Daring Dooz (The Implosion Trilogy (Book 2)) (19 page)

Chapter 43

‘So what time are we off tomorrow?’ said
Mick, as they sat around eating their evening meal.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Hathaway, ‘it will be
early. But it won't be tomorrow.’

‘Oh, really,’ said Jim, in a voice
pitched somewhere between panic and relief.

While everyone was eating chicken, he’d
specially requested microwaved frozen sausages to remind himself why he was
involved in this lunatic venture.

Based on her experiments that afternoon,
Mrs Hathaway knew she could she could take off, fly at around 200 feet and land
safely. But now, she had other things on her mind.

‘I don't want to teach you two how to
suck eggs,’ she said, ‘but last night, I was reading a manual on video
production and editing. And, it seems we could make things a lot better with
different camera angles. I think it would be a bit boring if you just shot out
of the windows, particularly when we take off.’

Mick could see something was coming, and
tried to head her off at the pass. The first rule was to agree.

‘I know, I know,’ he said, ‘we don't
want it to look like you’ve stuck an iPhone up against the window while you’re
taking off from Gatwick.’

Second rule: Move smoothly on to casting
doubt.

‘But, I feel
Daring Dooz
will be thinking more about getting on with the
challenge than worrying about camera angles.’

‘I spoke to Giles last night,’ said Mrs
Hathaway, ‘and he thought it was an excellent idea. Maybe we could do a DVD of
everything.’

Third rule: Agree, but make it sound too
complicated.

‘I understand,’ said Mick, ‘but it’s not
that easy, I’m afraid. We’d need
at least
a week. First, we’d have to recce the flying boat, then the surrounding
countryside, particularly that promontory where we could get a long shot - must
involve at least a mile trekking through scrub. On video, it’s only a few
seconds but, we’re talking
hours
to
set up just one shot - and you’d have to do trial runs in the sea plane so we
could get the focussing and camera movements just right.’

‘Mick’s got a good point,’ added Jim,
who had suddenly realised something rather unpleasant might be on the cards.

‘Same with the sound. I mean, if you want
pristine audio, you need the
best sound balance, where the rejection null of the microphone’s polar
pattern rejects the most unwanted noise. And you have to consider that peaks
and nulls are in different angular positions at different frequencies, so any
moving off-axis sounds will sound phased, or flanged.’

Mick was glad
of the support. His ‘tent on the beach and frozen sausages’ threat was
obviously working well.

 
‘
But I
was just thinking of taking off with you both strapped to the outside of the
plane,’ said Mrs Hathaway, as though nothing could be simpler.

Fourth and final rule: Use the Health
and Safety gambit.

‘Ah!’ said Mick, choking slightly, ‘but
there are Health and Safety considerations. You have to assess
whether adequate
preventive or control measures have been taken, or whether you can do more to
ensure minimum legal standards are met.’

Mrs
Hathaway suspected fear-driven prevarication, and it didn't take
much
fear-driven prevarication for her
to dispense with the social niceties.

‘Forget legal
standards.’ she said, firmly. There was no way these two wimps were going to
stand in the way of her future with Aubrey. This could be the thin end of a
very unpleasant wedge, and she was not standing any nonsense.

‘I’m
afraid legality just doesn't come into it. May I remind you you’re getting an
illegal, tax-free payment of £200,000 between you. So I expect a little
co-operation. I’m not qualified to fly the
Catalina
, the flight path is illegal, I don't expect us
to enter or exit Brazil legally. We have no paperwork, and any we have will be
forged. And probably everything else you video or record will be unlawful. This
whole venture is illegal from start to finish. So, you're both accessories
before the fact”’

‘OK,’ said
Mick, hoping to pick holes in some of the detail, ‘how are you going to fix us
to the plane?’

Jim was
appalled at how quickly Mick had thrown in the non-existent giant, white
fluffy, monogrammed, Hotel du Lack bathroom towel - he could, at least, have
said they both had a deadly allergy to salt water spray.

‘I’ve
asked Pierre to make two chipboard planks for you to lie on. They’ll slot over
the
Catalina’s
wing struts. You’ll be nice and near the water. Don't worry - I won't take off.
It’ll all be over in a minute.’

 
‘What about
falling
off?’ said Jim, who felt it was time to get down to basics.

‘You’ll
be tied on with rope. Pierre will lend us his washing line.’

‘Sounds
professional.’ said Jim, glumly.

‘Of
course it is,’ said Mrs Hathaway, smiling happily, ‘it has a three-strand
polypropylene core and a wipe-clean, highly durable PVC outer sheath. I’d
recommend it anywhere.’

It was at
this point Mick and Jim gave up.

Chapter 44

Mick and Jim were drunks first, wimps
second and professionals third - with sarcastic sods coming in a close fourth.
But when the drunks and wimps options were removed, they only had their
professionalism and sarcasm to fall back on.

It was a lovey morning, apart from the
fact that they were lying on Pierre’s chipboard platforms on either side of the
Catalina
as it bobbed at anchor. The platforms fitted snugly under the wings, with
cut-aways slotting perfectly into the supporting wing struts.

Mrs
Hathaway tootled around in the dinghy, tying the hapless sound and vision team
in place with her favourite washing line.

‘I gave
Pierre the technical drawings from the information pack.’

‘Well
he’s done an excellent job,’ said Mick. ‘Despite our many years of audio-visual
experience, I’m sure we are both inspired by his superlative chipboard-sawing
skills.’

Mrs
Hathaway ignored him.

The fact
was Mick was quite looking forward to the morning. He hadn’t shot any footage
since Vlad and Vic’s pop video on Southsea promenade. He had his camera in its
best waterproof splash housing, and planned to hang it down close to the water to
get some great shots of the spray coming up from the Catalina’s bows.

Jim had
nothing. As far as he was concerned, he was just there as an expendable
counter-weight on the other side of the plane. There was no such thing as a
waterproof microphone case, and he certainly wasn’t going to risk his
Sennheiser on the whim of
some Pledge-wielding, Spielberg wannabe, fussing around them in a yellow polka dot
bikini, with a fabulous tan, superb toned body and eyes that made you want to
crawl a mile over broken Studer C37 recorder bits, just to splice one of her
tapes.

 
That apart,
as a token gesture, h
e had a telescopic boom arm topped by a furry
windshield which hid the fact there was no microphone inside.

His plan was based on some student work
experience he did with the BBC, where they had some superb footage of two
Kenyan bull elephants fighting. Obviously, the cameraman was not going to get
in close to 18 tons of testosterone-fuelled dog dinner. He’d have been a
hundred yards away, in an air-conditioned Land Rover, using a high-quality
telephoto lens. So there was no sound. The producer just picked up a sound
effects CD called
Unpleasant sounds of
elephants goring each other to death
and selected a suitably blood-curdling
track that dubbed nicely onto the footage. The programme went out live on air,
with the public none the wiser.

If they returned from this chipboard jaunt
alive, Jim planned to record engine noise from the safety of the pier, and dub
it on to Mick’s footage. That way, he could devote his professional skills to
hanging on like grim death.

Aubrey helped Mrs Hathaway into the
Catalina, then steered the dinghy once around the plane, wishing Mick and Jim
good luck and reminding them this bay had a terrible reputation for great
whites.

Fortunately, Mick and Jim’s expletives
were lost in the unbelievable roar of the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engines as
they burst into life.

*

The run was a great success. Mick got
the footage, and Jim didn't fall off. But they were both very wet. Fortunately,
Mrs Hathaway had brought them a change of clothes and some nice hot flasks of chamomile
tea.

To get away from the beverage, and
because his cameraman’s red corpuscle count was rising, Mick suggested they
went off in the dinghy, and that Mrs Hathaway aimed straight at them, taking
off right over their heads. They checked the manual. Take-off distance was
approximately 1000 feet, but they allowed for 1500 feet just to be on the safe
side.

That run was a success, too, although,
due to Mrs Hathaway’s inexperience, the Catalina took off after 1300 feet,
giving Mick and Jim a rough idea of what a heart attack must feel like. There
were more dry clothes needed and more chamomile tea to avoid. Once they’d
recovered, they did another run, with in-cockpit close-ups of Mrs Hathaway at
the controls.

 
‘Just one more,’ said Mick. ‘Let’s take the
dinghy to the promontory and get a long shot. And this time, take off, bank to
the right and head straight over us.’

The dinghy trip took about ten minutes.
A quick scramble up the hillside and they were ready. Mick waved his hand and
Mrs Hathaway started her run. Again, everything went perfectly.

She flew low right over their heads,
took the Catalina in a wide circle and came in for a perfect landing. Mick and
Jim’s thoughts were the same. At least she can fly the sodding thing.

*

Sunrise the next day, found Mrs
Hathaway, Aubrey, Mick and Jim standing on the pier, looking at the Catalina.
It was the golden hour. She looked beautiful. Jim had his engine recordings and
had taken some great photographs of the plane and Mrs Hathaway. Aubrey was very
excited and was going on about how he’d only ever been to Ramsgate before all
this started, and how he was certain the Amazon was going to be different,
although he wasn’t sure how. But it was the trip of lifetime and he was
so
looking forward to it.

Just as they were about to get into the
dinghy, they heard a ping. Bouncing down the dusty track came a bicycle - it
was
Roberto. He
continued cycling at top speed along the pier, right up to Mrs Hathaway.

He jammed on
the brakes, pulled a paper out of his top pocket, looked at Aubrey and, in his
most official voice, he breathlessly announced, ‘Aubrey Capability Brown, I
have here an arrest warrant in your name, and you must accompany me, Roberto
Velazquez, Chief of Police, St Bernards, to police headquarters, immediately,
so we can conclude our investigations. I have to tell you this is a complex
matter and you may be in custody for several weeks.’

‘Bollocks,’
said Aubrey. Then, as he thought through the legal implications further, added,
‘Sod off!’

‘Look man,’
said Roberto looking genuinely hurt by his response, ‘it’s not my fault. It’s
official - something to do with your passport not being right for St Bernards.’

‘Well, I’m
goin’ to the Amazon, and that’s that,’ said Aubrey looking at Mrs Hathaway for
support. ‘I’ve set my heart on it. Mrs Hathaway, Mick and Jim are the first
friends I’ve ever had - and I’m not goin’ to give all this up because of some
stupid bloody passport thing.’

‘But there’ll
be hell to play if my boss finds I haven't brought you in,’ said Roberto.
‘They’re already complaining about the time I spend playing with the band. This
could be the last straw. I could be fired.
Please.
’

Aubrey looked
at Mrs Hathaway, then at Mick and Jim. He shrugged a helpless shrug.

‘I know I’m a
creep, but I couldn't go off to the Amazon, knowin’ Roberto might get the chop,
just ’cos I wouldn't do what he said.’

He looked at
Mrs Hathaway. She looked back at him.

‘As this
whole expedition is as illegal as it’s possible to be,’ she said, ‘it’s rather
nice to see you are prepared to miss the trip, because you want to play by the
rules.’

She gave
Aubrey a hug. ‘I’ll miss you little Aubrey Capability Brown.’

‘I’ll miss
you,’ said Aubrey, with a sigh.

‘Of course,’ said
Mrs Hathaway, ‘you have your ‘pocket money’ which should more than cover your
expenses, ‘til we get back.’

‘Yeah, I got
it,’ said Aubrey, tapping the breast pocket of his shell suit.

‘And you know
the sat phone number.’

‘Yeah,’ said
Aubrey. ‘I’ll phone, regular.’

They couldn't
let go of each other’s hands.

‘It’s time,
man,’ said Roberto, placing a hand gently on Aubrey’s shoulder ‘We
all
got things to do.’

Together
Aubrey and the Chief of Police walked slowly away, along the pier.

When they
reached the end, Aubrey turned and blew a kiss and shouted, ‘Send me a
postcard.’

Mrs Hathaway
watched the duo walk up the hill.

At the brow,
they paused and looked back. One last wave, and they were gone.

She turned to
Mick and Jim, breathed a deep breath. They thought they could see tears welling
in her eyes.

Then she
pulled back her shoulders, stepped into the dinghy and said, ‘Well, what are
you two standing around for - let’s get on with it!’

And get on
with it they did. Within ten minutes, they were airborne.
Mrs Hathaway banked round and flew low over the Police
HQ, twice, before
levelling out at 200 feet and setting a course for the Amazon basin.

*

Back in
Police Headquarters, Aubrey put down his can of lager, peeled off a thousands
pounds from his wad of ‘pocket-money’ and handed it to a beaming Roberto.

‘Result or
what!’ cried Aubrey. ‘Should have won an Oscar - both of us. Specially after we
went through it so many times, last week.’

‘I mean, who
needs the Amazon? What a dump! I looked it up on that Google fing - full of
poisonous snakes, spiders, crocodiles, mosquitoes, leeches and them pariah fish
in the rivers. The natives are
headhunters
and
cannibals, and there ain’t an off-license for bleeding miles. I ask you does
that sound like what gets Aubrey Capability Brown fired up?’

‘It does not,
my friend,’ said Roberto, making up Aubrey’s bed in one of the cells.

‘I reckon
Aubrey Capability Brown gets fired up with a trip to the Golden Legover
tonight,’ he said. ‘And, as I know most of the lap dancers don't have work
permits, who knows what else!’

Despite the
HQ being buzzed twice by some low-flying aircraft, Aubrey was unfazed, totally
relaxed and sitting comfortably.

He stretched back in the armchair, put
his feet up on the desk, scratched his belly and took another swig of lager.

‘All sounds great to me, Robbo. Got any
grub?’