“No sir!” he shouted but it was too late, Noordhof had opened a door and leapt into space. The Colonel disappeared under the water with a splash and immediately reappeared, drifting rapidly towards the jeep. He grabbed at it in passing
and held on firmly with both hands, his face more under the water than above it. Then he vanished. The pilot, alarmed, took the gunship down until the runners were almost touching the water. The blades were hardly a foot from either side of the gorge. In the confined space, the roar from the quiet gunship was painful.
Noordhof re-emerged, gasping, and went under again. He stayed under. Unthinkingly, the pilot began to hold his breath. He was almost panicking when Noordhof appeared once again, his hands reaching up for a runner. The Colonel missed and the current immediately swept him downriver, into the blackness beyond the light. The pilot took the machine along, picked up a bobbing head and dipped the runner into the water, moving with the stream. Noordhof grabbed the runner and this time heaved himself on to it. The pilot took the machine out of the gorge and lowered it on to flat ground. Noordhof, water pouring off him, heaved himself into the gunship.
“The melon truck!”
Angrily, the pilot jerked open the throttle, tilted the machine and flew along the line of the road.
Around five fifteen the hammering of the rain on the canvas roof began to ease, and by five forty-five the storm had passed. The sky was still black except to the east where, looking through a cut in the tarpaulin, Webb could see the horizon outlined against the sky. The countryside was flatter here, and there were houses dotted around amongst the fields. Once or twice they passed by a cluster of adobe houses, and once a couple of trucks roared past, going in the opposite direction. At this latitude, Webb reckoned, it would be light in another ten or fifteen minutes.
The engine faltered, picked up for a few hundred yards, and then died. The truck slowed down and bumped to a halt, its brakes squealing. The driver, his elderly face decorated with a grey moustache, tapped at the glass and shouted something derogatory about his son-in-law Julio. Judy struggled over melons and there was a noisy exchange of conversation in Spanish. She clambered back. “This happens after a lot of wet. The ignition goes. He says to wait until the engine heat dries out the electrics.”
Webb pulled the canvas aside and they jumped out. The driver stepped down from his cab and lit a cigarette, leaning against the door.
They were in rough, open terrain, strewn with boulders and cacti. There were no habitations.
“Oliver, there is no place to hide.”
Webb looked at his watch. He said, quietly, “The time for
hiding is over, Judy. Either I make contact and expose Nemesis as a fraud, or the Americans start launching nuclear weapons.”
“God in Heaven. How much time have we left?”
“Twenty-four minutes.”
“I’ll say a little prayer. But Oliver . . .”
“Yes?”
“What if the pilot has found the jeep?”
“We did the best we could.”
Judy stepped smartly over to the driver and engaged in a short conversation. She came back and said, “There’s a little town ahead, about twenty minutes’ drive. The driver will finish his cigarette and try the engine.”
“Do you have any money?”
“I’ll speak nicely to him.” There was more animated chatter and Judy returned with a handful of coins. Webb waved his thanks to the driver, who nodded cheerfully, threw away his stub and pulled himself into his cab. Webb and Judy climbed back in. The driver left the cab again, stretched and lit another cigarette. Then he relieved himself noisily at the roadside, into a puddle. Then he climbed aboard once more. Then he tried to find a radio channel, muttering loudly as he scanned the airwaves. Then he gave up, and tried the ignition.
Luck was smiling on the pilot. As the rain eased, the range of his imager extended. He increased altitude. To the right, flecks of red were appearing on the horizon; in a few minutes it would be light. He sensed that the chase was nearing its climax. He kept up the full throttle, tilting the machine forwards for maximum speed.
“Can’t you get him to go any faster?”
“This is Mexico. If I ask him, he’ll stop to talk about it. We’re only minutes away.”
Webb scrabbled to the back of the truck and pulled the flapping tarpaulin aside. The sky was grey, with lurid red and black stripes to the east. Already the air was warm. He leaned out and looked in the direction of motion of the truck. They were passing between a few houses; and there was a town, about two miles ahead.
“There’s a town about four minutes ahead. We could just make it.” Webb paused, suddenly aware that the lady’s attention was elsewhere.
“Oliver, behind you.”
The pilot switched off the imager. The occasional house, large cacti, even brushwood could all be made out.
He saw the dust trail before he saw the truck itself. It was the same truck; the same grey, the same flapping tarpaulin cover. It was about two miles from a small town, dead ahead. He smiled primly, made a small course correction with the rudder, and pushed the stick forward in its collective mode. He began to lose altitude, moving directly towards the lumbering vehicle.
“When the driver slows, jump and run for cover.”
“He’ll kill you, Oliver. You will die.”
“The light’s not perfect. I’m hoping he’ll hit the truck,” Webb said. The helicopter was a mile away, cruising slowly in; the pilot, no longer in a hurry, was savouring the moment.
“But the old man . . .”
“ . . . has had it. I need my phone call.”
The melon truck began to slow. Webb looked round. Narrow crossroads ahead. A row of adobe houses, brightly painted. A green-painted cantina, shuttered, at the corner. Thirty yards from it, the entrance to a street.
The truck slowed to thirty-five miles an hour . . . thirty . . . twenty-five . . .
“What are you doing?” Webb shouted. “You have to jump!” But she stood, legs askance, scowling.
“Judy, come on. I have to go!”
“Then go! I’ll distract the pilot and make him think we are still inside. Jump, Oliver, jump! You’ll remember me?”
Webb left her to die. He leapt out of the truck, fell with a thump and rolled breathlessly on compacted earth, clutching the money. He jumped up, his ribs in pain, and dashed for the street. He sprinted round the corner and along the road. It was lined with small shops, closed and shuttered. There was no telephone booth. He hurled himself along the street.
He felt the wind from the rotor before he heard its whispering chop-chop. He glanced behind and dived to the ground as the dark gunship swooped past. He got up and ran the way he had just come. The machine tilted and flew backwards. Its rear rotor scythed the ground to and fro, whipping up dust. Terrified, Webb weaved and dived flat. The whirling vertical blades passed inches from his skull. The force of the wind was like a blow on the face, and then there was unbelievable pain, a frightful slash in his thigh and blood spurting from a ripped trouser leg. He saw a narrow lane, crawled underneath the machine and staggered towards it, trying not to faint. There was a tremendous bang and a wave of heat, and he was floating through the air, and then a pile of polythene bags and boxes was rushing up from the ground and he was rolling and tumbling amongst kitchen rubbish. Dazed, he hauled himself up. The street he had just left was a mass of fierce yellow flame. He felt as if his face was in an oven. There was a fearful pain in the back of his head.
He ran limping along the lane and took off along another one, mercifully away from the heat, and then another: he was in a warren of narrow streets, cluttered with tables and chairs, with washing strung overhead. A thin mongrel barked excitedly at him as he passed. A pall of black smoke was drifting over the rooftops. His watch said three minutes to Nemesis and only will power lay between him and a faint.
His leg was warm and sticky but he didn’t dare to look at it.
The lane ended and there was a wide open square. A few people were running towards the source of the smoke. There was a white church, and a cantina, and outside it a telephone booth. He looked at the sky. There was no sign of the gunship. He ran across the square to the phone booth. He grabbed the receiver, not knowing what sounds to expect; he stared stupidly at the coins, trying to match them with the slots, dropped them, picked them up, shoved in a few which seemed to fit, and started to dial the international number with violently trembling hands.
The black gunship appeared over the rooftops. There was a little dust storm as the pilot lowered himself into the square. Webb wondered if he would use the machine guns or the rockets. A telephone was ringing, a familiar sound, a final reminder of home in this distant and alien land.
The pilot was hovering now, about thirty yards away and six feet above the road, in the middle of the ochre dust. He was lining up in leisurely fashion, chewing gum. Noordhof, alive and well, seemed to be urging him on. Webb sensed that the pilot would use a rocket and wondered what his death would be like.
“Northumberland House,” said a well-bred female voice. The melon truck shot into view. The pilot, startled, tried to rise up, but the roof of the truck caught one of the runners and the gunship flipped over on to its back. Shreds of tarpaulin and melon showered into the sky.
“Ah, Tods Murray, please. This is Oliver Webb calling from Mexico.” Webb watched hypnotized as a melon approached from nowhere. It smashed into a corner of the phone booth, turning into a red mushy pulp and spraying shards of glass into Webb’s face. A helicopter blade was boomeranging high, high in the air. Its course was erratic and Webb saw it turn lazily and start to fall towards the phone booth. The truck stopped. Judy was out and running for her life, hair streaming behind her.
“Trying to connect you.”
There was a sudden
Whoosh!
and a ball of flame enveloped the truck; the blade had turned over and was picking up speed, plunging directly towards the booth. Webb dived out just as the blade sliced through it. Something sliced deep into his already injured thigh and he found himself lying on the dusty ground crying with pain. There was the smell of burning fuel and a pool of flame was spreading around from the remains of the gunship. Globules of blazing plastic were dripping down to the ground and the cockpit was filling with black smoke. The pilot seemed to be unconscious; Noordhof was upside down in his goldfish bowl, kicking desperately at a door with both feet.
The phone booth was a mangled wreck of glass and plastic, but the receiver was on the ground.
It still had its wire. Was it possible?
There was a surge of flame and heat, too hot to endure; one of Webb’s eyes was closing up with blood; machine gun bullets were beginning to bang like firecrackers; a pool of blue flame was spreading out from the machine. Webb crawled towards the receiver, willing himself not to faint. He put his ear to it. Big red ants were scurrying along in the dust, fleeing from the approaching flames. The telephone receiver was crackling. From the gunship came the ferocious roar of a missile exhaust rising in an unpredictable crescendo.
“Webb! Where the hell have you been? And what’s that noise? Are you at a carnival or something?”
In a bunker deep under a granite mountain, a handful of ordinary men were deciding the fate and future of life on the planet, in conditions of buckling emotional stress which guaranteed preconception, information overload, group-think, hallucination, delusion, cognitive distortion and old-fashioned stupidity.
The Secretary of Defense stood up. “Everybody stand
away from the door,” he said loudly. “Mister President, gentlemen.” There was a stupefied silence, as if someone had pulled the pin of a grenade. Admiral Mitchell rose angrily but Grant waved him back down. Only Bellarmine and Grant remained standing, facing each other across the table.
“Mister President, sir. You are respectfully relieved of your post as Chief Executive and as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States of America. This action is taken by myself and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As of this moment General Hooper will direct military operations with myself as acting President. We have the gold codes.”
Grant’s face was grey. “The fairies run away with your brain, Nathan?”
“THREE MINUTES,” came from the next room.
“A detachment will be along to escort you from here in a few moments, sir. Meantime the Rock and the Communications Personnel are under our control, and we have a lot to do.”
“You’re under arrest, Bellarmine. Sit down.”
The National Security Adviser rose, white-faced and trembling. He virtually snarled: “If I had a gun I would shoot you. What is your authority for this outrage?”
A telephone near the back of the room rang and kept on ringing, cutting into the hush which had gradually blanketed the room as a stunned awareness of what was happening had spread. Someone lifted the phone and was talking urgently into it. Then the corporal was saying “Ah, it’s the
Carl Vincent
.”
“TWO MINUTES.”
“I’ll take it,” snapped Bellarmine.
“No. Put it through to the table,” said the President grimly. The corporal froze, as suddenly and completely as if he had turned to stone.
“Your authority?” Cresak barked.
“The Twenty-fifth. The President is refusing to defend
this country when under mortal attack. He is failing to fulfil his Oath of Office and has therefore disqualified himself from holding that office.”
“You can’t make that judgement,” the Admiral snapped. “This is plain treason.”
“We’re zapped in two minutes and you want to assemble the Senate?”
“The
Carl Vincent
!” the corporal said, his voice coming out in a strangulated croak.
“I said give it here,” said Bellarmine, sweating. There was the brief, angry chatter of a gun. A cry of pain came from the other side of the door. Then there was a thump, and the sound of someone slithering down it.
“You heard me, soldier,” Grant snapped. “Through to the table, now!”
“ONE MINUTE.”