Джеймс Блатч - The Final Flight

Millie smiled. “She’s very well. I’ll send her your best.”

“You do that, Millie. Now, the good wing commander is over in station HQ. Is it urgent?”

“No, it’s fine. Will he be back today?”

“I don’t think so.”

“OK. Thank you, my dear. Most helpful as always.”

“Anything for you, Millie.” She re-inserted the cigarette and resumed her typing.

Back at his desk, Millie sat before a pile of unrelated project work. He looked across at Secure Cabinet 3.

All those hours of recorded data.

Gone.

KILTON DID NOT RETURN, as predicted by Jean. Rob bustled in around 4PM, all smiles after a trip in the TFU Lightning with Brunson.

“There aren’t many places where you can fly a bomber in the morning and supersonic fighter in the afternoon,” Rob said as he passed.

The pilots walked off to the mess bar and Millie headed to his car.

The seats were almost too hot to sit on, and he had to grab the steering wheel on and off until it cooled under his touch.

Outside the main gate, he paused as a group of barely dressed youngsters sauntered by. A woman with a flower behind her ear stared at him for a moment. She broke off her gaze and the group retreated down the road.

“Odd lot,” he said to the guard.

“More than odd, sir.” The sergeant handed back his ID form.

As he drove out of the station, Millie recalled the chatter from the Vulcan cockpit. Were the youngsters part of the camping party at the end of the runway?

Georgina was in the back garden when he arrived home.

She kissed him. “I’ll get us a drink.”

Millie plonked himself in a garden chair and closed his eyes.

Distant guitar playing arrived on the light breeze. Incongruous, in a married quarter patch. But he found it soothing.

He tried to put aside his growing anxiety about Guiding Light. Work needed to stay at work for many reasons at RAF West Porton.

Georgina arrived back, two G&Ts in hand.

“Lovely,” Millie said, taking one. “Oh, and ice. What a treat.” He took a long draw on the cold drink.

“Sarah Brunson insists,” said Georgina. “And I’m all for it.”

“Agreed. How was your day, dear?”

“Well,” she started and Millie immediately knew there was a story coming, “we had some excitement. The young people have arrived.”

“Ah yes, I think I saw some. Who are they?”

“CND,” Georgina replied, emphasising each letter.

“CND? As in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament?”

“The same. Lots of them. All in a field, camping.”

“Huh.” Millie turned to look in the direction of the airfield, but a row of tall conifers that ran the length of the back gardens blocked their view. Probably planted in a futile attempt to keep the sound of jet engines at bay.

“Is that the guitar music I can hear?”

“I think so. Come on, let’s look.”

They pushed their way through the firs. Millie closed his eyes and hoped not to get slapped in the face by a branch released ahead of him by Georgina.

As they emerged, Millie looked across to the airfield. The security fence around the western end of the runway was about three quarters of a mile away. Just this side of the barbed wire, a group of tents and a wigwam had sprung up. The wigwam drew the eye with its central position and a prominent fallen cross symbol on one side.

“Well, well. I’ve seen pictures of those Aldermaston marches, but never actually seen a peace protest,” said Millie.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Looks harmless enough, I suppose.”

Georgina laughed. “Kilton will have kittens, won’t he?”

“Probably, but what’s new? Must have been where he was this afternoon, locked in with the station commander.”

“So what is it you lot do inside there that’s got CND snapping at your heels?” Georgina said and nudged her husband.

“Lord knows. I can’t think of anything.” Both of them knew it was an area he couldn’t go into.

Guiding Light wasn’t a nuclear weapon, but it was its delivery system.

“They couldn’t possibly know…” he mumbled, then shuddered at the thought.

“Know what?” Georgina asked.

“Oh, nothing. They can’t know what goes on inside. The place is like Fort Knox.”

They had dinner indoors and as the light faded, they took their drinks back out through the firs to spy on their new neighbours some more.

The sun was setting and the clouds to the west were a deep red, casting a warm glow over the camp and the airfield beyond.

“It looks like a scene from a western,” said Millie.

Georgina slipped her arm through her husband’s. “Does that make you my cowboy?”

Later that evening, Millie lay awake with the windows wide open, allowing the cooler air in and the hot stuffiness out.

The guitar started up, this time with the sound of singing. It was a woman’s voice, a sweet sound.

He turned over and hoped to drift off to sleep, but the thought of the project meeting in the morning occupied him. He closed his eyes and did his best to push Mark Kilton out of his mind.

THE CLOCK on the wall in Ewan Stafford’s office read 2AM.

Outside, he heard a bicycle bell and a couple of men laughing. Did Cambridge students ever go to bed?

The mainframe had taken nine hours to ingest all the tapes and run what the technicians called an analysis on the data.

The print-out phase was ongoing.

Earlier in the day, Stafford himself had set the parameters of what they were looking for. It was a task he couldn’t leave to anyone else.

He hid away in his office for two hours, surrounded by the Avro Vulcan pilots’ notes and technical specifications. Later he returned and told them what he was looking for: sudden changes in number ranges. He handed them a sheet containing the actual parameters.

“What are they?” one of the men had asked.

“Don’t you worry about that, sonny.”

It didn’t take a genius to work out they represented changes in height.

Changes that were impossible for a Vulcan to have actually flown.

Changes imagined by a computer that fed an autopilot.

Once the processing was over, he sent all but the youngest technician home.

The computer room was fifty feet away, but Stafford could still hear the monotonous drone of the dot matrix printer drifting through the deserted building.

He smoked through a packet of Woodbines as he waited, contemplating the unthinkable.

It was no secret in the company that the Board had risked the house on this new technology. The computer itself was cripplingly expensive.

It was also no secret that he was the one who had persuaded his fellow directors to part with Blackton’s hard-earned cash.

He promised to resurrect the company’s fortunes with a ground-breaking system. Years ahead of the British competition still relying on drawing boards and old men who designed World War Two bombers.

On his desk, under the packet of Woodbines, was the first contract for the American government. The numbers were big. Big enough to call Guiding Light an instant success and secure Blackton’s future for years to come.

He knew from his days flying Hurricanes, you rarely got to a kill without taking a few risks. And he’d risked the house on Guiding Light.

He moved the cigarettes and opened the contract, staring at the final figure for the initial seven hundred and fifty units. With more promised, DF Blackton’s deals would positively affect the UK’s balance of payments. An incredible thing.

This was that moment, when you rolled out of your high-risk manoeuvre to find the Luftwaffe Me.109 in front and just below. Time to squeeze the trigger.