The Final Flight by James Blatch (books to read in your 30s .TXT) 📗

think. The system’s working flawlessly. It’s embarrassing in front of Speedy, who’s seen nothing but a brilliant new system working without fault. There’s no reason to keep batting on about it, and most of all no reason to take out your grievances on the rest of us. It’s unprofessional.”

Millie looked over Rob’s shoulder. Speedy and a couple of others watched from afar.

“That’s what you all think? It’s flawless?”

“Yes. I’m afraid you’re alone in thinking otherwise. Don’t make this difficult for me, Millie—”

“Difficult for you?”

“Yes. Everyone knows you and I are friends—”

“Are we, Rob? Still friends?”

Rob looked disappointed. “I thought we were.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment before Rob walked back to the tea bar.

Millie stood by himself, next to the little corner of the planning room he’d made his own.

The pilots and aircrew on the far side were in good cheer, with laughter bouncing off the low ceiling.

He removed his flying coveralls and checked in his equipment before picking up the tapes and walking slowly over to the station commander’s office.

Periwinkle was behind his desk again, ignoring the comings and goings to the safe. Just as Millie was signing in his tapes, Steve Bright appeared.

“How many complete reels?” the corporal asked.

“Four,” Bright replied.

“Four?” Millie said.

“Yep.” Bright handed his tapes to the corporal, complete with annotations on the sleeves.

Bright and the corporal left the room.

Millie gazed at the dwindling pile of blanks as the safe door closed, then checked he’d passed everything from his case.

As he walked to the door, he turned back to Periwinkle and hesitated.

Should he say something now?

TFU was quiet, with most of the men in their respective mess bars.

Millie looked at his watch. He was due to call Belkin in an hour.

Susie watched as two Vulcans screamed out of West Porton. So much for their disruption.

“They appear to be expanding.”

“What?” David asked, lying on the ground next to her.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen two Vulcans.”

David didn’t bother looking.

“Are we done here now, David? I mean, what are we doing? It just feels like the energy has gone, along with half the people.”

“Megan’s waiting to hear from Sampson. He’s obviously working on how to get the information out.”

“Right.”

“Meanwhile, she wants to march again. If they’re not going to charge us, we may as well make the most of our freedom.”

“Won’t that provoke them?”

“I think that’s the point.”

Susie sighed. “I see.”

Later in the afternoon, she made her daily call.

“Nothing’s happening or going to happen,” she told Roger. “They’ve done as much as they can, and it did nothing. They’re talking about bloody marching around the airfield now, as if that will suddenly force Britain into giving up her nuclear deterrent.”

“They want you there a little longer. Number Ten got back to us rather late in the day. Apparently that project you stumbled across is rather high value. They’re keen we protect it from any further interruptions.”

“That’s not our job, is it? Don’t they have their special branch for that?”

“Not sure they covered themselves in glory when you and your friends walked under their noses and into the heart of a secret test flying unit. Anyway, won’t be long. The project is due to end next week and move into production.”

“Fine. What is it, by the way?”

“Guiding Light. Some sort of guidance system for the delivery of nukes. Don’t know any more, I’m afraid, and probably won’t find out. But they are all jolly keen on it at the top of the tree. Something about a big export order to our American friends.”

“So we really stumbled across something.”

“Well, it’s done us no harm. The PM is personally grateful for our work—”

“My work.”

“I thought we were a team, my dear?”

“When it suits you, Roger.”

At 7PM, Millie checked Georgina was safely in the garden with a drink, before he went into the house through the French doors. He closed the living room door behind him and stood over the telephone.

He dialled the Oxford number with a shaking hand.

“Ah, Squadron Leader Milford. Good evening. Are you well?”

“Quite well, yes, thank you, Professor Belkin.” His legs were jelly.

“Good. Well, I expect you’d like to hear the results of our digging?”

“Yes, please.”

“Well, let me tell you, we had quite a week of it.” The professor spoke slowly and deliberately.

“Did you find anything?”

“No.”

The response hit Millie like a knife in his chest. His shoulders hunched forward.

“Not at first.”

“Not at first?”

“It was a case of adjusting the parameters. Initially, my erstwhile undergraduate set the computer a task of finding a variation in height readings that moved two thousand feet or more in two seconds. Something he considered would be a clear sign of an error.”

“That’s quite a dramatic change.”

“Well, yes. I thought so, too. And it provided a negative return. However, I then instructed young Strangways to look for a more moderate difference, and we settled on seven hundred and fifty feet or more in three seconds or less.”

“And?”

“And, Mr Milford, I think I can safely say there is a problem with your new equipment.”

Millie sat down on the small bench by the telephone desk.

“Tell me more.”

“We found seven instances initially. When we looked at the surrounding data, three of them were normal. The aircraft appeared to be descending or ascending as part of a planned manoeuvre, although the numbers may have exaggerated the rate of climb or descent.”

“Right, but the other four instances?”

“Yes, well, they point to anomalies. The sudden change in height didn’t fit with readings around it. A definite issue for you to resolve. Something we would call a systemic problem.”

“Incredible work. I can hardly believe it.”

“Interestingly, when we narrowed the parameters further, we kept finding anomalies.”

“How many?”

“Many. The narrower the parameters, the more we found. Small deviations, I should say. But a clear sign that there is a recurring issue with the data received by the computer from whatever is feeding it.”

“I want to say I’m relieved, but it doesn’t feel like the right reaction. In fact, as I think about it, I’m becoming