Recoil

14

05:23 hours

Standish was still sitting against the wheel, sat comms glued to his head, as he talked to a US Marine colonel bobbing up and down somewhere on the South Atlantic. Sam stood over him, working out the payload the helis would be lifting.

The US Navy might have had helis coming out of their ears, but they weren’t going to send more than they had to into a hot zone. At least they were coming: Gary’s idea of using the Sea Knight to refuel was in train at last.

None of the team was dancing jigs about it. We knew what was in the boxes now, and what Gary and the royal sisters had died for – everything from Mobutu’s string of houses on the French Riviera to a new private 747.

The Saviour of the People was going to do quite well out of this little job, which no one would remember in a month’s time. Meanwhile, Gary’s kids would get fucked over by our government, as surely as this one slowly dying on the wagon had got fucked over by his. And Princess Margaret’s granddaughters would wonder why Nanny had never made it home for Christmas.

Each of the fourteen wooden boxes weighed 162 pounds. And there were eleven of us, including Annabel, the general, Gary and the kid. The total payload was about 4200 pounds, easy in weight terms for a helicopter to lift, but not when it came to bulk.

The carrier fleet’s UH-60 Seahawks, the Navy’s version of the Blackhawk, were designed to take eight combat troops and their gear, so a two-ship had been scrambled. Their escort was a two-ship Cobra attack force, armed with three-barrel 20mm cannon. The plan was for them to provide top cover as we screamed out of the gates to the open ground the Seahawks needed for landing. We’d load Mobutu’s gear on to one, and ourselves on to the other. Then all four aircraft would fuck off back to the coast, via one of the Sea Knights parked up somewhere in the desert.

I did what I could to comfort the wounded boy, but it wasn’t easy. We didn’t share a language and I wouldn’t exactly get a job as Ronald McDonald. Besides, I wasn’t even sure he could hear me. The field dressings on his leg and head were so bulky he looked like a mummy.

Sam – just below us – was more withdrawn than I’d ever seen him. His conscience was giving him hell, and I didn’t feel too good about what we’d done either. We hadn’t had much option, but that didn’t help.

I’d killed people before, but this was different. Kids like this one should have been too young to be anybody’s enemy. The guys who’d forced these poor fuckers to carry weapons should be the ones lying out there in the sand.

Standish finished with the fleet. ‘OK, they’ll be here just after first light. We move out the moment we hear them. We’ll have two minutes to get everything aboard.’

Sam looked up. ‘Well, we’d better get your blood money on a wagon then, hadn’t we?’