slid down the wall, leaving a bright smear of his blood across the rusty corrugated iron. Ramsey Machado ducked back into the hangar before Sean could bring the revolvei down from the head-high recoil. He kicked the door closed behind him and snatched the Tokarev automatic from his shoulder holster.
He snapped two quick shots through the thin wall, aiming for where he judged Sean was standing. Sean had anticipated this, and had dropped flat and flipped over twice. He estimated Ramsey's stance from the sound of the shots and the angle of the bullets cutting through the corrupted-iron wall.
He fired double-handed, and the heavy bullet punched a hole through the wall and missed Ramsey's head by a foot.
Ramsey ducked behind a drum of Avgas and shouted across the hangar at Michael as he sat at the controls of the aircraft.
'Start upv Michael had been frozen with shock in the pilot seat of the Centurion, but at Ramsey's order he recovered and flipped on both master switches and both magnetos and turned the key. The Centurion's engine fired and caught. He pushed the throttle open, and she roared eagerly and strained against the wheel-brakes.
'Get her rolling,' Ramsey shouted, and fired two more shots through the wall at random.
The Centurion moved forward towards the open hangar-door, gathering speed swiftly, and Ramsey raced after her, ducked under the wing and jerked open the passenger-door.
'Where is Ben?' Michael shouted at him as he scrambled into the seat.
'Ben is finished,' Ramsey shouted back. 'Keep going.' 'What do you mean, finished?' Michael twisted in the seat and closed the throttle. 'We can't leave him.' 'Ben is dead, man.' Ramsey caught his hand on the throttle. 'Ben has been shot. He's finished. We have to get out of here.' 'Ben-' 'Keep her going.' Michael pushed the throttle open once again and swung the Centurion on to the runway. His face was twisted with grief.
'Ben,' he whispered, and let the speed build up until the Centurion was taxiing tail-up along the strip. They reached the end, and he used brake and engine to swing her around, facing back down the runway into the wind.
'The engine is cold,' he said. 'She hasn't had a chance to warm up.' 'We've got to chance it,' Ramsey told him. 'The police are going to be swarming in. They're on to us; somehow they've tumbled to it.' 413en? y 'Forget about Ben,' Ramsey snapped. 'Get us into the air.$ 'Where are we going - Botswana?'Michael still hesitated.
'Yes,' Ramsey told him. 'But first we are going to finish this operation.
Head for the showgrounds.' 'But... but you say the police are on to us,' Michael protested.
'How can they stop us now? It will take an hour to get an air-force Impala into the air - go, man, gov Michael pushed the pitch fully fine and opened the throttle wide. The Centurion bounded down the strip.
As the speed built up they saw a figure run out from behind, the hangar.
Michael recognized his brother.
'Sean!' he exclaimed.
'Keep going,' Ramsey told him.
Sean dropped on one knee at the verge of the runway, and as the Centurion raced towards him he thrust out both 5ee arms towards it in the classic double-handled grip and fired three deliberate shots. Each time the heavy recoil threw the muzzle of the revolver towards the sky.
The last shot struck the windscreen, and they both ducked instinctively. It left a silver cobweb in the Perspex pane, and then Michael rotated the Centurion's nose and they skimmed over the boundary fence and bore up into the clear blue highveld sky.
At two hundred feet the cold motor stuttered and coughed, then it caught again and ran smoothly.
'Head for the showgrounds,'Ramsey repeated. 'We won't get Vorster, but it's still a good target. There are two hundred thousand of them.' Michael levelled out at a thousand feet and turned on to his track.
As the Centurion soared overhead, Sean emptied the revolver, blazing up at its belly. He saw no sign of his bullets striking, and the landing-wheels of the Centurion retracted as she rose unharmed into the sky.
Sean jumped to his feet and sprinted into the hangar. He saw the telephone on the workbench.
'Thank Godv He ran to the bench and snatched it up.
As he dialled the Capricorn number, he noticed the open map under his hands and the Rand Easter Show brochure. The red- marked notations on the map ringed the location of the showgrounds, and a broad arrow indicated the wind direction and speed.
The operator on the switchboard answered on the third ring. 'Capricorn Chemical Industries, good day. How may I help you?' 'Get me Mr. Garry Courtney in the boardroom. I'm his brother. This is an emergency.' 'He is expecting your call. You are going straight through.' As he waited Sean glanced quickly around the hangar.
He saw the safety-suits hanging on the wall beside the door.
'Is that you, Sean?' Garry's voice was strained.
'Yes, it's me. I'm at Firgrove. It's as bad as we feared. Michael and Ben and the Fox. The target is the showgrounds.' 'Did you stop them, Sean?' 'No. Michael and the Fox are airborne. They took off two minutes ago. They are almost certainly heading for the showgrounds.' 'Are you sure, Sean?' 'Of course I'm bloody sure. I'm in Mickey's hangar and I'm looking at a map right now. The showgrounds are marked and the wind speed and direction.
There are two smoke-proof suits hanging on the wall - they didn't have a chance to get into them.' 'I'll warn the police, the Air Force.' 'Don't be a prick, Garry. It will take an order from the chief of the defence force and the minister before they'll send up a fighter or a helicopter gunship. That could take a month of Sundays. By then two hundred thousand people will be dead.' 'What must we do, Sean?' At last the administrator deferred to the man of action.
'Take the Queen Air,' Sean told him. 'She's faster and bigger and more powerful than the little Centurion. You have to intercept them and force them down before they reach the show.' 'Describe Mickey's Centurion,' Garry ordered crisply.
'Blue on top. White belly. Her markings are ZS - RRW, Romeo Romeo Whisky.
You know the location of Firgrove and their course to reach the show.' 'I'm on my way,' said Garry, and the connection clicked and went dead.
Sean picked up the Smith & Wesson from the bench-top where he had dropped it, and spilled the empty cases from the chambers. From his pocket he pulled the box of ammunition and reloaded swiftly. He ran back to the door and with the revolver held ready he stood clear and kicked it open.
Immediately he dropped into a gunfighter's crouch and aimed through the doorway.
Ben had dragged his paralysed legs only a few yards before he collapsed. He lay in a huddle at the foot of one of the peach trees. He was bleeding copiously; bright arterial blood had soaked his shirt and the tops of his trousers. His left arm hung by a taller of mangled flesh. The shattered bone was spiked through the meat like a skewer.
Sean straightened up and safed the Smith & Wesson. He walked through the door and stood looking down at Ben.
Ben was still alive. He rolled over painfully to look up at Sean. His eyes were brown as burnt sugar and filled with a dreadful anguish.
'They got away, didn't they?' he whispered. 'They will succeed. You cannot stop us. The future belongs to us.' Isabella came running through the trees. She saw Sean and swerved towards him.
'I told you to keep out of the way,' he growled at her. 'Why can't you ever do as you're told?' She saw Ben lying at his feet and stopped short.
'It's Ben. Oh God, what have you done to him?' She started forwa - rd again and dropped to her knees beside the prostrate body.
Carefully she lifted Ben's head into her lap, but the movement tore something in his injured lung and he began to cough. A mouthful of blood spilled between his open lips and poured down his chin.
'Oh God, Sean. You've killed him!' Isabella sobbed.
'I hope so,' Sean said softly. 'With all my heart, I hope SO.' 'Sean, he's your brother.' 'No,' said Sean. 'He's not my brother. He's just a lump of shit.' As Garry Courtney started the engines of the Queen Air, he was calculating furiously.
Capricorn was almost sixty miles closer to the showgrounds than Firgrove, and in addition the Queen Air was seventy or eighty knots faster than the Centurion at the cruise. It was seven minutes since Sean had called him, nine minutes since Mickey had taken off.
It was all running very close. He dared not try to guess where to intercept the Centurion and try to cut its track. There was only one sure course open to him. He had to fly directly to the showgrounds, then turn and head back on the reciprocal of Michael's heading. He had to risk everything on a head-on interception.
As he opened the throttles and ran the Queen Air out on to the runway, he found with mild surprise that he still had a half-smoked cigar between his teeth. In the panic of getting to the aircraft he had forgotten all about it. As he lifted the big twin-engined machine into the air, he drew deeply on the cigar. It was the very best Havana, and he smiled at the irony. The fragrant smoke calmed his nerves a little.
'I'm not as good at this as Sean is.' He spoke to himself. 'Give me a hectic day on the Stock Exchange or a nice bloody takeover deal
