Pandemic (15 page)

‘I enjoyed that,’ he muttered to himself, pushing open the car door and running into the field, but it wasn’t obvious whether he was referring to what he’d inflicted on
Lomas or to the manoeuvre just performed in the Alfa. Or maybe to both.

Richter had noticed that Vento had been a passenger in one of the cars, so was presumably still somewhere near the villa. He ran across to the helicopter and seized the door handle, praying that
Vento hadn’t locked it before he’d left.

Aircraft aren’t like cars: any teenager with a modicum of intelligence can learn how to hot-wire a car within a few minutes, and can then get the vehicle moving as long as he’s got
some basic knowledge of how it works. Aircraft, both fixed and rotary wing, are different. Typically, to get to one-circuit solo standard – in other words, to be able to taxi, take-off, fly
around the airfield and land – in a single-engine, fixed-wing aircraft will take most people about fifteen hours of instruction. To become a competent amateur pilot will take fifty hours at
the very least. The upshot of this is that aircraft are very rarely stolen, so pilots don’t usually bother locking them.

As he had hoped and expected, the door handle turned easily. Richter climbed nimbly into the left-hand seat – the pilot’s. He’d earlier asked Perini if he could travel in the
front seat for only one reason: he’d wanted to watch exactly how Vento started the aircraft. As soon as he sat down, Richter ran through precisely the same sequence of actions.

Within two minutes of opening the pilot’s door, he had both engines running and the rotors starting to turn, and just thirty seconds after that he was ready for lift-off. Muttering a
silent prayer to whatever gods looked after the welfare of pilots not qualified on type, Richter eased back on the control column and smoothly lifted the collective lever, increasing both the power
of the engines and the angle of attack of the main rotor blades. The Agusta lifted somewhat jerkily into the air.

It wasn’t one of Richter’s better take-offs, but he was off the ground and that was all that mattered. He pulled up the collective further, pushed down gently on the left rudder
pedal, and moved the control column slightly further back and over to the left. The helicopter banked sharply to port and began increasing speed. As Richter straightened up and the Agusta soared
over a clump of poplars at the edge of the field, he knew for sure that he was going to make it.

Perini had just enjoyed an unexpected piece of good fortune. The air ambulance was still at least ten minutes away when a black BMW saloon slowed down at the end of the drive
leading to the villa, where some of Perini’s men were still standing, weapons held loosely in their hands. The driver peered curiously over at the activity outside the house, then braked to a
stop and climbed out, clutching a black leather bag. He ran up to where Perini was standing, took one look at Lomas and pushed the DCPP officers aside.

He pulled off the sodden towel and looked in horror at the gaping wound running from Lomas’s navel almost up to his breastbone. ‘
Per l’amore del Dio
,’ he muttered,
then opened his bag and pulled out a dozen or so self-locking forceps, which he used to clamp all the larger of the severed blood vessels. The doctor then used gauze and adhesive strapping, and
quickly contrived a makeshift pad to cover the gaping wound and hold Lomas’s intestines in place.

Only then did he turn and look up at Perini. ‘This man requires emergency surgery,’ he said. He may have been a doctor, but that clearly didn’t exempt him from stating the
blindingly obvious.

‘I know,’ Perini said. ‘The air ambulance should be here any minute now.’ And, as he said that, they all heard the distinctive throbbing of rotor blades and a bulky white
helicopter with red crosses marked on the side swung into view. After the pilot had carried out a single sweep of the area, it landed in the road just beyond the doctor’s car, and in seconds
its two crewmen were running up the drive, carrying a stretcher.

Lomas had slipped into unconsciousness. Speed was the only thing that could now save his life, and without ceremony the crewmen lifted his body onto the stretcher. The doctor checked his pulse
then listened to his heartbeat with a stethoscope. One of the crewmen ripped open an intravenous drip set, tore the sleeve off Lomas’s shirt, found a vein and slid the needle expertly into
it. He pushed the other end of the tube into a plastic bottle of saline solution and opened the sliding tap on the tube all the way.

‘His heartbeat is erratic and his pulse is weak,’ the doctor said to Perini, raising his voice against the roar of the helicopter’s engines and the clatter of the rotor blades.
‘We have to put fluid into his bloodstream to replace what he has lost. And now we must get him into an emergency room. I’ll go along with him.’

The two crewmen picked up the stretcher and swiftly carried Lomas down the drive. The doctor trotted beside them, holding the bag of saline solution high and squeezing it gently to ensure a
steady flow into the body. Less than three minutes after the helicopter had landed, it was airborne again, heading north-east for the main hospital at Bari, the doctor already using the radio to
advise the emergency staff of the nature of the injury and what needed to be done as soon as they touched down.

‘Will he live?’ Simpson asked, stepping forward to stand beside Perini.

The Italian shook his head, staring into the sky at the departing helicopter. ‘I don’t know. The doctor wouldn’t say, because he doesn’t know either. If they can get him
into surgery immediately, perhaps he’ll survive.’ Perini swung round to look at Simpson. ‘Now we have other matters to attend to. Your man Richter.’

One of the two DCPP officers Perini had sent off now re-appeared in front of the villa, ran across to the Italian and spoke rapidly. Perini nodded but didn’t look surprised at whatever the
man was saying: he issued further orders and three more DCPP men took off up the road at a trot.

Perini walked back to Simpson. ‘Richter’s taken one of the Alfas and he’s locked the other three. I’ve got my men searching for the keys in case he just threw them away,
and I’ve ordered an automobile locksmith to get out here immediately. Your man has also badly beaten the driver we left in charge of the cars, and that’s another strike against him.
Despite what you said, Simpson, he won’t try for the northern Italian border. It’s too far, he doesn’t speak the language, and he’d be too easy to intercept. He’ll be
trying to get out of the country some other way.’ Perini stopped short. ‘Of course, how stupid of me. He already has a way out – his Sea Harrier. We have to stop him reaching
Brindisi.’

He called for a map of Puglia, identified the half-dozen or so roads that led from Matera to Brindisi, and immediately issued orders through his DCPP men to have them all blocked with
checkpoints. As a further precaution, he also ordered a checkpoint on the E55 coastal
autostrada
running down from Bari to Brindisi, and some others on the roads further south, between
Brindisi and Lecce.

Finally, he called Vento over and ordered him to get airborne in the Agusta as soon as possible, to try to identify Richter’s car from the air.

‘How will I do that?’ Vento asked.

‘Use your initiative. Break a window on one of the Alfas and hot-wire it. Or stop a passing motorist and commandeer his car. Or take the doctor’s BMW – I don’t care. Just
get back to the helicopter, get it airborne, and then find Richter.’

As Vento and the DCPP driver hurried away, Perini stared down at the map and nodded with satisfaction. ‘He’s boxed in,’ he said. ‘There’s no way he’s going to
get to the airfield. We’ve got him.’

Tuesday
Aeroporto di Brindisi, Papola-Casale, Puglia, Italy

In fact, Richter was almost at Brindisi. Vento had been right about the speed of the Agusta. Richter had wound it up to an indicated one hundred and fifty knots and
climbed to two thousand feet. He could have stayed low, but he thought that would probably attract more attention than a transit at a normal height. It also meant he didn’t have to worry
about power lines, pylons, higher ground or any other obstacles, and he was also too low to conflict with most fixed-wing aircraft.

When he’d lifted off from the field he knew he had about seventy miles to cover before he reached Brindisi, but that was less than a half-hour flight in the helicopter. At the moment when
Perini was ordering checkpoints to be positioned, the Agusta was less than five minutes from the airfield boundary, and Richter was already in descent.

Like any competent pilot, Vento had put a note of Brindisi’s frequencies on the instrument panel, and as Richter pulled the Agusta round in a tight right-hand turn over Punta Penne, due
north of the town, he selected VHF frequency one one eight decimal one, picked a callsign and called Brindisi Tower.

‘Brindisi, this is helicopter Lima Whisky at three hundred feet over Punta Penne.’

‘Lima Whisky, Brindisi, roger. State your intentions.’

‘Lima Whisky would like to refuel, sir. We’re running a little low.’

‘Roger, Lima Whisky. Cleared for a visual approach to land by the two northerly hangars and await a fuel bowser. Wind is light and variable. The active runway is three two. Hold well clear
of the active; we have inbound heavy civilian traffic long finals.’

‘Thank you, Brindisi. All copied.’

That had been Richter’s biggest gamble. By flying low to the north of the airfield and making his approach from Punta Penne, he had been hoping that the Tower controller would instruct him
to land somewhere to the north-east of the active runway, which meant he could put the Agusta down not far from where the Sea Harrier was parked.

Two minutes later Richter lowered the undercarriage and landed the helicopter about fifty yards from his Harrier. He shut down the Agusta, pulling on the rotor brake a little sooner than he
would have liked, but he was in a hurry, then climbed out and trotted over to the squadron building he and Simpson had been using.

HMS
Invincible
, Ionian Sea

Just over an hour earlier, the
Invincible
had increased speed by about two knots and altered course slightly. The rate at which rumours travelled throughout the
ship never ceased to amaze newcomers, and they were, perhaps surprisingly, usually reasonably accurate. Almost as soon as the engine revolutions increased, the word spreading on the lower deck was
that the planned visit to Athens had been cancelled, or at least postponed, and the ship was now proceeding to Crete. Or maybe Malta? The Wardroom didn’t get to hear about Malta, but the word
‘Crete’ was certainly being bandied about.

‘So what the hell’s going on in Crete that involves us?’ The inquiry from the lieutenant filling a cup at the coffee urn was plaintive and somewhat querulous. ‘My
wife’s flying out to Athens tomorrow. What’s she supposed to do all by herself in Greece while we’re poncing about the Med?’

‘That’s life in a blue suit, mate. You may not like the fucking Navy, but the Navy likes fucking you. Anyway, you’ll find out what we’re supposed to be doing in about ten
minutes. The Old Man’s going to brief us all on the CCTV system. What your wife’ll find to do in Athens for the next week or so with all those randy Greek men is something
else.’

The Wardroom filled rapidly. With no flying operations planned and the ship winding down in preparation for a planned port visit, most of the officers had time on their hands, and when the big
TV screen in the corner of the room flickered into life and a familiar face, flanked by epaulettes bearing four gold stripes, appeared on the screen, it was quite literally standing room only.

‘Good afternoon, this is the Captain. As you are all no doubt aware, our planned visit to Athens and Piraeus has been delayed for operational reasons, and we are at present proceeding on a
south-easterly heading towards Crete. The current situation is still somewhat confused, but we have been advised that a state of medical emergency exists on part of the island. At least one person
has died, and there are fears of a major epidemic. The Cretan authorities have requested international assistance in containing this situation.

‘I should emphasize that at this stage we have no further information concerning the nature of the epidemic, or the disease or illness involved, and I think it unlikely that we will become
too involved in the detailed management of the crisis. I anticipate that our involvement is likely to be purely supportive. We will probably act primarily in an off-shore replenishment role, and
assist the Cretan authorities in the movement of personnel and supplies around the island.

‘I am sorry that our scheduled visit to Athens has been disrupted, and I am keenly aware that many members of the ship’s company have arranged for their wives or girlfriends –
in some cases perhaps both – to travel out to Greece over the next few days. Those of you who wish to do so may avail yourselves of the communications facilities to make brief telephone calls
to Britain to cancel or modify these arrangements. Please contact the Operations Office to arrange a schedule for such calls.

‘That is all I have for the moment but, in view of the changed circumstances, Commander (Air) will now address the Air Group.’

The television screen blanked for a few seconds, then a swarthy, darkly bearded face appeared. ‘Good afternoon, this is Commander (Air). As the Captain has just outlined, it is likely that
we will have to begin flying operations, possibly intense flying operations, at fairly short notice. The nature of the emergency on Crete suggests that it is unlikely that the Sea Harriers will be
required, but rotary wing operations are almost certain to be carried out. There will be an initial briefing in the Number Two Briefing-Room at twenty-one hundred today. All rotary wing squadron
personnel are to attend. That is all.’

Commander (Air)’s face was replaced on the TV screen by a sudden grey snowstorm and a buzzing sound, and someone switched off the big set with the remote.