As he flew between them, he released their necks, tried to bring his hands forward to protect his face, didn't even nearly make it. With his arms forming a 'V behind him, he hurtled forward and smashed face first through the windshield.
'Godawful — damn — thing!' Jake choked, slamming the 'Rover into first and crunching forward over something that was trying to stand up. They heard its body grinding and thumping, mangled between the 'Rover's underside and the stony rubble of the terrain. Then:
'My God!' Liz gasped. 'I think we might actually make it!'
'Never doubted it/ her partner told her, lying for all he was worth.
Just as they turned onto the service track and headed for the ramp, a light commenced flashing on the dash. 'Radio/ Liz said, reaching under the dash to grab a hidden mike. Thumbing the transmit button, she said, 'Hunter One for Zero. What kept you?'
'This is Zero One/ a gravelly voice answered in a stutter of static to match the sudden throb of a chopper's rotors. 'Is that you mobile down there?' And a searchlight beam swept down from above.
Jake leaned over and spat into the speaker, 'Only fucking just! Zero — Trask, is that you? — we could use some help.'
'Do you have a target?'
'If it's behind us and it's moving, it's a target/ Jake said, I straightening up in time to avoid a pothole. And as the adrenalin began to recede and his skin stopped prickling, he eased up a little so as not to send the Land Rover nosediving off the rim of the ramp.
Then Liz said, 'Stop!' 'Stop?'
'Stop the vehicle. I want to see.'
'Feeling bloodthirsty?' Jake looked at her, frowning as he cautiously applied the brakes.
'Not me.' She shook her head, shuddered her relief as she thumbed her nostrils one after the other to blow out her plugs. Then she half-turned her head, inclined it to indicate the dark shelf of rock that they'd left behind. 'And not them, not after this.' And now her voice was a sigh.
They looked up and back. First at a sleek, black dragonfly shape under the gleaming blur of its fan, a shape that blotted the stars in its passing and turned the night to a whirling dervish dust-devil with its downdraught as it sped overhead, then at the torpedo-shapes that tumbled lazily, — end over end, down from its belly like so many elongated eggs.
'Jesus!' Jake's sigh matched Liz's. And: 'Let there be light!' she said.
And there was light. The napalm hit a little way back from the top of the ramp. It lit up a widening path all the way back to the knoll, roared with the thunder of its all-consuming passion, washed the wall of the outcrop like a tsunami of fire. In the space of a few short seconds the scene might well have been that in the caldera of an active volcano: a small mountain burned in the night, with man-made lava flowing down its flanks.
For long moments there were running, leaping, screaming figures in the roiling smoke, blackly silhouetted against terrible balls of fire that seemed to roll across the shelf of the rocky outcrop with lives of their own. The spidery figures were there… and they were gone, cindered, rolled under…
The unit was made up of two choppers, a giant support truck and various smaller vehicles, mainly 'Rovers. The truck and lesser vehicles wouldn't get here for some time yet. They had miles of rough road to cover.
The choppers landed on the shelf itself, one to the north and the other to the south. In half an hour their combat-suited, gas-masked, heavily-armed special forces crews were moving forward into the scorched zone. Meanwhile Jake and Liz had joined up with Ben Trask, in charge of operations, also with lan Goodly, his 2I/C, and a 'civilian/ Peter Miller, of Australia's Rudall River National Park Administration — or 'Mister' Miller, as he insisted on being called.
Obviously Miller hadn't been told too much, which was perfectly understandable; it was all on a need-to- know basis, and when E-Branch went out into the world it was standard procedure to avoid unnecessary rumour- mongering and the panic that might ensue. Miller was small, round and bouncy as a rubber ball; he was very excitable and utterly confused. And like many another small, insignificant man in a position of assumed 'authority/ he made a lot of noise. Right now he raved on at the tall, unflappable beanpole that was lan Goodly, who kept steering him away from Ben Trask so that Trask could talk to Liz and Jake. But still Miller's yappy, little-dog voice could be heard over just about everything else that was going on. Right now he was flapping his arms, yelping about:
'… This uttermost devastation? Damn it all, Mr Goodly, I know that this is a wasteland, a useless desert region that you can't damage any worse than Nature herself has. But… there were men in that blaze! I saw men burning in those hellfires! What was that stuff, napalm? But in any case, what does it matter? What happened here tonight was sheer murder! There is no other word for it. I… I still can't believe what I witnessed here… cold- blooded murder, Goodly! And someone will be called to answer for it. In fact, I demand an answer right here and now!'
'Who is he?' Liz asked.
And Trask frowned. 'He's supposed to be our local liaison officer for the Western Deserts Region. A handful of top men in the Aussie Government know what we're doing, just how important our work is. Even so, they couldn't simply let us loose, give us carte blanche to get on with things. We were obliged to accept an observer. But that doesn't make him one of us, and I've managed to keep him out of it… well, until tonight. Even now I don't intend to waste time with him on long explanations. What we're doing is impossible to explain, anyway — not if we expect to be believed. But whether we want Miller or not we've got him, and maybe the best way to keep him quiet will be to let him see for himself something of what's going on.'
'Well, he's seen it,' Jake growled. 'But he isn't quiet.' 'He hasn't seen everything.' Trask's face was grim. And to Liz, 'What do you reckon?'
Knowing what he meant, she opened her mind, gazed intently through the smoke of the remaining fires at the burning shacks where they slumped in the lee of the knoll. And as lines of concentration formed on her brow, she said, 'The worst of them — the 'old man,' Bruce Trennier? — is still alive. Alive, afraid, and angry. He's still very dangerous, very clever, too. Despite that he tries to hide his thoughts, maybe because of it, I know he's there. His — what, mindsmog? — is as thick as the mist on a swamp, and it stinks a lot worse/ He's the boss, but he isn't alone. Back where the fire couldn't reach, in the depths of the old mine, there's a handful of others. They're waiting for us.'
Trask nodded. 'Well, let's not keep them,' he said, his lips twisting in a cold, cruel grimace, and his eyes lighting with a vengeful fire of their own. And: 'Mr Miller,' he called for the small and small-minded official. 'If you will please accompany me? I hope to be able to answer some of your questions…'
CHAPTER THREE Firestorm
Looking at Ben Trask, Jake Cutter found himself wondering what it was about the man. He knew some of it — that Trask was the head of a British Secret Service organization called E-Branch, based in London but with many other branches, affiliations and powerful friends throughout the world — but not everything by any means. One thing seemed certain, however: Ben Trask was a driven man. Moreover, Jake thought it likely that whatever was driving him was the same thing that caused him to look so much older than his years.
Not that Trask was young; in fact, he could be anything between fifty-five and sixty years old. But while his mousey hair was streaked with white, his skin pale and his aspect in general aged and maybe even fragile, still the man inside, the mind, soul, and personality — the id itself — was diamond-hard. Jake sensed this, and felt a certain empathy for Trask, felt that he knew him, despite that the man had only recently become a factor in his life. But one hell of a factor!
For his height of about five-ten, Trask was maybe a couple of pounds overweight. His broad shoulders slumped just a little, his arms tended to dangle, and his expression was usually, well, lugubrious? Or maybe that, too, was as a result of… of what? His loss? For that was the impression you got if you caught him unawares: the feeling that something had gone out of him, leaving him downcast, empty; his green eyes strangely vacant or far
