Airship

by McAlan, Peter

  Carson groaned.

  ‘It’s okay, sergeant. I’ll be down there in half an hour. Tell me, does this have to get into the local papers? Colonel Saxon holds a prominent position with Anglo-American and … well … ’

  The sergeant was understanding.

  ‘The guy from the Press-Herald usually checks with us in, say, about another two hours. If you can get this limey, er, Colonel Saxon, out of here by then we could neglect to mention his arrest. But there’ll be charges before the judge in the morning, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’d be grateful for the extra time, sergeant.’

  ‘Okay, colonel. Do you know where the PPD is? Congress Street, southside, just past the Eastern Cemetery.’

  ‘I’ll be down there in half an hour.’

  *

  Saxon faced an angry Garry Carson in his hotel room. Carson had gone bail for him and driven him back to the Sheraton, pumped coffee into him and finally drawn out his side of the story.

  ‘Alright,’ Saxon grunted belligerently. ‘So I got smashed, was rolled and had a brush with the law, so what?’

  ‘Dammit!’ swore Carson. ‘You’re in a sensitive area, Tom. If the papers get hold of the story … when they do, how long do you think you will be employed by Anglo-American? How will Anglo-American’s image appear?’

  ‘Oh … their image is what you’re worried about,’ Saxon smiled cynically.

  ‘I sure as hell ain’t worried about yours, brother,’ snapped Carson. ‘A drunken test pilot, assault on the cops … that really is going to give the public confidence in the Albatross project.’

  ‘Go lecture elsewhere. Garry,’ replied Saxon, yawning deliberately. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  Carson bit his lip. He could see that Saxon had not entirely sobered up.

  ‘Alright, Torn. I’ll be by here about ten o’clock tomorrow. You’re due to appear in court at midday on the drunken assault charge. I’ll ring Samantha Hackerman first thing … maybe she’ll know a way to keep this out of the papers.’

  ‘And the best of British,’ sneered Saxon, as he slammed the bedroom door shut.

  *

  Maria Terrasino woke up to find her husband getting dressed. It was still dark outside.

  ‘What’s up, caro?’ she asked, sitting up in bed and turning on the side lamp.

  Terrasino looked apologetic.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, love. Something has just occurred to me. I have to go down to the project site.’

  Maria Terrasino looked at his worried face.

  ‘It is about … how do you call him … the psycho, the mad bomber?’

  Terrasino nodded.

  ‘There’s something that doesn’t make sense. I feel that there is some clue which is just staring me in the face and I can’t see it.’

  Maria Terrasino sighed.

  ‘You be careful, no?’

  Terrasino leant over the bed and kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘I’ll be careful, yes,’ he said lightly.

  Parish was on duty as chief night security guard. He greeted Terrasino respectfully as the security chief entered his hut by the great canvas shroud which cloaked the Albatross from public gaze.

  ‘I’m just going to have a look round,’ Terrasino explained, as he signed his name in the security book. He had tightened up security so that each time a person went on board the Albatross they had to sign in and out, giving times.

  He made his way straight to the area on deck level six where the explosive device had been discovered by Kurt Nieman. It was as good a place to start as any. He went to switch on the cabin lights. Nothing. That was funny. He flicked the switch up and down several times and then felt his way to the emergency cupboard. In each section were similar cupboards containing tools, flashlights and other useful equipment.

  There was a sudden footfall behind him.

  Terrasino went to turn and his world went black: utterly black. His last conscious sensation was that of something striking the back of his head.

  When he came round, which seemed like a second or two later, the thin and concerned face of Oscar Van Kleef was peering down at him.

  Terrasino felt a blinding pain in his head and he groaned.

  ‘What happened?’ demanded Van Kleef. ‘Did you trip and fall?’

  Terrasino screwed up his face and shook his head.

  ‘When did you get here?’ he demanded, ignoring the other’s question.

  ‘A second or so ago. You were lying flat out. What happened?’

  ‘Someone hit me from behind, dammit!’

  Van Kleef looked shocked.

  ‘You mean the saboteur … ?’

  It was then that Terrasino noticed that the cabin lights were on.

  ‘Were the lights working when you came here?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘No matter.’

  He groaned again. His head was painful and there was a sticky trickle down the side of his face. He put his hand up. It was blood.

  ‘I don’t suppose you saw anyone else about?’

  Van Kleef made a negative gesture.

  ‘Alright,’ Terrasino gave him a suspicious glance. ‘Let’s have a look round.’

  They spent half an hour examining the adjoining cabins.

  ‘It looks like you disturbed whoever it was,’ ventured Van Kleef. ‘I’ll have the engineers make a thorough check first thing in the morning.’

  ‘You do that,’ replied Terrasino, feeling angry with himself.

  ‘Whoever it was is long gone.’

  ‘Think so?’ replied the security chief laconically. ‘We’ll see.’

  He left Van Kleef staring strangely after him. Jesus! Maria was not going to like this. He’d better not say anything to her. He signed out without saying anything to Parish and went across to the administrative buildings and up to his office. First he went to the washroom and began to clean himself up. He hoped that Maria would not notice the bloodstain on his jacket. He’d better take it to the local laundry before she saw it. He was going to leave without going into his office but he heard his telephone start to ring. Maria, he thought. He entered his office and lifted the receiver.

  ‘Yeah? Terrasino here.’

  ‘It’s Hayes,’ replied the FBI agent’s voice. ‘Your wife said you’d be at the project site.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I thought I’d let you know that we’ve got a trace on the mysterious Max Prüss.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Terrasino’s voice rose a fraction in excitement.

  ‘I guess you were right when you said our saboteur was a psycho.’

  ‘What makes you say that, Hayes?’

  ‘The real Max Prüss has been dead fifty years.’

  ‘And you know who he was?’

  ‘Max Prüss was the captain of the airship Hindenburg.’

  *

  Tom Saxon was dreaming; no, not dreaming — remembering. Remembering in a sweat-soaked, alcoholic-induced sleep; recalling with vivid nightmare clarity. He twisted and turned in helpless unease.

  The Wessex Mark IV helicopter was spinning to the ground. It seemed to be spinning slowly as if all time and motion had slowed, slowed to a near standstill. Saxon watched impotently, unable to co-ordinate his muscles, unable to react quickly. The terrorist rocket had struck the helicopter just below the rotor, snapping one of the blades and twisting the entire section at an awkward angle; the controls were slack and useless. Saxon experienced a feeling of detached fatalism. Yet the soldiers in the machine — six of them — were screaming, unwilling to face death even in the face of its inevitability.

  Saxon was a young flight lieutenant, only a week out from England on his first posting to Northern Ireland. He was flying a squad of soldiers into Cullyhanna in the ‘bandit country’ of South Armagh, in which the Irish Republican Army operated almost with impunity. Crossmaglen, the little village which republican resistance to British rule had made world-famous, was the next village to Cullyhanna. British troops could only move along the h
edge-bordered lanes of South Armagh in strength and in armoured personnel carriers, and even then not be entirely assured of their safety. Too many mines and booby traps had exacted a heavy toll of British lives. Army and RAF helicopters were now used to ferry the men to strongly fortified military posts within the area.

  The rocket attack had been totally unexpected. Tom Saxon’s orders had been not to fly too close to the ground in case of such an attack, but he had only been a half-mile from the Cullyhanna military post and preparing to land when it had happened. The Wessex had bucked under the impact and slewed slowly groundwards.

  The impact snapped Saxon’s safety belt and threw him from the cockpit into a thick thorn hedge, thereby saving his life, though he felt a searing pain in his left leg and back. His face was cut and sticky and when he put his hand up to clear his eyes he realised, with a detached curiosity, that the stickiness was blood.

  The Wessex had buried itself in the ground and there was an odour of petrol, the hiss of fuel dripping onto a scalding hot pipe. Someone, far away, was screaming with high-pitched monotony.

  In spite of his pain, Saxon heaved himself upward and crawled the ten yards towards the jumbled mass of wreckage. The mangled piece of machinery bore absolutely no resemblance at all to the flying machine it had been a few moments before.

  In the remains of the cockpit, a glance told Saxon that his co-pilot was dead. Crawling round to the main cabin, he felt momentarily nauseated at the sight which met his eyes. It was the squad’s lance-corporal, who was screaming horribly. In his right shoulder a jagged piece of metal stuck like a grotesque spear. The man was pawing at it feebly and screaming in that awful monotone. The RAF sergeant lay a few yards away. He was still and his neck was twisted at an awkward angle. Saxon surmised he was dead, although he couldn’t really be sure. Another soldier lay on his side moaning softly. The others sprawled in various prone positions like a collection of rag dolls.

  Saxon caught the strong smell of escaping petrol once again.

  He grabbed the lance-corporal first, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his own leg and back, and crawled, pulling the man until he was some twenty yards from the wreck. Then he repeated the same painful journey with the moaning soldier. Finally, he managed to drag the other bodies some way from the remains of the helicopter before unconsciousness overtook him.

  When he came to, someone was bending over him. He realised he could have only been unconscious a moment.

  The figure above him was that of a bearded young man; fresh-faced, freckled and red-haired. He was looking down with a compassionate gaze in his grey eyes. Saxon was aware that the young man carried a rifle slung in the crook of his arm and wore a camouflage jacket. For a moment Saxon thought he was a soldier — a British soldier.

  Then he realised that he was the enemy.

  Saxon blinked and gazed up curiously.

  ‘Are you going to kill me?’ he asked.

  The young man stared for a moment and then shook his head.

  There came a muffled explosion nearby and a flame abruptly twisted out of the wreckage of the helicopter and started to devour it.

  ‘You got your friends out just in time,’ observed the Irishman softly. ‘Are you alright?’

  Saxon stared at him angrily.

  ‘What the hell do you care, you bloody murderer!’ he snapped.

  The young man ignored him and pursed his lips as he looked him over with those oddly compassionate grey eyes.

  ‘You’ll be alright,’ he said. ‘A couple of armoured cars are coming down the road from Cullyhanna. They’ll be here in a minute.’

  A violent pain shot along Saxon’s back and leg and he groaned.

  ‘You’ll be alright,’ muttered the Irishman again.

  ‘Murderer!’ replied Saxon through gritted teeth. ‘They won’t be alright!’

  He flung out a hand to the bodies of his dead companions.

  ‘It’s war and the moral right is on our side,’ replied the young man imperturbably. ‘But I’m not going to argue politics.’

  He jerked his head to the road. Saxon could hear the noise of engines.

  ‘Maybe one of these days we can sit down and discuss it over a beer, but not before you Brits get out of my country and start running your own affairs and stop poking your noses into other people’s countries. The sooner you do that the sooner we can all go home in peace.’

  He vanished.

  Soon after that they gave Saxon his medal; for bravery, they said, bravery beyond the call of duty in that he had returned to a highly dangerous wreck, in spite of a broken leg and rib, and saved the lives of two of his comrades and the bodies of his other men, all of whom would have been incinerated when the machine erupted into flame.

  Now the remembrance changed in Saxon’s uneasy sleep.

  He was crawling painfully to the wreck, fighting against delaying obstacles, fighting to get in. The bodies lay like abandoned rag dolls splashed with red paint and there, among them, were the bodies of Jan, his wife, and his young son, Tom Junior. He gave a cry and reached out, trying to drag them away from the wreckage. But he could not. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much effort he used, he could not pull them from the wreck. He cursed and cried and pleaded with them as he pulled but the obstacles were insuperable.

  He woke up in his hotel room whimpering like a baby.

  *

  Saxon was still in bed when Garry Carson came to the Sheraton the next morning.

  ‘You look lousy,’ smiled Carson vindictively.

  ‘I suppose I must feel it, too,’ replied Saxon. ‘Not that I can feel much at the moment, old boy. What’s the time?’

  ‘A quarter after ten.’

  Carson reached for the phone and asked room service to bring up a pot of black coffee and ham and eggs for two.

  Saxon winced.

  ‘First the good news.’ Anglo-American’s chief test pilot sprawled in a chair, as Saxon walked unsteadily to the bathroom. ‘You’re off the hook so far as a court appearance is concerned.’

  ‘What did you do, bribe the judge?’ called Saxon cynically.

  Carson raised his voice above the sound of running water.

  ‘No; your thief was picked up by the cops last night as he was about to dispose of your billfold.’

  ‘My what?’ Saxon frowned.

  Carson delved into his memory for the English equivalent.

  ‘Your wallet. There wasn’t much money left but all your ID and credit cards were intact. With a little help from the local patrolman, the guy admitted to rolling you just outside the Executive Inn. The lieutenant decided, in view of all the circumstances, not to press charges … so long as I smack you on the knuckles and give you a sermon on drinking and throwing punches at cops.’

  Carson dropped Saxon’s wallet on to the table.

  Saxon, having splashed his face, came out of the washroom and sank into a chair opposite Carson.

  ‘Well, I’ll just have to thank our friendly neighbourhood cops.’

  He paused.

  ‘You said, “first the good news”. What’s the bad?’

  ‘A warning, from me,’ replied Carson curtly. ‘I’m going to keep this incident from Maclaren and Anglo-American. In return, you lay off the booze. I don’t want to see the Albatross project fouled up. If I even think you’re taking a swig then I’ll boot your arse back to England so quickly that you won’t even need an airplane to get you there! And when that happens, Tom, you won’t have a future in aviation. No way!’

  Chapter Six

  As Janine Renard picked up the telephone she knew who it was going to be.

  ‘Janine, this is Jacques Barjonet.’

  She felt extraordinarily pleased.

  ‘Hello,’ she replied warmly.

  Charles had just left for a weekend in Paris — some business conference, he had said — and Janine had wondered, with a growing excitement, whether Jacques would take the opportunity to telephone her.

  ‘It’s such a bea
utiful day today. I was thinking of driving over to the coast for a picnic; to St. Pair-sur-Mer, there’s a lovely beach there.’

  Janine smiled as he paused.

  ‘Would you like to come? It’s a perfect day for swimming.’

  ‘I’d love to, Jacques,’ she replied immediately and a little breathlessly.

  ‘I’ll pick you up in half an hour.’

  As she put down the telephone Janine experienced a tremendous sense of happiness. The feeling of doing something naughty, something forbidden, had vanished now. Instead she was genuinely pleased at the prospect of being in Jacques Barjonet’s company. She had not reasoned it out entirely as yet, but she could not deny the feeling. She admitted to herself that she was attracted to Barjonet — firstly, so she told herself, it was an intellectual attraction; then she had tried to reason that it was merely his friendship that she delighted in; finally she found herself wanting Barjonet to take her in his arms. So far Barjonet’s behaviour was impeccable. But it was surely just a matter of time. Janine Renard hummed gaily to herself as she went to fetch her swimming suit.

  *

  Saxon still felt rough as he slid into the co-pilot’s chair on the simulator flight deck. He should have had a drink before coming to the project site. Damn it! Of all the mornings to have a simulator test. Garry Carson looked across at him with a sympathetic expression.

  ‘You look tired, Tom. Do you feel okay?’

  Saxon shrugged.

  ‘I’ll be alright.’

  ‘You knew this test was scheduled this morning. There was nothing I could do about it.’ There was a querulous note in Carson’s voice.

  ‘Yes; sorry.’

  Carson sighed and turned back to the flight controls and his check board.

  ‘Right,’ he turned to encompass Danny Macmillan and Billy Heath as well as Saxon. ‘This is going to be a three-hour simulator flight and hopefully our last simulator experience before we take out the Albatross for real. Billy, our course will be a take-off from Portland heading for Toronto via Montreal. I want an exact course, speed and height.’