by John Gardner
I glanced up from Styles in time to see Boysie hairing for the cover of the helicopter. Mostyn must have seen him as well, for he shifted his balance then spoke very fast to the Russian. ‘Perhaps we should turn him over. Perhaps his back is hurt.’
The Russian shrugged, but Mostyn put out a hand and indicated that they should turn Styles over.
Boysie had come out from cover now, advancing slowly over the hundred or so yards of ground that lay between the helicopter and the backs of the two young crewmen. In his right hand he clutched at a short metal bar and even at this distance you could almost hear his heart and feel the constriction in his throat. Boysie Oakes, coward extraordinary coming closer and closer. If one of the boys turned they would not stop to ask about his health or make polite conversation regarding the weather. There would be a quick rip of automatic fire and the abominable, bungling Oakes would meet oblivion nose to nose. How melodramatic can you get? I asked myself. Relax. Make with the cool. Think what the great masters of suspense fiction would do with a situation like this. They’d be gushing out great political analogies, or working out Boysie’s weight, the length of the metal bar and the exact point of contact with the opponents’ heads.
Boysie, as we all know, has not clothed himself with the finesse of a James Bond. It was unbelievable that the chopper crew did not hear him as he came nearer, stealthy as a jelly dropped on to a pyramid display of sherry glasses.
The last few yards was a rush. He came in from the left (camera right) arm raised back behind his left shoulder, speed up and panting. The arm swept down and round in a long arc. Two thuds as the metal bar connected. The pair of Junior G-Men went down as if pole-axed. Boysie tripped, cried out and landed in a ball groaning and swearing considerably.
At the moment of Boysie’s final spurt, Mostyn rose on the balls of his feet, his right fist coming almost from the ground to catch the older Russian neatly under the jaw. He did not even cry out, lifted as he was and thrown spreadeagled in front of us.
Gascoigne couldn’t have done better. It was expertly neat. I lowered my hands and applauded — slowly.
But Mostyn was on his dignity. ‘Get the weapons away from them. Search them. Make them secure with their belts.’
‘I think I’ve broken my leg.’ Boysie surly from the sitting position.
‘Nonsense. You never broke your leg before why should you start doing it now?’
‘Not even a word of thanks. Not one tiny word.’
‘I thank you.’ Hester advanced on him and touched his forehead with her lips. ‘Later, when we get home, I will show you how I can thank you.’
‘Hey,’ I began. ‘I thought...’
‘Tut.’ She held up her hand. ‘I’m an equal opportunity girl.’
We trussed up the crew, in sitting positions round one of the trees. The tank still burned merrily and Mostyn kept muttering that there would be one hell of an explosion when the heat got to the ammunition.
‘Incidentally,’ said Boysie in a manner too off hand to be ignored. ‘There’s one thing I do not do.’
‘And what is that?’ Mostyn had begun to stride out towards the chopper. Boysie and I were picking up Kit Styles.
‘I don’t fly helicopters. I’ve been your stooge for a long time. Under pressure I once flew an aeroplane for you. But I will not fly a helicopter.’
‘All right.’ Mostyn nodded. ‘I’ll fly the bloody thing myself. To be honest I’m quite a dab hand with helicopters. Taken cups for it.’
Boysie snorted.
Mostyn hung back as we approached the machine. I was the first in, pulling Styles up and putting out a hand to help Hester. It was only when she was inside that I sensed something was wrong. I looked at Hester. She was staring, eyes fixed towards the flight deck.
I turned.
A familiar chubby face smiled gleefully from behind a Stechkin automatic.
‘Friend of yours?’ asked Hester.
‘That’s good,’ said Boris from the co-pilot’s seat. ‘That’s very good. Mr. Upsdale and I are old friends, yes. We have the same taste in photography. When I was put on this mission I knew it had your mark Mr. Rex Upsdale. It smells of a plot in one of your masterworks. But I’ve caught you. They do not call me bring-them-back-alive-Boris for nothing.’
Chapter Eight — How Would You Like To Ride...?
‘Boris. And I thought we’d never meet again.’
Boris gave one of his inimitable chuckles. I did some thinking at speed. I had been conned into helping snatch a prize defector from deep in the heart of the USSR. We had ended up being shot at in a purloined tank. Boris was a KGB blackmailer. A failed blackmailer.
‘Why did you leave it so long, Boris?’
‘Leave what so long?’
‘Swinging the pistol on us.’ I trusted that Mostyn or Boysie would be doing something about the situation. ‘I mean you let us get the better of your boys...’
Boris trapped his fur hat with a heavily gloved finger. ‘It’s all up here. Me, I use the psychological weapons. I know my boys, as you put it, will either bring you in or you will jump them. If you jump them then I must put myself in a position which is unjumpable. It is all psychological.’
‘Well, you got us. What’s going to happen?’
‘To you? Oh the worst. For stealing Russian tank you get life anyhow. For stealing it to haul off citizen of USSR they give you life and shoot you. To be truthful I would take your cyanide capsules now.’ He laughed again and the wicked muzzle of the Stechkin wavered. ‘Be good fellow and invite your friends on board.’
Gascoigne would play for time. He’d play for anything. ‘What about your boys? Shouldn’t we be taken over to them at gun point and made to untie them?’
‘What for you want to go and untie them? Stupid military incompetents. I should help them? This way I get full credit.’ He waved the automatic in a theatrical gesture. ‘Get them up here.’
I leaned out of the doorway and called to Mostyn and Boysie who were huddled in conference below me.
‘Tell them that I shoot the girl if they don’t get up here quick and unarmed.’
I relayed the message. Mostyn nodded at Boysie who gave me a large wink before ascending into the helicopter.
‘This is Boris. He doesn’t seem to have a surname.’
‘He’s got a gun though. Hi, Boris.’ Boysie waved a large paw at the heavy little Russian.
‘And Colonel Mostyn,’ I introduced, giving Mostyn a hand up.
‘How do you do.’ Mostyn gave a polite bow from the waist.
‘I’m Hester.’ She moved forward quickly. ‘Mr. Upsdale’s manners are not what they should be. I’m delighted to meet you.’ Hester still walked forward towards Boris, her hand outstretched in greeting.
Boris continued grinning and began to blush. He could not work out how to shake hands with the gun sitting there. Eventually he transferred the weapon to his left hand and offered his right.
Hester ignored the proferred hand, swerved, chopped down on Boris’ left wrist then brought her arm up to lace him a terrible back hander across the face.
The Stechkin fell to the floor. Boris made a noise like you sometimes hear through the surgery doors of bad dentists.
‘That was for nothing. Now try something.’ Hester put her hands on her hips.
‘Chestnut corner.’ Boysie stooped to pick up the fallen pistol. ‘Sorry Boris. You shouldn’t play with the big boys.’
‘Girls,’ corrected Hester.
Mostyn turned on me. ‘You met this creep somewhere before?’
‘I saw Sidney Greenstreet play him in a movie once,’ chirped Boysie.
‘He tried to put the black on me in Moscow.’ I spoke quietly hoping that Hester wouldn’t hear.
‘What sort of black?’ Hester asked loudly.
‘Oh nothing much. Phoney pictures, you know the kind of thing they get up to.’
‘My hero. That would be to do with the loud lady who went to your room after Slattery and I left.’
<
br /> I nodded.
Boris still made moaning noises. Mostyn took up a threatening stance. ‘Who do you work for Boris? And what do they know?’
‘You have me got all wrong,’ cringed Boris. ‘Boris is your friend. Why else would I try to get you all together in here. If we start motors now maybe we all get out in time. Before other helicopter arrives.’
‘What other helicopter?’
‘The one I...I mean they...called for.’
‘You mean the one you called for. Who do you work for? What Department?’
Boris sighed. ‘Department C.’
‘That figures. They work on political and industrial blackmail. Approaches to possible contacts.’ He turned back to the Russian. ‘Why are you here?’
Boris hesitated a moment. ‘We’re under strength at the moment. When balloon went up last night. They put me on standby.’
‘What sort of balloon went up?’
‘When they realized Comrade Styles was missing. Then, early this morning they found the tank crew. Very badly frostbitten. There is one of our men with every helicopter searching. Another will come soon. But you still got me wrong. I wish to help. I wish to come out with you.’
‘Like hell.’ Mostyn climbed forward into the captain’s seat. ‘Stay directly behind him, Boysie. Kill him if he tries to get difficult.’
There were four frame and webbing seats, two on each side of the fuselage, directly behind the flight deck. We dragged Styles up into one of the rear seats and buckled him in. I jumped down to retrieve the automatic rifles, handing one to Hester before strapping myself in.
‘No need for panic.’ Mostyn leaned back. ‘It’s quite a normal and simple machine. We’ve got a couple of cannon firing forward and mounted under the belly. From the looks of things there’s still a fair amount of ammunition left. I reckon that we are about a hundred and eighty miles north of Moscow. We’ll carry on flying north until the fuel level gets tricky. I judge that we should make a couple of hundred miles with luck. Roger.’ He gave the thumbs up sign.
‘Squadron Leader Mostyn. Fighter ace.’ Boysie looked a shade green around the gills in spite of his outward smile which now twisted up the left corner of his mouth.
I began to feel a sense of queasiness as Mostyn started the motors. Helicopter rides were not my idea of fun and the whole fabric of the machine seemed to quiver as power built up. The uneasiness stayed with me when, five minutes later, we were stuttering evenly along at around three thousand feet. Below, the track up which we had been travelling in the tank, wound on through splashes of woodland, finally losing itself in a conifer forest which stretched as far as I could see. I reached back into my private fantasy store but nothing would emerge. The chances of getting out of Russia with Styles were as slender as the neck of a romantic fictional heroine.
‘Penny for them Boysie,’ I called to the big, greying oaf.
‘I was just thinking that the daffodils will be out in Hyde Park. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to think at times like this? You know, the bits in between the action when it’s all happening. We’re supposed to think of home and our birds, the daffs in Hyde Park, the rumble of traffic, all the things that make up the rich pattern of our dreary lives. So that’s what I’m thinking about.’
The machine lurched as Mostyn turned to give him an odd look.
‘Well,’ said Boysie. ‘He writes all this wild thrilling action-packed rubbish. He knows what I mean. Don’t you, Rex.’
I nodded and was about to comment that it was not as easy as it looked — writing rubbish, that is — when Boris gave a squawk.
‘There. I told you he would come. The other helicopter.’
Away to our left the little insect crawled across the clouds to meet us.
‘He’s going to formate on us,’ Mostyn shouted. ‘Boris, this is where you do your stuff. Get cracking on the R/T and head him off. Say it was a false alarm. Anything.’
Tubby Boris nodded enthusiastically, grabbed for the co-pilot’s headset and began to operate the large transceiver mounted centrally under the instrument panel.
‘And get it right,’ added Mostyn. ‘Otherwise...’
‘We all end up in an untidy charred heap down there,’ I heard myself say.
Styles groaned and moved in his seat. Hester slipped from her lap strap and was bending over him before anyone had the chance to comment. She glanced round and moved her position so that Styles was shielded from my view by her body.
Quietly I unfastened my seatbelt and took the two paces across the fuselage to join her.
Styles’s sleeve had been rolled back, exposing the arm and Hester was using a hypodermic with uncanny efficiency.
She gave me a sly sideways look as I reached out lamely with my hand. ‘I gave him a couple in the tank while you were doing your Rip van Winkle.’
‘Will it hurt him?’
‘I don’t think so. Gaffer’s orders.’ She inclined her head towards Mostyn. ‘He’s got to be kept under.’
Boris still chattered on the R/T and did not seem to be getting very far. I returned to my seat and looked out of the little window. The other helicopter was closer now and coming in with what looked like full throttle.
The distance between us shrunk to around fifty yards. ‘Not easy,’ bawled Boris. ‘He ask difficult questions.’
‘Like what?’ From Mostyn.
‘Like he wants to speak to you.’
‘Tell him I’m busy.’
Boris went into action again, prompted by Boysie who jabbed the automatic pistol hard into the Russian’s back.
The other helicopter was really close in now and you could see the crewman had opened the sliding doors on both sides of the fuselage. I pressed my face against the Perspex window. The co-pilot had a section of the flight deck greenhouse open. Binoculars. They were looking straight on to our flight deck with binoculars.
As I watched I saw the binoculars withdrawn. The second chopper reared and began to drop back.
‘He’s on to you, Mostyn,’ I shouted. ‘Your tail. Watch your tail.’
As I shouted I could see the other machine sliding further back, lining up for a shot.
‘Hang on.’ From Mostyn.
As he shouted, my eyes automatically zoomed in on Mostyn’s hands, one firmly on the cyclic pitch stick, the other grasping the collective pitch stick. He hauled back on both and we were suddenly on Battersea funfair.
The horizon dropped away. I was pushed down into my seat as we rose at an alarming rate then dropped, falling to the right and leaving my stomach several feet above my head.
Looking forward. Trying to keep my head up. The pull of my seatbelt. Sky. Tumbling earth. The opposing helicopter close, turning, framed in the window for a split second and then gone, sliding away. Mostyn’s hands and feet, deft on the controls. A fast pan over the trees then the elevator rise and all the time the motors’ roar. Boris yelling, Boysie heaving into the area between the seats.
What could only have been seconds seemed like minutes as we bucked and swung on a massive invisible rollercoaster.
Then we were stable, at around two thousand feet, going down steadily in a shallow dive, below us the other chopper zig-zagging wildly. I watched hypnotized as it grew larger. Boysie was hunched, foetus-like and cursing Mostyn. Boris crouched forward next to Mostyn, hanging on to his seat, mouth open to emit the scream that would not come.
Anticipating one of his opponent’s sharp turns, Mostyn suddenly lunged our machine forward. We juddered and I was aware of the muffled burp of the cannons. Arrow straight dots of flame streaking out to burn up somewhere below our target.
He wheeled and twisted upwards, like some small frightened little dragonfly, hysterically attempting to avoid a swatting hand. Mostyn followed, lifting our machine in what felt like an almost vertical climb.
The other craft in front of us again. Large for a flashing second. The judder of cannon fire, then he had gone. The seatbelt strained and we dropped to the right then spun in
a complete circle.
Mostyn had him this time, steady in front of us, a deflection shot from about two hundred and fifty feet. It must have been a good three second burst and Mostyn kept us hovering level as he fired: bright cannon shells ripping into the engine cowling above the canopy. She dropped like a toy, her main rotor still miraculously turning and giving a little lift, but pieces breaking away from the engines. At about fifty feet you could see the beginnings of fire, tongues licking out mixing with yellowish smoke. Then she hit, to the left of centre in a brown circular clearing surrounded by trees. An untidy lump with the three crew members scrambling clear and running hard before the machine exploded with a great bubble of flame.
We chattered away over the treetops. Mostyn, I figured, was keeping low to avoid radar and the jets which must have inevitably been called up by the conquered chopper. Yet nothing happened. For two hours we nudged our way north, Mostyn following tracks, streams and rivers, pushing us nearer and nearer to the border.
We relaxed a little and I began thinking about Mostyn, Boysie and Styles. Mostyn and Boysie I could write off, they might simply be code names taken from fiction. Styles bothered me. When Kit Styles had defected, Her Majesty’s Government had been considerably embarrassed. The Press had harried them and the public jeered. Everyone wanted to know why Styles had got away with it for so long. The Government had pointed out that Styles’s most critical appointments had been made while the Opposition were in power. The Opposition retaliated that the Government had access to exactly the same information as they had. Styles had screwed everybody. So why would anybody want him back? In time people would forget. Nobody would be blamed. Bring him back and the whole wound would be reopened. Styles was there, strapped into his seat looking ghastly ill and oblivious to life. And we were here also, a tiny force press-ganged into the job by Intelligence. Why? Why, why and why?
‘Boysie?’ I called. ‘Why in hell’s name do they want Styles back in...?’
‘We’ve only got another ten minutes’ fuel,’ shouted Mostyn from up front. ‘I’ve been following the route down there and I think we are around the middle of Lake Ladoga.’
