Thunder Point

Tomic emerged from the cabin, jumped to the ground and came towards them wiping his hands on a rag. ‘Everything in perfect working order.’

Dillon offered him a cigarette and glanced out. ‘And this?’

Tomic peered up into the darkness. ‘It’ll get worse before it gets better and you’ll find ground mist over there, especially over the forest, mark my words.’

‘Ah, well, better get on with it as the thief said to the hangman.’ Dillon crossed to the Conquest.

He went up the steps and examined the interior. All the seats had been removed and it was stacked with long olive-green boxes. Each one was stencilled in English: Royal Army Medical Corps.

Schmidt, who had joined him, said, ‘As you can see we get our supplies from unusual sources.’

‘You can say that again. What’s in these?’

‘See for yourself.’ Schmidt unclipped the nearest one, removed a sheet of oiled paper to reveal box after box of morphine ampoules. ‘Over there, Mr Dillon, they sometimes have to hold children down when they operate on them because of the lack of any kind of anaesthetic. These prove a highly satisfactory substitute.’

‘Point taken,’ Dillon said. ‘Now close it up and I’ll get moving.’

Schmidt did as he was told, then jumped to the ground. As Dillon pulled up the steps Wegner said, ‘God go with you, Mr Dillon.’

‘There’s always that chance,’ Dillon said. ‘It’s probably the first time I’ve done anything he’d approve of,’ and he closed the door and clamped it in place.

He settled into the left-hand pilot’s seat, fired the port engine and after that the starboard. The chart was next to him on the other seat, but he had already pretty well committed it to memory. He paused on the apron outside the hangar, rain streaming from his windscreen, did a thorough cockpit check then strapped in and taxied to the end of the runway, turning into the wind. He glanced across to the three men standing in the hangar entrance, raised a thumb then started forward, his engine roar deepening as he boosted power. Within a second or two he had disappeared, the sound of the engines already fading.

Wegner ran a hand over his face. ‘God, but I’m tired.’ He turned to Tomic. ‘Has he a chance?’

Tomic shrugged. ‘Quite a man, that one. Who knows?’

Schmidt said, ‘Let’s get some coffee. We’re going to have a long wait.’

Tomic said, ‘I’ll join you in a minute. I just want to clear my tools away.’

They crossed towards the end hut. He watched them go, waited until they’d gone inside before turning and swiftly crossing to the office. He picked up the telephone and dialled a lengthy series of numbers. As the good doctor had said, the telephone system still worked surprisingly well over there.

When a voice answered he spoke in Serbo-Croat. ‘This is Tomic, get me Major Branko.’

There was an instant response. ‘Branko here.’

‘Tomic. I’m at the airfield at Fehring and I’ve got traffic for you. Cessna Conquest just left, destination Sabac. Here is his radio frequency.’

‘Is the pilot anyone we know?’

‘Name of Dillon – Sean Dillon. Irish, I believe. Small man, very fair hair, late thirties I’d say. Doesn’t look much. Nice smile, but the eyes tell a different story.’

‘I’ll have him checked out through Central Intelligence, but you’ve done well, Tomic. We’ll give him a warm welcome.’

The phone clicked and Tomic replaced the receiver. He took out a packet of the vile Macedonian cigarettes he affected and lit one. Pity about Dillon. He’d rather liked the Irishman, but that was life and he started to put his tools away methodically.

And Dillon was already in trouble, not only thick cloud and the constant driving rain, but even at a thousand feet a swirling mist that gave only an intermittent view of pine forest below.

‘And what in the hell are you doing here, old son?’ he asked softly. ‘What are you trying to prove?’

He got a cigarette out of his case, lit it and a voice spoke in his earphones in heavily accented English, ‘Good morning, Mr Dillon, welcome to Yugoslavia.’

The plane took station to starboard not too far away, the red stars on its fuselage clear enough, a Mig 21, the old Fishbed, probably the Soviet jet most widely distributed to its allies. Outdated now, but not as far as Dillon was concerned.

The Mig pilot spoke again. ‘Course 124, Mr Dillon. We’ll come to a rather picturesque castle at the edge of the forest, Kivo it’s called, Intelligence Headquarters for this area. There’s an airstrip there and they’re expecting you. They might even arrange a full English breakfast.’

‘Irish,’ Dillon said cheerfully. ‘A full Irish breakfast and who am I to refuse an offer like that? One-two-four it is.’

He turned on to the new course, climbing to two thousand feet as the weather cleared a little, whistling softly to himself. A Serbian prison did not commend itself, not if the stories reaching Western Europe were even partly true, but in the circumstances, he didn’t seem to have any choice and then, a couple of miles away on the edge of the forest beside a river he saw Kivo, a fairytale castle of towers and battlements surrounded by a moat, the airstrip clear beside it.

‘What do you think?’ the Mig pilot asked. ‘Nice, isn’t it?’

‘Straight out of a story by the Brothers Grimm,’ Dillon answered. ‘All we need is the ogre.’

‘Oh, we have that too, Mr Dillon. Now put down nice and easy and I’ll say goodbye.’

Dillon looked down into the interior of the castle, noticed soldiers moving towards the edge of the airstrip preceded by a Jeep and sighed. He said into his mike, ‘I’d like to say it’s been a good life, but then there are those difficult days, like this morning for instance. I mean, why did I even get out of bed?’

He heaved the control column right back and boosted power, climbing fast and the Mig pilot reacted angrily. ‘Dillon, do as you’re told or I’ll blast you out of the sky.’

Dillon ignored him, levelling out at five thousand, searching the sky for any sign and the Mig, already on his tail, came up behind and fired. The Conquest staggered as cannon shell tore through both wings.

‘Dillon – don’t be a fool!’ the pilot cried.

‘Ah, but then I always was.’

Dillon went down fast, levelling at two thousand feet over the edge of the forest, aware of vehicles moving from the direction of the castle. The Mig came in again firing his machine guns now and the Conquest’s windscreen disintegrated, wind and rain roaring in. Dillon sat there, hands firm on the control column, blood on his face from a glass splinter.

‘Now then,’ he said into his mike. ‘Let’s see how good you are.’

He dropped the nose and went straight down, the pine forest waiting for him below and the Mig went after him, firing again. The Conquest bucked, the port engine dying as Dillon levelled out at four hundred feet and behind him the Mig, no time to pull out at the speed it was doing, ploughed into the forest and fireballed.

Dillon, trimming as best he could for flying on one engine, lost power and dropped lower. There was a clearing up ahead and to his left. He tried to bank towards it, was already losing height as he clipped the tops of the pine trees. He cut power instantly and braced himself for the crash. In the end, it was the pine trees which saved him, retarding his progress so much that by the time he hit the clearing for a belly landing, he wasn’t actually going all that fast.

The Conquest bounced twice, and came to a shuddering halt. Dillon released his straps, scrambled out of his seat and had the door open in an instant. He was out head first, rolling over in the rain and on his feet and running, his right ankle twisting so that he fell on his face again. He scrambled up and limped away as fast as he could, but the Conquest didn’t burst into flame, it simply crouched there in the rain as if tired.

There was thick black smoke above the trees from the burning Mig and then soldiers appeared on the other side of the clearing. A Jeep moved out of the trees behind them, top down and Dillon could see an officer standing up in it wearing a winter campaign coat, Russian-style, with a fur collar. More soldiers appeared, some of them with Dobermanns, all barking loudly and straining against their leashes.

It was enough. Dillon turned to hobble into the trees and his leg gave out on him. A voice on a loudhailer called in English, ‘Oh, come now, Mr Dillon, be sensible, you don’t want me to set the dogs on you.’

Dillon paused, balanced on one foot, then he turned and hobbled to the nearest tree and leaned against it. He took a cigarette from his silver case, the last one, and lit it. The smoke tasted good as it bit at the back of his throat and he waited for them.

They stood in a semi-circle, soldiers in baggy tunics, guns covering him, the dogs howling against being restrained. The Jeep rolled to a halt and the officer, a major from his shoulder boards, stood up and looked down at him, a good-looking man of about thirty with a dark saturnine face.

‘So, Mr Dillon, you made it in one piece,’ he said in faultless public school English. ‘I congratulate you. My name, by the way, is Branko – John Branko. My mother was English, is, I should say. Lives in Hampstead.’

‘Is that a fact.’ Dillon smiled. ‘A desperate bunch of rascals you’ve got here, Major, but cead mile failte anyway.’