Land of Fire Part 12

The UHF sets were a little larger than a cellphone and provided limited-range two-way communication. The handsets operated on clear voice with a built-in scrambler system to ensure security. Prior to setting out I had refreshed the encryption system from a handheld computer that was a part of the com ms package.

"If we meet opposition we'll attempt to deal with it silently," I instructed Josh. "We'll take side-arms knives and pistols but at all costs avoid shooting. We don't want to bring the entire base down about our ears."

Wearing our webbing and snowsuits, we crawled along the fence path till we reached the ditch Doug had found. It ran under the inner fence and beneath the roadway beyond in a culvert, emerging on the far side in a steep-sided trench that was half blocked by driven snow. Stepping warily for fear of mines, we slithered down into the ditch and crawled headfirst into the mouth of the culvert. It was a precast concrete pipe with several inches of ice in the bottom. From the stink I gathered it was also an overflow from the base septic tanks.

I undipped my webbing and pushed it ahead of me into the dark mouth of the drain along with my pistol. "It's a h.e.l.l of a tight fit but I think we can manage it," I called back to Josh. I inched my way forward, sliding on the surface of the ice, the concrete roof of the pipe sc.r.a.ping my head.

"Jesus," I heard Josh mutter. "Talk about a rat hole. Bet you the Argies have put a grille across."

He was right. Half a metre from the entrance my groping fingers encountered three stout bars mounted vertically across our path. "Saw," I said to Josh, who was carrying the tools. "Keep watch outside while I deal with this."

Josh stayed squatting in the stream while I sawed away at the bars with the diamond-tipped blade that we carried. It was slow going because I had to lie on my side and the narrowness of the pipe meant I could only move my elbow a short distance. The noise it made was terrible, but I trusted the wind to drown out any sounds. I was set for a long job but was thankful to find that the contractor had skimped, installing hollow tube bars instead of the solid steel the contract would have specified. It took me no more than ten minutes to cut through the bottoms of two bars close to the ice level and bend them up against the roof so that there was just s.p.a.ce enough to slide underneath.

The second stroke of luck was finding that the drainage pipe ran on for a considerable way under the patrol road and beyond into the heart of the airfield. This was a big bonus because it lessened the chances of our being spotted; the downside was that it meant a long crawl down a stinking dark drain with no certainty we would find an exit.

"They must have dug the ditch, put in the drain, then run the fuel pipes along the top all in the same trench," I said to Josh.

"Why not bury the fuel pipes too?"

"Easier to spot leaks if they're on the surface, I guess."

Crawling into the darkness of the tunnel was one of the toughest things I've had to do. Ever since the helicopter crash in the sea during the Falklands War I'd had a horror of being trapped underwater, and it was the same with confined s.p.a.ces underground. The pipe was only just wide enough to squeeze through and we had to pull ourselves along on our elbows, pushing with our feet. We had no way of telling if there would be a way out, and all the time we had to fight down the fear of getting stuck. If the drain narrowed at any point or the water got deeper, there was no s.p.a.ce to turn around; we would have to crawl out backwards. The prospect made my stomach knot.

I forced myself to make my mind a blank and concentrate totally on moving up the pipe. Push and heave, push and heave. At least we were well concealed and out of the dreadful wind.

We moved in darkness, feeling our way with our hands, pushing our kit in front of us. I had an infra-red torch which in conjunction with the night sights would have made everything as bright as day, but I didn't use it in case the Argies had a PIR sensor monitoring the pipe. The stink was awful and there was a strong smell of aviation fuel. After a few yards the ice became a thin crust that gave beneath our weight, and soon we were soaking in raw sewage. I sc.r.a.ped my hand along the roof constantly to check for a manhole to the surface all I got though were the joints of the pipe sections. Several times we encountered smaller drains discharging their contents into the main duct, but fortunately there wasn't a lot of water coming down because of the freezing cold.

At one point I came to a halt. "What's the matter?" I heard Josh gasp from behind.

"I'm not sure. I'm stuck against something," I called back, fumbling about with my hands. "There seems to be a blockage." I inched myself up, feeling the slimy walls for an obstruction. "It feels like cement has squeezed through the joint between two sections and formed a big lump in the roof. I think we can get under though."

The cement hung down from the roof like stalact.i.te, barring our path. Using my knife, I broke off bits until there was room for us to squeeze through, just. It meant immersing our heads in the stinking flow but it had to be done.

"Boy, the guys are going to be pleased to see us when we get back," said Josh.

We pushed on. At a rough guess we had travelled around two hundred metres. Surely even the Argies must build inspection chambers into their drains, I kept telling myself. If we became trapped down here, how long before the others came to look for us? Would the radio work this far underground if we called for help? If it did would they be able to get us out?

After what felt like an age the darkness up ahead seemed to diminish slightly. Not so much light as a hint of grey in the blackness. The effect was so faint at first I convinced myself my eyes were playing tricks. Gradually, as we drew nearer, it resolved itself into a crescent of pale gloom seeping down from overhead. Urgently we heaved ourselves towards it, terrified we would find a barred grille or a hatch too small to escape through.

With a final spurt I dragged my stinking body up to the gap, my lungs revelling in the fresh air filtering down. Snow was piled on the floor of the pipe, and I seized a handful to wipe the filth from my face. Reaching up I found a square manhole with a cracked lid that was partly dislodged.

"How is it? Can we get out?" Josh's voice came urgently from behind. He could see nothing and had to rely on bulletins from me for encouragement.

"Some kind of access hatch," I whispered back. "I'm going to stick my head out to take a look and see."

Squirming round on to my back in the water, I fished out my pistol, pushed up cautiously on the broken halves of the lid and slid them apart. Snow cascaded down through the hole on to my face. When I pulled myself upright the sides of the trench were level with my head so I could crane my neck to see over the edge. The blizzard was turning to sleet, driving across the bleak airfield like the surface of a glacier. I made a slow and cautious sweep round with the night-vision goggles I could pick out the two big hangars, and there were lights burning nearby, but no sentries that I could see. On a night like this they would be sheltering inside if they had any sense at all.

I dropped down again to confer with Josh. "We're on the edge of the concrete taxiways round the revetment area. No Argies I could see."

"So do we go on or take to the surface?"

I hesitated. I'd have given a lot to get away from the claustrophobia of the drain. It looked to me as though a quick dash of 200 metres would take us to our objective. Surely no one would spot us in this weather? Reluctantly I put the temptation aside. It was taking an unnecessary risk. "We need to get nearer in," I told him. "There must be another access hatch among the revetments. Let's press on."

Josh made no protest. He was a good lad. And the fact we had found one manhole was a big boost to our morale. I jerked the pieces of the concrete lid back into place. In the confined pipe it sounded like the lid going down on a tomb. I wriggled round on to my stomach again and we crawled on. This time it was worse because we were running deeper underground.

The drain seemed endless. Quite possibly it ran right under the ap.r.o.n and on to the runway. Twice we came to narrow sections where we could only squeeze through with difficulty. I was trying to keep some idea of how far we were going, counting each jerk forward as about four inches, making three to the foot. The stink was worse than ever. I just hoped it wasn't all going to end in some ma.s.sive tank of filth. I had to keep checking the roof with my fingers in case we missed the next hatch. At what I reckoned was 150 metres I called out to Josh that I was halting for a rest.

"I don't know how much further we can go on."

"No sign of a manhole?"

"Nothing. And the water's getting deeper."

Josh let out a chuckle. "Yeah, I noticed that. Some Argy air force colonel taking a s.h.i.t. You want to go back?"

I dreaded the thought of trying to squeeze backwards down the pipe. I was tempted to use the torch to look ahead but it would risk giving ourselves away. "No," I told him. "We'll keep on for a bit."

Elbows, feet; elbows, feet; we heaved ourselves along, pushing our weapons and kit before us. Then I heard something. "Listen."

A low rumbling sound had become audible. We lay still in the darkness as it grew steadily closer, filling the pipe, setting the concrete vibrating. "Must be a truck, "Josh said. "Maybe it's the patrol going round again."

The sound drew nearer. Dust and droplets of moisture rained down from the roof. Suddenly my straining eyes caught a gleam of light that filled the drain in front of us, a light that persisted for several moments then abruptly cut out. The noise pa.s.sed us without stopping, continuing along the line of the drain for a while, then turning off towards the north. The booming sound diminished and finally faded out completely.

"Those were headlights. The next manhole must be very close."

"Not close enough for me," Josh panted.

Encouraged, we redoubled our efforts to reach the hatch, forcing ourselves to ignore the stinking flow rising around us. By now, I judged, we had put ourselves well inside the aircraft revetments. With luck we should have only a short distance to cover to the main hangars.

At last my groping fingers met the manhole rim. The ground level was higher here and there was a short access shaft to the surface. As before, I c.o.c.ked the Sig before edging the lid up to peer out. A blast of freezing wind burned my throat but after the foetid air of the drain I breathed in thankfully. Once again I made a careful 360-degree survey. No one about, no sign of life. We had surfaced right in the middle of the dispersal area, next to what looked like a refuelling point and fire-fighting station. Not far away a single floodlight illuminated a twin-storey building with big roller doors firmly closed, which presumably housed the fire trucks we had seen earlier. Twenty-five metres beyond, the ma.s.sive bulk of one of the main hangars loomed like a cliff.

"All clear," I whispered down to Josh. "Quick, hand out the kit."

He pa.s.sed up the weapons and webbing and levered himself out after me. We slid the lid back in place and scuffed snow around the rim to make it look as if it had never been opened. The sleet was interspersed with a freezing rain. With luck it would hide our tracks before the patrol came round again. Without pausing, we sprinted for the side of the fire station and crouched in its shadow. In the whirling night our camouflage whites made us invisible at twenty yards, the dark pattern of our webbing melding into the blackness.

I put my mouth to Josh's ear to make myself heard above the wind. "We'll move round the back. Walk together normally as if we're a couple of Argy marines. And don't shoot unless we have to," I reminded him.

The chances of being spotted in this weather were remote and anyone who did would think twice before venturing out into the cold to investigate. We would do far better acting naturally than sprinting from cover to cover like intruders. Shouldering our webbing, we ducked against the wind. If we were seen, with luck we would be taken for members of the garrison.

Trying our best to look purposeful, we walked around the rear of the fire station. There was a light showing from a second-floor window that looked to open on a stairway, but no other sign of life. The hangar we were aiming for opened out on to a vast concrete ap.r.o.n. Parked outside it were several heavy vehicles, their cabs blanketed with snow, and the main doors were firmly shut. The guards, if there were any, must be inside.

We turned to our left and pa.s.sed along the side wall, looking for an entry point, a window or hatch that would give us a glimpse of the interior. I put the length at about 325 metres. One h.e.l.l of a building. The walls towered up at least seventy feet by my estimate. Obviously it had been constructed with ultra-large aircraft in mind. We found several doors, but all were firmly locked and bolted security in this sector was efficient. Attempting to saw our way in would take too long, and it would leave evidence of forced entry.

We reached the end of the building and turned right along the rear wall. Our night sights revealed more equipment parked up here, including bomb cradles and missile trolleys for arming the bombers in the revetments. I made a mental note to mark them on the plan when we got back. The vehicles and trailers gave us some cover and we crouched down by the wheel of a big hydraulic loader, looking for a means of ingress. Josh grabbed my arm and pointed. He had spotted a service ladder giving access to the roof. It terminated a good ten feet above the ground. That was no problem.

I nodded and we darted across. Josh positioned himself beneath the end of the ladder and made a stirrup with his locked hands. I put my left foot in and jumped as he heaved me up. The bottom rung of the ladder was shrouded in snow but I got a good grip and hauled myself up hand over hand. As soon as I was secure I extracted a length of rope from my webbing and clipped the end to one of the rungs. Josh swarmed up and in a moment the two of us were on the ladder and mounting to the roof.

We climbed steadily. The rungs were caked with ice and the wind tore at us constantly. I was hopeful that the noise of constant buffeting by the gusts would cover any sounds. On the roof we found a walkway, running right around the hangar. I guessed it was all part of a fire-escape route. The roof was laid out in a series of long ridges with valleys in between, all choked with snow.

We were now invisible from below, and I figured this had to be as good a time as any to call in and check with Doug's team. I pressed the talk b.u.t.ton on the UHF handset. Immediately n.o.bby's voice came over the earpiece, responding.

"We're on the hangar roof," I said. "No problems so far. The drain runs all the way through into the refuelling area. It's a tight fit. One motorised patrol heard fifteen minutes ago. Propose making CTR of hangar now."

"All clear this end," n.o.bby answered back. "One set of lights moving near where you are. Must be the same lot you heard."

"Any response from Hereford yet?"

"Negative. Nothing so far."

"Roger. Wait out." I clicked off the talk b.u.t.ton.

"Look for a door," I said to Josh. "There has to be one somewhere up here."

We crawled along the walkway, hanging on to the waist-high safety rail. Up here we were exposed to the full force of the storm, and the strength of the gusts was incredible. It was like being on the side of a mountain. The roof was slippery with ice and in places the snow had drifted above the height of our knees. A steady rain was now falling, making the surface underfoot extremely treacherous. Our hands were numbed with the cold in spite of our gloves, and it took all our strength just to hang on. The wind tore at us, sometimes pinning us against the roof, then switching in an instant to suck us out towards the edge. Several times I thought I was going to lose my footing and slide off. With a drop of about twenty-five metres it would have meant certain death.

At one point Josh stopped.

"What's the matter?"

"I thought I heard someone moving."

We both stood still, straining to catch a sound in the wind. "I didn't hear anything," I said. "Let's get this over."

We worked our way around the hangar till at last we came to a hatch set into the end of one of the roof peaks. There was no window, just a low metal door that opened outwards. It was half blocked by snow that the wind had piled up against it, which was now rapidly melting because of the rain.

"Careful," I said. "It's slippery." I tried the handle; it was locked on the inside.

"f.u.c.k," Josh shouted into the wind. "Now what? Bust it down?"

"Quiet. We don't know what's inside, for Christ's sake."

I used the infra-red torch to check around the edge for any wires or other indications the door was alarmed. All seemed clear. a.s.suming this was a fire escape, the Argies would most likely be relying on the perimeter de fences for security. The hinges were on the inside so they couldn't be unscrewed. It would have to be brute force or nothing. I took out my knife and sc.r.a.ped some of the crusted snow away from the doorjamb. The lock didn't appear particularly strong. It had been designed more to be weatherproof than as a security measure. My saw would cut through the bolt but it would take too long. I forced the blade of the knife into the crack in the jamb and thrust my weight against it. The thin sheet steel of the frame bent but the lock held.

"What about the lights inside?" Jock whispered. "If we open the door won't they see us from the ground?"

I paused a moment. "The lights will all be directed downward into the hangar and this door faces outward towards the fence. We'll chance it." We had come all this way, crawling through a load of c.r.a.p, and I wasn't going back without seeing inside the hangar.

I wedged the knife in deeper and levered hard. There was a snap and the bolt popped out. We held our breath for a few seconds, listening for any sounds of alarm. I had my foot wedged against the door to stop it blowing open in the wind.

"Take your cammies off," I said, struggling out of my whites.

"I'm going to have a leak too."

"Good idea." It might be the last chance we would have for a while. We unzipped and peed into the pile of melting snow by the door. Then I zipped up again, cracked open the door a fraction and peered into the hangar.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

I blinked. I was looking at a scene of incandescent brightness. I had pushed up my night-vision goggles, and after the pitch-blackness of the night outside the glare was dazzling.

The hangar was immense. From outside it had been hard to get a true impression of its real size. We were at the south-east corner and from where we were perched the vast s.p.a.ce ran away before our eyes like the Houston Astrodome. The inner walls were painted black or maybe a dark green, I couldn't tell. There must have been at least two hundred great arc lights slung from the gantries running across beneath us. Their blinding glare bounced off the plane and the concrete floor, and the heat thrown back by the reflectors was so immense it was like staring into the sun.

The hangar was huge, but the plane was more awe-inspiring still. I'd seen these big cargo freighters before, even flown on an American Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, but this was the first time I'd seen a plane like this inside a building. The great tail was towards us with its high T-fin practically touching the light arrays. The rear ramp was down and we could glimpse the entrance to a cavernous interior that gaped open like a railroad tunnel. The wings sprouted straight from the plane's back, with the enormous fuselage and the four giant engines slung beneath. The whole effect was of colossal power and strength, and yet with surprising grace in the angle of the swept-back wing and tail surfaces and in the upward-turned wing lets protruding from the wing tips.

"Jesus," I heard Josh whisper behind me, 'a Globemaster."

The name seemed to sum up the ma.s.sive power and capacity of the beast. This was the next-generation cargo air lifter developed for the US Air Force's Air Mobility Command. Although smaller than the Lockheed C-5, I knew the Globemaster's hold was s.p.a.cious enough to accommodate the sort of heavy armoured vehicles that even the ma.s.sive Galaxy would baulk at.

"The R.A.F just leased some of those beauties, "Josh breathed. "Word is they can stick an entire Tornado fighter inside one and fly it 5000 miles at 400 knots, then land on an unimproved airfield less than a thousand metres long."

"The question is," I said, 'how in h.e.l.l did the Argies get hold of one and what are they going to do with it?"

"With two of them, you mean, "Josh reminded me. "That was its twin brother that went into the hangar next door."

I had pulled the door shut after us. We were crouched on a narrow platform close to the outside wall. Around us were the steel beams and trusses that held up the roof. Below were the lighting arrays and steel joists carrying cranes for lifting heavy equipment. From where we were it was a thirty-metre direct drop to the concrete floor. I held on tight to the platform railing, felt for the UHF handset and pressed the transmit b.u.t.ton.

The response was a burst of static in my earpiece.

"n.o.bby," I said quietly. "Can you hear me? Bleep for yes." More static. I listened for a moment, then shut the set up. It was no use. Maybe some equipment in use down below was interfering with the signal. Or possibly the entire building was hardened against leakage of radio transmissions. Either way we were on our own for the present.

From the platform a spindly ladder led down to a catwalk that looked to run clear across the hangar at main roof level. From that another ladder led down to a similar one serving the lighting gantries at a level three metres above the tops of the main doors. So long as no one climbed up into the roof s.p.a.ce, we were completely shielded from view by the glare of the lights.

A heavy electric motor whined into life somewhere down below and a tow cart came into view pulling a two-storey steel gantry. There were other gantries already in position by the tail and next to the wings. A couple of dozen men in white overalls were clambering about the aircraft. Some were servicing the engines while others worked away with long-handled brushes, swabbing down the aluminium skin. Others seemed to be scrubbing away at the camouflage paint job on the hull. They were jabbering away among themselves, clattering equipment and generally creating sufficient noise to cover up any sounds we might have made breaking in. Even if they hadn't been, the drumming of rain on the roof and the booming of the wind gave us all the cover we needed.

"What are they doing?" Josh whispered.

"Drying the aircraft off and repainting it, I think."

"In the middle of the night?"

It seemed strange to me too, but there had to be a reason. I guessed an Argentine air force commander wouldn't worry about turning his men out in the middle of the night to get a plane prepared. I was more concerned over why the Argentines thought they needed a pair of heavy lifters like the one below us.

The mission was starting to make sense. Suppose someone in the MOD or the Foreign Office had got wind of the imminent arrival of the Globemasters? The acquisition of airlift capacity on such a scale might change the balance of power in the South Atlantic. With these planes the Argentines could fly in reinforcements from the mainland in large numbers. A single Globemaster could embark over two hundred fully armed paratroops.

But that didn't make sense. If the Argies needed to ferry troops around they had the use of the state airline's fleet of pa.s.senger aircraft take a jumbo jet out of service, pack it full of grunts and fly it down to Rio Grande where the runway was easily long enough. No, there had to be another reason.

An electric polisher started up below. Someone kicked over a tray of tools and the sound echoed off the hangar walls. "I want to get closer," I said, still speaking in a whisper, though at fifty metres' distance with a dozen power tools in operation there was no danger of being overheard. "If we could climb down a level we'd have a less obstructed view."

Josh pointed down the ladder to the catwalk below us and gave me a questioning look. I hesitated. It looked horribly exposed. Then I reflected that was because we were looking down upon it. The catwalk ran above the level of the lighting; from the floor of the hangar it would be invisible. And even if someone did look up and catch the dim shadow of a person moving up there, chances were he would take us for maintenance workers going about their business.

Silently we climbed down the ladder to the next level. No one would pick us out against the dark backdrop of the hangar wall. We reached the catwalk and I put a tentative foot on it. "f.u.c.k!" I said, drawing back.

There was no need to explain. The catwalk was swaying alarmingly. It was suspended on guy wires from the overhead beams and moored at intervals to cross members. The slightest weight set it bouncing and snaking like an Andean rope bridge. Any attempt to cross it would draw the attention of the whole workforce.