He closed his eyes, searching for that power inside him. He had to forget that he was terrified—that was only the human part of him, the 38 per cent that was a normal, frightened boy.
“No,” Bligh announced suddenly. “It’s not possible. There’s no way they could know you were on this plane and co-ordinate an attack so quickly. We’re only a few miles outside American airspace. They must have been tracking this plane. They’re not here for you, Jimmy. They’re after me. As soon as we dipped below safe altitude to pick you up, they spotted us easily.”
At last, Jimmy felt a rush up the side of his neck—like a rising flood taking over his brain and energising every muscle. His breathing slowed. The panic in his chest crumpled into a harmless ball. With that, he suddenly had the confidence to take in what Bligh was saying.
“What do you mean?” he yelled, his voice now infused with authority. “Why are they after you? You mentioned your ‘package’ before—what did you mean? What’s your mission?”
There was no response, though Jimmy knew Bligh had heard him. He could see the man’s shoulders tighten.
They surged onwards, back up above the clouds. The vibrations calmed a little and Bligh kept deploying what countermeasures he could. Without even thinking about it, Jimmy knew that first he would send out a hot flare to divert heat-seeking missiles, then chaff—debris that would disrupt any missile that automatically sought the nearest solid objects.
“Can’t we fire back?” Froy shouted.
Jimmy didn’t wait for the pilot to answer. His voice came out low and calm. Inside, he was thrilled at his own conviction.
“This is an Electronic Countermeasures plane, not an attack plane. Our missiles can take out anti-radar artillery systems and surface-to-air missiles on land or on ships over a hundred kilometres away. But we’ve got no way of attacking another plane.”
Now Jimmy turned back to Bligh. His eyes seared into the back of the man’s helmet. “If you want to survive, I need all the information,” he demanded. “You said they must have tracked you. Where from? What were you doing? What was your mission? Tell me NOW!”
The plane rocked again.
“We’re losing control!” Froy screamed, above the rattle of the metal struts. They were barely holding the cabin together.
“OK,” Bligh yelled at last. “You’re right—I need to tell you. But not to survive—to complete the mission.” He frantically punched some keys on his display station. “God, I hope this CPU is still working. Can you see that?”
Jimmy looked at his own screen. Aerial photographs flashed up in front of him, one after the other. Jimmy was amazed at their detail—he knew they must have been taken from thousands of metres up and with the plane travelling at speed.
“This is Neptune’s Shadow,” Bligh announced, rushing to get the words out, “the second-largest oil rig in the world.” His voice shook with the vibrations of the plane, but Jimmy wondered whether it was fear as well. “It’s 250 kilometres off the east coast of England, in the North Sea.”
Jimmy watched the images flash up, faster and faster, desperately trying to hold on to any of them in his head. Still the plane shook and rattled. Jimmy could barely hear what Bligh was saying.
“This is your precious package?” Froy bellowed. He was furious. “This is what was so important you couldn’t divert to pick us up? A damn oil rig?”
“It’s not an oil rig,” Bligh snapped back. “That’s what I found out. And NJ7 will do anything to stop me getting back with this intelligence. Neptune’s Shadow is a secret missile base disguised as a massive oil rig. And these pictures show that its rockets are trained on France. The Brits are preparing a strike on Paris.”
Jimmy felt his gut twisting into a rope.
“Does anybody know about this?” he gasped.
“Just us three and the Government of Great Britain,” replied Bligh. “We’re too far out of range for me to radio it. The only place this information is stored is on the CPU of this aeroplane and inside our heads. And to be honest, it doesn’t look like this plane is going to be around much longer. If something happens…” he paused and cleared his throat. “If we go down…Whoever survives…you have to take this information back to Colonel Keays. He has to know. He has to stop them.”
CRASH!
Suddenly, it felt like being in a toy plane whacked by a sledgehammer. A direct hit. Jimmy was thrown to the side, slamming his head against the wall of the cockpit again. If it hadn’t been for the helmet, his skull would have been crushed.
Then the plane went into tailspin.
Jimmy saw every colour blend into every other. The universe whirled around him, like he was trapped in a tumble dryer—one that was falling to earth at over a hundred metres a second.
Only one thing went through his mind—Bligh has lost control. The man was shaking the flight stick frantically and clawing at the switches on the flight panel.
Jimmy looked up, straight ahead out of the cockpit. What he saw numbed the feeling in his entire body. The sea was rushing towards them. Even in the split-second that he stared, the froth on the surface became clearer. He was close enough to see the debris that bobbed on the waves.
Then he looked to the control panel. It was like the most complicated games console in the world. Suddenly, it was as if Jimmy could see through the metal, into the workings of the plane. In a single flash of thought, he could trace the wires behind every button and switch—thousands of them all at once.
“Do exactly what I say!” Jimmy yelled, fighting hard to stop himself blacking out.
“What?” Bligh shouted back in disbelief.
“Kill the engines!” Jimmy ordered. There was such authority in his voice that Bligh did as he was told. The two Pratt and Whitney P450 turbojets fell silent, leaving only the intense scream of the air rushing past the cockpit.
Jimmy’s hands tore at his strap. He unclipped his parachute, heaved it off his back and strapped it round the display station of the empty seat next to him. Then he engaged the seat’s ejector mechanism. Almost instantly, a section of the cockpit screen popped open and the seat was hurled from the plane. Jimmy saw it slam into the wing as it rotated around them. He was relieved that neither Bligh nor Froy had panicked and tried to eject themselves.
“What are you doing?” screamed Bligh.
Jimmy didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled the ripcord on his parachute. The black satin canopy billowed into the sky behind them. The resistance would only slow their fall by a fraction—the ’chute was designed to carry a single human, not a fighter jet. But it would grant them an extra split-second, which could be enough. The canopy behind them would also serve a second purpose.
“Release the internal fuel supply!” Jimmy commanded. Bligh didn’t hesitate. A trail of black liquid streamed behind them, making the plane lighter by the second, and filling the parachute canopy
