carrier band hissed and a voice cut in clearly. 'Unidentified aircraft. This is Luanda control. You are in restricted airspace. Identify yourself immediately. I say again, you are in restricted airspace.' 'Luanda control, this is British Airways Flight BA 051. We have an engine malfunction. Request a position fix.' Shasa began a garbled delaying argument with Luanda. Every second he could gain was crucial. He asked them for a clearance to land at Luanda, and pretended not to be receiving or understanding their refusals and urgent orders to vacate national airspace.
'They haven't fallen for it, Mr. Courtney,' Len warned him as he swept the military frequencies. 'They have scrambled a flight of Migs from Saurimo, airfield. They are vectoring them in on us.' 'How long before we cross the Chicamba river-mouth?' Garry demanded.
'Fourteen minutes,' Shasa snapped back.
'Well, Lordy, Lordyp Garry grinned. 'We are on a head-on course with those Migs. They are coming in at Mach 2. This is going to be fun.' They sped southwards into the silver moonlight.
'Mr. Courtney, we have more radar lash. I think the Migs have got us on their attack radar.' 'Thank you, Len. Chicamba river in one minute thirty seconds.' 'Mr. Courtney.' There was a strident tone to Len's voice. 'The Mig leader is reporting target acquisition. They are on to us, sir. The attack radar lash is increasing. The Mig leader is requesting weapons-free.' 'I thought you said they couldn't intercept us,' Shasa asked Garry mildly.
'I thought we were out of their operational range.' 'Hell, Dad, anyone can make a mistake.' 'Mr. Courtney!' Len's voice was a shriek. 'I have the target signal, weak and intermittent. About six kilometres. Dead ahead!' 'Are you sure, Len?' 'It's our transponder for surev 'The Chicamba river-mouth. Bella is at the Chicamba!' Shasa shouted. 'Let's get the hell out of here.' 'Mr. Courtney, the Migs are weapons-free and attacking. Radar lash is very strong and increasing.' 'Hold on,' Garry called. 'Grab your hats.' He rolled the Lear wing-over into a dive.
'What the hell are you doing?' Shasa shouted as he was pressed back into the co-pilot's seat by the G force. 'Turn and get out to sea.' 'They'd nail us before we'd gone a mile.' Garry held the Lear in the dive.
'Christ, Garry, you'll tear the wings off us.' The airspeed indicator revolved swiftly up towards the 'never exceed' barrier.
'Take your choice, Pater. We tear the wings off her - or the Migs shoot the arse off us.' 'Mr. Courtney, the Mig leader reports missile- lock.' Len was stuttering with terror.
'What- are you going to do, Garry;' Shasa grabbed Garry's arm.
'I'm going in there.' Garry pointed at the soaring moonwashed mountain of the thunderstorm. It was a sheer precipice of turbulent cloud that obscured the heavens ahead of them. The cloud-banks boiled and seethed with the great winds and air-currents within. Lightning flashed and glowed deep in the belly of the storm.
'You are crazy,' Shasa whispered.
'No Mig will follow us in,' Garry said. 'No missile will hold its lock with all that energy and electrical discharge burning around us.' 'Mr. Courtney, Mig leader has fired a missile - and another. Two missiles running.
'Pray for us sinners,' Garry said, and held the Lear down in its death-dive; the airspeed needle went through the 'never exceed' barrier.
'I think this is it.' Shasa's voice was matter-of fact, and as he said it something struck the Lear a crashing blow. She flipped over on to her back, the ball of the flight director spun like a top in its cage, and then they were into the storm.
All visibility was wiped out instantly and thick grey cloud like wet cottonwool engulfed them. They were thrown on to their safety-harnesses as the storm attacked the Lear. It was a ravening beast that clawed and lashed them.
The Lear tumbled and swirled like a dead leaf in a whirlwind. The instruments on the control-panel spun and toppled, the altimeter yo-yo'd as they dropped into the void and then hit a vicious updraught that hurled them up two thousand feet and twisted them wing over wing.
Suddenly the cloud was lit by internal lightning. It dazzled them, and rumbled through their heads, drowning out the agonized shriek of the Lear's jets. Blue fire danced on the metal skin of the aircraft as though she were aflame. They hit the bottom of another hole with a force that plunged them against the padding of their seats and buckled their spines. Then they were hurled aloft only to plunge once again. All around them the body work of the Lear creaked and groaned as the storm tried to rip her apart.
Garry was helpless. He knew better than to fight the wheel and rudders and increase the brutal stress on her control-surfaces. The Lear was fighting for her life. He whispered encouragement to her and held the controlwheel with a light and loving touch, trying to ease her nose up out of the graveyard spiral.
'Courage, darling,' he whispered. 'Come on, baby. You can do it.' Shasa was clinging to the arm-rests of his seat and staring at the altimeter. They were down to fifteen thousand feet and still dropping. None of the other instruments was making any sense. They jerked and wavered and kicked.
He concentrated on the altimeter. It unwound jerkily. Ten thousand, seven, four thousand. The strength of the storm increased; their heads were whipped back and forth, threatening to snap their spines. The shoulder-straps cut painfully into their flesh.
Something broke in the fuselage with a tearing crash. Shasa ignored it and tried to focus on the altimeter. His vision was starred and disorientated by the Lear's vicious plunges.
Two thousand feet, one thousand - zero. They should have hit the ground, but the tremendous changes of barometric pressure within the swirling body of the storm had thrown out the reading.
Suddenly the Lear steadied, the turbulence abated. Garry pressed on rudder and stick, and she responded. The flight director stabilized and rotated towards the vertical as the Lear rolled back on to even keel and they burst out of the cloud.
The change was stunning. The noise of the storm gave way to the low hum of the jets. Moonlight flooded into the cockpit, and Shasa gasped with shock.
They were almost upon the surface of the sea, skimming over it like a flying fish rather than a bird. A drop of another hundred feet would have plunged them beneath the green Atlantic rollers.
'Cutting it a little fine, son.' Shasa's voice was hoarse, and he tried to grin, but his eye-patch had been shaken loose and hung down under his ear.
He adjusted it with fingers that trembled.
'Come on, Navigator,' Garry chuckled unconvincingly. 'Give me a course to fly.' 'New course is 2eo degrees. How is she handling?'
'Like a breeze.' Garry turned gently on to the new heading. The Lear came round serenely and sped out into the Atlantic leaving the dark continental mass astern.
'Len.' Shasa turned in the seat and looked back into the cabin. The technicians' faces were pale and washed lightly with the sweat of terror.
'What do you make of the Migs?' Len stared at him like an owl as he tried to adjust to the shock of still being alive.
'Pull yourself together, man,' Shasa snapped at him, and Len stooped quickly to his control-panel.
'Yes, we still have contact. Mig leader is reporting target destroyed. He is short of fuel and returning to base.' 'Farewell, Fidel. Thank the Lord that you are a lousy shot,' Garry murmured, and kept the Lear low down in the surface clutter where the shore radar would have difficulty picking them up. 'Where is Lancer?' 'Should be dead ahead.' Shasa thumbed the microphone.
'Donald Duck, this is the Magic Dragon.' 'Go ahead, Dragon.' 'It's the Chicamba. I repeat the Chicamba. Do you copy that? Over.' 'Roger. Chicamba. I say again Chicamba. Did you have any trouble? We heard porn-porn. jet traffic south-east of here. Over.' 'Nothing to it. It was a Sunday-school picnic. Now it's your turn to visit Disneyland. Over.' 'We are on our way, Dragon.' 'Break a leg, Duck. Over and out.' It was half-past five on Tuesday morning when Garry put the Lear down on the tarmac at Windhoek Airport. They climbed down stiffly and stood in a group at the foot of the steps, overcome by a sense of anticlimax. Then Garry walked to the nearest engine which was softly crackling and pinking as it cooled.
'Pater,' he called. 'Come and have a look at this.' Shasa stared at the alien object that had buried itself in the metal fuselage below the pod of the Garrett turbo-fan engine. It was painted a harsh industrial yellow, a long finned arrow-like tube, that protruded six feet from the torn metal skin of the Lear.
'What the hell is that?' Shasa asked.
'That, Mr. Courtney,'said Len, who had come up behind him, 'that is a Soviet ATOLL air-to-air missile that failed to explode.' 'Well, Garry,' Shasa murmured, 'Fidel wasn't such a lousy shot after all.' 'Bless Russian workmanship,' Garry said. 'Perhaps it's a little early, Dad, but could you stand a glass of champagne?' 'What a splendid idea,' said Shasa.
'The Chicamba river.' Shoulder to shoulder, Sean and Esau Gondele leant over the chart-table. 'There she is.' Sean laid his finger on the tiny insignificant nick in the outline of the continent. 'Just south of Catacanha.' He looked up at the trawler skipper.
Van Der Berg was built like a Sumo wrestler, squat and heavy, with a leathery skin burnt and desiccated by sun and wind.
'What do you know about it, Van?' he asked.
'Never been in that close,' Van shrugged. 'Just another piss-willy little river. But I'll get you as close as you want to go.' 'A mile. off the reef will do very nicely.' 'You've got it,' Van
