hold. The ramp was the only protection forward of them.
A thin stream of tracer arced its way towards us. The rounds found their mark. Hot metal ripped through the Cargomaster’s floor.
Joe dived still lower.
Suddenly I was looking up at them. They were trying to move forward on the ramp, trying to get some rounds down.
Their tracer really did make it look as if we were in some Second World War dogfight, until we levelled out again, way out of range.
Joe sparked up: ‘The boy is definitely in the cockpit. He’s with that fucker who took him. They’re in the right-hand seat. You see them, Nick?’
‘No.’
‘He’s definitely there. But that’s fucking close to the fuel tanks, man. It’s going to take some fucking good shooting. You up for that shit?’
‘I fucking have to be.’
He laughed far louder than he needed to. ‘You told me you didn’t know how to use the fucking thing. But I had you drilled down as soon as I saw you, man.’
‘Joe, can you come in higher and just slightly to the left, over his left wing? I need a line straight down into the tanks and out the bottom without hitting the boy. Can you do that?’
‘As you say, man — I fucking have to.’
The aircraft started to climb. He held the Cargomaster in a tight bank. I tried to look out of the door. I had no idea where the Skyvan was. The engine screamed. More crap got thrown about. We all held on to whatever we could.
Sunlight leapt at me before the blue sky surrounded me, and then all of a sudden I saw it. The Skyvan was four hundred metres away and much lower.
Joe was on the cans: ‘As soon as they see us they’re going to try and manoeuvre, but fuck ’em. You just get the rounds down, man. Right?’
‘I’ll tell you when.’
I moved the mike out of the way and screamed to Mr Lover Man. ‘Come here! I need you!’
He scrambled towards me. The Skyvan was still below us.
‘I need you as a platform. On the door.’
Mr Lover Man knelt down, arms out, gripping the sides of the frame.
25
I knelt down beside his left arm, using it to support the weapon as I leant against the frame.
I pushed the mike back on. ‘Joe, I’m ready.’
‘Here we go.’
He crabbed neatly across the sky until he was right on top of the Skyvan. I leant forward into Mr Lover Man’s arm, bringing the weapon down, fighting the wind.
The Skyvan was two hundred metres the other side of the sights.
The wind was buffeting our faces big-time, but Mr Lover Man’s expression hadn’t changed. Its message was simple:
The Skyvan was maybe a hundred metres below us now. The strain showed on Mr Lover Man’s face as he put everything into keeping his body as rigid as he possibly could. He knew how important this platform was.
Joe’s voice came back through the cans: ‘I’m going to drop down and move a little over his left wing. They’ll see us soon enough. You get drilling as soon as you can.’
‘I’m ready.’
We came so close I could identify faces in the cockpit. Stefan was on the right-hand seat, gripped between BB’s legs. BB was shifting continuously, twisting and turning, checking the airspace around them. He looked up. The M4 dug into the boy’s stomach and his mouth opened in a silent shout.
I felt Mr Lover Man’s eyes boring into me, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, anyway. Stefan was too valuable to BB now, and the only leverage he had. The only way the kid was going to get shot at the moment was through bad skills and a wayward 7.62.
The airframe tilted left. I had a clear shot straight down into the tank at about forty degrees.
I fired.
I fired again.
Joe came at me on the cans: ‘Your old friends are right on the ramp.’
I glanced back. Ant and Dec were manoeuvring themselves into a position from which they could fire without hitting their own wing. The weapons in their shoulders wavered as they fought the wind rush.
A tumbling 5.56 round ripped a hole many times its size in the aluminium floor, missing Mr Lover Man’s feet by inches before exiting through the roof.
Mr Lover Man didn’t move a millimetre.
I fired again.
I steadied myself for the next shot. Something had changed down there. The fuselage between the Skyvan’s wing roots was staining as fuel escaped across it.
I fired more rounds into the shed, until I got a big clunk as the working parts moved forward, and then nothing. The mag was empty. Ant and Dec just kept on going.
Joe screamed. ‘Moving!
He pulled round in a wide turn.
The Cargomaster threw a sharp left and tilted up. All I could see was sky. Then I caught another glimpse of the cockpit. BB had joined in. He was firing through the side window.
Mr Lover Man and I tumbled back onto the fuselage as the Cargomaster screamed down out of range.
There’d been no sign of Stefan.
Joe was back on the cans: ‘Fuck it, we can’t afford to take rounds, man. We can’t go down before that fucker.’
I looked at the daylight spilling through the holes around me. I was glad he hadn’t seen them yet.
Mr Lover Man looked at me, waiting for an answer.
I shrugged.
Joe bellowed with excitement, ‘They’re heading for the coast, man. You fucking well did it!’
I gave Mr Lover Man the thumbs-up.
He nodded slowly. I moved aside so he could make his way back into the hold.
Genghis screamed up the fuselage at us before he could move a muscle.
26
She looked almost at peace. I thought she even had a smile on her face. I hoped that as she fought to take her last breath she’d known I was going to save her little boy.
I fell back, trying to take it all in. No Mong. No Tracy. Stefan looking down the barrel of a gun. And Anna too. I used to be able to cut away from this shit, but not any more.
Oblivious to what had happened, Joe was almost jumping for joy. ‘Definitely, man! That fucking shed is heading for land, man. You shot that fucker to shit.’
The Cargomaster tilted right, heading low towards the coast. ‘Let’s go see what’s left of them when they dump, eh?’
Mr Lover Man was checking for a signal on his mobile as Genghis went and closed the shutter door. I climbed into the right-hand seat. There was fuck-all else I could do for the moment. There was fuck-all anybody could
