"Trevor, Elleston as Hall, Adam - Quiller 07 - The Kobra Manifesto 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall Adam)

But they hadn't done that. They'd sent Steadman. Or Steadman had been down here in the field and they'd told him to stand by and brief me. One possible answer was that some ether service like DI6 had got on to this Zarkovic thing and found it too hot to handle and shunted it through Liaison 9 for the Bureau to look after, because the Bureau doesn't exist. Another possible answer was that London was still in the middle of sorting out a mass of raw intelligence that had started hitting the fan up there, but there wasn't time for me to think about that because a quick black dart was crossing the lenses and I swung them to keep it centred.

He was moving from east through south and standing on his starboard wingtip as he came round again and dropped very fast across the skyline to the west. I began running because his approach path looked like half a kilometre north of the mark Steadman had made on the map and I couldn't get the Lancia there. The only available detour would take me five or six kilometres and rather close to the airfield buildings and I didn't want to expose the image because in an hour from now the Lancia with the CD plate could be the subject of an all-points bulletin if the gendarmerie decided that Yugoslavians ought not to drop out of the sky and jump into cars and disappear.

The ground was soft and I kept away from the reeds and the bright areas where the sun was reflecting off stagnant water but it was sticky going because the surface was inconsistent and I kept stumbling over firm patches and then wallowing in the troughs. A lot of white birds were crowding into the air not far away because they'd seen the plane. Vision was jerky and I stopped and stood still and tried to get some kind of fix on the spot where he'd be coming down. From this oblique angle the front-end configuration was like a bent dart, with a very small wing area that would make for a high stalling-speed: he couldn't stay airborne much longer and I worked it out that if I ran like hell I could finish up at a point where I'd be close enough to make the rendezvous without fetching the thing on top of me.

Began running again. Heard the whine of the twin jets, then they cut off and there was only the buffeting of the wind: he was keeping to his cover situation and going through the motions of running out of fuel; either that or for some very good reason he'd been loafing about over the sea to use up the reserve tank to the point where he'd have to come in, to give the whole thing credibility if anyone decided to take a look at the fuel gauges.

He was coming in very low indeed and I had to veer a bit without breaking my run because he wouldn't be able to avoid me if I got it wrong. There was the smell of kerosene as the wind shifted and the light shone bright on the silver-grey fuselage and I could see the nose wheel turning very slowly as the airstream caught it, then he was alongside and I veered again into the wind and got a rear-oblique view of him as he reached the stalling-point and dropped tail first and bounced and tilted and bounced again and then bucked forward and dug the nose in and flipped over in a wave of mud. I kept on running.



Chapter Two

LONDON


The momentum hadn't been completely exhausted when the Pulmeister had nipped over, and the razor-thin trailing edges of the tail unit had been thrust into the soft earth like a dart driven backwards with force. The front end of the thing was sticking up at something like twenty degrees from the horizontal and of course it was upside down. It looked as if he'd tried to get out because the cockpit hood was open and I could see part of his head and one elbow.

The wave of mud had sloshed upwards into the cockpit and it was difficult to see any detailed objects against the glare of the sky but I knew one thing: if I couldn't pull him out very soon the weight of the front end would prise the tail unit out of the mud and bring the cockpit down on both of us, so I crawled underneath and felt for the release clip of his helmet. He didn't move.

The whole thing was smothered in mud and I couldn't find the clip, partly because my fingers didn't know the precise shape to feel for. Some kind of fluid was dripping from a severed pipe somewhere behind the instrument panel and the wind kept slapping the side of the fuselage: I could bear the sucking sound as the tail unit flexed in the mud. I didn't think I had more than a few seconds to get him clear. My hands began moving in a kind of controlled frenzy, feeling for whatever they could find: clips, buckles, fasteners, anything they could release, worming their way in the mud and the half-dark while the tail unit flexed, steadied and flexed again.

'Zarkovic,' I said to the helmet.

He didn't move.

'Zarkovic.'

A basic form of communication designed to inform him that his identity was known and that I must therefore be an ally, even a saviour. He didn't answer.

The restrain harness seemed to be free and it looked as if he might have released it too early, having to make a critical decision between staying in place with the harness on to minimize the impact forces, and trying to jump clear. It couldn't have been easy to make up his mind because a lot of the data was unavailable: he didn't know what the Pulmeister was going to do when it hit the ground. If he stayed in place with the harness still on he could be trapped upside down in the cockpit in total darkness and with no incoming all and the risk of something catching fire; and if he tried to jump clear he -could get fouled in the loose harness and risk the edge of the cockpit coming down on him.

'Zarkovic.'

My voice was beginning to have no more meaning than the wind.

The buckles seemed to be free but he wasn't able to drop out of the cockpit and I squeezed my body higher, making a decision of my own that was as critical as his because I was too far inside the thing now to get clear if the tail came out of the mud. It wasn't possible to work out what would happen if six tons of metal came down on us but I didn't think there'd be enough room to stay alive.

The wind buffeted, screaming faintly through the reeds outside. I could feel the movement very distinctly as the aircraft yawed to the gusts, and my hands slowed, taking their time, because in a shut-ended situation the organism must resist panic if it wants to survive. The harness was indeed free but his legs were twisted awkwardly and his feet had got trapped by some sort of equipment that had come unshipped on impact: the whole thing had taken somewhere in the region of fifty or sixty g's and it was now clear that he'd decided to jump and hadn't been able to.

My leg was against the padded edge of the cockpit and I could feel it lift and fall every time the tail unit flexed, lifting a little less, falling a little more, till the point was reached when I had to ask whether London wanted one live agent or two dead ones because if the thing came down on me now I was going to get crushed and so was Zarkovic. But I'd started something and I wanted to finish it, so I decided to give it sixty seconds more and then get out.

Bloody stuff was oozing down from the cockpit floor, some of it running into my eyes before I could shut them and wipe it away. Some kind of instrument ticking steadily in the quietness, the chronometer or a timed alert system; with one eye I could see the ghostly phosphorescence of the instrument dials. Still couldn't free him because his flying-boots had been wrenched around as his body had twisted, and I thought that if I ever got him out of here he might not walk again, 'Zarkovic.'

Nothing.

Zarkovic, my friend, will you ever walk again?