Trophy (11 page)

“In the first place,” Crane said, “I consider you good enough.”

“And in the second?”

“And in the second place, I want you to give someone else a headache for a change.”

He closed McCann’s file, shunted it to one side, and picked up another. He opened the new file and started to read. The interview was clearly over.

That night, in London, Mark Selby woke up sweating, in the grip of his nightmare. Once again he’d had to watch Sammy Newton’s screaming face melting in flames. It hadn’t happened that way, of course—Sammy’s death must have been instantaneous,
the flames had come later, and Mark had been miles away, back at the station—but in his dream the face was always screaming, and always melting. And as it melted it was replaced by Charlotte Newton’s, her expression one of bitter accusation.

Selby sat bolt upright in the darkened room, trembling. Someone put her arms around him. Kim.

She said nothing, merely held him tight.

“Oh Christ,” he muttered.

They stayed thus for a long while in silence. It was two in the morning and outside in the tree-bordered Chelsea square all was quiet.

“Did I make much noise?” he asked her. “I was shouting for someone to help. Loud enough to wake the whole city.”

“No,” she told him. “Perhaps in the dream you were, but I only heard a whimper. You woke me when you sat up. Was it your friend again?”

“Yes … Oh God, why can’t I let it rest? There was nothing I could have done. You see, we’d been paired for a low-level but on the threshold, just before take-off, I had a leak in my LOX system. That’s liquid oxygen—there’s a converter on board that makes the stuff we breathe up there, and it’s bad news without it. I had to abort. Another crew was due to join with us a few minutes later. They were ready to roll, so they took my slot. It was on the flight with them that Sammy and his nav went into the mountain. Not that I could have done anything, even
if I’d been there. Even so, Charlotte’s face always seems to be accusing me.”

“And did she? Did she ever accuse you?”

“Of course not. Charlotte understands what it’s all about.”

“You’re the one who’s doing the accusing, Mark. You’re blaming yourself for something you know you’re not responsible for. Whatever happened that day would have occurred whether you were there or not. Everyone who flies knows the risks they take. Your own words. Remember? You said that to me only days after we met. There was something on the news about a fighter crashing in Germany.”

He nodded slowly. “We’d better get back to sleep.”

“Would you like a hot drink first? I can make you one.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll be all right.”

He settled back down and she wrapped herself about him, holding on to him tightly.

She had changed subtly since the winter, and though she was still wilful and unpredictable, she had begun to understand a little of what was required of someone in his line of work.

Her father had been alarmed by her staying power, expecting her to have ditched Mark Selby as swiftly as she had other passing fancies. But if anything,
she
was the one afraid of being ditched. As for Reggie Barham-Deane, he was becoming increasingly obnoxious as the relationship continued.

She didn’t care. There was not a hope in hell that she would marry Reggie, whatever her father’s wishes. She did not exist in order to provide a commercial dynasty for him; even if in the end things turned sour between Mark and herself, she still would not be marrying Reggie.

“Not a chance,” she murmured.

“Did you say something?”

“No, darling,” she replied softly. “Go to sleep. You’re off to the squadron tomorrow, and I want you refreshed. I don’t want you going into any mountain.” She kissed him gently on the cheek.

About them, the otherwise empty house made its own soothing noises.

In the morning, she watched him closely as they sat in the large kitchen, eating at the breakfast bar. She was wearing something she called a dressing gown. Selby thought it was almost invisible.

“You’ll shock your neighbors,” he said, enjoying the sight.

“They can’t see in. Besides, no one peers around here.”

“There’s always someone,” he countered, “everywhere.”

She smiled. “I bought it specially, to wear for you.”

“Your father would just love it if he walked in now.”

“He’s not likely to. He’s in New York for a week.”

“And Reggie the Smooth?”

“I can handle Reggie.”

“Isn’t this place like a second home to him?”

“My father allowed it. Not me. Reggie won’t come here while Daddy’s away, if I don’t invite him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. If I complained to Daddy about him, he’d be out of a job. He knows it, so we’ve got an armed truce. He’s absolutely furious that I’m still seeing you, but daren’t do anything about it.”

“Nothing open, you mean.”

“What can he possibly do? He’d have tried something long before now, if he’d been able to.”

“I hope you’re right.” Selby did not sound convinced. “He’ll have powerful contacts at that club of his.”

“Don’t worry about Reggie. He’s old news.” She looked at the kitchen clock, mischief in her eyes. “We still have some time before I drive you to the station.”

“I thought you said last night you wanted me refreshed.”

“This will refresh you.”

They barely made it to the station on time. He had decided to leave his car back at the unit up in Leicestershire, letting the train take the strain to London, as the ads had proclaimed. Unfortunately, he’d had
to share the trip down with a regiment of football supporters. Today’s journey back was mercifully free of them.

Selby paused by the barrier. “I nearly forgot,” he said to Kim, pulling a postcard from his jacket pocket. He handed it to her.

It was from Morven, and addressed to him at his squadron. The picture was of Union Street, Aberdeen. Her message on the back read: “Who would have thought it? The great hunter tackled and brought down by Diana herself. Congrats to all.”

Kim studied the card: “I think I’ll keep this, to remind you it won’t be easy to get away from me. I like the way your sister gets to the heart of the matter. Diana was the goddess who hunted, wasn’t she?” She reached up to kiss him on the lips. “Better go to your train or it will leave without you. Do they send military policemen after missing pilots?”

He smiled at her. “They might.”

“See you soon?”

He nodded, and they kissed quickly. She remained where she was, watching him hurry along the platform. She waited for his parting wave as he climbed aboard, before turning and hurrying back to where she’d left her car. The train began to move almost immediately.

As he took his seat, Selby thought about the other message he’d received, and which he had not told her about: the official notification of his posting to a new unit in the far north of Scotland at the end of May.

Flight Lieutenant Neil Ferris sat relaxed in the
back seat as the Tornado IDS scooted low up a Welsh slope and dipped into the valley beyond. Maintaining a height of 200 feet above ground level, it roared between two high ramparts of bare terrain. Though it was noon, the April day was dark and angry, and the cloud base seemed to be just above the cockpit.

The aircraft was flying itself, responding to the navigation program that Ferris had given it, while he himself sat back and enjoyed the ride. A tuneless humming from the front seat came to him on the headphones. He smiled. Jock Urquhart, his pilot, was again pretending nonchalance. Ferris had yet to meet a pilot who was totally at ease with the system.

He marveled at his own equanimity. It had not always been so. A Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Australian Air Force, he had been seconded to the
RAF, and had found himself posted to the training unit in Leicestershire, where Tornado ground attack crews received their initial schooling in flying the aircraft.

Climbing into the back seat of the Tornado to do the navigator’s job had been a new experience for him, coming as he had from the right hand seat of the RAAF F-111C Aardvarks. He had been given the ride of his life on that first, familiarisation flight, but it had convinced him he would never learn to operate such an aircraft himself.

Slowly he had grown to like it and its systems; liked the way it handled itself, as if it knew exactly what it wanted. Twenty-three sorties, covering twenty-nine hours of intense flying training, had now turned him into a fully-fledged Tornado back-seater. The syllabus reeled off in his mind as the aircraft tilted itself over on a wing, and hurtled round a mountain. It then reversed the turn to pop over a ridge and into another valley.

Transition, navigation. The Tornado tilted again, wing seeming to brush a cliff face; an unnerving illusion. Formation flying, weapons aiming. Its systems had found another slope, steeper this time, and were lunging for it like a dog taking the scent. Auto terrain-following, night flying. The Tornado screamed up the slope and flung itself down the other side. Attack profiles.

He’d done it all.

The aircraft was changing course for the ump
teenth time. A Red Spot fly-around. Red Spots were locations within the flight plan that had to be avoided: schools, population centers, hospitals, farms, wildlife sanctuaries, and many more … The entire UK was a mass of Red Spots. Measles, he called them; and it sometimes seemed there was more rash than healthy open country.

Ferris, eyes in and out of the cockpit in a continuing sweep, allowed part of his mind to dwell agreeably upon the news he had received just before suiting up for the flight. The Chief Instructor had told him of an impending posting to Scotland, at the end of the coming month. When told he’d been selected because of his outstanding skills, he’d grinned in some embarrassment; unusual for him. Ferris, a tall, well-muscled man, was no shrinking violet.

He grinned now, remembering. “Someone up there must like me.”

“Did you say something, Bondi?” came Urquhart’s voice as the Tornado banked to avoid a low hill.

“Go back to sleep, Jock,” Ferris retorted. “The navigator’s in control. I’ll wake you when it’s time for you to try and persuade me you know how to fly this plane.”

“Hah!”

Bondi … Ferris shook his head slowly. At least, he’d been spared Bruce, Cobber, and Digger. Still, since coming to the old country, he’d found that most people had preconceived ideas about Australia: kangaroos,
dingoes, aborigines and Bondi Beach prominent among them … with the odd lager-drinking crocodile in there somewhere.

Coming as he did from the best state in the nation as far as he was concerned, Western Australia, Ferris had never been anywhere near Bondi. What about the seclusion of Two People Bay, or the sight of ferocious breakers off Cape Leeuwin, or the petrified stillness of the Pinnacles at sunset? You could have Bondi and its bronzed beef-cake gods for free.

The Tornado had been on a straight course and a gentle climb for some minutes now. The ground had disappeared, and all about it was the dark rain cloud. It knew it was approaching home.

Ferris looked at the weather unenthusiastically. “Some spring,” he said.

“You’ve been spoilt out there in the Antipodes,” Urquhart said. “This is normal, as you should know by now. You’ve been here long enough. Can I now have my airplane back, please?”

“What’s the matter? Withdrawal symptoms?”

“You navs will never understand.”

“Sounds like a stick fetish to me. Penis envy.”

“You’re a vulgar Australian.”

“Coming from a Scot who speaks like an Englishman, I take it as a compliment.”

“Give me my plane and shut up.”

They were good friends.

The Tornado came down out of the murk for a feather-light touchdown on the streaming runway.
Then a tyre burst. It swerved sharply to the left, heading for the turf at speed. Urquhart corrected swiftly with the rudder, coaxing it back to the center line. The nosewheel was still off the deck, so the thrust-reversers had not yet gone into their routine.

For what seemed an age, the nose held off while he kept the thumping machine as straight as possible on the wet runway. Then the nose was down and the buckets at the tail deployed as the thrust-reverse sequence came on, slowing the aircraft. The headlong rush was abruptly cut, but it still seemed to be moving fast. Urquhart was reluctant to use the toe brakes just yet, in case only one was working. That would cause the Tornado to swing violently, with all sorts of unpredictable consequences.

There was still plenty of runway left so he decided not to force it. At last, he felt speed had been sufficiently reduced to enable him to try the brakes. He canceled the buckets, and eased the toe brakes. Braking was even. The aircraft came safely to a halt in the pouring rain. He taxied off the runway and came to a halt for the second time. Through the canopy, they could see fire engines and ancillary vehicles hurrying towards them.

“Next time you feel like killing us,” Ferris said, “give me some warning, will you?”

“I’ll try.”

A silence fell between them. Then Ferris said: “That was a bloody good landing, mate.”

“If I say so myself, it wasn’t bad. Not bad at all.”

The vehicles had arrived.

“Let’s shut down and get out of this thing,” Ferris said.

“We’ll get wet.”

Ferris and Urquhart laughed, a little hysterically perhaps, in their relief.

Wing Commander Christopher Jason stood at the Grampian end of the wide main runway and felt pleased. A camouflage-pattern anorak over his RAF No. 2A dress, he looked along the newness of its surface, towards the Moray Firth.

He could not see the Firth from his position, for the runway appeared to dip slightly, so that its still unfinished end was out of sight. A light breeze was coming off the water, bringing with it the mechanical sounds of the continuing work. The reconstruction was being carried out seven days a week and this Saturday was thus no exception. Despite the time of year, this part of the Scottish coast sometimes had unusually mild weather while the rest of the country froze; and despite the known ferocity of its winter gales, he felt the site was well chosen for their bold experiment.