S.T.I.N.K.B.O.M.B. (3 page)

‘You’ve got two bogeys in your six o’clock.’

Archie Hunt reacted instantly to the familiar voice in his headset, slamming forward both thrust levers and pulling the control column into his stomach. The jet aircraft responded immediately.
It was a Dragonfly 600, a revolutionary business jet that boasted incredible aerobatic performance. Engines screaming, its nose reared up and it arced into an increasingly steep climb.

Archie glanced to his left, stifling a groan as the G-force pushed him into his seat. Far below, the surface of the Channel was sparkling in the afternoon sun as it lapped up against chalk
cliffs and sandy beaches. When his torso was parallel to the horizon Archie checked the stick forward and the jet powered vertically upward like a rocket piercing the clear blue sky.
‘Yeeehaaah!’

The voice in Archie’s headset was impassive. ‘Don’t forget you’re not Captain Kirk, and you’re not flying the starship
Enterprise
. Check your
airspeed.’ Archie scanned the two screens on the panel in front of him, comprising the aircraft’s flight instruments, assimilating the information in a moment.

The Dragonfly’s two jet engines couldn’t sustain the vertical climb much longer. The aircraft was simply trading speed for height, like a cyclist freewheeling up a steep slope. Soon
its momentum would run out and then the aircraft would simply topple out of the sky like a toy plane.

Pulling back on the stick, Archie kept the wingtips level as the aircraft looped on to its back. He dropped out of his seat and felt a momentary stab of panic before his shoulder straps snapped
taut to arrest his fall. Hanging in his harness he shoved the control column forward to hold the Dragonfly’s altitude and checked his instruments.

Glancing momentarily at the coastline above him, Archie felt his eyes bulging as the blood rushed to his head. Then, as he slapped the stick against his left thigh, the world spun round the
aircraft’s nose until the earth was beneath him once again. When the wings were level he centralised the controls, arresting the roll with a crisp jolt.

‘Watch your airspeed.’ The voice in Archie’s headset was calm but firm.

Archie pushed the throttles forward but the plane’s body angle was too steep, his reaction had been too slow and the aircraft began to wallow like a sinking ship. Suddenly the Dragonfly
flipped on to its back, twisting to the left, spiralling like a corkscrew as it fell.

Archie knew the drill for spin recovery off pat and recited it in his head as the plane plunged towards the water. Forcing himself to adhere to the procedure, he relaxed his grip on the control
column and extended his left leg against the rudder pedal. The aircraft’s nose seemed to drop further as its rapid clockwise pirouette began to slow down. He glanced at the altimeter as he
waited for the rotation to stop.

The Dragonfly had already dropped four thousand feet. It would take less than a minute to plummet the remaining ten thousand feet between him and disaster. Looking through the windscreen, he
reckoned the world below was spinning more slowly but it was expanding at a frightening rate as it rushed up to meet him. Tiny details were emerging as if he was on Google Earth, zooming in on his
point of impact. He could see the swell of the ocean and ripples on its surface and brightly coloured windsurfers skipping along in the breeze. All the time the plane was falling.

Seconds passed.

The aircraft tumbled another few hundred feet.

The plane had virtually stopped spiralling as the altimeter whipped through five thousand feet. Archie couldn’t hold his nerve any longer and he hauled the controls into his gut.

‘Wait for it,’ urged the voice in his headset. But it was too late.

The air still wasn’t flowing smoothly over the aircraft’s wings and Archie’s input only made matters worse. In a split second the world was spinning violently as the plane
speared towards the earth in a tightening corkscrew.

‘I have control!’

Breathless with terror, Archie watched as his father gripped the control stick between his knees. Richard Hunt was an ex-Royal Air Force test pilot who had flown countless combat missions over
Iraq and the Balkans. After proving his skill and bravery at a young age he had been recruited to the SFS – the highly classified Special Flying Service – an elite squadron of fighter
pilots trained to land behind enemy lines and carry out covert commando missions. While everyone knew tales about the daring missions carried out by the SAS, the SFS remained so secretive that only
a handful of high-level government officials were even aware of its existence.

Archie knew that if anyone could save them, it was his father.

With arctic coolness, Richard Hunt centralised the controls and applied full left rudder. Then he started talking to Archie through the intercom in the sort of reassuring voice surgeons use when
they’re explaining an impending procedure to a nervous patient.

As his father commentated, Archie instinctively gripped his armrests and pushed himself back into his seat. The windscreen was filled with a terrifyingly close view of the sea, which would be
pouring through their shattered canopy if they didn’t pull out of their dive in the next fifteen seconds.

Richard continued, ‘Fifteen hundred feet, rotation rate zero, initiating recovery at twelve hundred feet.’

The sight of the unusual jet aeroplane tumbling earthward had caught the attention of a number of holidaymakers on the beaches of England’s south coast. Some were frozen open-mouthed while
others already had their camera phones poised, capturing the imminent impact, as they estimated the price they’d be able to demand from satellite news channels for their exclusive
footage.

Just when everyone in the crowd was sure they were about to witness a horrific plane crash, the silver sweptwing jet began to recover. Swooping perilously close to the water, the aircraft drew
gasps of wonder from its audience, almost skimming the waves before pulling out of its dive and climbing steeply away. As it headed skyward it completed an immaculate four-point roll, pausing
briefly after each quarter-turn.

Archie exhaled long and hard.

‘Sorry about that,’ he breathed.

‘We’re still in one piece, aren’t we?’ Richard steered the plane inland.

The Dragonfly crossed the coast and descended into a wooded valley, like an insect targeting the crease of a sleeping rhino’s skin. Dropping the undercarriage with the flick of a lever
Richard banked hard right, carving a turn low over the vast chrome and glass house he shared with his son.

The aircraft Richard had flown in the SFS was the Harrier jump jet, a plane capable of hovering or executing a vertical take-off and landing by directing the thrust from its engines through
controllable nozzles. Since leaving the SFS Richard had assembled a team of engineers capable of adapting the Harrier’s vectored thrust technology to design the world’s first Vertical
Take-off and Landing (VTOL) private plane.

The Dragonfly was popular with millionaires, who liked the idea that it matched their helicopters’ versatility while flying at five times the speed. Richard had used some of Hunt
Aviation’s handsome profits to fund a fleet of Red Cross Dragonflies, which were proving invaluable in providing swift medical care to people injured or endangered in remote war zones.

Archie brimmed with admiration as he watched his father coordinating subtle movements to achieve a rock-solid hover. Easing back the thrust levers, Richard finessed the controls and the
Dragonfly began to descend vertically. Seconds later the aircraft’s landing gear touched down and Richard taxied it towards his private purpose-built hangar.

When the engines were shut down Archie unclipped the canopy’s red safety lever and slid the glass dome backwards along its rails. He felt devastated about the near catastrophe he had
caused – angry with himself for messing up the spin recovery and ashamed that his father had witnessed his failure. Not only was Richard Hunt a test pilot of immense skill, he was the one
person in the world whom Archie had always wanted to emulate and make proud.

Gripping the top of the windshield, Archie climbed from the cockpit and walked round the plane’s sleek torpedo-shaped nose to meet his father. With his long gangly limbs, Archie was taller
than most of his classmates and tended to slouch to compensate. His tousled hair gave him the appearance of someone who had just rolled out of bed but his brown eyes peered keenly through the
rectangular lenses of his tortoiseshell glasses.

‘I’m sorry about that, Dad,’ he repeated, meeting his father’s eyes. ‘It won’t happen again.’

‘No.’ Richard nodded as if to accept his son’s apology. Archie looked up at his father, waiting for him to say something else – to offer some encouragement or praise to
buoy his spirits. At last Richard ruffled his son’s hair and said, ‘Let’s see what’s for tea – I’m starving.’

Later that afternoon Archie was on Facebook when he got a new message from someone whose profile picture was a silver X on a red background. After reading it twice he grabbed
his mobile and called Barney.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Archie.

‘Not much.’

‘Listen, can you come over before school tomorrow?’

‘Can do. What’s up?’

‘I just got this weird message on Facebook. I think you might be able to shed some light on it.’

Barney stared at the computer screen in Archie’s bedroom, his mouth hanging open slightly, as it had been for the last few minutes. He read the message out loud for the
eighth time, his voice trembling with excitement.

‘You can own up now,’ said Archie, gently shoulder-barging his friend.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Barney, taking his eyes off the screen at last.

‘I’m on to you, Agent X-ray.’

‘What? No! I didn’t send that.’

‘Promise?’

‘I swear on my signed copy of
Silverfin
.’

‘Well, if you didn’t, who did?’

Barney’s eyes widened. ‘It could actually be from MI6,’ he breathed.

‘Sure, that’s obviously the most likely solution,’ said Archie dryly. ‘But, just for argument’s sake, let’s work on the unlikely scenario that I haven’t
been contacted by an actual secret service spy. Who else could it be from?’

‘What about Newman? He might be waiting on that corner with back-up – ready to get you back for the other day.’

‘Nah.’ Archie shook his head. ‘Check the spelling.’

Barney looked back at the screen and nodded. ‘I see what you mean – there’s no way Newman could spell
government operative
.’

‘I’d be surprised if he could pronounce it.’

Barney laughed and shoved the last quarter of a slice of buttered toast into his mouth.

‘It’s like watching a hyena devour a chicken. Or whatever hyenas eat.’ Archie pulled an uncertain face. ‘Didn’t you have breakfast before you left your house this
morning?’

Barney bobbed his head from side to side and twirled a hand while he chewed up his mouthful, then said, ‘Course I did. But that was nearly forty minutes ago.’

‘No wonder you were getting hungry again. It’s lucky you didn’t pass out on the way over here.’ Archie gestured at the monitor. ‘I tried replying but it
wouldn’t let me.’

Barney nodded wisely. ‘They’ve probably set up a number of ghost server nodes so they can’t be traced. Standard secret service diversionary tactics.’

‘Is that something that can actually happen or is it from one of your spy films?’

‘No, it’s real, honest,’ Barney insisted earnestly. ‘I saw it on
Spooks
.’

‘If you say so.’ Archie slung his rucksack over his shoulder. ‘Come on. It’s nearly quarter to and I don’t want to miss my rendezvous with the mysterious Agent
X-ray, do I?’

Archie strode purposefully along Cavendish Way, intrigued but half hoping he wasn’t walking into some sort of ambush. His pace slowed instinctively as he neared the
junction with Ashdown Road.

Suddenly someone grabbed his wrist from behind and pulled him into a rhododendron bush. He spun round to face his attacker, his pulse suddenly out of control.

‘Barney! What are you doing?’ he hissed.

‘This could be an ambush,’ whispered Barney. ‘I suggest we covertly surveil the hotzone.’

Archie studied the street corner, which was deserted except for a young girl who was leaning against the street sign.

‘I don’t want to spoil your fun,’ Archie murmured, ‘but the zone in question doesn’t look especially hot. And I don’t think
surveil
is even a
word.’

Barney responded by holding a finger to his lips and pulling Archie down to a crouching position.

The boys waited and watched in silence for ten minutes. No one else appeared except for an elderly lady walking a small dog, who crossed Cavendish Way and disappeared along Ashdown Road without
pausing.

‘It looks like the leopard has ceased stalking the polar bear,’ whispered Barney at last.