THE ORANGE MOON AFFAIR (25 page)

If I had thought about everything clearly, rationally and logically when I first heard that my father had been killed, I would have figured out that the Government were going to use me for their own ends. But I was blinded by the desire for revenge and filled with my own sense of self-importance. Perhaps I should feel angry and betrayed by Danny, but I didn't. I felt that now I had a fighting chance to accomplish that which I had set out to do and there was time enough to settle accounts with whomever was pulling the strings. The puzzle wasn't going to be solved by me worrying at it, so I just concentrated on flying. As we approached Sheffield I called ATC and told them that I had been diverted to Blackpool, as the Sheffield transplant organ was not available.

L
anding at Blackpool
in the middle of the night, with a weather front moving in and visibility reducing by the minute was challenging. Danny and Paul were awake and watching without comment as I concentrated on the moving terrain display with obstacle warning indicators. ATC sounded a little bored as they guided me in and I requested fuel as we touched down.

“Piece of cake,” Danny said cheerily. “Wonder if they have any sandwiches in the terminal?” He went off to look while I checked in with the tower, paid for the landing fees and fuel and waited for Danny to return.

Paul was watching me carefully.

“Nice landing,” he said, I guess by way of being friendly. Nobody in our line of work trusted easily, especially as I was technically a civilian and no longer part of the
'inner circle'
.

“Thanks, but you might save the congratulations until we land in Dundonald. That's where this mess is coming from,” I said looking at the sky. He nodded, and for the first time grinned.

“Wouldn't be normal if it wasn't raining,” he said as Danny trotted back from the terminal with a fist full of freshly made sandwiches.

“Told the lady we were a mercy flight,” he said cheerfully. “Well we are, officially, sort of.”

Within minutes, ATC cleared us to Belfast and we lifted off into the dark night for the one hour fifteen minute flight. Rain sleeted off the canopy and wind buffeted us as we headed out across the Irish Sea toward the Isle of Man and then Northern Ireland. I'd been told by ATC that we would be out of the worst of it in ten minutes as the front moved through. Thankfully they were right and the small helicopter settled on course with Danny and Paul tucking into their sandwiches. I'd wait until we were back safe and sound before I ate anything.

I contacted Aldergrove while we were still twenty minutes out and was relieved to hear them clear me straight into the Venus Automotive test track. Danny’s contact had obviously been very convincing with the concocted story of a life saving blood delivery for a child with a rare blood type living in Dundonald. The people concerned would meet us and all the details had been arranged with Venus Automotive. Now as I listened to the controller I had to smile. He couldn't have been more helpful, giving me a detailed picture of the weather and wind speeds.

The cloud base was eight hundred feet as we crossed the coast and below me the darkened countryside of Northern Ireland spread out on either side, with glimmers of some house and car lights. I changed course over Strangford Lough and flew towards Dundonald. Landing in these blustery conditions with only the floodlights of the factory to guide me was going to be tricky, but better than nothing. A direct in approach from overhead Ards Airport would avoid power-lines and other obstacles.

“Five minutes to landing,” I told Danny and Paul, who were checking their gear, loading the Heckler-Koch MP5SDs and slipping on ear buds and throat mikes. Danny prepared mine for me. It was the familiar routine that calmed the nerves and prepared the body for the fight ahead.

“Just get us down in one piece, Thomas,” Danny grinned, enjoying the adventure.

Over Ards Airport, I turned onto a bearing of 295
°
and saw the lights of Venus Automotive factory right on the nose. There was a surreal quality to the approach to the darkened factory, the noise of the helicopter seeming to disappear as I concentrated on the landing.

That was when I started to sweat.

The memory of the flight from Mojave flooding back, and it took all my will power to calm down, steady my hands and feet on the controls and gently nurse the aircraft towards the ground. I felt Danny glance at me.

“Two minutes. And relax.”

“I guess there'll be Venus Automotive security on the ground as a welcoming party,” Paul asked.

“Sure to be. I'm hoping just the normal guards and not De Costas' men.”

“We'll find out soon enough,” Danny said quietly as I slowly dropped the collective and pulled back a little on the cyclic. The helicopter slowed and we headed down toward the test track close behind the testing bay where the helicopter would be shielded from view. I could see one of the security vehicles already driving toward our landing point from the main gate, stopping just as we touched down. Two men got out, one I recognised as Martin.

It was the best night landing I have ever done and Danny and Paul were out and running before Martin and his colleague knew what was happening. By the time I had shut down and joined them, Danny and Paul had them trussed up with zip ties and sitting with their backs to the testing bay wall.

Martin looked at me incredulously. “Tom Nelson? We were told you were dead.”

“As you can see, not so, Martin. And the name's Thomas Gunn,” I said gruffly. “Are any of De Costas' men here?”

“Been coming and going all night. The last van is due in twenty minutes. De Costas was in the main office block earlier, with a woman. That's all I know.”

“What do they know about us flying in here?”

“Nothing. We only got the call a minute before you landed.”

“Sorry mate, have to do this,” Danny as he injected him in the neck with a sedative. Paul had already dealt with the other guard. Watching Martin and his friend slump over, I have to confess I felt nothing. We had a job to do and that was all that mattered.

“Looks like we have company, there's movement at the main gates.” Paul said.

“Better get in there before they do,” I said. Having checked my weapons, I slipped in the ear bud and strapped on the throat mike, then led the way quickly to the door behind the dumpster. It looked exactly as I had left it, and the door opened easily. We slipped through into the main assembly plant, which was lit with low-level security lights. Almost immediately alarm bells started clanging in my head and that gut instinct clawed away telling me something was not right.

“Boys, this is not good,” I whispered. “The security lights were never on.”

“You sure?” Paul said softly.

“I'm sure.”

“Then we are going to have to do this the hard way,” Danny said, covering me as I moved forward between the robots.

“This place is wired, Danny,” I whispered looking straight at several pounds of Semtex strapped to one of the robot welders.

“Crap,” he replied. “See anyone?”

“No.”

“Keep moving, we'll deal with that on the way back.”

What surprised me was that we made it to the control room office without mishap.

Slumped in the chair behind the desk lay Samuel De Costas, his chest a bloody mess and surprised look on his face. There was no time to get sentimental, but I felt angry that somebody had got to him before me. I crossed to the cabinets and within fifteen seconds we were through into 'The Lab'. The re-enrichment device was almost completely dismantled, but Paul set to work with his equipment as Danny and I walked to the far wall and opened the loading bay air lock.

The uranium hexafluoride tanks were gone as were most of the ammunition boxes. Just then, we heard the sound of vehicles pulling up outside the loading bay. Danny followed me quickly back to the airlock and into 'The Lab' where Paul was packing up his equipment.

“They've wired this lot too,” he said as we headed for the air lock to the office.

Danny stopped. “If they are out there they know we only have this way out.”

“Or do we,” I said. “Nobody's going to expect us to be coming out through the loading bay air lock. Besides if we kill the lights, nobody will see us.”

“They'll hear us,” Paul said, a touch scornfully I thought.

“Not through ten foot thick walls, using these.” I held up the HK MP5SD sub-machine gun, one of the few silenced sub-machine guns in the world.

“Good point,” Paul acceded.

“Just wait until I find the biometrics pad again before you put the lights out.”

The sound inside 'The Lab' even with silenced weapons was deafening, and then it was silent. I pressed my thumb to where I hoped the biometrics pad was and sure enough the air lock door slid open.

The men, whoever they were, knew we were there. But that moment of time that it took for them to realise what was going on, was all we needed.

There's not much time to think when you're in a fire fight, just do what you have to do. Sense where the enemy is, know where your own men are and go for it. It was over in moments, just the last body rolling across the floor and silence amid the smell of gunpowder and death. But we had no time to ponder on our work as there were sure to be others that would have heard the battle, so we retreated back into 'The Lab' and to the control office, but not before I photographed the side of the Transit van where the words
'Abby's Catering – Dublin'
was printed on the side. I was in no doubt that Abby's catering did not exist.

S
ean Flynn and his men
were waiting for us as I opened the office door to the main assembly area. They had been disciplined to stay where they were, but the sound of the fire fight had them jumpy and we spotted three of them as we slipped out of the darkened office into the eerie light and shadows cast by the robot welding machines.

Over confidence is a killer and one of the men, six foot four at least, thought that he was hidden from view because he was in shadow, but the small image intensifying sight on the MP5SD picked him out against the angular steel of the one of the welders.

The gun bucked in my hands, and through the sight I saw the big man's head snap forward from the impact and the blood and brain spatter the bench and boxes in behind him. His body thudded into the bench and he slid to the floor pumping crimson blood all over the concrete.

Danny fired and another of Flynn's men fell into view, clutching his throat and out of the corner of my eye I saw Flynn stand and aim directly at Paul's back. I fired quickly without aiming, but Flynn's reactions were fast. He dived behind a robot and slithered out of sight.

"Do you know who this is, Flynn?" I shouted. There was no reply. "It's Thomas Gunn." Still silence. "I'm going to kill you, you little bastard." My voice echoed in the budding.

There was a loud report from a pistol and the security lights went out plunging the assembly line into total darkness. I heard the sound of someone running and fired in that direction.

“For Christ's sake Thomas, what the hell are you doing?” Danny whispered urgently into my ear.

“I'm going to kill the bastard who murdered my father,” I replied, feeling surprisingly calm.

“The PSNI will be here in under ten minutes and we need to be long gone.”

“Secure the chopper, I'll be there in five,” I told him, moving carefully down between the rows of partly finished body shells. “I've got you covered. Paul, follow Danny.” I covered them as they sprinted for the door, bullets clanging off the machinery around them, then they made it to the door and where gone.

Suddenly the whole assembly line came to life in a cacophony of sound. I dived to the floor as an automatic welding arm swung across nearly separating my head from the rest of me. No sooner had I escaped that, than I had to roll out of the way to avoid being run over by one of the moving jigs carrying the body shells. The lights in the building were still turned off, but the flashes from the welders lit the whole area like a firework display.

Molten metal sprayed off the body shells and burned through my clothing, my hair singed and the smell of burning was everywhere. Flynn must have started the assembly line remotely. Somehow I had to get to him before I got mangled in all this machinery. There was a crack by my head and a riveter swung around out of control and started to punch the welding arm next to it. I looked up and saw Flynn on a steel walkway above; he was taking aim. The shot hit a welding arm and it spun around sparking and shorting off any metal close by.

I raised the MP5 and fired a loose shot before it was knocked aside by a passing jig, spoiling my aim, but it caused Flynn to duck and move back toward the shadows. Somehow I had to get up there and winkle him out. I looked around just in time to dive out of the way of another passing jig.

The metal above my head clanged and I felt a burning sensation on my left arm. I looked down saw a trickle of blood and thought
'not again'
. There was no pain. The third shot literally parted my hair. Flynn had moved out of hiding again and was standing on the steps leading down to the control room. I couldn’t understand why he was coming down to me. His best advantage was up there. The rattle of rounds on the concrete by my feet answered my question. Somehow one of the men I saw hit by Paul had survived, but lucky for me his injuries meant he was slow from pain and blood loss. As I rolled I brought the MP5 and sprayed the area where he was standing. The majority of the rounds caught him in the stomach and threw him back against the wall, a surprised look on his face. His legs buckled and he slid down the wall leaving a red smear on the white paint. The flashes of the welding machines danced off his dead eyes.

Flynn stopped dead in his tracks, for the first time fear showed in his eyes as I turned the gun on him and pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

I was out of ammunition. That last burst had emptied, the magazine. Flynn hesitated for a second, just long enough for me to scramble round the corner of one of the big machines. His shot bounced harmlessly off it and spun away.