Джеймс Блатч - The Final Flight

Millie wanted to enjoy himself, but he had a task to carry out first.

As the group got into conversation, he removed his wristwatch and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

Noticing the glasses were getting low, he tapped Rob on the shoulder.

“Sortie to the bar?”

Rob nodded and followed Millie through the crowd to replenish the drinks. Once at the bar, Millie pulled his sleeve up, revealing his bare wrist.

“Feel naked without it.”

“Your watch?”

“Silly thing. I left it in the office. Would you mind if I fetched it?”

Rob shrugged. “Fine. I’ll see you back with the girls.”

Millie marched out of the mess, climbed into his car and drove toward the main guardroom. He parked a short distance away—not so close that it would attract any further attention from the police—and got out, locking it behind him.

In the guardroom, he signed out the keys to TFU.

The sergeant asked to see his identification, which Millie couldn’t remember happening before, but then he was in his civilian suit.

With the keys secured, he got back into the Rover and drove through the centre of the station to the airfield fence.

A security officer stood outside the open gate to the TFU car park.

Christ, they’re everywhere.

He drove in, with the security man watching him but making no attempt to stop the vehicle.

For the second time that evening, Millie found himself sweating. He quickly retrieved the five cardboard sleeves containing the reels and climbed out of the car.

He didn’t look back, carrying the tapes in front of him as he marched up to the TFU front door.

Inside, he went straight to his locker and placed the tapes under his day jumper. Moments later, he drove back down to the mess and rejoined the group, feeling significantly more relaxed.

Georgina shot him a quizzical look.

“Rob says you’ve been off to fetch your watch.”

“Yes, dear. Left it in the office.”

“Do be careful. It was your father’s.” She pulled up his left sleeve; it was bare.

“Where is it, then?”

He retrieved it from his pocket. “Here.”

“Really. You are odd sometimes, Millington.”

He found his wine and topped up the alcohol buzz.

The Mays smiled and laughed with the Brunsons. Millie felt Georgina watching him.

“What?”

“Will you miss it?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Just think, we’ve stood in the corner at these events in Hong Kong, Nairobi, Singapore—”

“Church Fenton.”

“Ah, yes. Yorkshire. Not quite as exciting, but we’ve had some fun, haven’t we?”

“Yes, we have. I’ll not forget the cannon battle in Tengah.”

Georgina laughed out loud. “Oh, god. That was something. Didn’t one of them explode and hurt someone?”

Millie laughed at the memory. “Rusty Brown. Set fire to his hair, as I recall. Quite exciting.”

“Dear old Rusty. Where’s he now?”

“Dead. Meteor ploughed in. Cyprus, I think.”

They stood quietly for a moment.

The Brunsons and Mays burst out laughing.

“Getting on great guns,” Georgina said. “It’s their turn to have all that fun now.”

“Lucky things.”

Across the room, Mark Kilton stood next to Gilbert Periwinkle the station commander, chatting to a man with a gold chain around his neck and a small, plump wife. He supposed it was the mayor and mayoress, invited to keep the peace with the locals.

Periwinkle looked uncomfortable, as he usually did. The man lacked charisma and authority. Probably the qualities Kilton looked for in his own commanding officer.

The evening wore on. The Brunsons, Milfords and Mays stayed together, getting progressively more tipsy.

“Now here’s a conspiratorial little group, if ever I saw one.”

Kilton.

“Hello, Mark. How are you?” Georgina leant over to kiss him on the cheek.

“Now, Georgina, I need your help. Who do you think we should appoint as the new mess secretary?”

“Well, someone you trust, as I assume you’re still president of the mess committee?”

“Indeed I am. But I need a number two to do all the work.”

“Well, don’t look at Millie, for goodness sake. He falls asleep in the evenings as it is.”

“Yes, well, I believe this is beneath his dignity. How about you, May?”

Rob straightened his back.

“You think my husband’s undignified enough to do the job?” Mary asked, and the group laughed.

“Yes,” Kilton replied and drained his wine.

“I’d be honoured,” Rob said.

“Well, I haven’t made my mind up yet, May. Just keep your powder dry and you might just make it.”

Kilton moved off. Georgina raised her eyebrows at Millie and leaned over.

“That man doesn’t do anything by accident. Looks like young Rob has caught his eye.”

The phone rang three times before Millie was properly awake.

Georgina groaned.

“What time is it?”

Millie clambered out of bed.

“Eight-thirty.”

“ Ugh .” Georgina rolled over and pulled a pillow over her head.

Millie hurried downstairs and took the call.

“Mr Milford, Leonard Belkin. I hope I haven’t called too early for you?”

“No, no, that’s fine. I was getting up, anyway.”

“Right, well I thought I might not catch you tomorrow. Would now be a good time to report?”

“You’ve looked at the tape already?”

“You’ll be pleased to know the tape has been read successfully.”

“That’s marvellous, thank you.”

“They had to transcribe it from binary, which took a while, but it’s something we can create a routine for in the future. However, we will need your help to identify what we found.”

“Just height readings, I assumed?”

“Not quite. Do you have a pen and paper? It’s rather a long list, I’m afraid.”

Millie hurried upstairs and retrieved a large jotter pad from the spare bedroom. He paused before heading back down and looked at the open door to the main bedroom. He eased it shut.

Back on the phone, he took down a long stream of numbers, none of which made any sense to him at first glance.

Belkin passed on his notes from the computer technician. “We see twenty-nine separate groups of digits. They call them fields, for reasons I’m not clear about. The first field is made up of ten digits, the second field is fourteen digits, and the following twenty-seven are all smaller, just five digits.”

“The’ll be the twenty-seven height readings.”

“I thought as much. What about the first two sets of numbers? Young Strangways, the technician, insists we’ll need to understand their role if we are to find what you are looking for.”

Millie looked at the numbers he’d scrawled across the pad. He’d only taken down one line of data so far. The ten-digit number was 0000127344 , the fourteen-digit one was 15105550114922 .

He asked Belkin for more rows and wrote down nine more lines of the first two mysterious fields.

The first field increased with each line, but the second number changed in what appeared to be a random order.

“I’m afraid I just don’t know what the first two sets represent.”

“Well, there’s no immediate rush, as we don’t have the rest of your tapes yet, but if you could have a think… I believe the routine we will create for you will take a day or two, so try to let us know what these mean a week before you deliver the remaining tapes. How does that sound?”

“It sounds very good indeed. I’ll do my best, and thank you, Professor. Honestly, this is more than I could have hoped for.”