I said quietly: "Thank you, Ned.'

There isn't a military organisation in the world where a loud enough shout from a high enough rank can't bypass the most elaborate security arrangements. You can spend as long as you like telling sentries to demand passes, authorizations, identifications – but you'll always have spent longer telling them to jump when a colonel says jump.

And people still wonder why the military is so damn bad at keeping military secrets.

After a hundred yards, we swung left and were cruising around the wide perimeter track itself. And ahead of us, the collapsed shape of a Vampire, the one that had been Ned's Number Two that morning. Nobody was working on it, and as we pulled off on to the grass to pass it, I saw why. It looked as if it had been hit by a gigantic shotgun: there were a dozen and more jagged holes the size of a spread hand punched through it; one rudder assembly was wiped clean off; a main undercarriage leg was gone. And the concrete a hundred yards all around it was littered with scattered and smashed bricks.

We'd got that one, all right. The Mitchell and me.

Ned said: 'Thank you, Keith.'

Then we were back on the track and coming up across the front of the first hangar on our left. A shabby old C-47 transport parked beside it, and tucked away inside, rusty and rotting, a couple of propeller fighters without propellers.

We passed the control tower on our right; a big office block, set well back, on our left. The second hangar came up ahead.

So far, the base had the tense, creepy feeling of being quiet – but not empty. Quiet because there were a lot of people all working hard and silently in their proper places, not walking around borrowing cigarettes and taking a coffee break. But all awake and alert.

Just one shot – maybe just one move that made us no longer fit into the pattern – and we'd have a hundred men on our necks.

'Exactly where's the Dove?' I asked – and found myself whispering.

'Far side.'

'Nothing blocking it?'

'Shouldn't be.' But reluctantly. 'Standing orders diat it's always kept clear.'

'Drive up. Not fast, not slow.'

Luiz turned and handed the sub-machine gun over die seat back; I hoisted die rifle from under our feet and passed it awkwardly forward.

Then we were crossing the front of the hangar and die base certainly wasn't empty and not even silent any more.

Despite the daylight, neon lights flared across die metal rafters. They'd hauled three Vamps insidediere, and men -maybe fifty in all – were swarming over them like bees. The screaming, whining, raiding of electric tools swamped the car. I nearly panicked, nearly shouted to drive on. Butdiere, against die far wall, just a few yards inside die hangar and facing out across the field, was die Dove.

Ned curled in towards it.

'Not right in front, chum,' I said. But he swung wide and stopped in line widi die hangar wall.

The silence was a sudden, shocking tiling. Everybody in the hangar had stopped to watch us – us, die men from die outside, who knew how diings were going in town.

Ned pulled on die handbrake with a loud rasp and said: 'It's your party, matey. Introduce your guests.'

'Get out and show yourself.'

But Luiz was die first out, with an exaggerated military leap ending in a rigid at-attention, die rifle stiff across his chest. I shuffled past him and muttered: 'Wrong air force, chum.'

Then I turned to look around the hangar, as a visitor would, making it slow and deliberate. Fifty men stared back. Buttherewas safety in numbers. One man will come and ask questions just because there's nobody else to ask them; with fifty, each reckons there's forty-nine others to make the first move.

I hoped. Repeat, hoped.

Then, slowly, the noise built again as man after man turned back to us work.

Whitmore had to lean in over my shoulder to make himself heard.

'We'll never get away with this, fella. The second you pressthebutton, we'll have every goddamn man in the shop on our necks.'

'They're mechanics. You don't carry a gun to repair a plane.'

He cocked a slow eyebrow. 'Or she may not even be fuelled. Or the batteries-'

'She's the General's getaway plane. She'll be ready to get away.'

Logical-but with a lot of hope sprinkled on top. I turned and strolled back towards the Dove.

Luiz was still standing guard by the car, Ned near him. J.B. was leaning inside the open door, her hands out of sight behind it: she must have had the sub-machine gun there. And Whit-more had his Colt, Luiz the rifle – but Ned still had the Magnum. Well, if it came to a gunfight, my job was throwing rocks.

As I rounded the little aeroplane's nose I casually kicked the chock away from the nosewheel, then ducked under the wing-tip down to the door on the left side. That put the Dove between me and the honest workmen.

After the Mitchell, she seemed abruptly unfamiliar; lower, a little wider, and clean, neat, modern. I smiled to myself: I'd never expected to thinkthat of her. Then the familiar Dove smell hit me, and I knew her perfectly again. I dipped my head just the right. amount, angled myself sideways just enough to pass between the passenger seats, and walked quickly up to the cockpit.

I didn't need to sit down. I just leant in over the seats and ran my hands across the controls and switches. Quietly, she woke up. Lights came on across the panel, instrument needles jumped off their stops, swayed, settled down. The fuel was there, the power was there, the air pressures were there – more than I'd ever seen on her. The General must really have had some work done. I shifted the fuel, throttle, and pitch levers to where I wanted them; but that was all I could do. The next stage was the noisy one.

I hurried back and out of the door. The group had drifted in beside the Dove's nose, out of sight of the hangar. Except for Luiz, still stiffly at attention in a way the República Air Force had never achieved.

'All aboard that's coming aboard,' I said.

J.B. and Whitmore moved. Luiz stayed. Out of the side of his mouth, he said: 'I think, my friends, that I will stay.'

Everybody turned. Whitmore said: 'You're doing what?'

'Jiminez can use this gun. Perhaps me also.'

Whitmore blew up like a 500-pounder. 'Christ, you got a picture to finish! '

Luiz smiled very slightly. 'Perhaps in a week or so, Walt. When things are settled – one way or another.'

I said: 'You could've picked a better place to stay; not the middle of a fortified base.'

'I shall take the car.'

'You won't get it through the gate.'

'I think there is a hole in the wire – where Señor Rafter crashed. I can take the car that far.'

'It'll be guarded.'

He hefted the rifle in his hands. "They will not be quick to shoot at this uniform.'

Whitmore said: 'You're still crazy.'

This time Luiz turned. 'Walt-I also have an investment to protect. Not as big as yours, perhaps – but I have it.'

I said softly: 'Just one Ufe.'

But nobody else knew what we were talking about.

I said: 'All right – if anybody's going, let's go.'

Ned said: 'Nobody's going.'