Tapping Josh on the knee to get his attention, I pull my headphone off my right ear and he does the same with his left headphone so that we can talk privately.
“How are you feeling?” I talk loudly into his ear so that he can hear me over the din of the Lynx’s engines.
“The nerves are going big time, how about you?” he says into my ear while he shows me his left hand, which shakes slightly.
“My nerves are going too; that’s to be expected, you’ll be okay in here,” I tell him.
“Yes, I know, I’m worried about you down there though,” Josh says, looking concerned.
“I’m confident, so don’t worry too much, and just concentrate on your task. It will help.”
“I’ll try.”
“Use your rifle to cover us; it’s more accurate, so only use the minigun if you have to,” I tell him.
“Yes, that’s what I am going to do,” he says.
“Good lad, we’ll get through this!” I tell him and slap his knee.
We both put our earphones back into place and lose ourselves in the sound of the background static that is the only sound coming through the earphones. We are all quiet for the start of the flight, the whole team contemplating the mission ahead.
As Heathrow fades behind us, the Lynx flies over the suburbs of London, the greenery intertwined with roads, broken up by housing estates and industrial estates, but the greenery wins out. It is only when you get high up that you realise how many trees and green parks there are in London. Many people think of London as a sprawling concrete metropolis, the evidence below us proving that is not the case.
We cross overhead the six lanes of the M4 motorway and then the Lynx turns slightly and starts to follow it for a while. The traffic using the motorway is mostly going East into the city and all of that traffic is military. There are vehicles going in the opposite direction, probably people who can still leave the city having decided that their decision yesterday to try and ride it in out in their homes was the wrong decision.
Every moment that passes takes us deeper into the city, the M4 motorway behind us and the roads and buildings beneath us getting more concentrated. There is definitely a tinge of smoke in the air and this builds as we get close to our target. We can’t see it but we can definitely smell it in the air that blows through the open hold doors and it emphasizes why we are all here.
I unbuckle my seat strap and being careful to hold the handrail, I get up and step over towards the cockpit and duck my head into it. I almost wish I hadn’t decided to have a look forward out of the cockpit windows because the feeling of dread in my stomach tightens from the view I get.
London is almost entirely shrouded in smoke, thick black smoke, rising up from the burning city below. The smoke is densest in Central London and that definitely includes the Paddington Basin where the Orion building sits. Plumes reach up high above the city, too many plumes to count and the wind has also spread the smoke across the city, especially across North London. Smoke envelops wide areas of the North and the smoke then tapers away as far as the eye can see, thinning to an acrid mist as it travels.
“Shocking, isn’t it?” Wing Commander Buck says from the pilot’s seat.
“Very,” I tell him, “I was expecting it, I saw it yesterday, but the smoke’s much worse today, much worse.”
“It looks like London in the 1950s and the smog it used to suffer, apart from the tall buildings that is,” Buck points out.
“I almost wish it was the 1950s,” I say.
“You and me both, Captain.”
“What’s our ETA,” I ask, as we fly deeper into the smog.
“Seven minutes to the Orion building,” he tells me.
“Okay, keep me updated on our arrival time, please.”
“Of course, Captain.”
I duck out of the cockpit, swing around, plonk back into my seat next to Josh and check my watch; it’s 1357 hours, so we will arrive at Orion at 1404.
“You heard the Wing Commander, seven minutes until target area,” I say to everyone. “Check your gear and get ready to descend.”
Josh picks up the pack of thick heat-resistant gloves that the team will need for the fast rope descent onto the roof of Orion, and he hands me a pair and then a pair to the rest of the team, starting with Sergeant Dixon. I push mine under the side of my body armour to hold them while I check my gear. They are too thick to wear for anything but the descent, but they are vital to stop your hands from friction burning on the rope.
Sergeant Dixon is going to have the trickiest descent because he will be taking down the equipment in the plastic briefcase, and I see him getting the straps ready to secure it to his body. Me and the rest of the team only have our weapons to carry down. On the other Lynx, they have to get the heavier plasma equipment onto the roof. Alice will lower it down once the roof has been secured.
Darkness descends over the Lynx’s hold, and I look up and out of the open hold
