As we leave, I take one last look back at the girls before they disappear from view. I now have to try to put them to the back of my mind, knowing the best thing for a successful mission is concentrating on the mission with no distractions, and that is what will give us the best odds of getting us back together as soon as possible, all in one piece.
Chapter 9
Lieutenant Winters and I have made our way back through the Departure Lounge without much said, and are climbing back into the Defender.
He quickly starts the engine and before I know it, he is turning the vehicle into a sharp 180-degree arc and we are aiming in the direction of the new Forward Operating Base for the mission, at the hangar where Josh and Dan are.
As we drive toward the FOB and the Apache helicopters, we are met by an obstacle and I can only hope that this is the worst one we will come across today, wishful thinking maybe.
The path through the centre of the Apaches that we came upon on our way, is now cordoned off with bollards and a man in a high-vis jacket. He is directing us to go right and down the side of the long hangar that goes all the way down to the quarantine area. My first thought is that the American pilot we startled on the way and who slammed his hand on the bonnet has put a complaint in and so the through path has been closed.
“Bloody hell,” Lieutenant Winters exclaims. “I’ll get this idiot to move the bollards and let us through!”
He is about to pull up and stop. However, the sound of one of the Apache motors starts accelerating up to full power, the noise whining through our doors’ open windows. We can’t see which one of the Apaches it is though, in the mass of helicopters before us. Lieutenant Winters pulls up short of the bollards just in time for us to watch as an Apache Attack helicopter on the far side from us, starts to lift off, raising above over the rest of the helicopters still on the ground. The powerful motor of the helicopter has it lifted into the air in no time and as it lifts, it starts to fly forward, its body and rotors silhouetted by the sun in front of us as it goes. Then another less obvious whining noise starts as another Apache starts its take-off, and it too is soon in the air and following the first. Within two or three minutes, four more Apaches are in the air and they all follow in the direction of the first, towards London.
There is a lull in the action following the lift-off of the sixth Apaches, it seems that these are only the initial sorties, probably providing air cover for an offshoot of the main mission, due to move out in only another forty minutes or so.
The Defender springs back to life almost as soon as the lull begins and Lieutenant Winters drives straight for the bollards and the high-vis jacketed man, coming to a sudden stop in front of him.
“Let us through,” the Lieutenant shouts as he pokes his head out of his window.
The man in the high-vis who is clearly a civilian, more than likely an airport worker, is having none of it. “Sorry mate, the road is closed; you’ll have to go down that way,” he says, pointing again down to our right and the long hangar.
“For fuck’s sake, man, we’ve got urgent business, now move those bollards!” Lieutenant Winters’ sudden outburst takes me by surprise; he struck me as a man who would not lose his cool so easily.
“Sorry mate, more than my job's worth, this road is closed,” the man says, not intimidated at all by the outburst. He doesn’t move and smiles at us, his bushy moustache raising, following his lips.
“Fucking jobsworth,” the Lieutenant says under his breath as he pulls his head in, getting even more irate.
He slams his foot on the accelerator and just as I think he is going to plough through the bollards or even through the man, he swerves the Defender to the left in the opposite direction of the one the man told him. The man moves, suddenly thinking the same as me, and he jumps to the side, falling over himself and knocking over some of the bollards. He ends up in a heap on the ground in amongst the bollards.
The Lieutenant motors down, accelerating as we go parallel to the helicopters; he only slows a little as we go up a small verge and onto the wide grass area that runs between the helicopters and one of the airport's runways. Immediately turning right, he picks up speed again, travelling in the direction of the FOB and I have to hand it to him, this is a much quicker route than our friend in the high-vis jacket pointed him to—even if the grass does throw up quite a few bumps.
No other Apaches take off as we travel past them on our right side, while on our left are ten Chinook helicopters, lined up in two rows of five, lengthways on as we pass them. Their double rotors hanging low give the impression our roof might hit them. Not that that slows down Lieutenant Winters who is almost giving chase to a USAF C10 Galaxy transport plane that has just come into land on the runway, away to our left.
With the Apaches coming to an end and then behind us, the Defender veers slightly right. We almost jump into the air as the Defender hits a larger grass verge and we hit the tarmac again. Thankfully, the FOB is now in sight and this seems to calm the Lieutenant a bit because he eases the speed slightly and his hands relax on the steering wheel.
“It looks like your team has arrived,”
