Air Apparent

by John Gardner

  The flight deck door opened the flight engineer leaned out. “Where the bloody hell’s the coffee? How do you expect us to keep this thing going without coffee?”

  Ada motioned the other two to start taking orders while she dealt with the crew. Boysie, already deciding his role should be the same as Snowflake Brightwater’s—that of an observer—slowly began to walk towards the back of the aircraft.

  Mr Colefax and his cronies sat smiling in tandem pairs, Colefax himself sitting apart from the heavies in one of the triple rows, on the outer seat.

  Boysie grinned at Colefax who grinned back and raised a hand. The first and second fingers were crossed in a significant gesture.

  Boysie turned and looked down the length of the cabin. Rows of heads, constant movement, the girls going about their business of providing liquid refreshment. The fact of flying insinuated itself into his mind for a second, then the brain squall. Colefax’s men were most certainly armed. Five weapons. He had the Diamondback. Six. Griffin. Seven. Each of the girls. Ten. Snowflake Brightwater? Doubtful. Ten weapons in the close confines of the cabin. Below the cabin was the baggage. Captain Morgan had told him that they were making the stop at Otuka which looked like the usual fiddle. They were almost certainly carrying a prize cargo. Rifles for the revolutionaries. Machine guns for the agitators. Automatic pistols for anarchists. So watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen in the streamlined, stratospheric flying Boeing 707 go by. Har-har, Jim. You could be a pirate in Hackney Wick or Haiti: a smuggler man at Dover, Delhi or Des Moines, Iowa. You did not need a galleon or much brain. Just essential contacts and, like Mostyn, you could pirate the airways and carry carnage to any part of the world. It was at this moment that Boysie, in spite of Colefax, Snowflake and anybody else, decided that some specific and direct action should be taken. Fate had placed him on board so fate would have her way. Oakes would see that this particular consignment of death would not get through. The people who had sent Mostyn to do their shopping would be upset. Uptight upset. Mostyn would inevitably be upended. The other matter swam into view. The far back matter of his father. There would be time for that. If necessary he would squeeze it from Mostyn like squeezing the life from a chicken …

  Boysie began to trundle back down the aircraft’s aisle. Part way down, Griffin’s hand rose and tugged at him. “Large whisky and soda, steward,” Griffin said loudly.

  Then, in a hiss, “Your shooter’s showing through that uniform jacket, Mr Oakes.”

  Boysie’s hand went automatically to his hip pocket. He nodded thanks and hopped forward, clutching his rear like a man recently the recipient of a painful injection.

  The forward loo was empty. Inside he altered the position of his weapon, shifting it to the unhealthy right hand trousers pocket. More people, he thought, get their balls blown off this way. It was most uncomfortable and could also give the wrong impression to the girls if he happened to bump into them accidentally. Lethal that would be, he mused. A high powered ejaculation. Still, the eggheads reckoned pistols were power symbols, sexual in origin. He did not see it himself, but if all the brainy blokes came up with it that way, it must be right.

  The girls were doing feats of acrobatic juggling with trays and glasses.

  “Good party?” smiled Boysie as Aida squeezed by hell bent on delivering alcohol to the customers.

  “I just pray we don’t get raided,” she snarled. “There are two kids freaking out on pot in Row H; our pregnant lady looks unwell; I’ve spotted a pair of possible heart cases and a young man in Row C is groping the girl next to him.”

  “Does she object?”

  “No. But there’s a nun sitting next to her.”

  A cold wash over the nervous system. Someone had once told him that nuns on aeroplanes were considered very bad medicine.

  Boysie gave a hand with the frenzy of serving dinner. A standard plastic tray complete with plastic chicken, salad, roll butter, fruit jelly, cheese and biscuits.

  Aida looked at the first consignment sadly. “Looks delicious.”

  “No more than they deserve,” Alma snapped. “Plastic food for plastic people, because that’s what that lot are.”

  They served dinner. They served coffee. They served dinner and coffee to the crew. When all that was over, Captain Morgan came on the intercom system and introduced himself to the passengers like a disc jockey. He told them where they were and continued, “We will carry on at the present height for the remainder of the trip. In half an hour we pass over Rome where we follow the airways route across the Mediterranean, over Sicily and up over Libya, across Chad and Cameroon. We then follow the West Coast down to Luanda where we should arrive around eleven thirty tomorrow morning. I think you should all get some sleep now and I’ll speak to you again at breakfast time.”

  Lies, all lies. Anyone on board who knew anything about anything could tell. They had to put in somewhere. In the galley, the light came on from the flight deck. Boysie went forward.

  “You get breakfast over by nine,” said Morgan. It was an order. “I give them the old story about having to put in to Otuka, as soon as I have clearance from there which should be about nine fifteen. We ought to be down, engines off, by nine thirty.”

  “Better be.” The Flight Engineer looked up from his calculations. “Otherwise the engines’ll stop by themselves.”

  Boysie went back, checked his personal liabilities—Colefax, Griffin and Snowflake. Snowflake was already asleep. The others looked happy.

  He joined the girls in the galley and told them all that it was necessary for them to know about the landing at Otuka.

  “I’m going to get some rest now,” he said. “But make sure I’m awake by six. We serve breakfast at seven and by that time I should have come up with something. Just remember, it’s our job to stop this stuff going into Otuka.”

  He stretched himself out on the long bench seat in the rest area, closed his eyes and thought about sleep and what had to be done.

  The jets grumbled. It might have been a super train they were riding, on invisible rails. The Knightsbridge office came into focus. Far away as though it did not exist. The flat off Chesham Place from which he operated in the old days. Griffin on a pebble beach. The smooth life. Soft. Bloody soft nostalgia with music by people who had changed and moved on. What was it the Man said? You learned certain things by living. You learned that there was life and death. That was all. They did not tell you the rules. They tossed you in and you moved, and the first time you put a foot wrong they shot at you: more than often they killed you. So the trick of living was to accept the big trick of dying: a way to face it. Grace under pressure. That’s what the Man called it. Had Lieutenant Robert Oakes shown grace under pressure? Had his son?

  The growl of engines as they felt their way through the skies. It was a half-dream. Conscious unconsciousness. Taxis and buses. The pretty windows of Knightsbridge and a guitar tune by Villa-Lobos that kept back-tracking through his head. Head. Computer. Technology. Pollution. Corruption. With bodies making love? No, with bodies making power. Lust did not just have to do with sex; nor jealousy. Green as the something or other and deep as death. Rupert was liquid nostalgia, not just soft. Open the door onto the flight deck, draw out the gun and pull the plug on them. Mad? Okay, but little vomit drip Mostyn was not going to have things all his own way. Ada was shaking his shoulder and it was six o’clock.

  *

  Tilitson woke Suffix at six, his normal time. He stayed there on his back looking up at the rough wooden slats of the roof. It was his day. General Bushway’s day.

  Outside the men were already drilling. Physical training each morning before breakfast was the usual way the day began. It was like that for Suffix as well. He got out of bed and went through his pattern of exercises.

  He felt good. Alive. Alert. Suffix knew that confidence in oneself, and those under your command, was, literally, half the battle.

  Suffix went to shower. God knew when he would get an opportunity to shower again. />
  *

  They finished serving and clearing breakfast by eight thirty. People were forming queues at both the loos: cleaning themselves up after the night. The captain spoke to the passengers during breakfast, saying that they had been given permission to reduce height as they flew down the coast, that the weather was good and there would be plenty to see on the way to Luanda.

  Boysie crowded into the galley with the girls.

  “Okay. This’ll be quite straightforward and nobody’s going to get hurt. I want you to be certain of what is going to happen. Around nine fifteen the Skipper’ll give out his phoney message saying we have to land at Otuka. The story is that we’ll only have enough fuel left to get in. When he cuts the chat I’ll walk on to the flight deck and try to persuade them to go into another airport outside Etszika.”

  “What do you mean, persuade?” from Alma.

  “I shall point a gun at them and threaten to blow holes in their instrument panel.”

  “Boysie, you can’t.” Aida excited, letting the cool blow a fraction.

  “Stow it.”

  “But there’re women and children on board.”

  “You don’t think I know it. We’re sitting on a flying time bomb anyway. I wouldn’t dare use it. But a gun is powerful. Pilots do not dare take risks.”

  “What if he won’t go to another airport?” Ada was chalky complexioned.

  “Then I stay with them. I tell them that I start shooting: the flight engineer first and all that tough kind of Bogey jazz, if they horse around. Nothing to be moved off the aircraft. Just a straight refuel and off.”

  “What are we to do?” Ada again.

  “Have your shoulder bags at the ready and the pistols unloaded. I want Alma at the rear of the aircraft. Aida halfway down and Ada here in the galley where she can see the flight deck door. You stop people running interference.”

  “Anybody?” Aida looked coy.

  “What’re you getting at?”

  “I just happened to notice little honeypot was aboard.”

  “Honeypot?” He knew it did not sound convincing.

  “The honeypot you’ve been dipping into.” Alma joined in.

  “Yes. I noticed her.” It was Ada’s turn. “Miss Gatwick Takeoff 1970. Dig?”

  “Oh, her.”

  “Do we stop her? Or is she part of the great aircraft robbery?”

  “No.” Boysie had the grace to look sheepish. “No, you needn’t stop her, nor Mr Griffin. Row M: Seat one. He’s on our side if it comes to a sort out.”

  “Are you certain this is for the honour of the country and the freedom, of mankind and all the rest?” Ada’s voice had the feel of a gimlet: the kind you did not drink.

  “What are you …?”

  “You seem to have things pretty well sewn up that’s all.”

  “Love, it’s a heavy operation. Trust me …”

  He was about to go into his big finish with all the arguments about really keeping the peace and stopping the greedy little men from making a pile of gold on the bodies of their brothers, but without any warning the engine note changed from its steady throb and they yawed drastically.

  The lurch threw them together against the forward bulkhead. The engine noise on the starboard side had undoubtedly deteriorated: everything had a different feel about it—the aircraft’s attitude; the power. Instead of a pulsing rumble there were a series of grumbles, and the machine itself strained against the air instead of riding it. These were things you could sense with your feet and in the growing dot of anxiety at the centre of your brain.

  Very slowly the situation resolved itself, returning to a normality that was not the normality of five or ten minutes before. Boysie physically jumped as the loudspeaker system clicked on.

  “That’s friend Morgan.” He looked at his watch. It showed nine ten. “Get to your places and stop anyone following in.”

  Morgan began talking. As he did so, Boysie noticed the steward’s call light, from the flight deck, was glowing.

  “This is the captain speaking. There is no cause for concern, but we have a slight emergency. A little trouble with an engine which we have shut down. The aircraft will operate quite efficiently on three engines and we have already called Otuka airport for clearance to land there. If you will stay in your seats, fasten seat belts and extinguish cigarettes we will be landing at Otuka within the next few minutes. I will try to make the delay as short as possible.”

  Alma and Aida were off up the cabin.

  Boysie was impressed by the captain. His chat was convincing. Boysie could tell that by the way his hand shook on the flight deck door handle.

  He opened the door and stepped onto the flight deck. Everybody seemed to be working hard and there was a lot of sweat around.

  The vibrations were not good, but there was no point in turning back now. Boysie’s hand went into his pocket. It was a classic fumble: around seven seconds before he got the Diamondback out.

  “All right.” He found himself shouting. “Where’s your nearest alternate? You’re not going into Otuka.”

  The first officer half turned. The flight engineer’s face, heavy with perspiration to his right, did not alter.

  “Change your course and get to your nearest alternate or I blast out the instrument panel.”

  “He’s not joking, Skipper.” Inanely from the first officer.

  “You must be joking, chum,” Morgan roared, concentrating on the controls. “We’re five miles from the Otuka threshold and it’s all for real. The starboard inner’s overheated so badly that it almost went up. My port inner’s begun to overheat and I’m flying asymmetric. Apart from that we don’t have an alternate. Blast away, I’ve no option.”

  “But …” struggled Boysie. His eyes lifted. They were flying at around two thousand feet and you could feel the constant loss of height. Ahead, the coastline was bathed in a light rain mist. Foam on rocks and dirty sand. Dark olive green clusters.

  “Gear down,” said Morgan, taking no notice of Boysie. The first officer moved. A few second later there was a distinct thump from the nose.

  “Gear down three greens. No reds.” The first officer sat eyes front.

  “Excuse me.” The flight engineer squeezed past Boysie.

  They were lower now and you could make out the spread of a small city as it reached back from the seaboard: a scatter of buildings, white against the green and grey. To the immediate front the tiny stretch of dark runway.

  “The suspense is killing me,” yelled Morgan. “Are you going to blast us out of the sky?”

  “You just get us down. We’ll worry about the other bit when we’re on the ground.” The words tumbled over each other.

  The first officer was talking away into his headset. “Alpha-Juliet-Bravo-Echo. Outer marker.” Pause. “Bravo Echo.”

  “Spoilers in. Three-quarter flaps.” From Morgan, repeated by the first officer.

  “Brakes pressure zero.”

  “Brakes pressure zero.”

  “Nose wheel central.”

  “Nose wheel central.”

  The runway slid into line ahead. They dropped lower. Boysie felt his ears singing.

  “You ready to cancel that engine, Eric?”

  The Flight Engineer grunted, hunched over the console which ran between the captain’s and first officer’s seats.

  “Call out my speeds, would you, she’s a bitch to keep straight.” Morgan was applying a good deal of physical exertion on the controls.

  The first officer’s voice maintained a quiet pitch. Underneath you could feel the tension.

  “Seven hundred plus twelve … Six hundred plus thirteen …”

  The engine roar settling to a whine and the ground coming up very fast below them.

  “Five hundred plus twelve … Inner Marker …”

  Boysie saw the end of the runway leaping out of what seemed to be scrub-strewn sand. They were very low over the sand as though they would chew into it at any moment.

  Morgan cursed
and the nose yawed over to the right then back again.

  “Four hundred plus eleven …”

  Still riding just above the sand.

  “Three hundred plus twelve …”

  The end of the runway slid below them.

  “Threshold …”

  “Flare …” yelled Morgan.

  The whole weight juddered as the main wheels struck the concerete, lifted, and struck again.

  The nose came down with a bump. They were streaking fast, burning up runway.

  “Cancel port inner. Full reverse both outers.”

  The engine note changed as the flight engineer’s hands moved across the throttles like an organist doing a difficult bit of Bach.

  The banshee howl of jets in reverse.

  “Just pray the brakes hold.” Morgan still shouting.

  “Eighty knots …” From the first officer.

  They were humping, rumbling, juddering more or less

  in a straight line, still eating up concrete.

  “Seventy … Seventy-five …”

  The far end of the runway was coming up. Lights. Wire. Scrub. Sand. Trees a couple of hundred yards on.

  Slowing. A marked slowing.

  “Cancel reverse.”

  The noise dipped to a low whistle.

  Slow. Slowing to a halt.

  The sound of breath being let out in long low sighs of relief.

  Morgan turned from the controls. The aircraft was at a standstill. There was about fifty yards of runway left. “Okay, you’d better get on with your hijacking. You have a gun. What do you want us to do?”

  “Get the refuelling done and take off for Luanda.”

  Morgan smiled. “Again you must be joking. Or weren’t you with us through all that? We came in on two and a half engines.”

  “Can they be fixed without disembarking?”

  “At a conservative estimate,” Morgan stroked his beard, “I’d say that we will be lucky to get out of Otuka for twenty-four or forty-eight hours. We’ve really got problems, chum.”

  “Nobody leaves this aircraft.” Boysie vainly attempted to sort out the patterns and pictures jumbled in his mind. “Nothing is to be unloaded and nobody leaves.”