Aggressor

by Nick Cook

  Initial Point, the IP. A strong navigation feature, in this case a factory chimney, from which the pilot could plot a course to the target. Chimney, O fucking chimney, where were you? Girling’s mind fogged over as he thought of football pitches, scores of them, rushing beneath the plane’s belly.

  ‘I said, can you see the IP?’

  The beam swept the picture, highlighting objects in a dazzling green and black contrast that made his eyes water. He could make out hills, valleys, but nothing that resembled a...

  ‘OK, got it.’ A needle of light contrasting against the background clutter, just as the instructor had said. ‘Straight ahead. About ten miles.’ He could see the target, too, a little way off, its features clearly defined on the radar screen.

  ‘Take your time,’ Rantz muttered.

  Girling strained past Rantz’s ejection seat for a view forward. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the pilot grab the IP-to-target map and clip it to a knee pocket. The chimney reared out of the haze a fraction to the left of the fighter-bomber’s nose, a beacon on its rim flashing high above them. He saw Rantz adjust course a fraction, advancing the throttles as he did so.

  The chimney filled the canopy. It seemed, for a moment, as if they would scythe it in two.

  ‘Stand by…’ Rantz yelled. He jerked his hand down as he depressed the button on his stopwatch. The chimney shot past the left wing-tip in a blur of mottled browns and reds.

  ‘Viking zero-one?’ A new voice in Girling’s head-phones. The pilot of the airborne laser designator.

  ‘Roger.’

  ‘I’ve got the target, sight’s on.’

  Girling looked past the swept wing for a glimpse of the stand-off designator aircraft, another Tornado equipped with a thermal imager and laser target-marker. He could see nothing except rolling greenery, but he knew the second aircraft was close by.

  A glint of reflected sunlight in the forward hemi-sphere made him switch his attention to the front again. The river snaked in the distance from right to left just below the horizon. Spanning it, the majestic arches of the girder bridge were clearly visible.

  Girling felt the Tornado jink left then right as Rantz manoeuvred his sight over the target.

  ‘Sight’s on, sight’s on,’ he called. A brief pause. ‘Bombs gone.’

  The Tornado swept skyward, relieved of almost four thousand pounds. The two laser-guided bombs, dubbed Paveways, streaked off in the general direction of the bridge. Without laser guidance from the stand-off designator, the Paveways would coast blind, their stubby fins generating enough lift to fly several miles, eventually splashing into the river or the muddy ground beyond. Once the laser was directed at the target, however, they became surgical strike weapons, able to hit any point designated by the laser operator.

  ‘Stand by to lase... lase now,’ Rantz called to the Tornado designator. Even before Rantz finished the command, he was pulling the Tornado into a tight turn to starboard, away from the SAMs and radar-guided artillery.

  Girling tried to keep his eyes on the bridge, but it disappeared into the haze behind them.

  Two miles away, the seeker heads in the Paveways responded to the laser energy scattering off the third girder of the bridge by snapping the control fins hard over, first left then right, until the bombs locked on course. Only the laser operator, watching the bridge through the high-powered electro-optics in the tip of the designator, would be able to see the results.

  Four seconds later, they got the news.

  ‘Two strikes, bridge destroyed. Nice work Viking. See you back at base.’

  When the Tornado levelled out, Girling was surprised to see they were up to a thousand feet and over water. He looked down at the moving map. They were flying south-west along the Firth of Lorn, just to the south of the Island of Mull off the Scottish West Coast.

  ‘Pull me up the first way-point for the return leg,’ Rantz said.

  Girling punched in the commands on the buttons by the TV-tab display just as they had shown him on the simulator. The message was relayed to the pilot on his CRT. Rantz pulled them back on a course that would bring the Tornado to the west of Glasgow and thence on a direct line south-east to Marham, now something under half an hour away.

  The Tornado decelerated. Girling settled back into his seat, happy in the knowledge that there would be no further need of the sick bag. In the less turbulent air of their cruising altitude, the return journey would be a breeze.

  ‘Just make sure you tell how it really is,’ Rantz said, suddenly.

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘We fly above a hundred feet on the day and they’ll have us. It’s as simple as that. Your friends on Fleet Street make out we do this for fun. One cock-up out there on the range just now and I would have buried you, me, and a twenty-million-pound aircraft. I don’t call that fun, Girling.’

  ‘Who’s ‘they’, Rantz? Just who will have you on the day?’

  Rantz laughed.

  ‘The Russians aren’t finished yet, Girling. They’ve still got the most powerful armed forces on Earth and they’ll export to any loony Third World dictator who’ll swap his fruit crop for MiGs or Sukhois.’

  ‘Unfortunately, that’s not how Parliament and the public see it right now.’

  ‘Thanks to the media.’

  Girling watched a trawler pitch and roll on the gentle swell below.

  ‘The fact is, Rantz, there aren’t many people out there who believe there will be a war tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s what they were saying when the Gulf blew up in our faces.’

  ‘And the press played its part then, too. Most of it in your favour.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘When you boys complained about the F3 being no good, who was it who campaigned for government funds backing a replacement fighter? Just about every national newspaper, as I recall.’

  Girling was met with nothing but static.

  ‘Your bosses at the MOD are as capable of manipulating the media as anyone else, you know that. It’s all part of the game.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, Rantz, you’ve shown me the other side of the coin today, what it’s like to fly at fifty feet when you’ve got no other choice. Maybe my piece will reflect that.’

  ‘Fuck it, Girling. I owe you an apology.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The Group Captain told me to pull out all the stops today. You know, scare the crap out of you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To show you what it’s really like doing this for a living. Flying a bomber at Mach 1, day or night, whatever the weather, whenever the phone rings and someone tells us to do so. I wouldn’t swap this job for anything in the world, but sometimes, just sometimes...’

  He never finished the sentence.

  Girling swallowed. He suddenly realized that beneath all the bravado Rantz was scared.

  ‘I know.’ He sensed a new bond between them.

  Rantz swore. Girling saw the master-caution light blinking urgently on the pilot’s display panel.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Fire in the starboard engine.’

  ‘Is this for real, or part of the exercise?’

  Rantz’s voice was calm, measured, but Girling could hear the tension there, too. Rantz did not need to answer his question.

  ‘I’m shutting it down before it damages the good engine. If both go we’re really in the shit.’

  Girling felt light-headed. His breathing came in short, rapid gasps. He remembered the instructor’s warning about hyperventilation. He began to moderate the tempo and felt the dizziness disappear.

  Rantz’s voice was coming over his headset. The edge in his tone had disappeared. His instructions were cool, despite the gravity of their situation.

  ‘If the second engine gives up on us, I’m not going to hang around. If you hear me say eject three times, you’re out of here, understand? A sharp tug on the handle with both hands and the next thing you know you’ll be in the water. Your personal locator beacon w
ill ensure you’re picked up. I’m not going to stay behind to make sure you’ve gone, so listen up for the command. Got that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Girling’s voice remained level. Inside his head, it screamed.

  The Tornado climbed. Rantz was giving them height. The height to eject.

  The moving map told Girling they were over the Sound of Jura. To the best of his knowledge there wasn’t an RAF station for miles. Perhaps they could make Glasgow airport.

  If the good engine held.

  A minute passed before Rantz spoke again. ‘I’m going to make for Machrihanish.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘RAF Machrihanish on the southern tip of the Mull of Kintyre. It’s not used much but it’s got a good long runway. I think we’re going to need it. Hydraulic pressure looks dodgy.’

  Rantz was still trying to call up Machrihanish tower when the coastline of the Mull of Kintyre hove into view out of the mist in front of them.

  The static hiss changed in tone. A second later, Girling heard the controller. ‘Go ahead, Viking zero-one.’

  Rantz gave a succinct damage report and requested permission to land. The static seemed to build in intensity. They were taking their time.

  ‘Come on, you son of a bitch,’ Rantz said.

  It seemed minutes before the tower came back. ‘Viking zero-one?’

  ‘Roger.’

  ‘You are clear to land from the north-east. Wind speed fifteen knots. Crash crews alerted.’

  ‘Thank you, Machrihanish.’ There was more than a trace of sarcasm in Rantz’s voice.

  Girling’s helmet dug into the back of his skull and the hole in the palm of his hand throbbed.

  The Tornado passed over the coastline at two and a half thousand feet. The wings swept forward ready for landing and flaps and slats were extended into the slipstream. The straps dug into Girling’s chest as the aircraft slowed for the approach. Three green lights appeared on Rantz’s instrument panel. Girling heard the wheels lock in place.

  The aircraft pulled round in a tight turn between two fifteen-hundred-foot peaks and passed over the peninsula’s eastern coastline. They were now over Kilbrannan Sound. Away, to their left, Goat Fell, Arran’s highest hill, thrust up from the centre of the island towards a patch of low cloud scudding in from the south-west.

  The runway lights sparkled in the distance.

  ‘Port engine’s playing up now,’ Rantz said, too calmly for Girling’s liking. ‘I think we’re only going to have one stab at this.’

  Girling’s grip tightened over the firing handle of his seat.

  The Tornado swept over the shoreline. They seemed to be heading for the runway at a phenomenal speed. Behind the airfield a twelve-hundred-foot plateau rose menacingly out of the evening mist. With one unreliable engine there was no chance of the Tornado clearing the rising slopes and going round again for another attempt.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ Rantz said, his voice strangely detached.

  The Tornado cleared the last row of approach lights and banged down hard on to the runway. Girling heard Rantz bring off the power. The Tornado was still doing about a hundred and thirty knots.

  The crash trucks were already moving by the time the Tornado rumbled past their position at the run-way’s half-way mark. Rantz was standing on the brakes, while Girling could do nothing except watch the far perimeter fence grow through the Tornado’s front canopy frame.

  It was only when he noticed a fire truck pull alongside the aircraft that he knew they had made it. The Tornado juddered to a halt, the vibration from the carbon brakes rising up through the airframe.

  Orders from Rantz burst into his headset. For a moment, Girling could only think of their deliverance. He had forgotten they were on fire.

  ‘Get the safe-arm pin back into the seat. Quick, come on.’

  Girling snapped out of his torpor, found the pin on the canopy frame and pulled it from its stowing position. He pushed it down under the seat, desperate to find the hole, his fingers desensitized by the thick-ness of the gloves. Until he replaced the damned pin his seat was still live, ready to catapult him into space. At last he managed to click it home.

  Rantz was already getting out of his seat when the canopy sprang open and hands pulled at Girling’s body. He looked up, dazed, at a crash attendant, his face masked by asbestos and foil headgear. One turn of the harness in his lap and he too was out of the cockpit, trailing the umbilical that had plugged him into the aircraft.

  From a safe distance, Girling looked back at the Tornado, the rear half of its fuselage covered in fire-fighting foam from the surrounding trucks. It no longer looked the pride of the RAF’s strike force.

  Rantz shook himself. ‘Come on, let’s go and get some tea.’

  Girling limped after the pilot, his leg muscles protesting at every step.

  ‘Well, you got your story,’ Rantz said, dropping back for him.

  Girling noticed the strain around the pilot’s eyes. ‘I came to do a story on low flying. My editor doesn’t like melodrama - not the sort I write, anyway. We leave that to the tabloids.’ He paused. ‘In any case, I reckon I owe you something for getting us down in one piece.’

  ‘You’re not going to write about this?’ Rantz looked from Girling to the Tornado. A bitter, squally wind was blowing across the airfield, whipping the foam off the aircraft and scattering it like tumbleweed across the concrete.

  ‘It’s not what the magazine’s about. Pity, really. Maybe I’ll call The Sun...’

  Rantz laughed. ‘Very funny, Girling.’

  A detachment of six heavily armed men rounded the corner of a building and headed straight for them.

  ‘Here comes trouble,’ Rantz muttered.

  ‘Our reception committee?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  With the troops still a hundred yards away, Rantz lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘Don’t tell them you’re a journalist, OK? Unless they specifically ask you for ID.’

  Girling looked at him.

  ‘Otherwise, we’ll be here all bloody week. Just leave all the talking to me. They’ll assume you’re my navigator.’

  The troops were upon them. Army, Girling noticed, not RAF Regiment as he had expected.

  The sergeant saw Rantz’s rank and snapped into a salute. ‘Orders to escort you to the crew room, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, sergeant. Why the firing squad?’ He smiled.

  ‘Regulations, sir.’

  Rantz raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Exercise rules,’ the sergeant added. ‘We’re on heightened alert.’

  They turned towards a group of buildings a little way beyond the concrete apron.

  ‘Good to see our defences working as well on the ground as they do in the air,’ Rantz said cheerily.

  The sergeant said nothing, not quite sure whether Rantz was pulling his leg.

  They reached the crew room. Rantz removed his helmet and asked how they might arrange travel back to their own base.

  The sergeant pointed to the phone, explaining that it connected to facilities on the other side of the airfield where they could process his request. Machrihanish was only a stand-by RAF base, he said, apologetically. The amenities were a little spartan. As he retreated out of the crew room, the sergeant suggested it would not be a good idea to wander outside. Machrihanish was assigned to NATO and the American contingent tended to lock up first and ask questions later. Rantz nodded his thanks. They would wait there until someone came to get them.

  ‘So far so good,’ Rantz said, when they were alone. He consulted an index by the phone. ‘Now let’s see if we can get out of here.’

  He dialled a number, jammed the handset to his ear, and stared beyond the peeling window frame across the wind-swept airfield. Thick clouds from the North Atlantic had begun to bring rain with them. Another degree or two colder and it would snow.

  ‘Bloody awful place.’ Rantz drummed his finger on the windowsill waiting for the connection.

  Girling realized it was li
kely to take some time. Good opportunity to take a leak.

  Rantz turned from the window. ‘Don’t go wandering off.’

  Girling grunted.

  The pitch dark of the corridor made the howl of the wind all the more noticeable. Somewhere upstairs a door slammed. Girling found a wall switch and peered through the dim light cast by the low-watt bulb for signs of a bathroom. The notices on the three doors announced that they were offices.

  He took the stairs and found himself in a control tower converted into a pilots’ recreation room. There was a ping-pong table in the middle, a coffee machine by the wall, and even the odd magazine scattered around the chairs.

  The loos were off an adjoining passageway. Someone had left one of the frosted-glass windows ajar, causing the cubicle doors to batter against their frames in the wind. Girling shivered and moved towards the urinals. The cumbersome flight gear - g-pants, in particular - made even the most innocuous pee something of a ritual.

  Standing there gave him a clear view through the gap in the window. And what he saw made him catch his breath.

  He had only ever seen pictures of the Seventy-Six before. It was a big aircraft, shorter than a Boeing 747, but about the same diameter, giving it a disproportionately tubby appearance, especially from the rear. It was sometimes confused with the Lockheed C-141, another large airlifter and troop transport, but this was no C-141.

  The Ilyushin 11-76, the Soviet jet transport known to NATO as ‘Candid’, was inching into a giant hangar on the opposite side of the airfield, the sound of its four engines carrying on the wind. Because of the buildings that surrounded the crew room, it was only possible to obtain a view of the hangar through this one window. Had he been anywhere else, he would have missed it.

  He zipped up his flight-suit and moved to the window, adjusting the frame so it was fully open. He never noticed the spots of rain on his face.

  The Candid was painted in the colours of Aeroflot, the Soviet state airline. But as the aircraft’s engines and systems were shut down, twin guns slid into their stowed position beneath its massive T-tail.