to his memory without any conscious thought Pantano.
Fifteen miles, and the aircraft were closing at a combined speed of around 1,200 knots. Seconds later, the marker on the HUD began to pulse and the beep in his ears told him he had locked on.
Bond released the Sidewinder, and saw the flashing cursor break to his left. The rasp came into his own ears, and he knew they had both fired missiles at the same moment.
He punched out four flares and turned left, climbing. Seconds later there was an explosion behind at about a mile. Pantano’s missile had gone for the flares. Then, without warning Bond’s aircraft shuddered and cracked as 10mm shells ripped into the fuselage behind him.
He stood the Harrier on its left wing, then reversed to the right.
Pantano had Viffed, slightly above him and at a range of around 1,000 feet. Bond armed another Sidewinder, heard the lock-on signal, and pressed the button. As he did so, another withering hail of 10mm shells ripped across his left wing and the Harrier juddered again, wallowed, then seemed to leap forward towards the great blossom of fire as the Sidewinder caught Pantano’s Harrier.
It was like a slow-motion film. One minute the aircraft was there, firing a deadly swarm from its Aden guns, then the white flash filled Bond’s vision and he saw the “plane break into a dozen pieces.
He overshot the destroyed Harrier, and saw only one complete wing, twirling and fluttering down like a deformed autumn leaf.
He reduced speed and turned, to set course for the coast, and as he did so, his Harrier grumbled, juddering and shaking. He fought the controls, realising that he had no true stability. The shells from the Aden guns had probably ripped away part of his elevators, and a section of tailplane.
Altitude 10,000 feet and falling. The Harrier was in a gentle descent and Bond could just about hold her nose at a five-to-ten degree angle. He was between twenty and thirty miles from the coast and losing height rapidly, hauling back continuously on the stick to stop the nose from dropping and the entire aircraft hurtling into a dive from which he could never recover.
The engine sounded as though someone had poured a ton of sand into it, and he had switched on the auto- signal which would allow the base at Rota to track him in. He was down to 3,000 feet before he saw the coast in the distance, and by then the whole Harrier was shaking and clanking around him as though it was about to break up at any minute.
The sink-rate was becoming faster, and Bond knew there was only one thing left.
He would have to punch out, and pray that the shells from the other Harrier had not damaged the Martin Baker ejector seat.
He wrestled with the stick and rudder bar, desperately trying to get the aircraft closer to the coast before getting out. The voice in his head started to repeat the procedure and what was supposed to happen.
The Martin Baker was a Type 9A Mark 2 and the firing handle was between his legs, at the front of the seat pan. One pull and, provided everything worked, the canopy would blow and the seat would begin its journey upwards at minimum velocity, before the necket-assist fired and shot the pilot, restrained in his seat, well clear of the aircraft.
The comforting words of some instructor at Yeovilton came back to him. “The seat will save you even at zero height, and with a very high sink rate.”
Well, he had a very high sink rate now, down to about 1,000 feet and at least seven miles from the coast. The Harrier wallowed, down to around 800 feet. His port wing dropped alarmingly, and he realised that he was at the point of stalling. Almost at that moment he caught the glint of helicopter blades, and realised it was now or never. Yet, in the few seconds before reaching down to the ejector handle, Bond pushed the port rudder hard, in an attempt to swing the aircraft away from the coast. He did not want this metal brick, still carrying dangerous weaponry, to plough into the land. The nose swung wildly, then dropped.
He knew the nose would never come up again, and he felt the lurch forward as the Harrier began what could only be a death dive.
Bond pulled on the ejector lever.
For what seemed to be an eternity nothing happened, then he felt the slight kick in his backside, saw the canopy leap upwards.
The air was like a solid wall as the rocket shot him clear of the falling, crippled Harrier. There was a thump and the sudden slight jar as the parachute opened and he was swinging safe and free below the canopy.
Below to his left he saw the white churning water which marked the spot where the Harrier had gone in. Then he heard the comforting sound of the US rescue chopper nearby.
He was now separated from the seat, and seemed to be dropping faster towards the sea, which came up and exploded around him. The buoyancy gear inflated and brought him to the surface as he twisted and banged down on the quick release lock which freed him from any parachute drag.
The helicopter plucked him out of the sea five minutes later.
It was early evening and the weather had picked up, the sun red, throwing long shadows across USNB Rota.
Bond sat in a small room, with a US Marine Corps Major, a Royal Marine Special Boat Squadron Major, Commander Mike Carter and Beatrice. On the table in front of them lay a complete set of plans, showing the layout of invincible.
An jor before, he had received a complete briefing, on a secure line from London. BAST had given them until dawn, around six in the morning. Then they would kill the first of the VIP hostages. They knew the message had been relayed to London from Bassam Baradj in his suite at The Rock Hotel, Gibraltar.
Varied options had been put forward. The Rock Hotel was well-covered. They had members of the SAS and local plainclothes men, plus one senior Secret Intelligence Service man watching out in case Baradj made a move. At first it had been thought they should make a full frontal and pull Baradj, for they knew he had a helicopter and pilot standing by at the airport.
Nobody had attempted to alert Baradj or his pilot, and the final consensus of opinion was that trying to take Baradj alive was dangerous.
“Remove their leader and those women will almost certainly kill.”
That was M’s personal view, and one shared by Bond.
Baradj had given them a latitude and longitude, a precise point at sea where the money had to be dropped and marked. If anyone approached him during or after the pick-up - which was to be byhelicopter, all three hostages would be killed.
Whatever else,” Bond had said, “he’s thought out the operation, and we just cannot risk taking the fellow on the Rock. If we couldn’t get him alive, it would be curtains for Mrs. T, Gorby and President Bush.”
It had now been agreed that a rescue attempt had to be made long before anyone tried to get hold of Baradj. “We can con Baradj that we’re meeting the deadline, let him relax, then make a bid to get the hostages off.” Bond’s was the last word. The Ministry of Defence, SIS, the Pentagon and the Kremlin had agreed to a last-ditch rescue attempt. The local forces had also agreed that the planning and logistics should be left to Bond.
“Has anyone figured out how Baradj is communicating with Invincible?” he asked.
“He isn’t,” Mike Carter had said. “I suspect he’ll flash them a code word. A one time break in silence. Probably on a short wave from Gib. It’ll mean either they’re to stand by because we’ve agreed, or kill, because we’ve not agreed. Then there’s the other one - kill, we’ve doublecrossed him.”
“All we can do is listen out.” Bond’s jaw had set, and his eyes turned to that dangerous stone-like look as he tried to gauge how many things could go wrong.
Now, in the low hut on the USNB Rota, he was going through possible strategy and tactics. “It has to be a small force.” He looked around the room. I took out one of these harpies, which leaves them with fourteen - fifteen if the wretched man Speaker is active; sixteen if Baradj’s side-kick, Hamarik, is able to function, which I very much doubt. The situation will almost certainly be that their tame psycho, the woman posing as Leading Wren Deeley, will be locked in with the hostages - or, at least, close to them, with orders to start killing on a given signal. So, our first job will be to get down here.” His finger moved to the Briefing Room one deck down from the main deck. “This we must do without being detected if possible.” Then he gave a worried sigh, “I want you all to realise that I’m really only guessing. That Briefing Room is the place where they were having the conference meetings. I’d stake money on the three of them being kept in there, possibly with a guard on the bulkhead door. But it’s still only a guess. If I’m wrong and they’re being held somewhere else, then it’ll go wrong and I’ll take the blame.”
