“What’s happened to the sun, Buck?” I ask into my headset.
“Some dark clouds have moved over, Captain, looks like rain is moving in.”
Again, I unbuckle and get up to the cockpit, to have a proper look for myself. The scene before me now is even more sinister, there are dark clouds cutting the sunlight from the city, casting it into shadow. The skyscrapers of the City of London and Canary Wharf are barely visible, in the smoky depths of the city and with the sunlight taken from them too, they now look like black scars rising up from the ground. The loss of the sunlight above allows the orange light from fires that burn on the ground all over the city to glow and that glow resonates as if the city is sinking into hell, which it quite possibly is!
The impending rain may well fight or even extinguish some of the fires that have taken hold and help salvage the city before it does crumble into hell, but I curse our luck.
Rain will hamper our mission on many levels; will wet ropes mean we have to abandon our fast rope descent to the target and be forced to land the helicopters onto the roof? That would add time to the mission and aircover would be lost as the helicopters land and take off, one at a time. Sergeant Dixon cannot afford to get any of his delicate electronics wet, and he will be working on the safe next to a hole in the roof. If the rain is heavy, it could come down on his position by the safe. Rain, especially heavy rain as any soldier will tell you, dulls almost every human sense, impairs your vision, hearing and even your sense of smell and your equipment gets slippery, harder to use. Don’t get me wrong, rain can be an advantage in certain circumstances; the cover it provides can give a big tactical advantage if you are stalking an enemy or helping to cover a retreat, for example. For this mission, however, the rain, while it will mask our approach to the target, offers downsides far outweighing the up.
“Lieutenant Winters, receiving, over?” I say urgently into my headset as I retake my seat.
“Receiving, over,” his reply comes through.
“Weather update, looks like rain at the target area, over?”
“Hold, over,” the Lieutenant says; he must be checking. “Latest update, rain central London, estimated, 1410 hours, starting light to heavy, then constantly heavy, winds strong. The storm is now estimated 1450 hours, winds strong to gale force, rain very heavy and lightning expected, over.”
“Received, the storm is getting earlier and earlier; please advise if moves forward again, over,” I tell the Lieutenant.
“Received, over and out,” he finishes.
The mission timing is getting tight, too tight, so everything is going to have to go like clockwork for us to stand any chance of completing the mission and leaving the Orion building before this storm hits. In any event, we are in for a soaking no matter how well the mission proceeds and we need to make sure Sergeant Dixon can work without the rain affecting him.
“Where is the tarpaulin?” I ask Josh.
“Tarpaulin?” Josh says.
“Yes, the plastic sheeting!” My frustration gets the better of me.
“I know what it is, I’m just thinking where it is?” Josh admits.
“Josh, think, we need it.”
He looks around the hold as if he is hoping he might see it, but then says, “I know.” He leans right down, looking under our seats, then thankfully reaches under and pulls out a newly sealed cellophane-wrapped green tarpaulin.
“I knew I’d loaded it, sorry,” Josh says.
“No problem, sorry I snapped. Throw it down to me, okay?” I tell him.
“Yep, okay, Dad.”
“Four minutes to target,” Buck’s voice comes through our earphones.
The smoke is getting thicker inside the hold of the Lynx, and it is stinging my eyes a bit and irritating my throat. We are flying into central London and the sounds of battle from below travel through the air and up to us as we go. Even with my earphones on, I can hear the constant gunshots and explosions from the ground. We haven’t time to try and look down to see how the battle is developing; we have our own priorities to worry about, but even a glance out of the open hold door tells us the battle is ferocious and extensive. We fly straight over it and past the Apache helicopters that are dotted around at a lower altitude, their rotors cutting through the plumes of smoke, trying to support the ground troops.
“Are you set, Sergeant?”
“Yes Sir,” he replies, now standing next to his seat, making sure the briefcase is secured properly to him.
“Is everybody else ready?” I ask the three men in the opposite seats and they all sound off in confirmation.
“Okay, prepare the ropes,” I order.
Josh quickly swaps seats with Sergeant Dixon and then leans forward to grab the spooled-up specially made, core-weighted, thick rope. The thickness and the weights wound through the middle of the rope helps prevent the rope from flying around in the wind or from the downdraft from the helicopter’s rotors, the thickness also aiding with grip and control on the descent.
We are getting close to our target, and I can see that without Buck’s updates, the last big island junction of the A40 Westway before the Orion building is going past the open
