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Keepers of the Flame
Ações de livro
Comece a lerDuração: 383 páginas5 horas
- Editora:
- WildRiver Publications
- Lançado em:
- Mar 29, 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781386977179
- Formato:
- Livro
Descrição
A British SAS soldier in Afghanistan turns rogue and joins al-Qaeda.
That alone is enough to set alarm bells jangling; a highly trained operative now fighting on the other side. But it gets even worse. He has a nuclear bomb. And he is in America, about to detonate it at a World Heritage Site in the most spectacular blast imaginable.
After him is a shadowy organization called The Flame, a group of freelance Special Forces soldiers and agents formed to fight global terrorism.
The Flame plays by no rules. They do not respect international borders. They ignore the Geneva Convention. They shoot to kill without government sanction. They go where effete politicians and leaders dare not. In short, they fight terrorism on a level playing field.
Now they have to catch the SAS rogue before he triggers a Third World War.
As topical as today's headlines, Keepers of the Flame gives a terrifying vision of how global terrorism will be fought in the future as increasingly timid governments shy away from confronting the existential threat that could destroy civilization as we know it.
Ações de livro
Comece a lerDados do livro
Keepers of the Flame
Duração: 383 páginas5 horas
Descrição
A British SAS soldier in Afghanistan turns rogue and joins al-Qaeda.
That alone is enough to set alarm bells jangling; a highly trained operative now fighting on the other side. But it gets even worse. He has a nuclear bomb. And he is in America, about to detonate it at a World Heritage Site in the most spectacular blast imaginable.
After him is a shadowy organization called The Flame, a group of freelance Special Forces soldiers and agents formed to fight global terrorism.
The Flame plays by no rules. They do not respect international borders. They ignore the Geneva Convention. They shoot to kill without government sanction. They go where effete politicians and leaders dare not. In short, they fight terrorism on a level playing field.
Now they have to catch the SAS rogue before he triggers a Third World War.
As topical as today's headlines, Keepers of the Flame gives a terrifying vision of how global terrorism will be fought in the future as increasingly timid governments shy away from confronting the existential threat that could destroy civilization as we know it.
- Editora:
- WildRiver Publications
- Lançado em:
- Mar 29, 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781386977179
- Formato:
- Livro
Sobre o autor
Graham Spence is a freelance journalist and author.
Relacionado a Keepers of the Flame
Amostra do livro
Keepers of the Flame - Graham Spence
Orwell
Chapter 1
––––––––
SCOTT Macdonald lay as still as a gecko, watching the mujahedin as they snaked down the narrow mountain ravine, lugging AK47s, ammunition crates and grenade launchers with causal ease.
His brow creased, impressed how the fighters – either Taliban or al-Qaeda – blended into the ragged chunk of mountain landscape outside Bamian, west of Kabul. They raised little dust, despite the dying summer having been so dry it had browned the vegetation to a crisp. But after eight days of watching from his hideout, a stunted copse on top of a cliff overlooking what was believed to be a labyrinth of caves, he was an expert observer and any slight stir caught his eye.
Next to him a few leaves twitched. It was Corporal Johnny Sudar, a man he knew only by sight until a few days ago. However, lying on top of a sparse hill in the lumpy heart of hostile territory tended to foster instant solidarity.
They didn’t speak much. Their days were spent as immobile as statues; their nights frozen rigid, covered with only a space blanket but at least with darkness they could move their cramped limbs and silently perform whatever ablutions were necessary.
Sudar was a dark, fierce looking man with a hooked nose. He moved like a panther, whether he was in civilisation or not, but the main reason he was chosen for this mission was because he could speak Arabic effortlessly. His father was Egyptian and had taught him the language of the Prophet. His mother was British – Scottish to be precise – and Sudar spoke English with a Glaswegian twang. However, he had earlier assured Macdonald, who was English despite his Celtic surname, that his Arabic did not have any Gaelic inflections. I used to speak it to my father, although my sisters did not,
he said. They’re white, like my mother.
Macdonald had then asked if he was a Muslim. Sudar laughed. Only if al-Qaeda catch me.
But looking across the rock-strewn almost biblical landscape, darkening in the late light shadows he had added: My head is Christian, but my heart is Muslim. But that’s not what this is all about.
Macdonald had nodded, squinting at the low sun. That’s what they keep telling us.
The subject had not come up again.
He glanced at his watch. In two days they would have to make their way back to Uzbekistan where the British Special Air Services – the SAS – had set up a base. All this was officially denied, of course, but the two men had parachuted into Afghanistan on a moonless night just twenty days after fundamentalist Islamic terrorists had flown planes into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11, killing roughly 3,000 people. Everyone knew America and her allies would retaliate. And British special force soldiers such as Macdonald and Sudar were among those who had to make sure the bombs hit the right targets.
According to Afghans fighting the Taliban regime that preached and practised an austere archaic form of Islam, followers of Osama bin Laden were quartered in the mountains opposite from where the two SAS soldiers lay. Perhaps even Osama himself was there.
Nightfall came as quickly as a horse canter with winter closing in and Macdonald and Sudar wrapped themselves in camouflage space blankets that acted like cooking foil, inwardly reflecting their body heat. Both took long slugs of vitamin-enriched liquid as they knew any form of dehydration during the cold night ahead could pose life-threatening problems.
I’d give anything for a coffee,
said Macdonald. Preferably with a shot of Scotch in it.
Sudar grunted. There was no point in thinking of luxuries in such a harsh wasteland.
I’ll take first watch,
he said. You get some sleep.
Macdonald nodded his thanks. Sleep came easily to men used to living rough and it seemed barely moments later when he was shaken awake.
It’s bin Laden,
Sudar whispered.
Macdonald rose in an instant, grabbing his night-vision binoculars. It was difficult to make out much in the eerie green murk of the light enhancer. Then suddenly a hazy group of turbaned people shimmered into view.
You’re sure?
Sudar nodded. There’s a cluster of people around him. He’s the tall guy in a camo jacket – the only person wearing one. You can’t miss him.
Macdonald imaged a slightly stooped, skeletally gaunt figure among a group of fast-moving guerrillas. He whistled silently, his heart pounding. It was almost certain the man was bin Laden, who stood six foot six and walked with a limp.
Wonder why he’s here then? There must be plenty of safer caves to hole up in. If that’s him, of course.
I reckon they’ve got information the bombing is about to start,
said Sudar. That’s why they’re moving out.
We’re going to have to follow them.
Sudar shook his head. Not ‘we’ mate – me. No point in both of us tracking him. If we get caught, this whole mission is wasted. You get back into safe radio range and get a report out.
Macdonald paused. As Captain, he outranked Sudar but what the man said made sense. There was too much at stake; they possibly had found the world’s most wanted man. With his dark features and knowledge of Arabic, Sudar would be more than capable of talking his way out of hairy situations and would probably be better off alone. Also, before parachuting the two men in, MI6 intelligence had concocted a hopefully plausible cover story about Sudar being an al-Qaeda sympathiser, something considered too farfetched for the obviously European Macdonald.
It might not be bin Laden.
Yeah. But what if it is?
Macdonald nodded. Better get moving then.
Sudar started to roll up his blanket. He, like Macdonald, was dressed in the robes and baggy pants of an Afghan peasant, albeit a heavily armed one with an AK-47 and knapsack full of bullets. The two men shook hands and Sudar started climbing down the hill.
Macdonald took a GPS fix on the retreating figures, scribbled down the co-ordinates and headed westwards to the Northern Alliance positions, about 40 miles away. He should be there within 10 hours at a jog-walk, but that didn’t mean his problems were over. The Northern Alliance, a fractious coalition of various political and tribal factions opposed to Taliban fundamentalism was a ragtag army of gung-ho, albeit courageous, tribesmen not averse to slitting throats or shooting strangers on sight. They were conveniently pro-West, however, and a growing number of American and British Special Forces were now stationed at their frontlines gathering information. Macdonald would radio them before approaching camp to ensure there was no ‘friendly fire’ by some trigger-happy sentry.
There was no moon and he could move fast. By midnight he was sufficiently far from the Taliban caves to send out a safe radio message. It was terse: Believe we have located Great Satan
.
He gave the co-ordinates.
___
JOHNNY Sudar — his father called him Ismail — found it relatively easy to follow the bin Laden group. Or at least he presumed it was bin Laden. They were taking the most obvious route through the torturous mountain paths and moving east towards Kabul, the capital. This reinforced his belief that bin Laden’s extensive terrorist network, al-Qaeda, somehow had information the Americans were going to start bombing within the next few days. He was impressed; even his regiment didn’t know when that was scheduled.
He rounded a corner sliding down the pass and almost stumbled into a couple of mujahedin who had lagged behind to relieve their bladders. Fortunately, they were concentrating on the job at hand, but it was only superb reflexes that gave him that crucial microsecond to duck behind a rock. He stopped for several moments to catch his breath. That had been close – too close. If he had been spotted, his cover of being a bin Laden sympathiser would be blown by the stark fact that he was armed. It would be safer to bury the AK47 and all other military evidence.
The ground was too hard to dig even with his tempered-steel knife, so he covered his rifle, compass, binoculars and knapsack of bullets with a layer of loose rocks. He would recover it all on his retreat to Uzbekistan.
After several hours of hard going he had to admire the toughness of the mujahedin. They seemed to live on little more than naan bread and tea, yet they could march with full gear at a pace that would match any vitamin-processed Western soldier.
Then suddenly they were gone. Johnny could not believe it. He had been barely 200 yards behind a group of about 50 men – and they had disappeared just like that. He decided to find some cover for the night and follow their tracks in the morning. But what was more likely, he reckoned, was that they had arrived at a hideout so cunningly camouflaged he couldn’t see it.
He was trembling with excitement – unusual for him, who had been called a cold bastard more often than he cared to count. But this could be the most important thing ever to happen to him. It may just be possible that he would be the man who discovered the hideout of the most famous international outlaw in history.
He bedded down in a rocky outcrop and waited for morning. It was impossible to sleep.
Eventually the fire-red streaks of dawn sky muted to pink to buttery yellow and he climbed the largest nearby rock with ginger hands. There was no sign of life. He scanned the surrounding cliffs – no visible caves, but that didn’t concern him. The caves the Afghani fighters used were so well hidden one had to fall into them. No, he would have to wait until someone emerged.
When that happened he was taken by absolute surprise. One minute he was looking at sky and mountains; the next there were people.
Where did they come from? He wished he had at least kept his military binoculars. But then again, if captured that would be a death sentence.
He ducked in an instant, still wondering how the mujahedin had miraculously appeared from nowhere. Perhaps instead of an actual cave in the hillside, they had emerged from holes in the ground tunnelling into a large cavern.
A shout from above jolted him. He swivelled in a flash and there about 50 yards up the mountain a man was pointing at him. Sudar had been so intent on watching the main group that he hadn’t noticed a sentry had been posted on a rocky ledge higher up. He cursed his stupidity.
Some of the men started running towards him, weapons confidently cocked.
Okay, so now I’m a Taliban,
Johnny whispered to himself. He slid down the rock with deliberate clumsiness and put his hands up.
The mujahedin stopped. One shouted at him. Johnny couldn’t make out what he said, but it didn’t take a genius to deduce it was a challenge.
Johnny shouted back: I am a Muslim from England who has come to fight for the Taliban.
He repeated that in Arabic.
That stopped the fighters. They looked at each other. Drop your gun,
one ordered.
I have no gun,
Johnny – now Ismail - replied.
Men shouting a hundred questions roughly grabbed him by both arms. Then they heard the planes, the scream overhead becoming a crescendo. Sudar was half dragged, half flung down the hole of the hideout as the first bombs fell.
___
MACDONALD watched the jets race overhead in the early dawn light. He smiled and nodded; they were heading for his exact co-ordinates. With a bit of luck, bin Laden would be buried under rockface in the first saturated strikes.
He doubted it though. The group he had seen had been a professional bunch. Even in the soupy haze of night goggles he could tell they knew exactly what they were doing. In all likelihood they were by now hunkering down in deep shelters that daisy-cutter bombs could not penetrate. The Afghans had been digging irrigation waterways and wells from the mountains to the poppy-cultivating lowlands for centuries, and it would take forever to unravel those artesian mysteries. The best prospect of finding al- Qaeda’s chief lay with Sudar.
Macdonald kept up his relentless pace, gobbling up miles until he was close to a Northern Alliance outpost he knew housed American and British Special Forces. He then radioed ahead, identified himself as an SAS operative and asked if someone could meet him rather than shoot him.
Twenty minutes later his Commanding Officer, Craig James who had helicoptered in from Uzbekistan as soon as he had received Scott’s message several hours before, invited him into his tent.
Good work, Scott. Although I must say most of our people don’t believe you found bin Laden, but it’s still a chance we can’t ignore. You see the Yank planes going in?
Macdonald nodded. If it wasn’t him it was a dead ringer.
James nodded. Where’s Sudar?
He’s tracking them. We decided his knowledge of Arabic and Muslim ways gave him a better chance of going in.
James paused for a second. You trust him?
Both men would deny it, but the fact Sudar was Muslim would always lead to questions such as this.
Macdonald shrugged, I like him. But I don’t give security checks.
James lit a cigarette. He was one of the few SAS men Macdonald knew who smoked like an incinerator. But then again, as a man who had faced death on a regular basis, James probably considered smoking a minor hazard. How can you tell someone who has dodged bullets that nicotine is equally life threatening?
Are you a Christian, Scott?
Well ... sure. Not that I go to church much. In fact, hardly at all.
But would you fight a Christian army?
Of course. My granddad fought the Germans. I’ve already fought the Serbs, and they’re about as orthodox as you get. Or so I’m told.
James nodded again, smiling. I know ... I know. This is a hypothetical conversation. It’s just that the Muslims seem to get twitchier than we do when people of the same faith are on the other side.
I don’t know. What about Iraq and Iran? That war lasted eight years, I think, and Saddam used the foulest chemicals around against fellow Muslims.
Yes, but there were no Westerners directly involved,
said James.
Okay, but what’s this got to do with Johnny Sudar? If you want to split hairs, his mother’s a Christian. She’s Scottish. Maybe she had a stronger influence on him than his father. Most mums do.
James laughed. Scottish? In that case he probably hates us English more than he does the Taliban. But no ... seriously, it’s got nothing to do with Johnny. He’s one of the best. It’s just that in the next few months we’re going to have to deal with some jiggery-pokery allies who may profess to like us, but deep down they think this is the decadent West against noble Islam. They’re likely to swap sides quicker than a cheap hooker can drop her knickers. We’re going to have to make some hard decisions knowing that, because sure as hell our politicians won’t.
He sighed. Obviously this conversation never happened. Now go and catch some sleep. You’re flying out to London tomorrow to be debriefed and I want you to be as sharp as ever. And I also want a written report on the past few days for our records before you go.
___
––––––––
COFFEE?
No thanks.
Macdonald could scarcely believe that two nights ago he would have traded a few days of life for a shot of caffeine. Now he was refusing it. I must have drunk about five cups on the plane,
he explained.
The surreal transformation from a barren, frigid cliffface to a heated office at 85 Albert Embankment, Vauxhall Cross on the banks of the River Thames within forty-eight hours was like taking mind-altering drugs.
The secretary who had offered him coffee picked up the phone. Obviously keeping people waiting in the hallowed halls of ‘Legoland’, as the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service headquarters was known, in her view just wasn’t on.
Greg,
she semi-hissed into the mouthpiece, Captain Macdonald is still here. Can I give him an idea how much longer he will be waiting?
A few moments later a man wearing a creased suit with his tie loosened emerged.
Despite his dishevelled look, he moved with the lithe grace of an athlete, which he had been until a criminally late rugby tackle in a match against the New Zealand Under 21s snapped his collarbone in half.
Captain Macdonald? I’m Greg Wright.
No doubt the secretary carried some weight in this establishment and Macdonald nodded his thanks at her before shaking Wright’s hand. Wright’s fine chisel-featured face was unlined, making him look more like a spirited student than a spy. But Macdonald noticed his handshake was as hard as stone.
Wright led the way to a small office with a desk that looked as if a paper grenade had exploded on it. He grimaced an apology. Tried to tidy the place up before inviting you in, but Judy doesn’t like to keep people waiting.
Macdonald smiled. She reminds me of M in that James Bond movie. Even her name’s the same.
Yeah. But our Judy is prettier than Judi Dench. Well, younger, anyway. Take a seat.
Macdonald pulled up a chair and refrained from dusting it. This was ridiculous. He had only taken one shower in the past two weeks and here he was about to dust a chair in this little office. In fact, the office wasn’t even dirty. It just appeared that way as it was so untidy.
Wright put his feet on the desk. I’m convinced it was bin Laden you saw. Although no one else here is.
Macdonald was surprised at the blunt start to his debriefing. Why do you say that?
We have a report from an Afghan refugee the Pakistanis picked up last week. Name was Gul Alam. He said several months before September 11 he had been forced to join a work crew sent by the Taliban into the mountains near Bamian where you were. Said he had spent a week building hardened mud walls inside a network of caves there.
Why weren’t we told this?
I don’t know. We’ve only just found out ourselves.
Wright paused for a moment as he sized Macdonald up. There was no doubt he was a formidable physical character, not that tall but ripped through with muscle. But there was something else. His blue eyes, set deep in his tanned face, watched Wright steadily, giving nothing away and judging nothing in return. He generated an aura of integrity and iron confidence, someone who wouldn’t let you down.
I shouldn’t really be telling you this,
said Wright, but the general feeling is the intelligence we are receiving from our so-called allies is not that spot on.
He hesitated again, fiddling with some papers on his desk. Macdonald said nothing.
In fact,
Wright continued, "the truth is we’re floundering in the dark. We’re so scared of being politically incorrect our intelligence is suffering badly. For example, half of the terrorists we’re chasing today have already been quizzed by either the CIA or FBI. And released, would you believe. In fact, a week after the World Trade Centre was first bombed in 1993 the FBI arrested a certain Abdul Yasin, who definitely could have qualified as a prime suspect, to put it mildly. The Yanks spoke to him, politely thanked him for his co-operation when he unsurprisingly denied any involvement and then let him go. They were scared of generating anti-American sentiment among our alleged Arab allies.
Yasin flew to Iraq the next day, unable to believe his luck and the gullibility of the FBI. Now Yasin is on George Bush’s 22-most-wanted-terrorist list and almost certainly has been involved in the planning for the September 11 attacks. And the idiots let him go!
Wright took a deep breath, shaking his head in absolute bemusement.
"That’s not all. Saddam’s chief nuclear physicist Khidir Hamza tried to defect to the West some years ago. He approached the CIA with proof that Saddam could make a radioactive bomb – albeit only what the rocket scientists refer to as a dirty bomb. It couldn’t do a Hiroshima number but it was still capable of deforming a lot of people and making large chunks of real estate radioactive no-go areas. The only reason Saddam hasn’t used it against Israel is because he still has to work out a way to fit it onto a missile.
Then suddenly we find that it’s not only Saddam. Another madman in a cave, Osama bin Laden declares war on us. And what do we do? We laugh. We don’t believe a word he says, even when his men blow up two American embassies in Africa.
Greg spread his hands in exasperation. "And how does America retaliate? By bombing an innocuous pharmaceutical factory in Sudan that bin Laden may or may not have owned. Even that was a joke; the whole world smirked and called them ‘Monica bombs’ as Clinton had unleashed them more to take heat off his blowjob from Monica Lewinsky than anything else.
Even now, after a bunch of suicidal fanatics have hijacked planes with box cutters and flown them into key buildings, we haven’t got the plot.
He gestured at the pile of newspapers on his desk. If you read those, the main question is not how we can catch the terrorists who have declared war on the West, but why are we so unloved. Why don’t we feel the pain of the poor terrorists? And that defeatist attitude is why we are in serious danger of losing it in the long run.
Greg paused, caught up in his favourite topic: the endless stupidity of the slumbering West.
What also worries me is that even those of us who accept we have a major fight on our hands still think fancy technology will solve everything. Maybe it could if we were fighting a high tech war, but we’re not. We’re trying to capture a man in a cave, and we think we can do it through satellites while sitting in offices a thousand miles away. And we think we can do it without even learning to speak Arabic to get proper on the ground intelligence.
Macdonald though of Sudar, chasing bin Laden somewhere in the Afghan mountains.
And you can?
he asked.
What?
Speak Arabic.
Wright nodded. Only reason they keep me on here. I’m one of the few who can translate the odd bits of genuine intelligence we get. At school, for some reason no one, least of all me, knows I opted for Arabic lessons rather than French.
He could have added that choice had possibly saved his life when, as an RAF pilot, he had been shot down over Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War. Despite sadistic torture, he had always known in advance what his interrogators wanted and had acted accordingly. They, in turn, had never considered an English infidel could speak the language of the prophet. It was a source of pride that he – the first and worst treated Allied prisoner – had given away nothing.
But still, the powers-that-be here think I’m a warmonger,
Greg continued. "They think I’m wrong on everything. They don’t agree, you see, with my assumption that we’re facing potentially the biggest crisis in our history. In the long term we’re looking at the possible collapse of Western civilisation. Why do I say this? Because al-Qaeda keeps saying it. As I keep asking my superiors – what part of the word jihad don’t you understand?"
Macdonald laughed. "Well, if you spend a few days in Afghanistan, you may change your mind. Those guys haven’t even entered the Stone Age. They’ll never bring us down no matter how many kamikaze jihadis looking for virgins in paradise bin Laden has up his sleeve."
Wright shook his head. It’s not the enemy that will bring us down. It’s ourselves ... But I’m ranting on, no doubt something that will get me fired from this job one day. I’m actually meant to debrief you. So tell me exactly what you remember ... every detail you can ... when you saw bin Laden.
___
IT HAD been over an hour since Macdonald had left and Wright was preparing his report as his boss, John Davidson, wanted it on his desk before he left for home.
Macdonald had told his story with direct simplicity. There was nothing new to add to what Wright had received from the SAS base in Uzbekistan, and Wright was skilled at getting people to remember things they didn’t even know they had registered. In fact, Wright wondered why the SAS had bothered to fly Macdonald all the way back to England – no doubt just to cover their backsides in case something went awry.
There was something about MacDonald that intrigued Wright, and that was probably why he had suddenly started spouting off about what he considered the real war against terrorism. The man had a palpable steeliness about him. He was a man who spoke and listened carefully; a man with much humor, but who regarded life as a serious adventure. A man who either liked you or not, and it mattered.
In short, Wright mused, a man like his grandfather.
The image of Cyril Wright flashed in his mind. He was 81 now, a crusty codger if there ever was one. He still sailed and fished and rode his bicycle to the pub; his family still shook their heads ruefully whenever they spoke of the ‘old bullet’, as they called him.
Cyril had been a Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain. In one memorable day 19-year-old Cyril was shot down over the English Channel a mile off Dover and managed to parachute free at the last minute. He landed with his clothes on fire in the frigid waters. He swam ashore, hitchhiked back to base and within an hour of his return, still shivering from hypothermia, was back in the air fighting off another raid. Cyril was awarded some medal for that. Greg was not sure which, as the old man never mentioned it. He had only heard it from Cyril’s fellow fighter pilots, most of whom were now dead.
By his own admission, the intense action of the war was the finest time of Cyril’s life and he never settled down much afterwards. After Germany came Korea, Nigeria, Vietnam ... anywhere where Cyril was able to fly and get shot at.
As he ‘mellowed’ he did stints as a bush pilot in Alaska and on the oilrigs in the North Sea.
Greg’s grandmother never complained. She was in her own way as much a free spirit as Cyril and Greg remembered her as someone always laughing and hugging. Even so, he suspected it must at times have been a lonely life for Pauline Wright. But whenever Cyril was at home, he treated her with such gentle courtesy and romance that Greg suspected she was ruined for any other man. And when he was home, the house was alive. No one was bored when the ‘old bullet’ was around.
His favourite in the family was Greg, whom he would cart off on long hikes into the countryside. In the woods the grizzled warrior spoke of a life worth living, a life on your own terms. Greg loved him like no other man.
He remembered when his grandmother was about to die. Cyril was in Chile at the time, humping machinery over blizzard-stricken Andean peaks in small planes for an oil prospecting company. Greg’s father Colin managed to get a message through to him in the outbacks of Patagonia.
Pauline was in a bad way. She had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, but because she never mentioned discomfit, no one knew about it in time. The doctors opened her up, had a look, shook their heads and stitched her closed. She went home to die but refused to do so until Cyril returned.
He came back on a Sunday night when Pauline was in a coma. Greg remembered how he walked up to her bed and took her hand. Her eyes opened and she smiled, her face young again. She held his hand tight. It was a fine time,
was all she said. Cyril said something quietly in return. Greg couldn’t quite catch it. To his shock, he saw Cyril was crying.
They buried her two days later. Cyril never went to the wake; he went flying instead. He later told Greg he had caught up with Pauline’s indomitable soul soaring in the sky that day.
The old man now lived in some wild corner of the Scottish Highlands and was grounded by law. His pilot’s licence was with regret not renewed when he turned 75. But grounded or not, spiritually he was still out there ... looping over some nameless island, skirting some icy peak in a storm.
No one was surprised when Greg joined the RAF after leaving school, although his father was not supportive. Perhaps he remembered his own childhood with his father rarely at home for any length of time.
Old Cyril said nothing, but he didn’t need to. Greg was a superb pilot and was being groomed for big things when his plane took an unlucky burst of flak during
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