The Final Flight

² WEDNESDAY 8TH JUNE

Millie’s burgundy Rover was a luxury car in 1951. Fifteen years later, life had taken its toll. The leather seats were scratched and torn in places, and adorned with occasional strips of black tape from his own running repairs. But it was comfortable, if a little tank-like in its handling. Either way, thanks to a misjudged pension investment and with retirement looming, Millie had little choice but to run it into the ground.

It rolled, rather than turned around corners. It creaked on the worn springs as he guided it along the narrow country road toward the RAF West Porton main gate.

He struggled with the stiff window handle but managed to wind it down enough to pass his identification card to the security guard.

The man in the strange West Porton Security Police cap studied the card carefully. The WPSP were a branch of the military police that appeared unique to this station, as far as Millie knew. He also knew questions about security arrangements were not encouraged.

The sound of jet engines drifted into the car over the breeze. Engine runs after maintenance. Hard working engineers, toiling all hours to ensure Mark Kilton’s TFU got a full complement of aircraft to play with every day.

The guard handed back the card, and Millie encouraged the heavy car to leave its moorings and continue on to TFU.

It was quiet in the planning room: no laughter, no excited chatter, just a few murmurs from the men at the tea bar.

He knew something was up and it could be only one thing.

Mark Kilton was in a temper.

He made his way over in search of information.

“Anything I should know about?” he asked Jock MacLeish, looking toward Kilton’s side office. The door had a glass pane and there was some movement within.

“Drama in the bar last night,” replied Jock in his soft Scottish lilt. “Never seen Kilton quite like it. He and Brian Hill at it full steam.”

“What was it about?” Millie asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

“Don’t know, as is the TFU way. They ended up in the car park. Obviously we all dived into the anteroom and tried to eavesdrop. All I can say is they had a fundamental disagreement about something. Hammer and tongs, they were.”

“The car park? It was physical?”

“Nearly.” MacLeish paused and had another look around. “Rumour has it, Brian’s gone.”

“What? Gone?”

MacLeish shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what I’ve heard. Gone. Persona non grata. No longer a serving member of TFU. Went too far with the boss and was shot before dawn, or at least turned away from the main gate and told to await his posting orders.”

Millie stared towards Kilton’s office.

“Where was Rob in all this?”

“With us. Why?”

“He wasn’t involved in the row?”

“Nope.”

“Milford. In here.” A shout from across the room.

Millie exchanged a brief look with MacLeish before heading to Kilton’s office; the boss had already disappeared inside after barking his summons.

Just as he got to the door, Rob arrived in the planning room.

“Are you OK?” Millie mouthed.

Rob nodded, but looked worried.

Millie shut the office door behind him and stood waiting while Kilton finished a memo with his black-inked fountain pen. Millie could just about make out Brian Hill’s name in the subject heading.

Kilton slashed out the words with short, sharp strokes.

Millie looked through the glass pane in the door; a few faces stared back. Everyone on tenterhooks.

Finally, the TFU boss looked up.

“This nonsense from yesterday is dealt with.”

“Nonsense, boss?”

Kilton leaned back and deposited the fountain pen on his desk. “Your attempt to ground the most important military project on the planet with an unrecorded and unproven incident is not appreciated.”

An image of Brian Hill’s car being pulled over at the security gate filled his mind.

“There were four of us on the jet, sir. I may not have been capturing data but I made notes and each of the other men will corroborate what happened.”

Kilton folded the memorandum and placed it in an envelope.

“There are now three of you. Hill overstepped the mark last night and I consider him unstable and unfit to fly.”

“Because he argued with you?”

“It wasn’t an argument, Millie. He stepped out of line. Whatever happened during flying, it had unnerved him to the point that he was refusing to fly and I don’t need pilots who won’t fly.”

“With respect, sir, was he refusing to fly or simply refusing to fly with Guiding Light?”

“It makes no difference. There’s no place for pilots who want to be selective about the trials they carry out.”

“With respect, sir, I still believe what I saw. The system fouled up, height readings displayed on the panel were incorrect and it placed the aircraft in a hazardous descent…” Kilton opened his mouth to counter him, but Millie pressed on. “And you are right. I didn’t record it and I suppose it’s true to say there is no firm evidence. But I’ve been thinking about this. What if it happened before, and we didn’t notice? What if we were at altitude and thought it was turbulence? Or maybe it happened before we had even started engaging Guiding Light with the autopilot? Unless someone was physically watching the entire time, we may easily have missed a similar event.”

“Speculation, Millie. Not hard facts.”

“But it’s out there, isn’t it?” Millie pointed to the planning room.

“What’s out there? What are you talking about?”

“The tapes. All the tapes we’ve filled with readings from Guiding Light. Including hours of it before we even connected it to the autopilot. If there’s something wrong, it’ll be buried in there. We just have to look carefully.”

“We don’t need invisible numbers on a tape to tell us how an aircraft flies.”

“With respect, sir—”

“Stop saying ‘with respect’. I have no time for this. Guiding Light trials will continue unabated. If you are refusing to fly with it, then you are free to leave. Retire early for all I care.”

Millie’s mouth fell open.

He shook off the shock and gathered his thoughts.

“I don’t understand, Mark. We’re test crews. We’re supposed to evaluate in a sober and unbiased fashion and report results. You’re asking us to ignore the results?”

“What results, Millie? You forgot to run the tape, remember?”

“I didn’t forget. We’d come to the end of the low-level section and I assessed it wasn’t worth loading a new tape at that point. It was unfortunate.”

“Yes, well, the evidence we do have is of an effective and functioning piece of equipment. If you have any further issues, you are free to bring them up at the project meeting on Thursday.”

“I’d recommend we suspend the flying until then, boss.”

Kilton snapped forward on his chair. “No. Millie. Aren’t you listening to me? You will fly the hours as laid out in the trial.”

“I’m sorry, Mark. I’m going to say this again, but with respect, you have no alternative explanation for what happened.”

“Not true—”

“What was it, then?” Millie interrupted him.

Kilton ignored him. “You’ve flown more Guiding Light hours than anyone else, Millie. You know it’s safe. We can discuss yesterday’s events, along with all the reporting, on Thursday. In the meantime, we continue. Is that clear?”

Millie left the room.

As he made his way between the planning desks, he looked at the security cabinets that contained the hours of height readings from previous Guiding Light flights. In the early days of the project, he remembered seeing large green-lined sheets of paper from a computer. The readings from the tape turned into lines of small, typed numbers. Just a few minutes flying filled up a dozen sheets.

Poring through them would be a superhuman task.

He arrived back at the tea bar.

“Everything OK?” Rob asked.

“Mr Kilton doesn’t believe there’s anything wrong with Guiding Light.”

“Yes,” Rob said with a nod. “I got that impression last night.”

Millie drummed his fingers on the bar. He beckoned Rob away from other ears. They stood by the window, looking out onto the pan. The white Vulcan from yesterday’s flight was being towed out of the hangar.

“Look, I can’t change his mind today. He’s ordering us to continue flying. But Thursday’s meeting is crucial. He’s got some other explanation for the incident but wouldn’t say any more.” He looked at Rob. “You and I need to be crystal clear about what happened. Write down your account. I’ll get Brighty to do the same. You’ve heard about Brian Hill?”

Rob paused and spoke quietly. “Yes, I was there, but Millie…”

A corporal approached.

“Look,” said Millie. “It’s just us now Rob. What we say matters more than ever. We need to stick together.”

“I think I should—” Rob started, but the corporal was nearly upon them and Millie cut him off.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. I’ve got your back, Rob.” He accepted the tasking sheet.

In the project box were the words ‘Guiding Light Low-Level Phase III’.

“Here we go, that didn’t take long.” Millie looked across to the waiting jet.

He checked the crew list.

“Speedy Johnson,” he said looking at Rob, “one of Kilton’s gang.”

“Gentlemen. What a privilege. Time to let an old fart in on the big secret.” Johnson had appeared next to them, out of nowhere.

Millie turned to look across at Kilton’s office. The TFU commanding officer stood in the doorway, watching.

KILTON RETREATED into his office and closed the door behind him. He picked up the green telephone on his desk and dialled the operator.

“Ewan Stafford, please. DF Blackton in Cambridge.”

He doodled on his blotting pad while he waited to be put through.

He’d been a fighter pilot long enough to know that he had to take care of all the angles.

It was the one you never saw that got you.

“Good morning, Mark.” Stafford sounded chipper.

“What do I need to know about Guiding Light that you haven’t told me?”

The briefest of hesitations.

“What do you mean?” said Stafford.

“One of my crews is complaining that it nearly killed them yesterday. Are they overreacting?” Another hesitation. “Christ, Stafford. What do you know about this?”

“What happened?” the Blackton MD asked in a low voice.

“It tried to descend them into the ground in Wales, apparently, and now a couple of the girls have got their knickers in a twist. Something we could do without. What are you keeping from me?”

“I don’t know, Mark. Can we look at the data?”

“Apparently not. Christopher Milford failed to record it. Which is the only good news.”

“Good news?”

“Stafford, do you understand what’s going on here? We stall the project now, we lose it. Every bloody day we get one step closer to the Soviets finding out. Too many people already know about it on our side and I don’t trust half of them. Plus, I’m not sure you should trust the Americans, at least until they’ve paid for it. They’re already trying to build their own version, you can bet on it.”

“I’d like to see them try.”

“Don’t be naive. They would save themselves a fortune. And if they get close before the deal goes through, they’ll drop the purchase in a flash. Downing Street is counting on that investment and they’re counting on me to deliver it. The clock’s ticking, Stafford, so no more bollocks from you please. Is there something I need to know?”

Stafford paused and then spoke so quietly, Kilton had to press the receiver to his ear to hear him.

“We haven’t seen anything like this since early testing.”

“Like what?”

“In the early days we got short bursts of incoherent data from the laser, but that was months ago and on our test rig. The problem went away.”

“Apparently, it’s back. What do we do to eliminate it, without stopping the project? We’ve got nearly two hundred hours of tapes here. Can you take a look to see if this has happened before? Millie thinks there may be something buried in the existing readings.”

“He’s right. The answer will be in there somewhere. Send them over and we’ll take a look at them this week.”

“This week? I’ll send them in a car now and you’ll bloody well look at them today.”

“OK. And Mark, probably best to take some precautions, you know. Look after the men.”

Kilton glanced into the planning room and saw May and Johnson hunched over a desk. “Leave that with me.” He hung up. “Bloody sergeant pilots.”

For a moment he tapped his pen on his desk, then got up and headed into the planning room and spoke quietly to May and Johnson.

“You can keep it above one thousand feet today if you want.”

He started to turn back to his office.

“So, there is something wrong?” Millie said, just loud enough that Kilton couldn’t ignore him.

Kilton turned on his heels and walked up to Millie. “No, but if you’re scared, keep her above one thousand. And this time, try not to run out of tapes. It is, after all, your only job on board, Millie.”

MILLIE STARED at the orange numbers. They updated rhythmically, clicking between one thousand, and one thousand one hundred. The descent into low-level had been tense, but at least they had a safety margin. Seven hundred feet higher than yesterday. Should be enough time to catch any sudden plunges.

He switched the dial and checked the other readings; everything looked normal.

He glanced at his stopwatch. Sixteen minutes since he’d loaded the first tape. Nearly time for a change.

Mustn’t miss anything this time.

He felt the aircraft pitch nose down and his eyes flashed to the height reading. One thousand three hundred and twelve feet. He didn’t blink until they levelled out just above one thousand.

It was just doing its job.

“Did we just go over a ridge?” he called up to the pilots.

“Affirm,” Speedy Johnson replied.

They rocked in their seats as the jet banked, descended again, and levelled out. It was a bumpy ride even at one thousand feet, as Guiding Light still followed the contours of the ground below.

“The valley’s coming up,” Rob called over the intercom.

So they were nearly there, the place where it happened yesterday. It was a deliberate move to fly the same route, agreed by the entire crew, but at a safer height. If it happened again, this time Millie would have the evidence.

He looked at Steve Bright, who was unusually quiet. Bright looked back at him and Millie unlatched his oxygen mask, gave him a reassuring smile and mouthed, “It’ll be alright”.

He latched his mask again and when Brighty turned back to his screen, Millie stole a look at the hatch. Was it clear of obstacles? Would they get it open in time from one thousand feet?

Almost certainly not.

He went back to the Guiding Light panel and stared at the numbers.

The Vulcan was banked again by the system and Millie steadied himself.

“Here we go,” called Rob.

Millie had a copy of the route on a chart clamped to his desk. The valley was relatively flat, which was another puzzling aspect to the laser’s failure to read it accurately.

The numbers stayed steady, hovering between one thousand and ten, and one thousand and thirty. The system treated one thousand as a ‘not below’ mark and it was working well.

“We’re through,” Rob called. The aircraft rolled onto a new track and into another valley.

“There you go, fellas,” said Speedy. “Nothing to worry about.”

A few moments later Millie felt a jolt as Speedy disconnected the autopilot and took manual control, climbing them out of low-level.

Millie smiled to himself as Rob relayed instructions to his co-pilot.

The Vulcan climbed to nine thousand feet for the transit home. Rob switched off the oxygen and all four of them broke out the cigarettes.

As they swept into the circuit at West Porton, Speedy spoke over the intercom.

“Hello? We have visitors.”

“What?” Millie asked, from their dark rear bay. They had a couple of small porthole windows but they were inconveniently high and pretty useless for looking out.

“You won’t believe it, but some campers have set up in a field at the end of the runway.”

“Inside the wire?” Bright asked.

“No, just outside.”

Brighty laughed. “A nice quiet spot with four engine jets climbing out, fifteen inches outside your tent.”

On the ground, after the shutdown, Millie again waited for Rob. He watched as Johnson hauled himself out of his seat and disappeared down the ladder.

Rob appeared and Millie extricated himself from the Vulcan.

As they walked back to TFU, Millie gave Rob a little pat on the back.

“Look at you, giving instructions to the famous Speedy Johnson.”

Rob couldn’t hide his smile. “Can’t quite believe it.”

“Well, believe it, Rob. You’ve earned it. Time to start believing what it says on your job description. Test pilot.”

Rob smiled and they arrived back at TFU, the door wide open in an attempt to get some circulating air inside.

Millie climbed out of his suffocating flying coveralls.

By the time he looked up, Speedy and Rob were talking to Kilton in the doorway to his office.

Millie started to walk over, not wishing to miss another important conversation, but as he approached, Kilton gave Rob a pat on the back and the ad hoc meeting broke up.

MILLIE ATE a sandwich at his desk rather than join the others in the mess. He found a hot meal on a hot day too soporific.

At 2PM, the typist he’d ordered from the admin pool appeared. She was a smartly dressed middle-aged woman, in a floral pattern dress that reminded him of Georgina’s wardrobe.

With no project material allowed out of TFU, they went into a side room. Millie watched while she typed up his handwritten account of yesterday’s incident. He clarified the odd word in between the rhythmic clicks of the typewriter.

“Finished!” the woman announced, pulling the last sheet from the machine.

“Thank you.” Millie scanned the final page. “Very good.”

As she headed out, he made his way over toward the group of pilots. Rob was trying on Brunson’s mirrored visor USAF flying helmet with others laughing at him.

Millie coughed to get his attention. “Can I have a quick chat?”

Rob leaned forward and wrestled the helmet from his head.

“Erm, about to go flying actually. Can it wait?”

“It’ll be brief, I promise.”

Rob followed him to a quiet corner.

Millie tapped his sheaf of papers. “Don’t forget your report of what happened yesterday.”

Rob nodded but said nothing.

“Try to make it as convincing as possible. Look, I’ve used the Board of Inquiry format.”

“We should include everything?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“All possibilities?”

“Yes, I suppose so. But just make sure you describe what happened and what you saw. OK?”

“Sure.”

“I know you’re busy, but it is important to me. To all of us.”

“Sure. I’ll do it.”

Rob headed off to the equipment hatch; a few minutes later Millie saw him walk out to a waiting aircraft with Brunson.

He headed over to the admin hatch.

The flight lieutenant smiled. “How can we help you, Millie?”

“I’ve got some extra Guiding Light paperwork for tomorrow’s meeting. It needs to go into the secure cabinet, please.”

“No problem.” The junior officer unhooked a set of keys from a large board on the inside of the admin area. He appeared out of the office and led Millie to a row of green metal cabinets, each adorned with a padlock.

He handed Millie a clipboard. “Paw print, please, Millie.”

Millie retrieved his pen and signed for the keys. As he did so, the previous signature caught his eye. Corporal Ratcliffe. A name he didn’t know.

Beneath him, on his knees, the flight lieutenant opened the cabinet.

Millie stared.

It was empty, apart from a few folders of paperwork.

Not one of the dozens of recorded reels of tape was present.

He looked closer, in case he was missing something.

Not a single tape.

“Where are they?” he asked, turning toward the admin officer.

The man consulted the clipboard. “Corporal Ratcliffe removed the tapes this morning.”

“Why?”

“Can’t say, Millie, but it was all above board. Wing Commander Kilton signed the release form.”

“But you don’t know where the tapes went?”

“Not sure. Best ask the boss.”

Millie placed his report in the cabinet.

“Everything alright, Millie?”

“Yes. Just lost in thought.”

Millie walked over to Kilton’s office and peered in. It was empty. He opened the door of the neighbouring office, where Kilton’s secretary was typing with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, peering through half-moon spectacles.

“Jean, is the boss around?”

She looked up and removed the cigarette.

“Millie, darling, how lovely to see you. How’s that gorgeous Georgina of yours?”

Millie smiled. “She’s very well. I’ll send her your best.”

“You do that, Millie. Now, the good wing commander is over in station HQ. Is it urgent?”

“No, it’s fine. Will he be back today?”

“I don’t think so.”

“OK. Thank you, my dear. Most helpful as always.”

“Anything for you, Millie.” She re-inserted the cigarette and resumed her typing.

Back at his desk, Millie sat before a pile of unrelated project work. He looked across at Secure Cabinet 3.

All those hours of recorded data.

Gone.

KILTON DID NOT RETURN, as predicted by Jean. Rob bustled in around 4PM, all smiles after a trip in the TFU Lightning with Brunson.

“There aren’t many places where you can fly a bomber in the morning and supersonic fighter in the afternoon,” Rob said as he passed.

The pilots walked off to the mess bar and Millie headed to his car.

The seats were almost too hot to sit on, and he had to grab the steering wheel on and off until it cooled under his touch.

Outside the main gate, he paused as a group of barely dressed youngsters sauntered by. A woman with a flower behind her ear stared at him for a moment. She broke off her gaze and the group retreated down the road.

“Odd lot,” he said to the guard.

“More than odd, sir.” The sergeant handed back his ID form.

As he drove out of the station, Millie recalled the chatter from the Vulcan cockpit. Were the youngsters part of the camping party at the end of the runway?

Georgina was in the back garden when he arrived home.

She kissed him. “I’ll get us a drink.”

Millie plonked himself in a garden chair and closed his eyes.

Distant guitar playing arrived on the light breeze. Incongruous, in a married quarter patch. But he found it soothing.

He tried to put aside his growing anxiety about Guiding Light. Work needed to stay at work for many reasons at RAF West Porton.

Georgina arrived back, two G&Ts in hand.

“Lovely,” Millie said, taking one. “Oh, and ice. What a treat.” He took a long draw on the cold drink.

“Sarah Brunson insists,” said Georgina. “And I’m all for it.”

“Agreed. How was your day, dear?”

“Well,” she started and Millie immediately knew there was a story coming, “we had some excitement. The young people have arrived.”

“Ah yes, I think I saw some. Who are they?”

“CND,” Georgina replied, emphasising each letter.

“CND? As in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament?”

“The same. Lots of them. All in a field, camping.”

“Huh.” Millie turned to look in the direction of the airfield, but a row of tall conifers that ran the length of the back gardens blocked their view. Probably planted in a futile attempt to keep the sound of jet engines at bay.

“Is that the guitar music I can hear?”

“I think so. Come on, let’s look.”

They pushed their way through the firs. Millie closed his eyes and hoped not to get slapped in the face by a branch released ahead of him by Georgina.

As they emerged, Millie looked across to the airfield. The security fence around the western end of the runway was about three quarters of a mile away. Just this side of the barbed wire, a group of tents and a wigwam had sprung up. The wigwam drew the eye with its central position and a prominent fallen cross symbol on one side.

“Well, well. I’ve seen pictures of those Aldermaston marches, but never actually seen a peace protest,” said Millie.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Looks harmless enough, I suppose.”

Georgina laughed. “Kilton will have kittens, won’t he?”

“Probably, but what’s new? Must have been where he was this afternoon, locked in with the station commander.”

“So what is it you lot do inside there that’s got CND snapping at your heels?” Georgina said and nudged her husband.

“Lord knows. I can’t think of anything.” Both of them knew it was an area he couldn’t go into.

Guiding Light wasn’t a nuclear weapon, but it was its delivery system.

“They couldn’t possibly know…” he mumbled, then shuddered at the thought.

“Know what?” Georgina asked.

“Oh, nothing. They can’t know what goes on inside. The place is like Fort Knox.”

They had dinner indoors and as the light faded, they took their drinks back out through the firs to spy on their new neighbours some more.

The sun was setting and the clouds to the west were a deep red, casting a warm glow over the camp and the airfield beyond.

“It looks like a scene from a western,” said Millie.

Georgina slipped her arm through her husband’s. “Does that make you my cowboy?”

Later that evening, Millie lay awake with the windows wide open, allowing the cooler air in and the hot stuffiness out.

The guitar started up, this time with the sound of singing. It was a woman’s voice, a sweet sound.

He turned over and hoped to drift off to sleep, but the thought of the project meeting in the morning occupied him. He closed his eyes and did his best to push Mark Kilton out of his mind.

THE CLOCK on the wall in Ewan Stafford’s office read 2AM.

Outside, he heard a bicycle bell and a couple of men laughing. Did Cambridge students ever go to bed?

The mainframe had taken nine hours to ingest all the tapes and run what the technicians called an analysis on the data.

The print-out phase was ongoing.

Earlier in the day, Stafford himself had set the parameters of what they were looking for. It was a task he couldn’t leave to anyone else.

He hid away in his office for two hours, surrounded by the Avro Vulcan pilots’ notes and technical specifications. Later he returned and told them what he was looking for: sudden changes in number ranges. He handed them a sheet containing the actual parameters.

“What are they?” one of the men had asked.

“Don’t you worry about that, sonny.”

It didn’t take a genius to work out they represented changes in height.

Changes that were impossible for a Vulcan to have actually flown.

Changes imagined by a computer that fed an autopilot.

Once the processing was over, he sent all but the youngest technician home.

The computer room was fifty feet away, but Stafford could still hear the monotonous drone of the dot matrix printer drifting through the deserted building.

He smoked through a packet of Woodbines as he waited, contemplating the unthinkable.

It was no secret in the company that the Board had risked the house on this new technology. The computer itself was cripplingly expensive.

It was also no secret that he was the one who had persuaded his fellow directors to part with Blackton’s hard-earned cash.

He promised to resurrect the company’s fortunes with a ground-breaking system. Years ahead of the British competition still relying on drawing boards and old men who designed World War Two bombers.

On his desk, under the packet of Woodbines, was the first contract for the American government. The numbers were big. Big enough to call Guiding Light an instant success and secure Blackton’s future for years to come.

He knew from his days flying Hurricanes, you rarely got to a kill without taking a few risks. And he’d risked the house on Guiding Light.

He moved the cigarettes and opened the contract, staring at the final figure for the initial seven hundred and fifty units. With more promised, DF Blackton’s deals would positively affect the UK’s balance of payments. An incredible thing.

This was that moment, when you rolled out of your high-risk manoeuvre to find the Luftwaffe Me.109 in front and just below. Time to squeeze the trigger.

The printer noise stopped.

Stafford listened as the paper was collated.

By the time he got to the dimly lit computer room, the young technician was bent over a huge stack of perforated, green-lined sheets.

He had a desk lamp just above the pile, and scanned the columns, making the occasional mark with a pencil.

“Found anything?” Stafford asked as he stood in the doorway.

“Two, but I’ve only just started.”

“Damn it,” Stafford said and pushed the man out of the way.

His eyes needed to adjust to the harsh light from the angle-poise light reflecting off the paper. He blinked, and eventually saw the marks the technician had made.

Lines that met his parameters included a small star at one end.

A small star that said a lot.

Stafford ran his finger along the first starred line.

1,261, 1,261, 1,262, 1,278, 1,277, 1,298, 1,301, 1,265, 1,252, 1,998, 2,010, 2,618, 2,911, 2,871, 2,850, 2,799, 2,811, 1,261, 1,277, 1,279.

He circled 1,252 and 1,998. A jump of seven hundred and forty-six feet.

Unless the aircraft had flown over an unlikely hole in the ground, the equipment had suffered an aberration.

He counted the number of height readings that appeared wrong. Eight. He stood up and winced at a spike of lower back pain.

“The laser records, what is it, forty-seven readings a second? So, this was just a fraction of a second?”

The technician shook his head.

“No. The laser records twenty-seven readings a second, and the computer makes forty-seven decisions a second. But…” He tapped the sheets. “These are samples. The tapes only capture three height readings a second, and we limit the system to how much it can record.”

Stafford looked back at the numbers.

“So, it was wrong for three seconds?”

“More like two and a half.”

“And you’ve found two so far?

“Yes, sir.”

“Carry on. It’s essential we find them all. I’ll need to know exact details. Leave the results on my desk. I’ll be in very early, so be smart about it.”

He walked to the door. “And have the day off tomorrow.”