The Evolution of Fear (Claymore Straker #2) - Paul E. Hardisty Page 0,22

in plastic inside a duffel bag – exploring the food stores, laying out the charts, plotting a dead reckoning position he had taken half an hour earlier. He opened a can of baked beans and ate it cold sitting in the cockpit.

He was estimating distance made good, Flame foaming along, close-hauled in a rising wind, stays and sheets strumming like guitar strings, when a pounding chop cut through the symphony. His body tensed, reflexed, knew what it was before his brain had time to compute, and he was back in Ovamboland, the Alouettes roaring in above the treetops, door guns blazing, the whump of the blades detonating in his chest, the white dust spinning all around, blinding, leaves and branches swirling in the storm, the atmosphere jumping with electricity, lead and steel ripping through the air, tearing at its very fabric, shearing the molecules he breathed. The noise was getting louder. At first he thought it was another of his hallucinations, another post-traumatic spell to ride out. He grabbed the gangway-hatch guide plate, steadied himself. The metal strip fixed into the teak decking was vibrating, the frequency matching the pounding beat. It was real.

He clambered into the cockpit and searched the clouds. And then it was there, right above him, fifty metres above the masthead, no more, in a gap in the clouds. A Bell Jet Ranger, hovering tail up, jerking in the scuttling cloud like a hornet in a wildfire.

9

The Difference between Living and Dying

The helicopter hung in mid-air for an instant, the pilots fish-bowled inside their Perspex bubble, headphones over their ears, working the pedals, the stick, struggling with the rising wind, peering down at him through the rip in the cloud. The machine pitched and yawed, battered by the gusts, the turbine screaming. As the tail swung around, Clay glimpsed the civilian registration markings, the blue stripes on the fuselage. The clouds were closing in, racing across the sky like crazed greyhounds. He could see the pilots’ mouths working behind the headset microphones as they fought to keep the little sailboat in view, the gap in the cloud narrowing. They were right above him now, staring down at him. The pilot had dark hair, a dark moustache, green-tinted Raybans. The man beside him was bulkier, fleshy, pink-faced. Clay could see the perspiration shining on his forehead, a wisp of platinum hair jutting out from under the headset strap. Their eyes met. It was Crowbar.

Clay held his old platoon commander’s gaze for an instant, he there on the pitching deck, the other no more than thirty metres above, swirling in the gale, dancers parting on a crowded floor. Then he raised his hand, made a gun, flicked his thumb. Son of a bitch, he mouthed. I trusted you. Loved you even, as a boy loves an older brother, a father.

Before Crowbar could react, Clay wrenched the wheel hard to port, falling off with the wind. Flame responded instantly, the sails driving the hull through the water. The compass spun as Flame went from close-hauled to broad reach in a matter of seconds. Clay opened up the main, let Flame flatten out, then eased the jib and mizzen, cleated the sheets and felt the surge of speed as she ran with the wind and the sea. He looked up over his shoulder just as the clouds closed, swallowing the helicopter. In a matter of seconds the dull concussion of rotor blades faded and was gone, leaving only the blood echo of empty, pounding loss.

With Flame trimmed up in a searing broad reach, Clay noted time and heading and went below. He sat at the nav station, the chart spread before him, the dead-reckoning track jerking across the paper, bearings, times, estimated distances. Current position was about forty-five nautical miles south of Falmouth, give or take. With any luck, Koevoet had seen his course change and would be projecting a direct downwind run across the Channel to Normandy. He had to assume that they were calling in his position right now, that a chase boat would soon be on its way. That gave him a couple of hours at most. There was no way to outrun them. The storm was his only ally.

Clay tuned the radio, dialling in the continuous marine weather report. It didn’t take long to get the news: severe gale warning, deepening depression tracking south and east across the Channel towards the Bay of Biscay, a secondary low developing over Ushant, the westernmost part of France, expected