Dixon climbs into the back tail-section of the pick-up, while Downey and Collins get into the cab. Kim takes up a position by the buttons that operate the roller shutter positioned on the wall next to it. His finger hovers over the green up button.
Dixon positions himself at the front of the cargo area, looking over the cab. He registers two places on the cab where he can grab hold of if needed on the ride before he bends down and retrieves three grenades from a holdall on the floor.
As Dixon comes back up, he is aware of the fear and adrenaline coursing through his body. It’s like an old woollen sweater to him now; it still scratches but somehow feels comfortable.
He looks over to the rest of the personnel and gives the Staff Sergeant a nod. The man looks petrified and his rifle looks cumbersome in his grip, but to his credit, he returns the nod.
“Hit it, Kim!” Dixon shouts as he drops the pins to the first two grenades onto the floor. He doesn’t hear the clatter of steel on steel as they drop, however.
Kim’s finger pushes the green button and immediately, the roller shutter lurches into life, its motor straining to lift the heavy door. Kim waits next to the rising door momentarily, as he too drops the pins from the grenades in his hands. When the door reaches about six inches up from the floor, he rolls three grenades into the ever-increasing gap. As soon as the last one leaves his hand, Kim bolts for the pick-up.
Even though Dixon is well versed in the art of throwing grenades and could hit an arms dump from thirty meters out, he waits. There is no point trying to be clever; if he were to miss the gap and a grenade bounced back into the hangar, the trip could be over before it starts.
As the shutter rises on its long trip to the roof and the gap opens, Dixon throws. The first grenade is in mid-air when the grenades that Kim rolled out explode in virtual unison. Their shock wave hits the roller shutter hard and it strains and rattles against its runners, threatening to blow out of them. Thankfully, the shutter stays within its runners and keeps rising. Dixon throws his three grenades in quick succession, their strike levers springing away as they go and tumbling to the floor.
All three grenades sail through the gap and bounce out beyond the shutter which is now about a meter up from the floor. Kim has jumped into the tail of the pick-up and has taken up a position ready to cover the rear. The pick-up’s engine revs. Downey isn’t taking any chances that it could die while he waits for the gap to increase enough for him to plant his foot to the floor.
As the gap increases, Dixon has his rifle trained on it. He is prepared to fire in an instant if any Rabids have survived the grenade’s explosions and come through. They don’t, and before the gap reaches the height Dixon was anticipating, Downey floors the accelerator.
The pick-up jumps forward and Dixon has to take evasive action to duck under the shutter’s bottom edge before it takes his head off. As he rises again, he slams his hand down onto the roof of the cab, partly in a rage that Downey nearly took his head off and partly to warn him to be careful.
Smoke fills the air outside and Dixon pulls up his Shemagh across the bottom of his face to breathe through, and it brings some relief. Some of the smoke is the residue of the grenades but, mostly, it is coming down from the fire and explosions that are raging away to the right at the front of the terminal building. Downey steers left out of the hangar, his way forward to the Terminal 5 building is blocked by helicopters in front of them. Dixon briefly thinks to himself that the explosions are going to travel all the way down and past the hangar as each helicopter explodes. He puts that thought out of his head; he needs to be looking out for targets, which at the moment are very sparse. That at least is good news for the personnel who remained in the hangar to make their escape.
Downey picks up some speed but doesn’t go mad. Dixon is looking for a gap to get through to cut the journey time down, as well as looking for targets. He sees one coming up and bangs on the top of the cab before he shouts down the side of the cab that a gap is coming. Downey sees it and takes it, turning right and slowing as he drives through the grounded helicopters.
Thankfully, the pick-up is soon nearing the end of the helicopters. Even Dixon started to feel slightly nervous and claustrophobic driving through the dark eerie hulks of machinery where anything could be lurking in the shadows. He consoles himself with the fact that they haven’t seen any hostiles yet and then curses himself for daring to think that.
As soon as Downey turns right out of the relative darkness that the helicopters cast, Dixon sees possible targets ahead, many of them. They are some way off still, up by the taxiways that lead to the long runway they need to travel up to Terminal 5. The only saving grace is that the way ahead is now wide and will keep getting wider as they go. Meaning they can stay left to avoid getting too near the inferno and explosions lighting the darkness ahead as if it were day and the sun was shining down.
“We have targets ahead,” Dixon shouts to Kim behind him. There is no point in saying ‘possible’ targets because he knows exactly what they are; he can tell now
