An excerpt from At All Hazards
© 1979 Mark Seymour

At All Hazards

"When Empires are threatened with collapse, they are prepared to sacrifice their non-commissioned officers."

Menachem Begin: The Revolt, 1951

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"Five thousand apiece?" Papandrakis' howl echoed in the empty hull. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"No crazier than usual. This crate would be cheap at twice the price."

"How the hell do you figure, vrei? This isn't exactly Pan Am, you know."

Hawkins sighed. "You had a seat on a Pan Am flight, didn't you?" Papandrakis nodded. "How much could you have sold it for yesterday? A thousand bucks? Two thousand?"

"Yeah... Maybe more, to the right people."

"And how much today?" Hawkins glared. "How much?"

Papandrakis scuffed a foot across the dusty aluminum deck. "Not a whole lot."

"Not a lot?" Hawkins poked stiff fingers in Papandrakis' stomach. "How about nothing!" Another poke. "Zip! Nada! Your precious ticket isn't even good to wipe your ass with, fool! Hawkins Airways may not be able to give you a seat in first class, but you're going to find the flight a whole lot nicer than waiting for the Victor Charlie Travel Agency to book you another way out of this rathole."

Papandrakis grimaced. "Okay, okay. But ten thousand bucks to two whacked out Cambos for something that might not even fly..."

"Oh, it'll fly alright." London grinned down from the doorway to the flight deck. "It may not be very pretty, but it's hell for stout."

"Mind convincing him of that?" Hawkins cocked a thumb at Papandrakis.

"No problem." London backed down the steep ladder to the cargo deck. Standing at the foot of the steps, eerily sidelit by the open crew door on the starboard side, he pointed to the narrow strip of light. "This is your basic three-door model one-thirty-three cargo aircraft. You came in the pull-tab door, but there's also a ten-foot square access hatch directly to port and, of course, the main attraction..." He pointed toward the darkness aft. "The ramp and clamshells at the rear give you an eleven-foot wide opening into the cargo hold, and can take the roll-on weight of most wheeled and tracked vehicles in Army inventory."

"Including a five-tonner?"

"Absolutely. A deuce-and-a-half, a five-tonner, a ten-tonner, even a certain Sheridan tank..." London gestured east toward the warehouse on the canal.

Hawkins chuckled. "You do that very well. Ever think of being a stewardess?"

"Loadmaster school. I liked flying a lot better."

"Ever fly one of these things, malaka?"

"Right seat once. A friend came through Guam on one, right before they retired it, and I hitched a ride to Thailand with him. I guess I've got about a dozen hours toward my ticket." London shrugged. "I can fly it."

Hawkins kicked at a sagging cardboard box. "Found this up under the electronics rack. Looks like manuals and stuff."

Squatting on the pierced aluminum planking, London pawed through the mildewed books jamming the box. He pulled out a fat, manila-covered manual and flipped the pages. One finger pointing to the nomenclature at the top of the page, he smiled up at Hawkins. "It's the real thing, Hawk. Takeoff minimums, engine out procedures, weight and balance tables, everything."

"Looks like you've got some reading ahead of you." Hawkins nodded toward the open crew door. "Why don't you go home with Nick. You can study up."

"And you, poustis?" Papandrakis grabbed a handful of Hawkins' stained shirt. "Planning on getting in trouble all by yourself?"

"Send Sam out with some beer and sandwiches. It's liable to be long night." Hawkins pried Papandrakis' fingers out of the fabric. "And make sure he brings a fucking flashlight. I don't want to break my neck crawling around in here after the sun goes down."

"What the fuck is going on, vrei?"

"Okay... We've got no helicopter, right?"

Papandrakis nodded. "Since you told Mack to stop fixing that piece of junk."

"And now we need another one, right?"

"What for?" Papandrakis' hand indicated the hundreds of curved ribs along the hull. "You bought this fucking thing."

Hawkins smiled. "What good is a fifty ton payload if we don't get the gold? What if Victor Charlie decides to stop playing around and rockets the runways? What do we do when the T54s come down from Xuan Loc?"

"Di di mau..." Papandrakis shrugged.

"Right. So Hawkins Airways needs another chopper, and that's what I'm going to get."

"By yourself?"

"With Sam. Tonight." Hawkins nodded. "You got it."

Papandrakis stared at his friend, his face blank. "Just like that?"

"Just like that." Hawkins stared back. "Send both MACs with Sam, just in case."

"What about me?"

Hawkins shook his head. "You take care of business, you old fart. Check the roads between here and the house. We may have to move fast. And send someone by the damn bank again. They may be sandbagging it for all we know." He forced a smile. "And stop worrying. Tomorrow we'll have a nice new helicopter."

Papandrakis rounded up the rest of the team lying under the wing out of the sun. After they disappeared behind the low storage sheds at the far edge of the ramp, Hawkins closed and locked the handcrank access panel. He limped up the narrow steps, then squatted in the open crew door, hauling it up on its rickety hinges. With the door dogged shut, cutting off even its little breeze, the sweat popped out on his body. He made his way to the flightdeck ladder in the dim fishbowl light from the portholes down the side of the ship. Moving slowly, already overheated, he paused at the top of the stairs and looked back down the hundred-foot length of the cargo bay to the ramp, lost in the darkness. Hard to imagine it filled with roaring vehicles, shouting men levering masses of gold bars across the striated decking. Yet that was the goal: steal sixteen tons of gold and fly it out to Singapore. He shook his head. A fool's dream. Now he had to make it reality.

Sitting in the flight engineer's swivel seat, the red vinyl sucking at his sweatsoaked clothes, Hawkins dozed in the heat. The threadbare canvas flaps on the twin skylights overhead kept out the worst of the late afternoon sun, but the reflection off the concrete ramp through the windshield was fierce. Through the wavering heatwaves rising from the repair hangar roofs, he watched the frenzied departures of the C141s down the long runway. London had chosen the near one as their probable route: Two Forty Right, he'd called it. It was closer to the terminals, exposing them to friendly fire if they were discovered, but farther from the fence where Charlie lurked with his B40s and 12.7mm DShKs.

Another silver leviathan strained off the runway, bloated and distorted by the ground shimmer, a wisp of safety rising from this cauldron of war, carrying a hundred or so frightened people back to the World. His fingers pulled a heavy gold coin out of his pocket, flipping it down the outside of his knuckles. Bearing the crest of a dead state, embossed with an eagle and a lion, it flew down and around and back. Up and over and down again...

...Eagle and lion flickered in the glow of the kerosene flarepots marking the runway. The strip at Uli had been pounded that afternoon by the Ilyushins and they'd been forced to move to this alternate field. It was just a widened stretch of macadam road, the jungle slashed back, but it had given good service in the past. They counted on the night to protect them more than the pitifully few .50s strung along the roadway. None of the Egyptian pilots that flew for Nigeria would risk the sky after dark. Not even the South African mongrel who taunted them over his plane's radio: 'This is Genocide. Hello, hello. This is Genocide calling.' One day Hawkins hoped to find him on the ground. Perhaps in a bar in Jo'burg or Brussels, one of the cramped places the mercenary pilots frequented between wars. They'd talk of old times, of genocide and kwashiorkor. The coin spun faster. And then he'd waste the sonofabitch.

Kelly's voice rose over the sound of the flares, crackling in the rising wind. "Plane's coming, Hawk."

"Are the kids ready?"

"Ready as they'll ever be." Kelly pointed across the roadway to the squatting group of whiteclad nurses, each cradling a stick-figure child. "Soon as we get it unloaded, they move in. Assuming it doesn't go into the trees again."

"Von Rosen's flying this one. He'll make the strip." Hawkins peered intently into the dark sky. "He has to, this time."

"You sure she's on this flight?"

The roar of the Constellation drowned out the answer. Oh, yes, she was on it. The radio message had been garbled, sunspots or something, but his guts knew. Teeth clenched, he watched the ancient Connie sag onto the far end of the strip. Registration numbers and national markings painted out on its smudged gray fuselage, the plane shuddered and bucked, blue smoke streaming back from the tires and red-hot brakes. The pilot finally got it stopped fifty meters past where they stood, waiting for the stinging dust to settle.

The flares began to wink out, a few, then whole stretches at once, as the troopers smothered them with helmetsful of sand. In the sudden darkness, they could hear the warning cries, deep and musical in Ibo: wait, wait for the murderous propellers to stop whirling. Still blinded by the flares, Hawkins could only make out the ghostly shape of the plane when the crew pulled the twin cargo doors inward. Silhouetted against the red night vision lights inside the fuselage, they quickly heaved the heavy sacks and boxes to the doorway to be seized by the waiting lines of handlers. Hawkins had timed them one night as they'd emptied a Super Constellation of its cargo of mealie grain, cooking oil, and 7.62mm ammunition in less than fifteen minutes. The ground crews on Sao Tome could take several hours to load one. "Do you see her?"

"Not yet, Hawk." Kelly edged through the swarm toward the plane. "Think we should get the sisters up?"

Hawkins eyed the mass of men beneath the open hatches, heaving at an undiminished pile of crates and gunny sacks. "Wait a while. They'll just get in the way now."

"Okay. But even if it is von Rosen, he'll want to be off..."

"He can wait, damn it!" Hawkins strained to see over the bowed backs of the crew in the cabin. "Steiner's had patrols out since first light. They couldn't get close enough..."

Standing patiently behind the crewmen, watching the chain of hands reaching up for the life-giving food and munitions through her viewfinder, Raymond captured the death throes of a nation. Hair whitened, almost silvered, by the red lights along the cabin top, her wrist moved like a metronome, cranking off exposure after exposure. Perhaps one image, one blinding moment of reality, could startle the world into action, force them to save the dying children.

When the deluge of powdered milk and grenades slowed to a trickle, Hawkins waved Kelly across the strip to the lines of waiting women. As they filed across the tarmac, still reeking of burnt oil and avgas, Hawkins caught up with the leader, a lay sister with the accent of Port Harcourt. "How are the children?"

"Oh, they are excited, Mister Hawkins. Very excited, to be going away to a wonderful place across the sea."

Hawkins eyed the achingly skinny boy lolling in her arms, his thin puppet hands draped atop his distended belly, bloated with kwashiorkor. Excited? They'd probably never seen the sea, had no idea of where they were going, what would happen to them. But the sisters would tell them fantastic stories of a place where there was enough food to eat, enough so your hair didn't turn a sickly red from protein deficiency, your bones didn't stick out like those in the pictures of Dachau and Auschwitz. He reached out and touched the boy's smooth flesh, fever burning like a torch inside the frail body. This one would soon die. If not tomorrow, then the next day, or the day after. But they had to try. The Ibos were a proud, intelligent people, and this was their future, burning up. They had to save what they could. "Have a good flight, sister."

"Thank you, sir. Please make sure I have a place to come back to, in my Biafra." The big woman's eyes bored into Hawkins'.

"I'll do my job, sister, so you can do yours."

"That is all I can hope for. I pray your aim is true." She handed the child into the open arms of a crewmember and scrambled up the crude stepladder into the empty belly of the plane.

"That was touching."

The sound of her voice, so close behind him, sent a chill down Hawkins' back. Turning, he looked down into her bright smile. "Hello, Kat."

Her smiled broadened. "Mind if I use that?"

"What?" He pulled his eyes away from the curve of her jaw, the swell of her breasts.

Raymond swung her chin toward the ladder, a continuous line of whimpering babies and silent nurses. "The line about just doing your job. Great headline: 'White mercenary and black nun, just doing their jobs'. Sell a million..."

"With your pictures." Hawkins pulled her close, tugging at the wide camera straps intertwined across her chest.

"Of course, with my snaps." She protected a protruding lens with cradling hands. "Maybe a Pulitzer, even."

"Using my face." Arms around her, he pressed tighter. "Don't you need a release or something?"

She grinned up at him, one trapped arm snaking down between them. "Sorry, buddy, you're a public figure in a public place. Too public for certain kinds of release, if you catch my drift." Her fingers plucked at the seams of his threadbare khaki shorts.

"I got it..."

"Any solution to the problem?"

Hawkins nodded. "Not very elegant, but it's private."

"Wonderful." Her eyes were cool green ponds. "Take me there and fuck me. Now."

He led her along the edge of the crowd shuffling closer to the open doors and safety. Raymond pressed close to his side, clutching her clanking camera gear with her free hand. Reaching the stubble along the edge of the makeshift runway, they picked their way through the ragged stumps and scattered bushes. Hawkins waved to the squatting troopers along the treeline, faces darker than the night, camouflage uniforms bright against the damp ground.

Past the wall of trees, still within the ring of pickets, Hawkins' battered Land Rover sat in a small clearing, the latest in a series of vehicles shot up, blown apart, or fallen to pieces around him. It still had most of its sheet metal, abraded by the bush down to shiny aluminum, and the flickering beam of Hawkins' flashlight picked out the sun insignia, shining against a black square of chipped paint. His driver rested on the spare tire mounted on the hood, thin body leaning back against the sloped windshield. A low-voiced conversation and the driver scrambled down the battered fender, his broad white smile flashing, and disappeared into the bush.

Passing back down the long wheelbase, Hawkins stuffed his haversack and web gear through the passenger window. On top of the pile went the short-barreled FAL, clanking against the exposed butt of his heavy Browning 9mm. Tucking the tail of his tattered bush shirt into the sagging waistband of his shorts, he came around the corner of the truck to find her leaning against the back door, one soft hip pressed into the golden sunrise of Biafra.

She tapped the insignia with a calloused hand. "The sun's really going down, isn't it?" Resting her head on the open frame of the door, glass long knocked out, she stared into his eyes. "You're not going to win, are you?"

"No, love, we're not." Hawkins shook his head. "All we can do now is get out as many children as we can. And make the bastards pay for every mile they take. Pay all they've got."

"How long do they have?"

"Longer than we have."

"How long is that?" Her eyes glittered in the tropical starlight.

He pointed through the dark line of trees toward the road. "When the plane leaves, you'll be on it."

Raymond turned, breasts pressed tight against her damp shirt, watching the children climb to safety. "Looks like you don't have much time, mister. Better get to work."

Strong hands pressed her to his chest. Reaching around her clawing hands, he got the door open and landed with his back on the dirty mealie bags and crumpled papers in the truck bed. Her fingers worked at the buttons of his shorts, emerging with a rigid prize. He maneuvered her breasts out through her shirtfront, burying his face in their sweaty softness. Hauling and yanking at her shorts until they skidded down her thighs, he thrust upward as she sat down, impaling herself. Her head dropped back, half-strangled noises coming from her open lips. He pressed down hard on her hips, forcing his way deeper. Growling, he slid his hands up across her breasts to her tangled hair, pulling her face down to his, teeth and lips gnawing each other.

"I've missed this so..." Hips grinding down, she pressed her knees tight against his ribs. "Your hardness."

His hands slid down to her curving bottom. "Your softness." His teeth fastened in the tender part of her shoulder, her breath rasping in his ear.

Her moan rose in pitch and volume as she pushed herself up from the wet mat of hair on his chest, riding above him, a writhing figurehead on the prow of his body. Her hair lashed from shoulder to shoulder, then down across his face. Her shuddering turned suddenly to stillness as her hands dug into him, urging him deeper. She moaned softly with each thrust as he pushed into her, sweaty belly popping against her tensed thighs. A long quivering moment, then he pulled her down, one hand wrapped in her hair, the other cradling a slippery breast. She rocked her hips back and forth, spinning out the end.

Lying wrapped in her arms, Hawkins regained his sense of the night outside the Rover, his eyes snapping open when he heard a noise in the darkness. He twisted around, covering her pliant body with his own, one hand snaking over the seatback for the Browning.

"Ah... Sorry to interrupt." Kelly coughed. "The plane's gone off, and it's time..."

Hawkins head snapped down. In the dim light, he could just make out her wide smile. "You planned this."

"Did you think you'd get rid of me that easy? 'When the plane leaves, be on it.' What was that, a challenge?" Raymond laughed. "Now be a love, get your beautiful, heavy chest off me, and let a woman get her clothes on."

"Hawk." Kelly moved closer to the truck. "The lads say some Federals want to know what all the ruckus was about. Better that we were off, before..." The insistent thump of a .50 rang in Hawkins' ears as he struggled to clear the tangle of arms, legs, and twisted clothing...

...The thumping echoed in the cavernous hold of the C133 when Hawkins awoke, gritty and wet from his dream. His face stuck to the headrest, his cheek peeling away as he struggled to sit up. Below, the banging started again on the crew door. He hauled himself out of the narrow chair and staggered across the crew deck to the doorway. Half-falling down the stairs, drifting on the edge of the dream, he felt the day's heat still radiating off the curve of the hull, though it was nearly dark outside the tiny portholes.

"Ai dó?" Hawkins coughed, his voice husky with sleep. "Ai dó? Who's there?"

"It's us, Hawk." Liukonnen knocked on the door. "Open the fuckin' door before some of the fuckin' mice start to wonder why I'm talkin' to a fuckin' airplane."

Hawkins popped the lock lever and eased the heavy panel down. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Liukonnen caught the weight, his bushy head and lopsided grin appearing beside the sawtoothed steps on the inside of the hatch. "Sure nice to see you, too. Now get the fuck outta the way, we're comin' in." He thudded up the steps, shouldering Hawkins aside, gently set a pair of packages on the deck. Jones scampered through the doorway, twisting the heavy satchel over one shoulder to clear the narrow opening.

"I say again, what are you doing here?" Hawkins stood, hands on hips, while Jones peered out the hatch, scanning the quiet expanse of asphalt. At Jones' nod, Liukonnen reached down, yanking the hatch vertical, dogging it shut.

"Nick said you wanted another 'hook, right?" Liukonnen smiled. "Plan on flyin' it yourself?"

"I hadn't thought about flying it, actually."

"That's why he sent me."

Hawkins rubbed hard at his face. "I'm glad someone is thinking in this operation."

Liukonnen leaned down and scooped up his packages. "No food, that's your fuckin' problem. Gotta have brain food, Ma always used to say: 'If you don' eat, how ya gonna get smart?' We got just the thing here." His hand waved toward the shadowed vault of the hold. "So where you wanna eat in this dump?"

Hawkins led the way to the steep ladder on the far side of the hull. Following him up to the crew bay behind the cockpit, Liukonnen had to stoop under the sharply curving overhead. He set the fragrant parcels on the twin jumpseats on the port wall while Jones eyed the recurved ladder against the aft bulkhead. "This the way to the roof?"

Hawkins nodded, jerking a thumb toward the overhead hatch. "Set up an OP above the wing. Mack'll relieve you in an hour." He cocked his head, studying the small panel of Plexiglas. "If he can fit..."

Jones unslung his satchel and pulled out an MAC10, its bulbous suppressor noseheavy in his hands. Draping the black nylon sling around his neck, he leapt to the top of the ladder and opened the hatch. He vanished onto the broad curved back of the aircraft, no more noise in his passage than the soughing night wind.

"Guy gives me the creeps." Liukonnen stared at the empty hatch. "Turn around, the fuck's gone, an' you never heard him go. Comin' back, it's the same way. The fuckin' creeps, it gives me."

Hawkins smiled. "He's been the last thing a lot of people didn't hear." The smile disappeared. "And I'm alive because of that..."

"...that fuckin' animal, right?" Liukonnen returned Hawkins' reluctant nod. "Because that's what he is: some kinda nasty fuckin' thing with fangs. I just hope you got him on a real short leash."

Hawkins sat on the lower bunk against the starboard side, its thin plastic cover squeaking. "The trick is to get it over his head. After that, it's easy."

"Funny." Liukonnen snorted. "A real funny guy. So funny, I may not leave you any food, wiseass."

"That's not funny."

"Neither's this food. You know how hard it is to get good Chinese food in this town?"

Twenty meters down the spine of the plane, their laughter drifting tinnily from the tiny hatchway, Jones swiveled to block the sound with his body, his dark eyes intent on the shadows between the hangars and worksheds surrounding them. In the distance, the descending lights of the C130s, night shift in the evacuation, merged with the rising starshells across the river. The circle was closing. Soon the sky'd be the only way out.

 

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