Джеймс Блатч - The Final Flight

A couple more men from TFU joined them, ushering their wives away.

Rob got a few polite greetings from his former colleagues. But no-one asked him where he had been or what was happening to him.

The temperature in the room rose. He felt dizzy.

He stood alone in a crowd.

Red was talking to Susie. Mary moved away.

Either it was his imagination, or the other chaps around him were turning their backs on him, one by one.

He was now boxed in with Red and Susie.

Red grabbed his arm to get his attention.

“How you doing, buddy?”

Rob’s head swam. “Not good. I think I might faint.”

Red’s grip on his arm became firmer. Susie moved alongside him.

“Susie…” His voice cracked.

He leant forward, but she pushed him away.

“We don’t have time for that. Listen. My people. They’re not going to do anything.”

“I know.”

“You should have told me,” Red said to him. “You shouldn’t have done this alone. What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think I could say anything to anyone. And now it’s too late.”

Susie’s hand appeared on his arm. “Not necessarily.”

Rob looked back at Red. “But the final flight. It’s today, isn’t it?”

One of the men with his back to them leaned over.

“Kilton!”

Red spoke with a sense of urgency. “Do you want a last chance? It won’t be easy and it’s risky, but it’s up to you, buddy.”

“What do you mean?”

Red continued. “Say yes. You’re going to have to trust me. And I tell you now, it might not work. In fact, I don’t think it will work. But it’s all we can think of. Only Kilton can stop the project. That’s how it’s all set up. That’s how everything at TFU is set up. So you have to change his mind.”

“I can’t do that.”

“What if you could take him flying? Him and Ewan Stafford?”

“What?”

Susie slipped away; the three men turned and faced in, and immediately fell into conversation about Millie’s obsession with scotch.

Kilton walked past, nodded at the men, but didn’t make eye contact with Rob.

Red looked back at Rob.

“You need to be ready and you’ll need to do exactly what we say, when we say it. OK?”

He was pushed over to a new group to talk to. He caught up with Jock MacLeish and congratulated him on the flypast. Jock winked and downed another glass.

AFTER ROB HAD BEEN THERE for an hour, two security force officers appeared in the doorway. He watched as they made their way to Kilton, who pointed directly at Rob.

Red came across.

“Time to go, buddy. Are you ready?”

“What for?”

“You’ll find out soon, I promise. For now, just do what we say. This is gonna be tight.”

The wives appeared. A group of TFU officers moved toward the door. In the lobby, they waited for the security men.

Rob stared at the oil paintings of senior officers standing beside fighters and bombers of years gone by.

Each one staring proudly into the distance.

The men who had nursed new aircraft into the world.

Wartime aces and post-war test pilots.

Heroes of the work, whose diligence ensured the safety of ordinary squadron pilots and crews; the men who would climb into the machines for decades after those first tentative flights.

Mary looked worried.

“Are you OK?”

“I lost my way, Mary.”

“What?”

“This is what we do here. We make things better, not worse. That’s what Millie was trying to tell me.”

She held his hand.

“I know, darling. And the boys want you to have one more chance.” She paused. “But you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. And if you do, you promise one thing, Flight Lieutenant May?”

“What?”

“You come back to me,” she whispered.

A security officer reached Rob. “Let’s go.”

The group followed into the car park.

Red’s estate car was parked back to back with an RAF Land Rover. A couple of men in fatigues were working at its rear, pulling a canvas over and tying it down.

As they got to the car, a few things happened at once.

With the security guards watching, Rob was ushered into the back of Red’s car. Confusingly, the back seat was completely folded flat, and he wasn’t sure where to put his legs.

Then there was a scream.

He whipped his head around to see Susie on the floor, holding her ankle. The security guards bent down to help her.

At that same moment, Rob felt a firm grip on his arm. He looked up to see one of the NCOs in the back of the Land Rover pulling him roughly back through Red’s car. He landed with a thump in the dark interior of the wagon. As the canvas came down over the back, Rob glimpsed the back seats going up and someone he didn’t recognise, but who was about the same size as him, pulling on his RAF cap and settling into Red’s back seat.

It was the last thing he saw before the Land Rover engine started and the vehicle pulled away.

One of the men with him peeped through a tiny crack in the rear canvas.

“OK. The women are now getting in. Police are watching. Stand by.”

There was a tense pause.

“They’re going for it. Yes. They’ve got into their wagon, and Red’s pulled away.”

“Superb!” one of the men in the back said. “You owe me a pound.”

After several minutes of driving, the vehicle stopped.

Rob heard the Land Rover doors open at the front. Light flooded in as the canvas at the rear was pulled to one side.

An ageing warrant officer looked in.

“Your stop, Flight Lieutenant May.”

Rob climbed out and found himself at the back of the ramshackle Maintenance Unit. The men led him inside, where a small team had assembled to greet him. He glanced around; there were eight or so men looking at him, but no-one he knew well.

JR was not there.

“I’m Ted Durrant,” said a man sporting RAF wings and a moustache. “I’m one of the pilots here. It’s my job to brief you for your flight. JR apologises for his absence.”

It took Rob a second to process what he’d heard.

“My flight?”

The men looked at each other for a moment before the warrant officer stepped forward and addressed the MU men.

“None of you have to be here for this. If you choose to stay, you’re implicating yourself in a deception. It’s your choice, boys. No-one will think less of you for leaving. On the other hand, if you want to end the empire of that scheming bastard Kilton, then maybe you should stay.”

The men laughed and not a soul moved from his position.

Durrant guided him by his arm. “OK, then. Rob, if you’ll step over here…”

They moved to an old wooden table with a typical TFU tasking sheet and a chart with drawn-on lines. Next to the chart: the unmistakable sight of Red Brunson’s elaborate flying helmet and mirrored visor.

“Now, I should tell you, this wasn’t my idea,” Durrant said. “I believe it was cooked up by Brunson along with a couple of your colleagues at TFU, with the help of that young woman.”

“Susie?”

“Is that her name? Anyway, the idea, my friend, is to get you inside the Vulcan in place of Red for the final project flight.” He looked at his watch. “Which is due to launch in an hour. So, we don’t have long to get this right. And believe me, a lot needs to go right.”

“How will this ever work?” Rob said.

Durrant continued with his brief. “The two key elements are Red’s suggestion to Kilton that Stafford observes the flight from the co-pilot’s seat, not the rear bay. They’ve gone for it. Kilton will be at the navigator radar station. The second element is this.”

He picked up Brunson’s helmet.