Stella Rimington - At Risk

“With respect, who the hell knows? There were people who were mightily pissed at our presence there and there were people-rather more people-who were mightily glad to have us.” He gestured at the portraits of D’Aubigny and Mansoor. “Concerning this trigger-happy duo and their grievance, I have to say that I have every confidence in our base security measures.”

Colin Delves half rose in his chair. The gesture was an uncertain one, and Liz had to remind herself that the RAF man was officially in charge, rather than Greeley.

“Clyde, might I propose that, if they’ve got time, we show our guests round? Give them the big picture?”

“How about it?” grinned Greeley.

“I’d like to,” said Liz, before Mackay could answer. In the last forty-eight hours, she guessed, he’d probably seen enough USAF runways and stationary aircraft to last him a lifetime.

They followed Delves and Greeley out into a scrupulously clean passageway where service personnel, most but not all of them in uniform, examined noticeboards holding neatly pinned order sheets, duty schedules and invitations to church services and socials. All looked up and smiled as Liz and Mackay passed. Their faces seemed to shine like the vinyl flooring. They’re so young, thought Liz.

Near the exit, which was hung with paperchains and children’s Christmas cards, they waited for the vehicle which would show them round. On the walls, computer-generated posters gave notice of the base tree-lighting ceremony and a Dorm-Dwellers’ Cookie Drive. Santa Claus suits, Liz read, could be rented from the community centre-the ensemble to include wig, beard, glasses, hat, gloves and boots.

The vehicle proved to be an open-topped jeep, the driver a young woman with a blonde bob. Clyde Greeley handed them each a USAF baseball cap reading “Go Warthogs!,” and they set off at a fast zip across the rain-darkened tarmac.

“Can you tell us about the USAF personnel who live off-base?” asked Mackay, bending the peak of his cap into a suitably cool, movie-hero curve. “Surely they’re vulnerable to attack? Everyone must know where they live.”

Delves fielded the question. “If you were an outsider round here,” he said, smiling pinkly, “you’d find it pretty damn hard to get information like that. We have a very close relationship with the local community, and anyone asking questions of that sort would very quickly find themselves face to face with a military policeman.”

“But your people have to let their hair down from time to time, surely?” persisted Mackay.

“Sure they do,” said Greeley, his rangy smile belying the grimness of his tone. “But things have changed since 9/11. The days of our young men and women belonging to the local darts teams, stuff like that, that’s way in the past.”

“Do they get specific training in security and counter-surveillance?” asked Liz. “I mean, supposing I decided to follow a couple of them back from the pub or the local cinema to wherever they lived…”

“You’d last about five minutes, I’d guess, before encountering a hostile response involving security vehicles, and quite possibly helicopters. Put it this way, if you tried that, and we didn’t know who you were, you certainly wouldn’t try twice. We always tell our people not to go to bars that are too local. If they want to have a few beers, they go somewhere that’s at least seven or eight miles away, so that they’ve got plenty of time to spot any vehicle that might be following them home.”

“And what about yourself, Colonel?” asked Liz.

“I live on base.”

“Wing-Commander?”

Colin Delves frowned. “I live with my family more than a dozen miles away, in one of the villages. I never leave this establishment in uniform, and I doubt there are half a dozen people in the village who have the first idea what I do. The house I live in, in fact, is a Grade II listed property, owned by the MOD. I’m very lucky-it’s the last place you’d expect to find a serving RAF officer.”

“And is it under police surveillance?”

“Broadly speaking, yes. But not in such a way that would draw attention to the place.”

He fell silent as they approached a long line of jet fighters. Still in their matte green and brown desert livery, they seemed to crouch back on their tailplanes, rear-weighted by the massive twin engines above their fuselages. Ground-staff members worked at half a dozen of the aircraft, and several of the cockpit canopies were back-tilted open. From each nose a seven-barrelled cannon pointed skywards. Beneath the wings hung empty missile carriages.

“Here we are,” said Greeley, unable to keep a quaver of pride from his voice. “The Hog-Pen!”

“These are A-10s?” asked Mackay.

“A-10 Thunderbolt attack jets,” confirmed Greeley, “known to one and all as Warthogs. They’re attack and close support aircraft, and they featured heavily in the combat operations against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The amazing thing about them, apart from the missile systems that they mount, is just how much punishment they can survive. Our pilots were taking armour-piercing rounds, rocket-propelled grenade strikes… you name it, they were throwing it at us.”

Liz nodded, but as he began to use phrases like “loiter capability,” “emphasised payloads,” and “redundant primary structures,” she found herself drifting into a semi-hypnotic trance. With an effort, she pulled herself back from the edge.

“At night?” she said. “Really?”

“Absolutely,” said Greeley. “The pilots have to wear light-intensifying goggles but otherwise these aircraft are operational twenty-four hours out of twenty-four. And with the Gatling in the nose and the missile payload beneath the wings…”

“Uzgen must have been weird,” said Mackay. “It’s a long way from home.”

Greeley shrugged. “Marwell’s a long way from home. But sure, Uzgen was what we call an austere base.”

“Did you come under attack?” asked Liz.

“Not there. Over Afghanistan, like I said, we encountered small groups with RPGs and armour-piercing rounds, and we had a couple of Stinger alarms, but nothing that put any of our aircraft at serious risk.”

“And how far are we from the perimeter road here?” asked Mackay, gazing at the matt fuselage of the nearest of the A-10s.

“A mile, perhaps. I’ll show you the fatboys.”

The driver performed a sharp turn, and they drove for a further five minutes. Southeast, Liz told herself, struggling to keep her bearings in the flat grass-and-tarmac landscape.

The half-dozen AC-130s were huge, even from a distance. Great lumbering, deep-bellied things with down-pointing armaments like undersea feelers. Essentially, Delves told them, they were Hercules transport planes. With the addition of heavy cannons and fire-control systems, however, they became ground-attack aircraft capable of pulverising an enemy position.

“That’s assuming that your enemy has no aerial capability, presumably,” volunteered Mackay. “These things must make pretty easy targets for fighter planes and surface-to-air missiles.”

The colonel grinned. “The USAF is not interested in what you Brits call a level playing field. If the enemy’s still got an air force, the fatboys stay in the hangar.”

He hesitated, and the smile faded. “These two terrorists. The man and the girl.”

“Yes,” said Liz.

“We can protect our people and we can protect our aircraft. I took three hundred and seventy-six people and twenty-four aircraft out to the Central Asian theatre, we worked our tour, and I brought them all back. Every person, every aircraft. I’m proud of that record and I’m not going to see it tarnished by a pair of psychos who like shooting up old women. Trust us, OK?” He indicated Delves, who nodded confidently. “We’re on top of this thing.”