52 I see better with this

‘Do you know what time it is?’

A stout balding man in a threadbare dressing-gown barred my way.

‘Step aside, fatty,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got time for niceties.’ Stewart followed me into the empty, echoing hallway.

‘Get the Ambassador out of bed,’ I said, ‘I have special authority from the Cabinet and I want to see him at once, and that doesn’t mean in half an hour’s time.’

‘Who shall I say is calling, sir?’ said the man in a dressing-gown, aggressive but doubting. I wrote ‘W.O.O.C.(P)’ and the words ‘Minutes are vital’ on a piece of envelope and waited while he took it upstairs. I shouted after him, ‘And pull the blankets off your radio officer. I want him on the radio set in three minutes too.’

My treatment of the Madrid embassy staff was causing Stewart physical pain. The sight of H.E. in pyjamas was almost too much for him.

Gibraltar answered our radio signal with commendable promptness. I spoke quickly into the microphone.

Gibraltar was very impressed with my cloak-and-dagger stuff. ‘I’ll put an officer on the radar set,’ the senior officer there offered.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I can’t afford a botch-up. Put the usual operator on.’ They were a bit hurt but linked me to the corporal on the set. It was 8.15 a.m. ‘The plane left here almost exactly an hour ago, corporal,’ I said. ‘If we assume it has an airspeed of 150 m.p.h. and stays on that south-southwest course, we’d expect it to be half-way between us. Can you see anything?’

There was a long silence while the corporal, sitting somewhere in the scooped-out heart of the rock of Gibraltar, watched a blue cathode tube.

‘Can you see anything?’ I said again to the radio. I had an awful feeling that the Cessna might have changed course or already landed.

‘It’s the Seville Traffic Control Zone, you see, sir. There’s a great mass of stuff around there and it’s almost directly on the expectation course. If it gets mixed into that traffic stack I’m not sure that I’ll be able to sort it out before it lands.’ His voice was brittle through the loudspeaker.

‘Perhaps if you increase your range,’ I coaxed. ‘Look for a blip north of Cordoba, over the Sierra Morena, perhaps even as far as Almaden.’ The Ambassador had combed his hair. He gave me a cup of coffee and I put down the map and microphone and we all waited while the corporal did his stuff. Every now and again his doleful voice said, ‘Still searching.’

‘What will you do if you get no result?’ the Ambassador asked Stewart.

‘This officer is in charge, sir,’ said Stewart, ‘I’m seconded to him.’

I let that thought settle, and then I told him, ‘I’ll put up airborne radar and I’ll send a jet fighter plane to every airfield in the Iberian peninsula until I find it.’

The Ambassador wiped coffee off his moustache and said, ‘That would take a bit of explaining, y’know.’

‘I’m sure the explaining will be in very capable hands,’ I said politely.

‘Gottit, gottit!’ The voice rumpled the loudspeaker as the radar operator sorted one pinpoint of blue light from a constellation of others.

‘How do you know it’s the right one?’ I asked.

‘I’d bet on it, sir. It’s one of the larger single-engine jobs. A bit under forty-foot wingspan (I’m guessing now of course) and it’s not on any of the commercial routes or charter runs either.’

‘You mean it’s not on a direct line between two airports?’

‘Affirmative, sir. He’s what we call “coasting”. He’s locked on to a course …’

‘You mean he has an auto-pilot. Doesn’t that make that blip more likely to be a big aircraft?’

‘No, sir. Even the little single-seaters have autopilots nowadays.’

‘What do you think he is going to do?’

‘Well, as I say, sir, he’s probably “coasting”, he’ll continue on that bearing until he reaches the coast. Then he’ll drift along the coast until he recognizes Malaga. Then the pilot will set himself a new course, using a wind direction and velocity according to how far he is off his original course. He probably has no navigational aids, you see.’

‘Will he cross the coast at Malaga?’

‘A bit east of it.’

‘Would you put the Group Captain on the line, corporal.’

The corporal’s voice gave a little lift of pleasure as he said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I suppose he enjoyed calling the Group Captain.

‘Take a close look at this aircraft, would you, Group?’ I said it as calmly as I could and I felt his hesitation through the ether before he said, ‘We’ll be over Spanish territorial waters, but if Sir Hubert thinks it will be in order …’

I said, ‘He does. I want high-speed fighters with Air Pass.1 Can do?’

‘Well, I don’t know. You see my standing orders forbid …’

‘I want those planes over the coast by the time this Cessna gets there. Arrange a radio link so that I can speak to the planes as well as keep me connected to the radar set.’

The Ambassador gave me the merest whisper of a smile and raised his eyebrows in a tacit offer of support. I shook my head. The Ambassador and I stood looking at each other as we waited to see whether the Group Captain would give way before my brow-beating. Finally the loudspeaker gave a clip and there was a hubbub of voices before it went silent again.

‘Mission 58 to identify one target. Present position Juliet Juliet five zero zero two, at flight level 120 heading 190, estimated speed point three-zero. Climb on vector 040 and make flight level 150; interception 100 miles …

We listened as the jet fighters moved in on the Cessna.

Then suddenly a ‘contact’ call came through. ‘Roger, keep him in sight,’ came the controller’s voice.

The pilot read the registration number to me and it checked with the plane that had taken off from Madrid airport: Smith’s plane. It was 9.5 a.m. As soon as the identification was made the fighter returned to North Front Air port. Radar continued to plot the Cessna. I told the Group Captain to send a fast plane up to Madrid to collect me and take me to wherever the Cessna landed.

Meanwhile the Ambassador offered me breakfast.


1 Air Pass: interception radar (air-to-air and air-to-ground).