Iain Banks - The Business

'Mechanism's ready!' he announced. 'Screen's up. Ready for some target practice?'

'Betcha,' Eastil said, and knocked back his drink.

'I've got to see this,' Dwight agreed. 'Kate…you ought to come.'

'Ought I?'

'Yee-ha!' said Dessous, turning and marching off.

'Yee-ha?' I said to Dwight, who just shrugged.

About a dozen of us drove to the drive-in movie theatre in three sport utes. The sky was clear, and Dessous, shucking off his DJ and pulling on a quilted jacket, ordered the other two drivers to leave their lights off. He drove in front, tearing along the road to town using only the moonlight and starlight, startling jack rabbits and discussing over the radio which way the wind was blowing.

We pulled up by the dark bulk of the projection building. While Dessous was cursing everybody for forgetting to bring a flashlight I pulled one from my pocket and clicked it on.

'Well done, Telman,' Dessous said. 'You always so well prepared?'

'Well, I usually carry a torch.'

Dessous smiled. 'I've got friends who'd tell you that ain't a torch, Telman. That's a flashlight; a torch is what you burn niggers with.'

'Would they? And are they really racist scumbags, or do they just enjoy trying to shock people?'

Dessous laughed and unlocked the door.

The lights flickered on in the projection building, bright after the blacked-out journey in the four-wheel drives. People flicked more switches, starting fans and heaters and powering up the two big 35mm projectors, which were aimed out through small windows at the distant screen, which was now in place.

I didn't notice anything odd at first: the place was all very techy in an old-fashioned sort of way, with exposed cables and ductwork and racks of film canisters against the walls and whole boards of clunky-looking industrial switches and fuses the size of your hand. At each of the two big projectors, two guys were loading film into the complicated pathways of rollers and guides. Then I saw what stood in between the projectors.

I stared. 'What the fff—?'

'Oerlikon twenty-millimetre cannon, Telman,' Dessous said proudly. 'Single mount. Isn't it a beauty?'

Dwight, standing on my other side and holding a half-full glass of wine, just chuckled.

Where a third projector might have stood there was, indeed, a very heavy machine-gun. It stood on a fluted mount bolted to the concrete floor, it had two padded brackets at the rear where it looked like you were supposed to rest your shoulders, and a big, almost circular drum of ammunition on the top. Its charcoal-coloured metal gleamed in the overhead lights. The long barrel disappeared out of a small window into the night, facing the huge screen in the distance.

The right-hand projector whined up to speed. Somebody handed out bottles of beer, somebody else dispensed ear-protectors.

The first reel was a Second World War dog-fight. It was black and white and looked like real camera-gun footage. Dessous took his place at the cannon and, after a deep breath, started firing.

Even with the ear-protectors on and the muzzle of the gun outside the building, the noise was pretty intense. I could see Dessous grinning like a loon and mouthing what I suspected were more yee-has, but his voice was entirely lost in the racket. A duct above the cannon's chattering mechanism sucked most of the smoke away, but the projection room soon stank of cordite and a thin grey mist filled the air. A big limp sack hanging on the other side of the gun from the magazine shook and pulsed as though there were a bunch of scared kittens inside it.

People were crowded round the remaining small windows facing out to the screen. I squeezed in beside Dwight, who put his arm round my waist. He bent his head to mine and shouted, 'Is this fucking crazy, or what?'

To my left, the surface of the projection booth was lit by the stuttering muzzle flash of the cannon. Across the gulf of darkness above the abandoned parking lot, the lines of tracer flicked, disappearing into the black and white skies of wartime Europe, where Mustangs and Messerschmitts dived and rolled and formations of Flying Fortresses laboured onwards through the clouds. Smoke drifting from the cannon in the near still air picked out the projector's beam. Then the gun fell silent.

There was a moment of quietness, then people cheered and clapped and whistled. Dessous, radiant, stepped down from the cannon, rubbing his shoulders, his face slick with sweat. He accepted congratulations and shook Eastil and a few of the technicians by the hand. His wife, silvery sheath of dress topped by a quilted jacket, went up on tippy-toes to kiss him.

Eastil was next at the cannon, once it had been reloaded, the sack full of spent cartridge cases had been emptied and another reel of film spun up to speed in the other projector.

We appeared to be progressing historically: this was Korean War footage of MiGs and Sabres. The cannon went crack-crack-crack, fast as a speeding heart. I watched the screen. There were a few small tattered holes starting to appear.

'You're our latest guest, Telman,' Dessous said, when Eastil had had his turn. 'Care for a shot?'

I looked at him. I wasn't sure whether I was expected to say yes or not. 'That's very kind,' I said. I watched another reel of film being loaded into the first projector. 'I imagine we're up to Vietnam by now.'

Dessous shook his big head. 'Not much dog-fighting there. We've gone straight to Yom Kippur.'

I had a very brief lesson in how to shoot the gun. This basically consisted of hold on, don't close your eyes, and press this trigger here hard. The cannon had a fairly crude sight which looked like the wire frame taken off a dartboard and shrunk to about the width of a hand. The gun smelled of oil and smoke; it gave off heat like a radiator. I settled into the padded shoulder rests and for some reason couldn't help thinking of the stirrups in a gynaecologist's. My mouth, I have to say, was quite dry.

The image across the drive-in lot flashed 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 +, with those reverse-sweeping clock roundels in between, counting down. Then we were in full colour above the sands of the Sinai peninsula and the skies were full of MiGs. I squinted through the sights and pulled on the trigger. The cannon shuddered and kicked back at me, nearly tearing my fingers away from the trigger. Tracer bullets lanced towards the screen and disappeared into the darkness beyond.

I tried aiming at the aircraft swirling in front of me, but it was hard. As long as I kept the bullets going through the screen and not into the framework holding it up I thought I'd be doing fine. The gun clattered to a stop. At first I thought it must have jammed, then I realised that I'd used up all the shells.

I staggered as I stepped down, my ears ringing, my arms tingling, my shoulders aching and my whole body seeming to buzz.

Dessous grabbed me briefly by one elbow. 'Whoa, you all right there, Telman?'

'I'm fine.' I laughed. 'Some kick.'

'Yup.'

The screen was starting to look a little frayed in the centre when we had our finale. Another three people had taken turns at the gun; both Dwight and Mrs Dessous had declined. Dessous took his place again, the projector powered up, and before the gun started firing I could hear a mixture of cheers and boos from the people clustered round the windows.

The unmistakable image of Saddam Hussein's face appeared on the screen, monolithically lugubrious, fixed and still. The gun launched 20mm cannon shells at it.

The rest of the short reel was Hussein in various settings, sitting talking to his military commanders, walking past crowds of cheering people, inspecting troops, and so on. Then it went back to the still of his face, looming a hundred feet high above the deserted lot. Dessous fired into the eyes until the silvery material of the screen there started to fall away and flap and tumble — dark, silver, dark, silver — towards the ground. Holes appeared in the vast nose, the deep brush of moustache and across the broad expanse of forehead. Finally, peppering the line between dress shirt and Adam's apple, Dessous must have hit some part of the framework around the screen's lower edge, because sparks burst out, and two of the tracer rounds suddenly ricocheted upwards into the night in a bright red V. The cannon fell silent again as flames started to lick up around the giant face still displayed on the screen, while flaps and scraps of screen folded and fell or were caught in up draughts and floated skywards.