第100节

s pilot gave the signal to fire the last of their five

rockets and led them back towards the field.

On the ground, beyond the lines of horse- and 穎oot-soldiers of the

Min-Orota stationed to the left of the grandstand, the Herald Toshiro

Hase-Gawa struggled to control his restive horse. He too had been

stunned by the sudden disintegration of the five flying-horses, but

since the blow had been delivered against known enemies of the state,

he was not gripped by the general sense of horror. What had shaken him

was Brickman's ruthless efficiency and the power at his command.

Beyond that, it was hard to think of anything except how to stay in the

saddle and comport himself with the necessary degree of dignity in the

midst of the almost total pandemonium that had engulfed the spectators

in the stand and the troops on either side.

In the absence of any orders from above, line-officers and

squad-leaders were simultaneously screaming at the other ranks to stay

in line and watching the sky to avoid being hit by falling debris. The

legless body of one of the pilots spiralled out of the sky and hit the

ground with a sickening thud only yards away from the Herald's rearing

horse. As he hauled savagely on the reins and laid his whip across its

neck, one of the sheet-metal rocket-trays planed down like a roof-tile

torn loose in a storm and scythed into the wavering ranks of the

Min-Orota, decapitating a foot-soldier and flattening a dozen more.

Those around the point of impact scattered in all directions.

In the same few seconds, Clearwater, Cadillac, Jodi and Kelso reached

the rear of the compound and paused to catch their breath in the

passageway between the wall and the first workshop. Jodi glanced

through the arch into the compound, then dashed across the alley and

crouched down in the gap on the other side.

She and Kelso were linked to Steve by pocket-sized radios fitted with a

plug-in earpiece and throat mike.

'Steve! We're at the back gate. No problem so far!" His voice came

back in her ear. 'Okay. Get ready to move. I'm gonna hit it on

three. One! And ' Three Jap guards who must have been patrolling the

compound when the formation blew to pieces burst through the arch and

ran down the alleyway. They went several yards before their minds

reacted to what their eyes had seen: four Trackers hiding between the

back wall and the workshops. As they turned back, their eyes met

Jodi's raised pistol. Kelso was facing the other way, covering the

arch.

'Two - and -' Chu-wittt-chu-witt-chuwitt! All three went down.

Kelso motioned Clearwater and Cadillac to join Jodi across the

alleyway, then sent a gas grenade rolling through the arch into the

compound.

'Three!" Steve detonated the buckets in the privy at the back of the

guardhouse.Baa-BLAMMM! The blast shattered the walls and brought the

roof down. It also pulverised the four gas-grenades taped to the

explosive, mixing their toxic fumes with the rolling clouds of dust and

causing would-be rescuers to collapse among the debris alongside the

few

stunned survivors.

Steve had engineered the guard-house blast for two reasons: to

eliminate a possible armed intervention from that quarter and to create

a diversion that would'draw the workshop staff and ground-handlers up

the alleyway and into the compound - away from the four aircraft now

parked along the western boundary of the field.

The troops and spectators in the grandstand on the eastern side were

still in a state of confusion. Before they could regroup and grasp

what was happening, he intended to throw them into further disarray.

He couldn't do that until the crowd of Japs milling around on the field

in front of the workshops had been cut down to size. Apart from some

fifty ground-handlers, there were sixty-odd workshop staff and the

twenty women packers from the 'powder room'. Plus some friends and

relatives who had sneaked in to get a better view.

They were now seeing more than they had bargained for. When the ground

shook under their feet and they saw the smoke and dust rise above the

back wall of the compound, some of the crowd had already started across

the field towards the grandstand to help pick up the pieces. A few

kept on going; the majority turned back towards their friends, who

reacted as Steve hoped they would. Apart from a panicky handful who

hung back uncertainly, they streamed up the alleyway towards the

smoking compound.