‘We have full payload of wounded men and need immediate assistance with medivac support,’ Jones went on.
For a moment the Phantoms seemed to be undecided, the radar bleeps jerking about in little concentric knots in the middle of the screen. Jones had started again on his mayday call, when Jackie Conquest came up the steps and stood beside Murray, whispering in French: ‘It’s all there — every packet I looked at. The large ones seem to be mostly on the top — hundreds of thousands of them!’
He peered at her curiously, wondering if he were mistaken, or was there just a chance that the widowed Mrs Conquest had been bitten by the gold-bug more deeply than he suspected? While he was still looking at her, Ryderbeit suddenly swung the stick back and they were both thrown sideways, nearly falling down the steps into the cargo bay. The engines howled, the floor tilting upwards as Murray grabbed at some canvas straps behind the pilots’ seats, seizing Jacqueline’s arm with his free hand, while Jones yelled, ‘Take her up another two hundred!’
The engines kept up their long climbing howl and through the windshield, against the deep grey night, there now appeared the still blacker shape of rounded hills. Ryderbeit was brushing ash off his lap, as he strained forward to see the treeline leaping away about a hundred feet below. ‘We missed that last ridge by less than fifty feet. I guess one can do this kind o’ thing once too often — and Samuel D. Ryderbeit’s been doin’ it for an awful long time now!’
‘One thing’s for sure though,’ Jones replied gravely: ‘Those Phantoms weren’t built for tree-hopping.’
‘What’s happening?’ Jacqueline asked, with magnificent detachment.
‘Up hill and down dale, darling,’ Ryderbeit said, without looking at her.
‘Where are we?’ said Murray.
‘By my reckoning,’ said Jones, ‘we should be out of the country in seven to eight minutes.’
‘Still no other visitors, except the Phantoms?’
‘Nothing so far.’
‘You brought me some dollars from down there, Mrs Conquest?’ Ryderbeit asked, this time looking round at her with a bright smile.
She smiled faintly back, not at Ryderbeit but at Murray, giving him a sidelong wink as she tapped two well-padded breasts under her sleeveless dress. ‘I’ve been more discreet,’ she whispered: ‘Only bills of fifty.’
Just then Ryderbeit gave a yelp and sprang forward in his seat, watching two pricks of light come looping down from the top of the sky — nose-lights blinking towards them at close to the speed of sound, as two of the Navy Phantoms converged and shrieked down above them, clearing the roof of the Caribou by less than ten feet. For a moment the whole aircraft seemed to pause in mid-air, cringing like a great beast being tormented by these two venomous bat-winged hunks of aluminium.
‘Mad bastards! They’re tryin’ to head us off before the border.’
The third Phantom now appeared out above the port wing, flying in the same direction but at twice their speed — the glow of burning kerosene curving out of the rear-nostrils of its short fat fuselage as it turned ahead of them, rolling on its back, and suddenly came towards them like a fire-streaked dart, passing close above the starboard wing — less close than the others, and a lot slower, with its landing beacons suddenly flaring on like a pair of searchlights, long enough to spoil Ryderbeit’s night-sight, and probably long enough for the crew to read the Treasury markings on the Caribou’s tail-fin.
‘Less than five minutes to the border,’ Jones said quietly.
‘You think that’ll stop them?’ said Jackie.
‘What sort of stuff has Sihanouk’s Air Force got?’ asked Murray.
‘Nothing that can stop a Phantom, that’s for sure,’ said Ryderbeit — just as the lights of the first two fighters came swerving round again over their port wing. While almost directly below, flicking through the screen of trees, they saw a spray of lights.
‘That’ll be Trang Bang,’ said Jones: ‘Six miles to the border.’ Above the shanty town, and the row of brighter lights that marked the U.S. helicopter base, more lights now appeared. Murray recognised the dim dragonfly silhouette of Huey ‘choppers’, flying towards them at about the level of the next rim of hills. The R/T came on again, this time on HF: ‘Trang Bang base to Marine Big Brother. We have your position. Can you attempt a landing? We have all medivac and fire-fighting crews standing by. Over.’
Jones leant out and spoke back on the HF wavelength: ‘Big Brother to Trang Bang base. We’ve got three crazy Phantoms on our tail, trying to buzz us. Probably think we’re from Cambodia. We will attempt a landing, but first get the bastards called off — or tell ’em the Marine Corps’ll have their arses for breakfast!’
But this time they did not listen to the answer. For at that moment a great ball of flame burst in the sky almost directly ahead, followed instantly by a long explosion, like a giant orange caterpillar crawling down towards the jungle. In the vivid lingering glow they had a glimpse of a dismembered helicopter, rotor blades severed, spiralling to earth with flames spouting from its tail. What was left of the Phantom hit the hills a second later with a thud of exploding fuel and rockets that reached even into the cabin of the Caribou.
Ryderbeit was taking the nose up steeply now, shaving the rim of hills perilously close, even in the dying flames of the crashed aircraft; and again they heard the crackle of the R/T, and a voice, quick and worried: ‘Base Control to Big Brother — are you still receiving? Are you still receiving…?’
‘Shut her off, No-Entry!’ Ryderbeit shouted, easing the throttle out, with the air-speed rising rapidly. The radar bleeps from the two remaining Phantoms were beginning to draw away
