Doctor Who_ Trading Futures - Lance Parkin [92]
Dee realised, of course, that she could be dead long before that.
The radar tower was gone, so there was no anti‐aircraft capacity here any more. Class twos and class threes were ground assault units – they could point their guns up and fire into the air, but they weren’t designed for anti‐aircraft operations.
She had to get to the hangar. It was tempting to steal the Concorde, but it was too big to be useful – she’d need a big runway to land it, and wherever it landed in the world it would lead to a lot of awkward questions.
One of the light aircraft. They were easier to fly, would draw less attention, they’d be easier to sell on, maintain, get fuel for.
Dee reached the hangar.
One of the big freight helicopters was a burned‐out shell. The hangar floor was littered with discarded bullet cases and bits of twisted metal.
It was dark by now, but there was a full moon, and the hangar door was wide open, so it wasn’t too dark to see.
Outside, Dee could see two class twos moving around, the moonlight glinting off them. They were just on a standard patrol as far as she could see.
The Concorde was still there, golden light pouring from the doors and windows. Other than that, it was practically invisible in the dark. She was glad of the reminder it was there – it meant she would have to taxi her plane past it before powering up the runway. She’d hoped to be able to start her run from inside the hangar.
It would give the class twos a chance to shoot at her, of course.
First things first: she needed to find a plane.
There were two light aircraft, both relatively new jet‐engined Pipers. She’d not flown the make before, but knew enough about them to feel confident she’d not have a problem.
There was nothing to choose between them, so she got into the nearest, closing the door carefully behind her, trying as hard as she could to make sure the cabin hadn’t been punctured by stray gunfire.
She sat in the pilot’s seat, strapped herself in, put the headset on.
Hotwiring it was easier than hotwiring a car would have been. The jet engines fired up, and the on‐board computer began running the pre‐flight checks. It chimed up at her when she started the plane moving before it had finished making sure it was ready to go. But the engines were noisy, the noise would already have drawn attention to her, and the sooner she was away the better.
She used the pedals to steer it past the Concorde.
The two tanks had seen her, but they were too slow to react. She started her ascent run, powering up the engines and pointing the plane straight down the runway.
She was about to find out if the plane had been damaged.
The lights and other indicators all said it was fully fuelled, that the cabin had pressure. But, of course, one of the sensors might itself be damaged, in which case…
The plane lifted off the runway. Behind her, Dee thought she heard gunfire as one of the class twos got into a position to attack her plane.
But it was too late, she was already ten miles away from the base.
She’d lived to fight another day.
For the first time since she’d left his side, Dee wondered how Baskerville was managing.
* * *
Malady had hurt her leg a little in the fall, Mather was uninjured.
They were back outside, now. It was getting dark, but it was obvious that there weren’t any people guarding the Concorde any more. A few bodies were strewn on the tarmac. A couple of class two hovertanks were patrolling the area – from the look of it, they were executing a routine search pattern – they were operating automatically, but would alert their operator if they came across anything of interest.
‘I’m not sure the Concorde is safe, sir,’ she said.
It had been their plan to