expedition. In a civil aircraft with no close support, and in such weather, he knew the hard-arses in the cabin wouldn’t hang out of doors or rappel. The machine slapped off toward the encampment, checking the layout below.

Hunt joined him behind the sledge, gun out, yelling, ‘Come back, bastards.’

She knew what to do if they got lucky.

EXIT choppers weren’t designed for engagements or fancy insertions — had no Kevlar seat armour, boron shields, blast barriers. Apart from military style auxiliary tanks, due to procurement rather than defence, they were standard machines adapted for Antarctica.

Cain yelled, ‘It’s coming around again.’

The chopper, undercarriage down, still in clear sky above the drift, circled away from the encampment and back behind the ship. As it banked into a turn, close above, its belly momentarily faced them.

Their bursts were aimed behind the black and orange striped nose at the vulnerable spot just aft of the nose-wheel bay. If just one 9mm round holed the floor — and the pilot’s gluteus maximus . . .

Nothing.

The chopper straightened out and powered away, nose down, over the parked traverse.

Hunt stamped. ‘Shit. Was sure I’d hit it.’

Cain waved a chilled hand. ‘No stuffed panda.’

Not surprising. They were both excellent shots but this was similar to shooting skeet. A split-second window at a moving target. And the squat weapons were made for close combat.

He said, ‘Short barrels — short expectations.’

‘So they’ve checked the layout. They’ll know they’ve been strafed. They’ll land away in the drift and use the weather as cover to close in.’

‘And we’re drinking from a fire hose.’

Then they heard it.

If the crunch was a landing, the main blades had landed first.

A gust? Miscalculation? He doubted it.

The pilot had been hit — but had got the thing down.

Just.

The jubilant Hunt turned to him. ‘Scored our panda. And it’s stuffed!’