“Would you be knowing where there’s an airfield
near here?”
“I would indeed, love. That would be Tony
McGuire’s place.”
“And how would I get there?”
“About two miles on. Let me explain,” and the
old woman went into detail. IT WAS A SAD SORT OF PLACE, OBVIOUSLY RUN down and neglected. The sign on the gate said McGuire’s Air Txis and the paint was peeling. The tarmacadam of the drive was pitted with holes, and she bumped along toward the administration buildings.
There was a tower and two hangars and no sign of any planes.
She parked outside what looked like a World War
· Two Nissen hut and the door openel and a small, wiry man in jeans and an old black leather flying jacket appeared. His gray hair was close cropped and there was a watchfulness to him.
“Can I help you?”
“Would you be Tony McGUire?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Michael Ryan’s niece, Kathleen.”
McGuire said, “I haven’t heard of. Michael in
years. I thought he was dead.”
“Alive and well and waiting for me over in the
English Lake District, and the thing is he told me that if I needed a quick trip over there the man to see was Tony McGuire.”
. “Did he indeed?”
“Oh, yes, told me he’d used you often in the old days.”
He stood there looking at her, a slight frown on his face, and then he said, “You’d better come in.” THERE WAS A STOVE IN THE OFFICE, THE PIPES going up through the ceiling, a camp bed in one corner, a map desk, and an office desk cluttered with
papers. McGuire lit a cigarette.
“So what do You want?”
“A quick trip to the Lake District.” “And when would you want to go?” “NOW.”
He stared at her, shocked. “That’s a pretty tall order.”
“You do have a plane, don’t you?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Just one at the moment.
The bank foreclosed on me and took my best plane, the Conquest, in lieu of debts, but I do have a Cessna 310.”
“So we could go?”
“I’ll show you.”
He led the way out and crossed to one of the, hangars and rolled the rusting door back revealing a small twin-engined plane. /
“How long would it take to get to the Lake District in that?” “Probably about an hour.” “Good. I’ll take it.” “Steady on,” he said. “First of all, it needs refueling and I’ll have to do that by hand and that takes time.” He turned and looked up at the sky. “And the weather stinks. I’d need to wait to see’ if it would clear.” He turned to look at her. “And then we have to decide where we’re going.” “As close as possible to a place called Marsh End.
It’s south of Ravenglass.” “All right, let’s go back to the office and I’ll check in Pooley’s Flight Guide. That shows every airfield and airstrip in the U.K.”
HE LEAFED ‘HROUGH THE BOOK FOR A WHILE and then paused. “I remember this place, Laidale. It was an emergency field for the RAF in the Second World War. I landed ther-e-once about fourteen years ago. There’s nothing except a load of decaying buildings and an airstrip.” “So we can go?” “Well, we’d need to land at somewhere, with Customs and Security facilities first.” “Three thousand dollars,” she said, “and we fly there direct.” She pulled up the false bottom of her shoulder bag and produced several wads of American dollars obviously to a much greater amount, and McGuire’s throat went dry. He swallowed hard and managed to speak.
“Is this some political thing? I know what your uncle and his people get up to. t don’t want trouble.
I mean, those days are gone.”
“Five thousand,” she said and held the money out.
“How long did you say it would take?”
“An hour,” he said hoarsely.
“An ‘hour there and an hour hack. I’d say five thousand dollars was good pay. Here, I’ll count it out while you go and refuel.”
She sat at the desk, tOOk out wads of dollars, and started to count. McGuire watched, fascinated, and licked his lips.
“Okay, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll refuel the plane.” He almost ran across the broken tarmacadam of the runway to the hangar, and the one image that wouldn’t go away was the sight of all those dollar bills coming out of. her shoulder bag. AT THE SAME MOMENT, THE SEA KING HELICOPter landed at Whitefire Air-Sea Rescue base. The rotors stopped and as Dillon and Han Berustein emerged a Range Rover pulled up, fi” Royal Navy Lieutenant-Commander got out.