Exocet

16

On the terrace of the big house above the River Plate outside Buenos Aires, Donna Elena Llorca de Montera sat in a cane chair and did a little embroidering. It was something she hadn't done since she was a young girl, but these days she found it helped if she kept her hands busy.

One of the maids came out from the sitting room. 'There is some one to see you, Donna Elena. A lady.'

Her mistress paused and looked up frowning. 'A lady.'

'A French lady. A Senorita Legrand.'

Elena de Montera said calmly, 'Please show her in.'

Gabrielle paused in the French windows, then came forward slowly. 'Donna Elena?'

The old woman sat there, looking at her without expression for a while and then nodded. 'Yes, I see exactly what he meant. Now I understand everything.'

'Where is he?' Gabrielle said. 'I must see him. I've something to tell him of vital importance.'

'But that's impossible. Raul is at Rio Gallegos, flying with his squadron, or what's left of it.'

Gabrielle slumped down in a chair on the other side of the table. 'Is Linda here? He talked a lot about Linda and you.'

'I've sent her to friends in the country. It seemed the best thing to do in the circumstances.'

'What you mean is, you expect to hear he's been killed in action at any moment?'

'It would appear likely.' She lit a cigarette and pushed the pack across to Gabrielle. 'Cheap ones, the kind dockers use, but I can't smoke anything else. My son, when he returned from France, breached security completely, quite simply because he didn't care any more. He told me everything. He loves you very much.'

'I know that.'

'So much, that he discounts your activities for British Intelligence as being of no consequence, an opinion I'm certain our esteemed President would not agree with. However, Raul was deeply distressed by the fact of your brother's death. It is something he felt would always be between you.'

'But they lied to me!' Gabrielle spread her hands. 'My people lied to me, to keep me in line! Richard's fine, still a helicopter pilot on Invincible, but alive and well.'

'Mother of God.' Elena de Montera put a hand to her eyes for a moment, then looked up again. 'Were you aware that my son had your name painted on the nose of his Skyhawk?'

'Yes,' Gabrielle said.

'I have friends down there who keep me informed as to his doings. When he got back, he had an extra word added. Apparently it now reads, Gabrielle Gone.'

Gabrielle took a deep breath and placed her hands on the table to steady herself. 'I must see him. I'll go to Rio Gailegos.'

'My dear, you wouldn't get anywhere near the place. It's a restricted military area. On the other hand, General Dozo, Commander of our air force, is one of my dearest friends. Let's go inside and I'll make some phone calls.'

'If you only could,' Gabrielle said.

'Men, my love, are easy enough to handle as long as one understands their conceit.' She put an arm around Gabrielle's shoulder as they crossed the terrace. 'You look tired. I'll get Rosa to make you a cup of tea. It is tea you drink, I believe?'

As they went in through the French windows, Gabrielle started to laugh helplessly.

It was just before four o'clock in the morning when Raul Montera moved across to the windows of the operations room at Rio Gallegos and peered outside. It was pouring with rain, the apron, where three Skyhawks waited, awash with it as the ground crews worked on them in the light of the arc lamps.

The young pilots who were to fly with him filed out and Montera turned, finishing the last of his tea. The room was empty now, only the chairs, the large scale charts of the Malvinas on the wall, the cigarette smoke. Someone had left a cigar burning on the edge of an ash tray. He stubbed it out carefully, then picked up his helmet and went outside.

He was tired, more tired than he had ever been in his life before. As he took a deep breath and started towards the planes a staff car came up round the corner and pulled up beside him. The door opened and Lami Dozo got out, pulling a greatcoat over his shoulders.

'Raul, how are you?'

'It could be worse. We lost another three yesterday. What you might call scraping the barrel.'

Lami Dozo gave him a cigarette. 'San Carlos again?'

'That's right.'

'This could be the last one, Raul. The British have taken the high ground outside Port Stanley. We believe they've taken at least four hundred prisoners. I think it may only be a couple of days before Menendez will have to surrender.'

'So — what was it all about?'

'I don't know,' General Dozo said. 'There were those, and I was not amongst them, who said we needed a war to prove ourselves. I hope the same people are now just as prepared to work for a new Argentina.'

'But still we go on?'

'Yes, sometimes it is necessary.'

'I often think of that uncle of mine, my mother's brother, the one who disgraced the family by fighting bulls. I remember as a young man watching him waiting in his suit of lights, to enter the plaza at Mexico City, the trumpet sounding high and sweet, playing La Virgen de la Macarena.' Montera smiled. 'I feel like that rather a lot these days. As if the beast is waiting for me out there. My uncle didn't know when to stop either.'

Lami Dozo looked grave. 'This isn't good, Raul.'

'Ah, but it is, General. You see, I've discovered the big secret. I don't actually care any more, whether I live or die. That way, they don't know how to handle me, whoever they are up there.'

'Raul, please,' Dozo said.

'Not to worry. Two ears and a tail when I get back.'

They gave each other the abrazo, patting each other on the back.

Dozo said, 'Before you go, there's someone very anxious to see you. Over there by the fence.' He pointed and Montera saw a black limousine. 'Go on, you haven't much time.'

As Montera walked across to the high wire fence, a chauffeur got out of the car and opened the rear door. Donna Elena got out.

'Mama,' Montera said in astonishment.

She smiled. 'You look tired.'

'I am tired.' He smiled ruefully. 'I suppose you're going to tell me I'm too old to play games.'

'No, I haven't time. Instead, I've brought you a gift.'

She turned back to the car and Gabrielle got out and stood looking at him, pale in the yellow light of the arc lamps, a military raincoat someone had loaned her over her shoulders. For a moment he was totally stunned, and then he smiled that inimitable smile she knew so well.

'You look wonderful. How anyone told you that lately?'

'No one I'd care to hear it from.'

She moved close, taking in every detail of his appearance: the yellow flying suit, the shoulder holster, the helmet in his left hand, the tousled hair, damp from the rain.

He said gravely, 'But this isn't good. You shouldn't have come.'

'There's no other place on earth where I should be,' she said. 'I'm not Gabrielle Gone, Raul, I'm Gabrielle here, and Richard isn't dead. He's alive and well. Brigadier Ferguson lied to me. He lied because I wanted out, don't you see?'

He stared at her, frowning, and said softly, 'Oh, my God, what bastards they are, moving human beings from square to square like a game of chess to suit their own purposes.' And then he laughed out loud and fastened his hand over hers where she clutched the wire. 'I'll be back, understand me? I love you and I'll be back. Believe that.'

He kissed her hand, turned and ran towards the line of Skyhawks. Within minutes, the night was filled with the roaring of their engines. Donna Elena got out of the car and stood at Gabrielle's side as the planes taxied out one-by-one. A few moments later they started to take off, and shortly after that there was only the sound of them fading into the distance.

They swept in over the mountains of West Falkland as dawn came up, as close to the ground as they dared because of the missiles, and turned into Death Valley barely sixty feet above the water.

It happened incredibly fast as always. First the mountains, then Falkland Sound with the ships of the Task Force and more in San Carlos Water. Montera was aware of the Skyhawk on his right jinking desperately, a Rapier missile on his tail. There was an explosion, a ball of fire.

Montera banked, went in low through a hail of fire as the ships below threw up everything they had. The Skyhawk shuddered as shrapnel flailed its body. There was a frigate coming up fast and he released his bombs and climbed, banking and looking back. There were no explosions and he laughed out loud at the nonsense of it all.

'Mother of God, even at this stage of the game they can't get the fuses right.'

In the operations room at Rio Gallegos, Donna Elena and Gabrielle sat by the stove. Lami Dozo stood at the window, peering out at the rain in the grey dawn light, drinking coffee. A young lieutenant came in, saluted and handed him a signal. The general read it, nodded, and the lieutenant went out.

Donna Elena said, 'You don't look happy. Is it bad news?'

'They hit the target. One Skyhawk down.'

'Not Raul?' Gabrielle said.

'No, not Raul. The last we heard, he and the other pilot were on their way back.'

Raul Montera burst out of cloud at four thousand feet and, still descending, followed the other Skyhawk which was going down fast, smoke pouring from it.

Montera, disregarding all procedure, called over the radio, 'Come in, Enrico. How bad is it?'

There was no reply and suddenly he saw a Sidewinder missile home in from nowhere. There was a tongue of flame that mushroomed into a fireball as the Skyhawk disintegrated.

A Harrier, that's all it could be. What lousy luck, for they had almost reached the limit of the Harrier's radius for a sea chase. He corkscrewed instantly, the reflex of much combat experience coming to his aid, and was aware of another Sidewinder spiralling madly away over on his right, plunging down towards the sea. A rogue missile whose directional equipment had gone haywire, a stroke of luck as the Harrier only carried two Sidewinders, which meant he now only had its 30 mm Aden cannons to contend with.

It swung in on his tail and the Skyhawk shuddered under the impact of cannon shell. The cockpit canopy disintegrated and Montera received a violent blow in his left arm and another in his right leg.

The Harrier swung in again and then it was the dream, only this time for real, the eagle descending, claws reaching out to destroy. Again he staggered under the impact of its cannon, it passed, banked to starboard and curved in on his tail to finish him off.

He was already down to a thousand feet and Gabrielle seemed to say in his ear what she had said the first time he'd had the dream in the flat in Kensington.

'Remember to drop your flaps. Eagles overshoot, too.'

And Montera did just that. It was like running into a solid wall and for a moment, he thought he'd lost power completely. The Harrier pilot had to take violent evasive action to avoid a collision, climbing fast and Montera seized his chance and went right down.

It was probably the most hazardous piece of flying he'd ever attempted as he levelled out at a hundred feet, for the wind was such that the sea was lifting in forty foot swells.

He looked up for his adversary, saw him high overhead. There was a crackle of static. A voice said in English over his radio, 'Good luck, whoever you are. You've earned it,' and the Harrier, at the limit of its radius, banked away, turned back towards the Falklands.

In the operations room Gabrielle dozed fitfully. Donna Elena and Lami Dozo stood by the window, smoking cigarettes.

'He's a fool, my son,' she said. 'You know that?'

'Of course, but thank God for fools like him. It's good for the rest of us to feel ashamed occasionally.'

The door opened and the young lieutenant hurried in again. Dozo snatched the signal from him and read it.

'We've lost another Skyhawk but Raul is still with us. About fifty miles out.'

Gabrielle sat up, rubbing her eyes. 'Is there any news?'

'Yes,' Lami Dozo said. 'Donna Elena will explain. Stay here, both of you,' and he opened the door and went outside.

The Skyhawk came in low over the sea at five hundred feet, the wind whistling through the shattered cockpit. Raul Montera was a dreadful sight, his face smeared with blood from numerous cuts caused by the disintegration of the canopy, one arm and leg of his yellow flying suit now scarlet. He sat there, hands frozen to the column, a slight fixed smile on his face as he came into Rio Gallegos base.

'Fly me, Gabrielle,' he prayed aloud. 'Don't let me fail now.'

As the airfield came into view, the runway lights gleaming in the grey morning, Lami Dozo stood in the control tower, a pair of fieldglasses to his eyes.

Raul Montera's voice sounded over the radio loudspeaker, totally washed out. 'I'm bringing her straight in. No time for procedure.'

As Dozo watched, the Skyhawk brushed across the buildings at the north end of the runway. Montera was aware of the vehicles roaring out to meet him from the control buildings. The Skyhawk almost stalled. He gave it a final burst of power and then made the worst landing of his career, bouncing back up again twice before coming to a halt, turning full circle, water from the rainsoaked runway spraying up in a great cloud.

He stayed there, head bowed, was aware of voices and then careful hands lifting him from the cockpit. He opened his eyes, saw the faces, so many faces, Lami Dozo's amongst them.

He smiled. 'Two ears and a tail, eh, General?' and then he fainted.

And so it was over. In Port Stanley the Argentines laid down their arms and in Buenos Aires, an outraged mob made it plain that Galtieri had to go. In London, at Westminster, on the same day, the British Prime Minister rose from her seat to tell the members of Parliament assembled before her of the triumphant conclusion to one of the most astonishing feats of arms since the Second World War.

At the Sisters of Mercy Hospital in Buenos Aires, Gabrielle and Donna Elena waited outside Montera's room. Finally, the door opened and the Chief Surgeon emerged. They stood up.

'Well?' Donna Elena demanded.

'Not good, but he'll survive. No more of this nonsense, of course. He'll certainly never be fit to fly a jet aircraft again. You may go in.'

Gabrielle turned enquiringly and Donna Elena smiled. 'I've got my son back. All the time in the world. You go in now. I'll wait.'

When Gabrielle opened the door, she found him propped up against pillows, the cuts on his face stained purple with some preparation or other. His left arm was in a plaster cast and there was a cowl beneath the sheets to protect his injured leg.

She stood by the side of the bed without saying anything and as if sensing her presence, he opened his eyes and smiled.

'You look awful,' she said.

'I'll be all right. Don't worry. The surgeon told me I'll still be able to play the violin and you know, that's really very amusing. You see, I can't play the violin.'

And then she was laughing and crying at the same time, on her knees at the side of the bed, her face against his.