Hellfire. Ed Macy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      He hesitated for a moment. ‘If you disappear off that board for a second, you’re for it.’ Tommo had clearly had enough of the conversation. He fixed me with a last beady stare. ‘Do I make myself blindingly bloody clear?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      He stormed off, and I turned to find Dom holding his head in his hands. Tommo wasn’t a man to cross and the BATS boxes had been known to be temperamental.

      ‘Let’s just live with the Red Tops’, Dom said. ‘It’s only an exercise.’

      I couldn’t blame him for worrying. He was on attachment from the Scots Dragoon Guards and praying that the AAC would take him on; he had a lot to lose.

      ‘Don’t worry, Boss. I’ll check ‘em before we take off.’

      An hour before dawn, I leaned into the back of each Gazelle, switched on the BATS boxes, and wandered over to the Excon Portakabin where a sergeant confirmed that Hotel Two Zero Alpha and Hotel Two Zero Bravo had, indeed, registered on their computerised map.

      I got back to the boss. ‘We’re on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

      It had to be a hundred to one against both transponders failing. Tommo wouldn’t be too pissed if one dropped off radar; he knew we worked as a pair. As long as we won he’d be doing too many back flips to care.

      Staying nicely hidden and looking into the morning sun was proving unworkable. Whatever was sneaking through the wadis below the horizon was invisible to us.

      ‘Hotel Two Zero Alpha this is Hotel Two Zero Bravo. We need to outflank them in their own backyard,’ I called to Dom. ‘I’m blind…’

      ‘One Zero Alpha, my thought exactly. Your lead.’

      ‘Head along that wadi there.’ I pointed the way. ‘We need to keep this low and fast. Get me eyes-on those tanks and don’t even dare come into the hover; we’ll be too sharp.’

      ‘Awesome dude,’ Andy said. ‘But how the fuck are we going to see them if you won’t let me hover?’

      ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

      Andy was in his element. ‘Yee-ha, low level hell. This is what I joined up for.’ The floor passed beneath us at an alarming speed and proximity.

      ‘There’ll be hell to pay if you clip a ridge or fly through wires again. Bring the speed back a touch.’ Height and speed were both okay, but Andy was getting a fraction overexcited. I didn’t want an action replay of our Swingfire stunt.

      Dom called a halt to our advance when we were close enough to bump into the tanks’ advanced recce. He scanned a stretch of ground that ran for about 500 metres up to a small bank directly in front of us. ‘Move,’ he called.

      ‘Moving.’

      I told Andy to get me behind the ridge.

      His voice rose an octave. ‘I’m ten feet off the shagging floor…’

      ‘Then you’re ten feet too high.’

      The skids barely touched the ground as we scooted across the crest of the hill.

      ‘Run the aircraft onto the ground and don’t come into the hover. You’ll kick up too much dust.’

      He skidded to a halt and turned to me. ‘What the fuck now?’

      ‘Sit tight.’

      I unstrapped, climbed out and ran up the bank.

      Peering through my binos I spotted the vanguard of the tanks.

      Twenty minutes later we were behind them and slightly off to one flank. There was no way they’d expect that.

      The CO was ecstatic and moved his Lynx into place. The artillery opened up the show and then we brought in wave after wave of fast jets, only breaking to drop more artillery on them. In what was now a well-rehearsed manoeuvre, a squadron of Lynx simultaneously unleashed their misery on the tanks before disappearing again.

      The show wasn’t over. A handful of tanks had been hiding behind a fold in the ground and were now running with nowhere to hide. I called in a pair of Lynx and we all moved to head them off. We provided cover on either side of the Lynx; we were well inside the tanks’ sector now and had to be on our guard. The Lynx hammered the last of the tanks and we bugged out to the greatest news of all. One of the Lynx had dispatched the tank regiment’s CO, a man that had never once been killed on the prairie.

      When we landed back at Excon, Tommo was waiting for us, arms akimbo and feet as far apart as they could be. I was looking forward to hearing what he thought of us managing to get in behind the enemy and smack the CO too.

      ‘Get your fucking flight commander,’ he boomed at me. ‘I want a word with the both of you.’

      Shit. I’d flown right along the boundary, but I was sure we’d not crossed it. Dom would have alerted me. A moment or two later, we were both standing in front of Tommo.

      ‘Where the fucking hell have you two been? You promised me I would be able to see you at all times, and yet you never appeared on the map once!’

      My flight commander looked devastated. Tommo wielded a shed load of power in the Army Air Corps and was destined for the highest of appointments. He could kill careers with one swipe of his pen.

      ‘I checked the system before we took off and we were on the map, sir…’

      ‘Another one of your promises, Macy? What do you expect me to believe? You’re not on radar, no one knows where you are, and all of a sudden you two know the location of every fucking tank in Canada. If you switched the transponders off you are both for the fucking high jump. Do you hear me?’

      ‘Sir…’ I pointed towards the Excon Portakabin. ‘I was on radar two minutes before we left and was assured I could be tracked at all times.’

      The sergeant who’d confirmed the presence of our Gazelles on the screen was at his keyboard. I chose my words carefully. ‘Would you let the Colonel know exactly when we met and what I asked you?’

      ‘Er…yes, sir.’ His eyes batted nervously between me and Tommo. He couldn’t bring himself to hold the big man’s 2,000-yard death stare. I couldn’t blame him. Sterner mortals had wilted under Tommo’s withering gaze. ‘He came in last night to check that his BATS box was working.’

      Tommo jumped in with both feet. ‘Then why couldn’t I see him even once throughout the entire battle?’

      ‘You could, sir. Surely…’ The sergeant looked down at his computer. ‘One moment.’ His face began to redden. ‘Oh, he’s not there…’

      ‘Make your fucking mind up, man!’

      After a few frantic keystrokes, the screen changed. ‘Er…here he is at the start, sir, next to the other Gazelle Hotel Two Zero Alpha-see.’

      Tommo leaned forward. ‘Then what?’

      The СКАЧАТЬ