A Different War Read online

  A plume of dust billowed out behind the accelerating plane and its noise was beginning to cannon back at them from the mountains. It was a projectile being fired down the runway. Burton felt his mouth dry and his hands grip at themselves, holding certainty in a fierce grip or suffocating doubt. Then the gleaming metal bullet sailed… moving effortlessly into its natural element above the desert and the roiling dust. A great silver insect against the mountains, then against the sky like a star. There was clapping, but the reflected, magnified engine noise drowned it.

  As the noise diminished, he heard Vance's chuckle of celebration and relief.

  Barbara held the big man's arm. His jaw was firmer, younger again, and his blue eyes glinted challengingly as he removed his sunglasses. The cameras whirled around them once more like seductive dancers, and Vance was answering the reporters' questions about bribes and misappropriated funds. His manner was confidently dismissive. Burton moved to his other side and shook his hand for the photographers. Above them, high above, the plane circled slowly, a distant, winking speck. Burton's mood was elated, but fierce as a weapon. After all the dirty tricks, the attempts of the big national carriers to keep him out of Heathrow, JFK, O'Hare, Europe's international airports after the vast bank loans, the rescheduling of debts as regularly as bowel movements this was a real beginning.

  It had been exhilarating, climbing the mountain against their hostile weather. Then his own country's national carrier, privatised but anticipating monopoly, had attempted to steal passengers, spread black propaganda, question his liquidity, the safety of the huge loans.

  They'd settled out of court, eventually, but their actions had declared that now it was a dirty war. One he had taken on with a ruthless alacrity that had surprised him.

  Now, with the 494 in service within six months, regularly flying the Atlantic, he would undercut all competition.

  He pumped Vance's hand, perhaps his sudden exhilaration surprising the American. Then Vance slapped his shoulder — they slapped each other's shoulders in their released, gratified nervousness; brothers under the suits. Vance had begun in overalls, as he had in bright, even lurid sweaters and with much longer hair.

  Now, neither of them could be stopped.

  "Let's get a drink!" Vance bawled, his arms embracing the cameras, the guests, his small desert kingdom.

  "Or drunk! Come on, Tim-boy it's our day!"

  His enthusiasm was tumultuous, enveloping. He dragged Burton to his side like a lover, his arm on his shoulder, and steered him towards the hospitality marquee, its gaudy, flounced sides flapping in the desert breeze.

  Vance had begun designing and building executive jets, rich toys for richer boys.

  Then he'd copied the Boeing philosophy, stretching and fattening the fuselage until he had the skeleton of the 494. A long-haul workhorse on to which he had bolted the two big Pratt & Whitney engines he had helped design, some fancy avionics he'd bought in and his own design for the fuel management system and the airliner possessed a better load-to-range ratio than any of its rivals. It was the most effective and cheapest transatlantic carrier in existence. Burton knew that as certainly as did Vance… but the people wouldn't buy it. Not yet.

  They were waiting patiently in their lightweight suits and silk ties in their boardrooms for him to be their guinea pig.

  The big carriers would flock to Vance and stand in admiration with the desert dust blowing over their polished shoes and squinting against the sun once his airline, Artemis, had shown how good and cheap the 494 was. Until then, they would stick with their Airbuses and their Boeings. So, Vance needed him like an addict just as he needed Vance.

  He smiled reassuringly as they approached the marquee. He could hear the canvas cracking in the breeze like old wood. Fuck the rules, don't tell me about them… It could have been a pledge between them. Bankers patted Vance on the back as his smile preceded them into the marquee's illusory cool.

  Local politicians seemed lit by his confident flame.

  The 494's two big engines had faded into the distance beyond Phoenix.

  Thanks, Alan, he thought. Oh, thank you, Alan… He had been given the means to shaft the European and British carriers who had tried, for a decade, to ensure his failure.

  Barbara Gant or did she call herself Barbara Vance Gant now? No, he remembered, she had remarried and there was a child… She, too, was smiling, glad-handing. He was given a glass of chilled champagne and raised it to her. She returned the salute with a quiet triumph.

  "Of course a wonderful aircraft," he offered in reply to someone in a light-grey suit with the distinguished grey coiffure of an American banker or mafioso.

  "Local employment?" He remembered. The state senator.

  "Employment will be no problem—" he grinned.

  "Give me six months on the New York route and they'll be flocking here, Senator. I guarantee!" His confidence embarrassed him, his habitual reserve reminding him of its right to his smiles, his manner.

  "I won't let the plane down," he could not avoid adding with a laugh.

  "Next spring, at the latest, they'll be falling over themselves to buy Alan's baby!"

  He moved further into the undergrowth of the crowded marquee, among species he had forced himself to be able to confront and confound.

  Vance was without that English apologetic tic in the forebrain which moderated self-congratulation.

  His arms waved above his head in broad, unquestioning gestures. The money-men, the politicians, the executives, the advisers all of them were people from whom he had masked himself behind his money and his most trusted deputies, even behind his dazzling wife. His long hair, his sweaters, his apparent naivety; all had been de fences against intrusion, bolsters of an assurance he found it difficult to maintain.

  He sipped more champagne.

  Bright chatter, then, or amusing asides. He sensed his path through this forest of money, influence and dependence in the role they forced upon him St. George, riding to Vance's rescue. The sound Englishman.

  It must be the pepper-and-salt in his hair that gave him the appearance of maturity over Vance, since the American was ten years older than himself. His hands, too, began to wave, like those of Vance; smaller, politer imitations. The marquee became hot with bodies and success.

  The mingling of expensive perfumes and aftershaves was heady. He clipped his glass to the plate on which a helping of salmon and salad had arrived, un requested He pecked at the food, his excitement unable to digest. Nodding as he listened to a Phoenix matron inviting him to her salon.

  "A great shame," he murmured, 'but I'll be back in London before Thursday… Of course, on my next visit. Delighted!"

  The matron floated away, having tamed if not captured him. He smiled after her.

  Charlotte was definitely required on his next visit, if he was to trawl the Phoenix social world… He must ring her and the boys, tell them the plane had flown and he would be home a day early. What time was it in London? He glanced at his watch surreptitiously. Seven hours' difference, was it…? It was — time for tea or G-and-T in Holland Park. He grinned a private pleasure and glanced towards the entrance of the marquee. The desert seemed to smoke with heat rather than dust-Vance? Alan Vance was outside, and a man in shirtsleeves was gesticulating in what might have been anger… No, the anger the baffled fury was all Vance's.

  Smiling, nodding, sidling, Burton moved towards the gap of desert between the canvas and flounces. Voices caught at him like gentle hands, but he managed to evade them. Vance's features were thunderous with knowledge and rage.

  "What is it Alan? What is it?"

  Vance turned to him, his eyes like those of something dangerous, cornered and wounded, but far from finished. Something that wanted to hurt, damage.

  "What is it?" he repeated inadequately.

  The my plane… it's gone down. Crashed. The crew's not answering.

  It's gone down, Tim. My plane crashed—" The image of Her Majesty stepping from the fuselage of the Skyliner
into a hot, tropical light and a breeze that ruffled cotton dresses and unsecured hats became that of the news reader then the symbolic portcullis of the House of Commons as the channel returned to its coverage of a Commons Select Committee.

  At once, Giles Pyott sat forward in his armchair, to Aubrey's renewed amusement. He sighed with gentle mockery and Pyott, swilling the clinking ice in his glass of gin and tonic, acknowledged the noise with an inclination of his head.

  The Chairman of the European Affairs Select Committee was an MP known to both himself and Giles Pyott. He had been an unsuccessful Foreign Office junior minister and later had spent an equally fruitless sojourn at MoD. In the former post he had buckled before Aubrey, in the latter had been implacably opposed by Giles.

  But he was rabidly pro-European, of the party of government, and his present eminence was thus fully accounted. Seated next to him was Giles' daughter, his shining girl as only Aubrey, Clive Winterborne and Giles himself were ever allowed to call her. In riposte, they were still to her, even in their collective dotage, the three musketeers. As the sound of her voice was faded up her first words making her father chuckle with indulgent approval, as if he were witnessing some kind of successful training exercise for a violent assault by special forces Marian was haranguing the man giving evidence to the Committee; the CEO of Aerospace UK, Sir Bryan Coulthard. He appeared sullenly resentful, despite the media coaching he must have had over the years and especially just prior to this appearance on the box.

  Money, Aubrey thought it was always money. A tropical storm of it, running down the drains of the European Union, disappearing into the sands of corruption, grandiose dreams, bureaucracy. In his retirement, he had found a lofty, indulgent aloofness. Giles, because his daughter was angry at waste, incompetence, corruption. and Europe was angry in his turn. He sipped with a quiet, satisfied savagery at his drink as the industrial knight inadequately fended off the redoubtable Marian.

  Aubrey recollected the bloated, gleaming fuselage of the Skyliner from which the monarch was disembarking on the news film. British Airways had two of them, employed for junkets, tourist trips, celebrating Lottery winners and the like. The costs of production had escalated become mountainous — and the airlines jibbed at buying what was yet another pompous, Louis Quatorze-like dream of European glory by France and the UK with the full complicity of the European Commission in Brussels. Indeed, it was a dream more like those of Brussels than his own country for Aerospace UK it had been born of desperation at the end of the Cold War… and it was too damned expensive for anyone to buy, this future of airline travel, as it was usually touted. Even Her Majesty's endorsement on her State Visits would hardly recommend it to realistic, hard-headed airline chairmen around the world.

  "Your shining girl's fishing," he murmured, glancing into his malt whisky and catching a scent of the beef Mrs. Grey was preparing for his dinner with Giles.

  "She's bluffing."

  "Ah, Kenneth but Coulthard doesn't know that," Pyott replied in triumph. No one was as clever as his girl, no one quicker on their feet than his only daughter.

  Outside, home-going traffic was muted and the sunlight lay strongly on Regent's Park. Aubrey stirred comfortably in his armchair, enjoying the restrained interrogation.

  "Why won't they buy his dream, Giles that Skyliner thing? Cost alone?"

  "Probably. Ludicrous situation," Pyott barked.

  "As far as I can understand it—" This is Marian's view, is it, to which I'm to be treated?"

  Giles Pyott snorted with laughter.

  "A hit, I do confess as much… yet, it is. It's the old sad story — overcapacity in the industry and falling revenues. They want cheap, as she puts it, not flashy!

  "But they won't buy American planes either."

  They'll have to start replacing their fleets soon and it's either American or it's this costly bugger. Brothel with wings, Marian calls it." Aubrey laughed.

  "But Coulthard and the Frogs are sweating over Marian's acquaintance, Tim Burton, and his choice of plane. That is cheap relatively… HMG and the French have poured so much money into developing the damned Skyliner they won't bale out the airlines with subsidies to buy. Then we have another Concorde on our hands."

  "With this difference BA was the national carrier back then and government could make them buy Concorde. Now they're in the private sector, they think they've done enough by taking two on appro and flying the champagne and gold medallion set on junkets." Pyott tossed his head, still thickly crowned with grey hair. His aquiline profile appeared bleak in expression. Full-face, Giles found it harder to frown effectively. The retired soldier gestured at the screen, absorbed in his daughter's casual, intent duel with Coulthard.

  Aubrey had heard as much in the whispering gallery of the Club, and elsewhere where he still encountered men of present or resigned power.

  The Skyliner was a luxury, ocean-going liner of the air, a grandiloquent gesture appropriate to a more extravagant age. It was opulently appointed, it attempted to carry too many passengers, its engines were inefficient by comparison with the newest generation of propulsion units, its sumptuousness ruined its payload-to-range-to-price equation. It was an overdraft, negative equity, a spendthrift gesture quite out of tenor with the straitened times.

  If one airline bought it, then others might. But the Germans had never joined the project, using the money they had saved on Eurodefender to help efface the cost of rebuilding the industrial horror of the former East Germany. Bonn would never allow Lufthansa to acquire a fleet of Skyliners for the US and Far East routes. Air France couldn't afford it and the Elysee wouldn't afford it on behalf of the national carrier.

  The Belgians couldn't even dream of it, like the Dutch, and the British privatised national airline was not prepared to make more than a gesture.

  If young Tim Burton succeeded, the Skyliner was sunk without trace… which was what infuriated Marian so much, the billions of ecus the project had cost. Aubrey shook his head.

  "You can assure this Committee, Sir Bryan," Marian was saying, 'that when the Skyliners under construction are completed, you will have found buyers for them? Or is the short-time working announced at one of your subcontractors in my constituency the shape of things to come?"

  Marian's smile remained dazzlingly innocent as her words worked like acid on the crumbling brickwork of Coulthard's self-confidence.

  Marian was wearing her blonde hair drawn back from her face, accentuating her wide blue eyes and the high, prominent cheekbones. The mouth was firm in the generosity of her smile, her neck long. Even seated, she appeared to possess her father's stature, as well as his determination and confidence. To Giles, she was as beautiful as her mother had been. Most men, indeed, found her attractive, desirable then, eventually, too dauntingly intelligent for their entire comfort.

  She had, however, discovered two or three men sufficiently up to scratch to partner her in affairs.

  Pyott grunted with pleasure at Marian's remarks. Aubrey's mood was complacent. He was an aged senator returned to the Forum from his farm, to find himself little more than amused at antics he had once taken with the deadliest seriousness. He sipped at his whisky, enjoying Giles' pleasure at his daughter, and the scent of the promised meal. A cork popped in the kitchen, sliding seductively from a bottle of very good claret.

  There will be buyers there is a great deal of interest, my dear lady," Coulthard replied, his eyes narrowed into creases of fat, his demeanour so ruffled that he had publicly patronised his inquisitor to Marian's intense satisfaction.

  "I didn't know our sales and marketing division interested honourable members quite so closely," he added, his anger incapable of restraint except in sarcasm.

  "Our interest, Marian…" the chairman began, leaning to her so that his words became a mutter in which was distinguished a tone of ingratiating reprimand.

  "You're right, of course, Chairman," Marian murmured. This Committee is simply interested are we not? in seeing some return on the EC subsi
dies that were made into research and development, here and in France. Hence our interest in the sales prospects—" She paused, as if stung by an insect or a revelation. The camera cut to Coulthard, who appeared ever more uncomfortable before his eyes became hooded and inexpressive. It was no more than a moment, but something had been revealed.

  Aubrey's ancient, rusty curiosity was aroused.

  "What happened there, Giles? She scored a hit without realising it how?" At once it had become a diversionary game, of course; nothing of real or immediate interest to him. Real interest was confined to dinner and Giles' amicable, comfortable company.

  "I saw that, too, Kenneth. Research subsidies, grants — whatever the Black Hole of Brussels calls them these days… we all know they got a bucketful of ecus at Aerospace UK, just like Stendhal-Balzac, to get the project off the ground.

  Funny…" He studied the screen, but the camera had passed to an interjecting left wing MP who had taken up Marian's cry concerning jobs. There had, apparently, been redundancies at a subcontractor in his constituency. Why the lay-offs, he asked in broadest Lancashire, if there was the immediate prospect of sales?

  Coulthard had recovered his habitual condescension, his corporate arrogance.

  Whatever Marian had caught on the wing was gone. A glimpse of her features showed that she, too, had dismissed the moment… as Aubrey did. For, as Giles said, they all knew how much the European Commission, in one of its fits of anti Americanism and Le grand Europe moods, had poured into the initial research programme for the Skyliner.

  That was all above board, allowable. Coulthard had looked, for a moment, like a man caught with his hand in the till.

  Mrs. Grey appeared in the doorway and mouthed ten minutes to Aubrey, who nodded and turned to Giles.

  "Another drink, my dear Giles?"

  "Why not? That beef smells wonderful, Mrs. Grey." Aubrey's housekeeper retired to her kitchen suitably recompensed. General Sir Giles was an always welcome guest of Sir Kenneth.

  Aubrey shuffled across the green carpet towards the drinks tray on the Victorian credenza near the bay window. The early summer evening gleamed on the grass of the park and from a hundred windows. Traffic murmured like flies. He poured himself another whisky, clinked ice for Giles' gin, and dismissed the nag of curiosity. Remembering with amusement a time when he would, in Marian's place, have worried at Coulthard like a dog at a bone a terrier at a rat, as one of his field agents had always preferred to phrase it. But, in his case, the interrogation would have been of someone unshaven and without sleep and who posed a threat. That had been a kind of war, and this was not. It was merely business… There you are, my dear," he announced brightly, handing Pyott his tumbler.