stretched his arms and said, “Are we nearly there yet?”
“Nearly,” Vanderdecker said. “I can’t see the sea.”
“Big deal,” grumbled the first mate.
“True,” Vanderdecker said. “But after it’s over I’ll buy you a pint. How does that grab you?”
“Thanks, skip,” said the first mate eagerly. “What exactly is it we’re going to do?”
“We’re going to put out the fire,” Vanderdecker said.
“Oh.” The first mate frowned. “Why?”
“Why not?”
“Oh.” The first mate thought about it, and could see no objection. “And then you’ll buy me a pint?”
“If humanly possible, yes.”
“Suits me,” said the first mate. Then he went back to sleep.
FOURTEEN
Danny Bennett peered through the perspex window of his helicopter and wiped away the little patch of view-obscuring condensation that his breath had formed on it. A BAFTA award, certainly, but probably posthumous. It looked decidedly hairy down there.
It hadn’t exactly been easy getting here. Even after he had managed to persuade Neville, the helicopter-flying stockbroker sidekick of megalomaniac academic Professor Montalban, to pilot the spare chopper—the gun had helped, of course, but he had still had to work at it—there had been the problem of persuading the camera crew to participate in the biggest scoop since Watergate. They had been rather less easy to persuade, since they were under the impression that possession of a valid union card made them bullet-proof, and he had had to resort to bribery. In fact, he had pledged the Corporation’s credit to a quite disastrous extent—tuppence on a colour licence would only just cover it—and had Harvey not backed him up and said he would square it with the Director-General the whole thing would have fallen through. Harvey, clearly, was so overjoyed at the thought of Danny Bennett flying to certain death that he was ready to break the habit of a lifetime and agree to authorise expenditure.
Still, here they were and there was the story, unfolding itself in vivid sheets of orange flame below them. On Danny’s knee rested a quite exquisite Meissen geiger counter, borrowed from Montalban’s study, and at the moment the needle was still a millimetre or so clear of the red zone. Probably far enough. Danny communicated with the pilot, and told the cameraman to roll ‘em.
Danny peered out through the perspex once again. Vanderdecker’s helicopter had touched down about half a mile away, just outside the red zone—pity he hadn’t been able to get an interview with him, but there it was—and the small party had scrambled out of it and started to trudge towards the distinctly unfriendly-looking power station complex. Even as he wittered frenetically into his pocket tape recorder, Danny’s eyes were fixed on his targets, as he expected them at any moment to dissolve into little whiffs of gamma particles (Danny’s knowledge of nuclear physics was mainly drawn from reruns of Buck Rogers). He glanced across at the cameraman to make sure that the Aaten was pointing where it should. It was. Would the radiation cock up the film? Well, too late to worry about that now. Better by far to have filmed and lost then never to have filmed at all.
“They’re approaching the main entrance now,” he muttered into his pocket memo, his voice as high and agitated as a racing commentator’s. “They haven’t been burned to death yet, but surely it can only be a matter of time. And who can doubt that the question on their lips—if they still have lips at this moment, of course—is, what reforms to the nuclear power station inspectorate can the Government propose now if they are to retain any credibility whatsoever in the eyes of the nation? Did anyone in Downing Street know that this was likely to happen? Was there a cover…?”
Before he could say “up”, there was a deafening roar, and the helicopter was jolted by a violent gust of air as the front part of the power station collapsed in a cloud of smoke and yellow flames. The Meissen geiger counter started to play “Lilliburlero”, which was presumably its quaint, Augustan way of signifying danger. Danny stared but there was nothing to see, just swirling clouds of smoke. He turned away and told Neville to take the chopper out of there fast.
“Did you get all that?” he asked the cameraman breathlessly. The cameraman looked at him.
“Oh sod it,” he said, “forgot to take the lens cap off. Only kidding,” he added quickly, as Danny’s face twisted into a mask of rage and his hand moved to the butt of the gun. “Can’t you take a joke all of a sudden?”
“No.” Danny snapped. “That’s my award you’ve got in that thing, so for Christ’s sake stop farting around.” The strains of “Lilliburlero” had died away, and the elegant needle was back out of the red zone. “Right, Neville,” he shouted at the front of the helicopter, “let’s go back and have another look.”
Neville shook his head. “No can do,” he shouted back. “No fuel. Sorry.”
Danny swore. “What do you mean, no fuel?”
Neville pointed at what Danny assumed was the fuel gauge, although for all he knew it could be the tape deck, and shrugged.
“You clown!” Danny shouted. “The story of the decade and you choose this moment to run out of petrol.”
“It’s not petrol,” said Neville, “it’s aviation fuel.”
“I don’t care if it’s methylated spirits,” Danny yelled. “Go somewhere where we can get some more and be quick about it.”
Neville consulted a map. “Inverness,” he said.
Danny, who had been to Inverness, shuddered, but there was nothing he could do. “All right,” he said, “but get on with it.”
As the helicopter turned, Danny peered frantically out of the back window, and could just see the bright glow of a burning power station through a miasma of black clouds.
“Don’t go away,” he said, “we’ll be right back after the break.”
Just another day at Broadcasting House. In the rather battered and uncomfortable suite assigned to the lost sheep who run Radio Three, a harassed-looking man in what had been, thirty years ago, quite an expensive tweed jacket told the listening public that they had just been listening to a sonata by Berg. Long ago, when the jacket had been new and the world had been young and not quite such a miserable place, someone out there might have cared.
The harassed-looking man announced Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony”, took off his earphones and fumbled in his pocket for his packet of peppermints. All gone. Damn.
“George.”
The door of the studio had opened—a curious event during working hours. Had someone lost his way looking for the lavatory? No, for the stranger had spoken his name. George turned his head.
“News flash, George. We interrupt this programme, and all that.”
“Fancy,” George said. “The last time I did one of these was poor dear President Kennedy. What’s up this time?”
“Nuclear power station in Scotland’s blown up,” he was informed. George raised an eyebrow.
“Well, now,” he said, “how dreadful.”
“Indeed.”
“I mean,” George said, “we’ll have to reorganise the whole afternoon schedule. After all,” he explained, “I’m sure there’ll be lots and lots of these little bulletins as the long day wears on, and that’ll make it impossible to play the Bartok. Can’t play Bartok with holes in it, it’s not right.”
“Well absolutely.”
“I’m glad you agree,” George replied. “Have they come up with a revised schedule?”
“No, George, they haven’t,” he was told. “I imagine they’ve been too busy playing at being journalists to give any thought to anything so important.”
“Now, now,” George said, frowning, “there’s no call for sarcasm. You’d better leave it all to me, and I’ll just have to cobble something together.”
“That’s fine, then,” said George’s interlocutor. “I’ll leave it all up to you. Let no one say you didn’t stay calm
