Win, Lose or Die Read Online Free PDF

climbing turn, then gave her full throttle, stood the aeroplane on its tail and, looking down at the small radar screen on the starboard side of his cockpit, swept the skies immediately above his return course, to be certain none of the other aircraft had strayed.
    The radar showed nothing out of the ordinary, so he dropped the nose to a gentle 200 climb. He had hardly stabilised the Harrier in its ascent when a completely unexpected sound seemed to fill the cockpit. So surprised was Bond that it took at least two seconds for him to realise what was happening.
    As the sound became louder in his ears, Bond woke to the danger.
    So far he had only experienced this in the simulator: the harsh, rasping neep-neep-neep quickening all the time. There was a missile locked on to him -judging by its tone, a Sidewinder.
    Just under thirty pounds of high-explosive fragmentation was being guided towards the engine heat of his Harrier.
    Bond had reacted slowly, and that was the way people got blown out of the sky. He pushed the stick forward, putting the Harrier into a power dive,jinking to left and right, pulling about seven Gs to each jink, holding it for a second or two, then going the other way. At the same time, he hit the button which would release four flares to confuse the missile’s heat-seeking guidance system, then, for luck, followed it with a bundle of chaff radar-confusing metal strips. It was another safety regulation that all aircraft using the bombing range should carry both flares and chaff’ housed in special pods - another lesson of the Falklands where chaff had been stuffed in bundles inside the airbrakes.
    The neep-neeping was still there, quickening as the missile gained on the Harrier. He lifted the nose, jinked again and, at a thousand feet, performed a rate five turn, pulling a lot of G, then rolling and putting the Harrier into a second dive. His body felt like lead, his throat was dust-dry and the controls felt stiff as he pushed the Harrier to its limit.
    He had the aircraft right down almost to sea level before the growling signal suddenly stopped. There was a flash far off to the starboard, in the direction of the target range. Bond took a deep breath, lifted the Harrier’s nose, reset his course and climbed to 30,000 feet with the throttle right forward. As he went up so he switched his radio to transmit - “Bluebird to Homespun.
    Some idiot almost put a Sidewinder up my six.” Taking the points of a standard clock, “six” meant directly behind.
    “Say again, Bluebird.”
    Bond repeated and Yeovilton asked him to confirm no damage, which he did, adding that it was more luck than judgment. Of the four aircraft detailed for the bombing range that afternoon, no one carried anything but clusterbombs. The range, however, belonged to the RAF, though its use and timings were strictly monitored. It was just possible that a Royal Air Force jet had accidentally been scheduled and had arrived either early or late.
    “Bluebird, are you certain it was a missile?”
    “Chased me all around the sky. Of course I’m sure.”
    Bond reached Yeovilton without further incident and, once landed and out of his flying gear, he stormed into the office of Commander (Air) - known to most as Wings - set in the control tower.
    “Who was the fool?” Bond snapped, then he stopped, for Commander Bernie Brazier, an experienced officer, looked both angry and shaken.
    He motioned Bond to sit. “There’ll be an investigation, sir.” His eyes had the weary look of a man who had seen it all and never really got used to it. “There’s a problem.
    Nobody from here was carrying missiles, and the RAF say they were not using the range today. We’re checking your Harrier for possible malfunction of detection electronics.”
    “That wasn’t a malfunction, for God’s sake. It was a real missile, Bernie. I’m filing a report to that effect and heaven help the cretin who loosed one off in my direction.”
    Commander Brazier still