Red Hawk Rising

through Westerhope and into open country. RAF Ouston was 13 Group H.Q. and was situated in pleasant rural surroundings. The actual staff of 13 Group H.Q. was not so big these days but the accommodation and facilities for larger manning made it good for detachments such as No. 28 JSTU. Andy had mixed feelings being back in Northumberland. The bus pulled into the base and Andy had to check in. The duty NCO arranged for him to be issued with bedding and Corporal Brennan helped carry it over to their barrack room. Here, all except the senior non-commissioned officers shared the same barrack room. Higgins and some others were getting changed into civilian dress and heading out of the base for the weekend. Andy followed Brennan to the mess for an evening meal. They chatted over the meal. His surname and accent meant that he was from the north-east. Dan said that his family was from Wark, on the North Tyne. He had joined the RAF as a boy entrant and qualified as an electrician. His role on the radar team was primarily cabling, of which there was plenty. When the electricians at Wensley Electronics had gone on strike, he had continued the work on the modules so that testing could commence. The Electrical Trades Union shop steward had complained but since he was a qualified, non-union electrician and a member of the military they had no case. The design principles were from Farnborough, hence the ‘boffins’ involved at this early stage. Andy told Dan that he was from Alnwick. His father had been in legal practice in Brisbane for a while but returned to Alnwick. Andy had done tertiary studies at Rutherford Technical College before being called up. As they chatted, Lance Williams joined them. He had been on the telephone organising to visit people in Corbridge on the morrow and invited Dan and Andy to join him. His friends had told him to bring friends if he wanted to. Lance was from Cwmbran in South Wales and had joined the RAF as an apprentice. He had met these people through his interest in the Roman occupation of Britain. There were plenty of remains west of Wylam. Dan and Andy agreed to join him. For them, it would not be worthwhile trying to visit families in Wark and Alnwick on a Sunday without private transport. After the meal they decided to get changed and head out to a local hotel for a beer and a game of darts.

In another pub in Byker, another group of three men were also having a beer. They were ensconced in the back room with their heads down and in quiet but earnest conversation. They addressed each other as ‘comrade’ and spoke of their fight against the capitalist forces. Sean Byrne had Irish ancestry and his family had a history of supporting socialism. Sean was member of the Communist Party and he had been to Moscow. The other two men were members of the Labour Party and avowed socialists. They all worked at Wensley Electronics and one of them, Sam Wilson, worked directly on the radar project. Sean’s reputation kept him off defence projects but also kept him from being sacked. Sam Wilson was speaking. “I’ve managed to cause some delays by taking spare parts from the test areas but we really need to get to the store and remove the whole stock of some parts. They don’t keep many spares at this stage. Getting into the store is the problem. It is too well policed.”

Sean responded. “If you can get to a part called the klystron and sabotage it, there isn’t a spare here at present. If we can do that then we cause a major delay. That part is made elsewhere and it will have to be shipped in from Manchester. If we can do this it will be a victory for our Socialist comrades against the capitalists.” They went on to discuss how they might achieve this. What Sean didn’t tell the other two was that he had received instructions from Moscow to steal the klystron for shipment to the USSR.

In a pleasant suburban house in Harrow, Hamilton was getting changed to take his wife out to dinner. He was often away from home and he and his wife made the most of the time when he wasn’t. Their children were both away at university. He wondered how his wife had put up with his absences all these years but they were happy together. She knew that he worked for the Government but that was all and had patiently accepted that he couldn’t talk about his work. On Monday he would be heading north to do some ‘inspections’, as he had put it. He had finished his time with the RAF as a squadron leader and accepted an offer to work for the Department of Defence but actually in MI5. She thought it must some sort of inspection/investigation work that took him away a lot and left it at that. They had spent the day working in the garden and it had been a satisfying time for both of them. Hamilton had deliberately switched off from his work, knowing that he would go back refreshed for doing so. Tomorrow they would drive up to Oxford to see their son, their daughter being at Cambridge. He savoured the thought of spending time as a family again. Thinking of where they would eat tonight, Hamilton would have liked to eat at home, being tired of eating out when away from home. However, it was his wife he had to think of now. They had a table booked at a local hotel restaurant which had always had a good cuisine.

Back in Manchester, Major Garasov was also getting changed but to attend a formal dinner. He was changing into a dinner suit and bow tie and disliked the fiddly buttons for the dress shirt. Garasov had to accompany the consul. The