"Trevor, Elleston as Hall, Adam - Quiller 03 - The Striker Portfolio 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall Adam)

'No.'

'Eat while I talk.'

The girl was wedging the trays in and we helped her. The seats behind and in front of us were empty; a woman with two small children was across the aisle. I knew Ferris had checked this; he was good on security. When I began on the mutton he said:

'You'll know some of this because it's in the papers. West Germany's got five hundred Devon Aviation Striker SK-6 swing-wing aircraft in service with the Luftwaffe as part of NATO's nuclear and conventional air force. It's a good machine, adaptable, versatile, got a flexible performance although it's sophisticated, and it can cope with reconnaissance, interception, ground support and bombing. The German Defence Ministry's cost estimates were too optimistic and the development outlay escalated the production bill to six hundred million pounds sterling, but it's a firstclass strike plane and everyone was happy with it until it started falling out of the sky. In the last twelve months they've lost thirty-six of them in high-impact crashes and the pilots can't tell them what happened because they're dead. The pattern's always the same as the one you saw.'

I wondered where Ferris had been when I was on top of the chalk quarry. 'When were you called in?'

'They had to brief me before I could brief you.'

That was all I'd get as an answer. I'd worked with him before and he only told you what he thought you needed to know.

'I had to persuade Parkis,' I said.

'Did you?'

'It wasn't difficult.'

'How's the chop?'

So I shut up and he said: 'Nobody's at all happy now. Devon Aviation are bothered and they've sent out some of their people to work with the Accident Investigation Branch of the Ministry. They've had a permanent A.I.B. team of wreckage-analysts over there since the tenth pattern crash. They've got bits at Farnborough and they've rebuilt most of one Striker from a few thousand fragments. The aviation physiologists are trying to be busy but they haven't got much to work on - you saw that crash so you can imagine what the pilot looks like afterwards. So far no one's turned anything up. Everyone's miserable. West Germany's worried because it's their plane and the U.K's worried because we built it and NATO's worried because the Luftwaffe squadrons are part of their striking-force. You want some more of that?' He edged his dish of French beans on to my tray. He'd let the girl give him a tray in case I needed seconds.

'When do I eat next?'

'It depends how busy you get.'

'What's a "pattern" crash?'

The ones that go straight in, like the one you saw. They've been getting normal accidents as well - control-locking, power-failure, bird-strikes - but they've only lost four planes and one pilot from those. Without the pattern crashes the SK-6 would have a comfortably low accident rate. Of course they've had a few cases of the pilot baling out in a muck-sweat from sheer panic. The Striker's a rogue aircraft and they've only got to notice the clock's a minute slow and they're hitting the ejection tit'

'Are these things crashing anywhere else?'

'Not on that scale. The U.K. and French accident rates are normal-low.'

'It's particular to Germany.'

That's why they say someone must be getting at the planes.'

It was Peach Melba again. I took his as well.

'Why are we interested?'

'We're not.'

He was trying to be cagey again so I said: 'Then what the bloody hell are we doing in this aeroplane?'

'We're not interested in helping Devon Aviation or the Luftwaffe or NATO. It only happens to be Strikers crashing: it could be cruisers sinking or reactors blowing up.'