Pirate - Duncan Falconer [114]
They estimated that the pirate chief would have reached his coastal base by dusk that day. How he acted would depend on how seriously he took the possibility that the British would mount an attack right away or even at all. Lotto didn’t necessarily know that Stratton had discovered the weapons secreted on board the Oasis. Once again, it was another good reason to mount an attack immediately.
A glider engine fired up and its propeller whirred. The glider engineer who had accompanied the teams was running a test after having completed some work on it. Stratton felt surprised by how quiet it was. He hadn’t heard the engines since the new suppressors had been fitted. In fact most of the sound came from the propellers cutting through the air rather than the engine itself.
Before long, every glider had its wing fitted and appeared ready to go. The wind hadn’t increased significantly and everything looked good to go.
‘You all set?’ Downs asked Stratton.
‘Yep,’ Stratton said as he buckled up his fighting harness and adjusted the strapping.
‘Seriously. You looking forward to this or not? You had a pretty hard time of it over there.’
‘I’m ready to go,’ Stratton said, with little emotion. ‘More than anyone else here,’ he added.
Downs believed him. He had the feeling there might also be more to it than just revenge for Hopper. He pushed the send button on his radio that was attached to his body harness. ‘All stations, this is Downs, check.’
‘Harry, check,’ came an immediate reply.
‘Dizzy, check.’
‘Spud, check.’
And so on as each glider team responded to the communications check in turn. First or nicknames could be used instead of call-signs for a number of reasons. The communications system had been encrypted and even the Russians or Chinese wouldn’t be able to decrypt it, let alone the Somalis. Another reason was that with so many teams it could be difficult to keep tabs on who belonged to which call-sign. The final check came from the ship’s operations room.
‘Oscar Zero, Downs, permission for countdown?’ Downs asked.
‘Oscar Zero, that’s affirmative.’
‘Roger. All stations, this is Downs, countdown five minutes. No reply required unless you have a problem.’
Downs waited for a moment in case anyone did reply but the airwaves remained silent. ‘Gentlemen, get seated and start your engines,’ he said to those around him.
That had a ripple effect as the rest of the teams boarded their aircraft.
The ship’s loudspeaker broke over the sound of engines starting up. ‘All non-mission personnel move behind the flight lines.’
The sailors who had been lending a hand hurried across the deck in between the lines of gliders and over the thick white line that surrounded the superstructure. Some of the crew moved behind the squadron of gliders to the helicopters parked on the rear portion of the deck.
Every glider engine purred away, the craft positioned two abreast with several metres between the following rows. The take-off had naturally been discussed in detail but there had not been any time to carry out rehearsals back in the UK before departure. There had been a brief discussion about the practicalities of carrying out a practice run earlier in the day but that had been nixed immediately. Taking off was much easier than landing and accidents were only to be expected. A 10 per cent failure rate had been built into the take-off and target-approach phase of the operation, which meant they could afford to lose two craft and four men before the first assault stage began. A rehearsal that included a difficult landing on the flight deck, something none of the pilots had actually done before, was considered ill-advised.
Stratton got comfortable in his seat to the rear and above Downs and buckled himself in. He secured