A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur (читать книги полные .txt) 📗

"You should have let me sort him out," Job fumed. How could Sean explain it to him? Carlyle had been a brave man doing his duty, and although Sean's lines of loyalty to the old country had become blurred, he had the same blood in his veins. It would have been worse than murder to allow Job to shoot him down; it would have been a kind of fratricide.

Outside the hangar, the perimeter lights went on abruptly, flooding the high security fence around the runway and taxiway.

The entire base area was lit like daylight.

If the commandos of the Fifth Brigade were in barracks and asleep when the alarm sounded, how long would it take them to come into action? Sean tried to make an estimate and then, with self-disgust, realized he was simply avoiding facing up to his own indecision and lack of any plan. He had lost control, and it was all blowing up in his face.

In a few minutes from now, he and Job and the twenty Shanganes of his commando were going to be overwhelmed. The lucky ones among them would be killed outright and so avoid interrogation by the Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Organization.

"Think," he told himself desperately. Job was expectantly watching his face, waiting for orders. He had never seen Sean at a loss before. Ms unquestioning trust irritated Sean and made it even more difficult for him to reach any decision.

"What shall I tell the men?" Job prodded him.

"Get them-" Sean broke off as heavy gunfire broke out on the southern perimeter of the base on the opposite side to the hangar and out of their field of vision. Alphonso had been bright enough to realize that the plan lid been derailed, and he had started his attack a few minutes early

They heard the whoosh-boom! of RPG-7 rockets coming in through the perimeter wire and the duller thud-thud of mortar shells dropping in the base area. The 12.7-mm machine gun at the gates opened up, sluicing green tracer in pretty parabolas high into the darkness.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Job demanded.

Sean stared at him stupidly. He felt confused and uncertain.

anic welled up from deep inside him from a source he had never suspected existed. He didn't know what order to give next.

"Forget the bloody Stingers, just get us out of here." Job grabbed his arm and shook it. "Come on, Sean, snap out of it! Tell me what to do!"

"Forget the Stingers!" The words were like a slap across his face with an open hand. Sean blinked and shook his head. Forget the Stingers and forget Claudia Monterro. Without the missiles, Claudia would stay in the hole in the ground where Matatu had last seen her.

Sean glanced out of the open window again. He could see the gigantic tailplane of the Hercules and part of the fuselage; the rest of the aircraft was obscured by the angle of the hangar wall. The metallic silver skin of the Hercules glittered in the arc lights.

Sean clamped down hard on the hot effervescence of panic that threatened to swamp him and felt it subside. "The lights," he said.

He glanced around him quickly and spotted the fuse box on the office wall beside the door. He reached it in two strides and jerked open the cover.

The hangar had been built during Hitler's war, when the R.A.F had used Rhodesia as one of its overseas training centers. The electrical wiring dated from that era and utilized the old-fashioned ceramic type fuse holders.

"Give me an AK round," Sean snapped at Job. His voice was crisp and decisive, and Job obeyed instantly. He flicked one of the brass 7.62-men cartridges from the spare magazine in the pouch on his webbing.

Sean identified the main phase in the fuse box. The incoming current would be distributed directly from the transformer at the gates; if he could overload that, he would blow the flying fuse on the transformer box.

He puffed out the ceramic fuse holder and the hangar was plunged into darkness, but the light of the floods through the open window gave him sufficient light to see what he was doing. He jammed the AK cartridge into the lugs of the ceramic fuse holder and snapped at Job.

"Stand back!"

The last vestiges of his panic were gone. He felt cold and resilient as a knife blade. His mind was clear and he knew exactly what he was going to do.

He thrust the loaded fuse holder back into its slot. A blinding blue explosion of light like a photographer's flashbulb lit the darkened room, and Sean was sent flying backward. He crashed against the office wall, half stunned, shaking his head, his vision starred with memories of the blue flash.

It took him a few moments to realize that the floodlights beyond the windows were extinguished and except for the fiery bead necklaces of tracer flying across the dark sky and the brief glare of exploding grenades and rockets, the base was in darkness.

"Get the men into the Hercules," he shouted.

Job was just a dark shadow behind the whirling Catherine wheels of fire that still disturbed his vision. "What? I don't understand," he stammered.

"We are getting out in the aircraft." Sean grabbed his shoulder and thrust him toward the door. "Get Ferdinand and his boys on board and move your arse."

Job ran, and Sean blundered blindly after him. His vision was returning swiftly. He turned toward the paler square of light that was the hangar doors.

"What about the prisoners?" Job called from the dark depths of the hangar.

"Turn them loose," Sean yelled back, and ran for the doors.

He was trying to recall everything he knew about the Hercules.