Daring Dooz (The Implosion Trilogy (Book 2))

by Stan Arnold

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Look, I’ve been playing for ten years, and I’m only just getting round to left-hand slaps and double slaps. Play me something.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You won’t take the piss?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s from memory, so there might be...’

  Roberto sighed. Aubrey started playing.

  It was the complicated bass intro to Bob Marley’s Could you be loved?

  Roberto’s mouth dropped open.

  Aubrey moved into the rest of the song. Apart from an occasional glance at the fretboard, his eyes were closed.

  ‘In four hours!’ gasped Roberto. ‘Four bloody hours! Man that’s unbelievable!’

  ‘Well, I dunno,’ said Aubrey, apologetically. ‘I had to use them books. They tell you where to put your fingers and everythin’.’

  ‘No! Look!’ said Roberto putting his hands on Aubrey’s shoulders and looking straight into his eyes.

  ‘People take, five, ten, fifteen years to get that good. I mean, at least you must have a reggae fan before?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Aubrey. ‘All I know is the bits in them books.’

  ‘Woho, my friend!’ said Roberto leaping to his feet. ‘Time for some revelations!’ He went over to his office desk, took out a remote control.

  ‘Check this out.’

  The room was filled with the sounds of Bob and the Wailers playing Could you be loved?

  Aubrey moved back into his trance and played along.

  ‘Man,’ said Roberto, ‘you have the vibe too. My old dad was a big reggae fan - like hello Roberto! He heard Bob play live. He used to say, “play with your heart and the instrument will do the talking.” And that’s what you’re doing - you’re not playing the notes, you’re feeling the groove.’

  Aubrey stopped. ‘My fingers are hurtin’ a bit now. But I want to keep on goin’.’

  ‘Now, don’t get greedy - take a break. Reggae is all about taking your time. Keeping it cool. Don’t fill the space with notes. The music’s gotta breathe.’

  While he was talking, Roberto was unpacking his Fender.

  ‘Sit down and relax. I’ll show you a few tips and tricks.’

  ‘OK by me,’ said Aubrey.

  ‘But,’ said Roberto, ‘we have to do this properly.’

  He opened his desk drawer and within seconds had rolled two spectacular joints.

  ‘Hey! Don’t look so worried - this is standard police issue ganja. Guaranteed to have no effect!’

  For the next hour, Roberto took Aubrey through a few songs pointing out the intricate way the bass related to the other instruments. Aubrey started to get itchy fingers, and soon they were both playing and swapping ideas.

  Robert introduced him to early roots reggae - Winston Holness's Blood & Fire and Yabby You's Conquering Lion.

  Aubrey picked it all up in seconds.

  Roberto made a couple of cups of black coffee.

  ‘’Ere,’ said Aubrey. ‘What’s the best thing about playin’ bass?’

  ‘I enjoy it,’ said Roberto, ‘and so do the ladies.’

  ‘How come? They ain’t playin’ anythin’.’

  The wider aspects of playing an instrument on stage, and how it might engage with the thoughts, desires and needs of individuals in the audience had not crossed Aubrey’s mind. He was in love with the bass guitar, and that, for the moment, was enough.

  ‘Ladies - well, at least, some ladies - like musicians. You ever heard of groupies?’

  ‘Is it a fish with a big gob, like you see on the telly?’

  ‘No,’ said Roberto. ‘Groupies are women who like to hang around bands.’

  ‘So what? They hang around.’

  ‘No,’ said Roberto. ‘Groupies are women who like to have sex with bands. You heard of sex haven’t you?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, we’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘Ain’t that a bit shallow, though?’ said Aubrey.

  For some reason, perhaps it was the police issue ganja, his thoughts had swirled back to groupies and the sea - so ‘shallow’ seemed an appropriate word - although it was a 50-50 toss up with ‘deep’.

  ‘You feel great on stage,’ said Roberto. ‘The music is sexy, the ladies in the audience are sexy, your bass is sexy, so you feel sexy. It’s fantastic.’

  ‘Ere,’ said Aubrey, say that last fing again.’

  ‘It’s fantastic!’

  ‘No, before that.’

  ‘So you feel sexy?’

  Whoever packed the police issue ganja for delivery, must have lobbed in some Lambsbread High Grade.

  The words ‘so you feel sexy’ floated around in the back of Aubrey’s brain as they sat an talked and played and enthused and laughed until the small hours - until the Caribbean moon had risen like one of the big silver knobs on Roberto’s old, dark red, nothing special bass, and the last of the long-forgotten lap dancers had retired exhausted to her bed.

  Chapter 48

  ‘That bloke you can see out of your blister,’ said Mick. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Yeah.’ said Jim in a strangled sort of voice, ‘it looks like he’s sat in a MiG-15.’

  ‘Same on my side,’ replied Mick.

  ‘Shall we give them a wave?’

  ‘I don’t think they’ve flown up from ‘fuck knows where’ for some pleasant social interaction. They look really pissed off. And, yes, James - those are fucking rockets hanging off the wings.’

  ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, I must ask you to moderate you language,’ said Mrs Hathaway over the intercom.

  ‘It wasn’t me swearing,’ said Jim, ‘it was Mick.’

  She ignored the remark.

  ‘I can see what you’re talking about,’ she said calmly. ‘I suggest you give them a wave to stall for time, then make your way through to me with your cameras. Now please!’

  They waved. The pilots didn't wave back. Mick started to record as he walked through to the cockpit and Jim took the lens cap off the stills camera.

  ‘Good,’ she said, as they strapped themselves into the cockpit seats, ‘get as much footage and shots as you can. We shan’t be seeing them for much longer.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Mick, ‘but they look as though they mean serious business.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Mrs Hathaway.

  ‘If I remember correctly from my manuals, our current speed is about the same as the MiG-15’s stall speed. Those cheeky chappies just can’t go any slower.’

  She throttled back suddenly. Mick and Jim lurched, and the MiGs shot forward.

  The pilots were obviously annoyed at being outmanoeuvred, and a few seconds later criss-crossed a quarter of a mile in front of the Catalina, and shot upwards at frightening speed.

  ‘Great,’ said Jim, ‘you saw them off.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Mrs Hathaway. ‘I very much doubt it. Brace yourself, but keep the cameras, what do you say, rolling.’

  ‘Why should we brace...’

  Jim’s words were drowned out by a thunderous roar as the two MiGs screamed down out of the sun and flashed by, about 400 feet from the Catalina’s nose.

  The flying boat gave an almighty shudder as it passed through the MiG’s exhausts. Mick clung on to a side strut and swung the camera with one hand. Jim fell to his knees but kept the camera firing on repeat.

  ‘Fuck me,’ screamed Mick.

  ‘Fuck me, as well,’ cried Jim.

  For once, the expletives drew no admonishment from Mrs Hathaway. She just stared calmly straight ahead.

  ‘Here they come again.’

  This time they shot by even closer - the roar was deafening. The Catalina shook convulsively. They could feel the heat from the engines.

  Despite the mayhem, and some fairly high levels of panic, Mick and Jim got another set of shots, but that was it - their professionalism had run out of gas.

  Not even ‘They Win. You Lose.’ could exert its normal calming influence.
>
  ‘Shit a hod load of bricks, we’ve had it,’ shouted Mick.

  ‘Where’s the fucking parachutes?’ screamed Jim.

  ‘Decorum, gentlemen, decorum’ said Mrs Hathaway quietly.

  ‘See that low bank of sea fog about five miles away?’

  They stopped and looked.

  ‘I’m going to head for it, then we’ll be hidden from view. It’ll give us some time to collect our thoughts.’

  Jim had no thoughts left, and the only thing he wanted was to collect was his parachute.

  Mick grabbed him by the lapels.

  ‘Forget the parachute, we’re only 200 feet up, you twonk. Get your camera and let’s do what we were paid for.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ cried Mrs Hathaway, who, they could both see, was definitely up for it. She slammed open the throttle.

  ‘Come on Implosion Productions!’ she cried, waving one hand in the air.

  ‘Get those cameras ready. If anything else happens I want it captured for posterity.’

  She turned and smiled.

  ‘Not that anything else can happen, we’re only 30 seconds away from the fog bank.’

  And she remained absolutely confident of that fact - at least for the next 15 seconds.

  Chapter 49

  ‘Shit,’ shouted Mick, ‘they’ve fired rockets.’

  High up to the left they could see bright trails heading straight towards them.

  Mrs Hathaway didn’t take her eyes of the fast approaching fog bank and virtually wrenched the throttle out of its housing.

  ‘We’re not going to make it!’ screamed Jim.

  Looking up, Mick could now count the rockets. At least one had to get lucky.

  ‘Five more seconds,’ said Mrs Hathaway.

  ‘Nearly there.’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Two,’

  ‘Shit!’ screamed Mick and Jim.

  There was a blinding flash of pure white light, a high-voltage crackling electronic sound and an enormous bang. Not an explosion. But a huge bang.

  Then silence. Complete silence.

  ‘So this is it,’ said Jim. ‘We’re dead.’

  He looked down.

  ‘Nice to see they let you bring your camera.’

  Despite her tan, Mrs Hathaway looked white as a sheet.

  ‘The instruments have all gone down, there’s no controls and the compass is spinning.’

  ‘No good worrying about that, now we’re dead,’ said Jim.

  ‘The video camera’s still working.’

  ‘Hm!’ said Jim, firing off a few shots, ‘same with the Nikon.’

  ‘Keep shooting,’ ordered Mrs Hathaway. ‘Something’s going on.’

  Jim was about to say that that was the understatement of the fucking year, but he remembered the Enfield Bin footage, and decided to hold his counsel.

  The propellers had stopped. All they could hear was a faint sound of rushing wind.

  The fog was thick, but it seemed backlit with pink and gold lighting. After about 30 seconds, they realised they were falling at quite a steep angle down a tunnel which had formed in the swirling mist.

  The Catalina, with its useless controls and equally useless occupants, was in freefall.

  ‘We should have hit the water by now,’ said Jim.

  Suddenly, the backlighting disappeared and they continued their fall in total darkness.

  ‘Keep shooting,’ repeated Mrs Hathaway.

  ‘Shoot what?’ shouted Mick. ‘It’s fucking pitch black.’

  Just as he made that observation, violent lightning discharges smashed across the front of the cockpit, then spread to tunnel walls where it continued to whiplash and pulsate around the surface.

  ‘I got it!’ shouted Mick.

  There was no sensation of movement.

  ‘We should be 300 feet under the sea by now,’ said Jim.

  ‘Oh, so you’ve decided you’re not dead now, have you?’ said Mick.

  ‘Please be quiet you two. I don’t know what’s happening, but I think we should remain calm and just sit it out. Everything seems to have settled down.’

  As she spoke, there was a second enormous bang. A bolt of lightning headed straight for the cockpit, then, at the last second, split into a thousand electrical discharges, which stabbed, darted and exploded around the plane, the propellers and inside the cockpit itself.

  ‘Did you get that?’ shouted Mrs Hathaway.

  ‘Oh sorry!’ shouted Mick, rubbing the back of his hand across his singed eyebrows, ‘that was a bit on the subtle side. Could you get them to do it again?’

  The high-voltage assault continued for another 10 minutes, during which all three occupants of the cockpit, once they realised they were coming to little harm, became rather immune to the relentless cataclysmic violence going on just outside the aircraft.

  ‘That one was the best,’ said Jim.

  ‘No,’ said Mick, ‘the one, before the one, before that one, was the best. The DBs - nine out of 10.’

  ‘No, that was a nine point five. Reckon yours was about a seven.’

  ‘Seven? You’ve got to be joking - anyone with more brain cells than a badly-watered geranium could see mine was nine and that last crapola one was six, max.’

  And so it went on - quibbling away their newly acquired boredom, while only a sheet of glass separated them from instant death. That was until Mrs Hathaway interrupted.

  ‘Strap yourselves in tighter, something’s changing.’

  All three of them stared out of the cockpit window where the lighting was being replaced by more of the foggy, gold and pink tunnel.

  ‘That’s a bit more like it,’ said Jim.

  ‘You both know we are still going down,’ said Mrs Hathaway.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a group illusion brought on by sensory deprivation,’ suggested Mick.

  ‘And none of the instruments has worked for 15 minutes.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And none of the controls have worked for 15 minutes.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mick, ‘whatever’s going on, clearly isn’t life-threatening.’

  At that point there was a blinding flash of white light and another very large bang. The plane shook like thunder. Mick and Jim both shouted ‘Fuck!’ and Mrs Hathaway, ignoring them, yet again, stared straight ahead - this time, into a clear, cloudless sky.

  ‘Where the hell are we?’ shouted Jim.

  ‘Out!’ shouted Mick. Understandably, he sounded ecstatic. ‘We’re out - and in one piece - well, three pieces if you think about it.’

  It had suddenly become very cold and they were all struggling for breath.

  ‘We’re going up,’ croaked Mrs Hathaway, ‘we’re going up fast. Any ideas, gentlemen?’

  ‘Any controls?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any engines?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you see the sea?’

  ‘Long way down.’

  ‘Any instruments?’

  ‘No. Wait - yes! Yes! 20,000 feet.’

  ‘What!’ shrieked Mick. ‘We were at bloody 200 feet and going down. Now we’re at 20,000 feet, going up!’

  ‘Keep filming,’ said Mrs Hathaway.

  ‘I haven’t stopped,’ said Mick, although, in the last minute, he wasn’t quite sure where he’d been pointing the camera.

  ‘We’re going to be alright,’ said Mrs Hathaway.

  ‘Oh bloody super-duper,’ said Jim. ‘We’re in a World War II scrapheap at 20,000 feet with no engines and no controls, and the cleaning lady says we’re going to be alright. Fetch my quilted smoking jacket, Michael, and a copy of The Times - I must check to see if Arabella’s lobotomy has made it into the social columns.’

  Jim didn’t know how close he came to a Kyusho pressure point slap, which given his advanced state of delirium, was probably just as well.

  ‘We’re levelling out,’ said Mrs Hathaway, calmly.

  ‘What next?’ said Mick.

  ‘We drop, more or less like a stone, �
��til we get to about 13,500 feet - that’s what the manual calls our ceiling - then I’ll try and restart the engines.’

  The Catalina was going into an uncontrolled shallow dive, which was getting steeper by the second. Mick had seen countless black and white films where there was rapid, but not too rapid, cutting between exterior footage of the plunging plan, close-ups of the falling altimeter and dramatically lit images of the pilot’s panicking face as he struggled to regain control. But their situation had an extra dimension - stark-naked terror, something completely missing from the celluloid versions.

  She mustn’t have seen the same films, thought Mick, as he shot close-ups of Mrs Hathaway’s calm, concentrating face, from a low angle, with the motionless turbo-props artistically out of focus in the background. If he could concentrate on filming, he might just make it with unsoiled boxers.

  ‘17,000 feet.’

  She looked across at Jim and made a mental note that a Kyusho slap would have been unnecessary. He was in a dead faint.

  ‘15,000 feet.’

  By now, the Catalina was shaking violently and falling at a steep angle. All three of them were relying on their seat belts to stop them smashing into the cockpit windows.

  ‘Get ready to film me pressing the starter button,’ shouted Mrs Hathaway, ‘then shoot the props as they get going.’

  ‘14,000 feet! I’m going to do it now.’

  Suddenly, she turned to Mick.

  ‘Michael, could you open the manual and just check the starter sequence for me.’

  By now, Mick’s teeth were rattling inside his head, he was being thrown violently around, and the camera had flipped up and nearly bashed his brains in. He was not in the mood for reading through the troubleshooting section of a 60-year-old, badly printed, A4 booklet.

  ‘Press the fucking button!’ he yelled, with as much volume as he could muster.

  She did. And the Pratt & Whitney R-1830s sang the sweetest song Mick’s ears had ever heard.

  There was still the question of returning the Catalina to level flight. The controls were back, and Mrs Hathaway worked them with the strength of 10 men, or, if you used Jim’s useless form as a benchmark, the strength of 100 men. She reduced the shallowness of the dive, eventually reaching controlled level flight at 5,000 feet.

  Jim regained consciousness and asked if anything was going on. He was ignored.