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and watched the six-inch pillar of flickering yellow.
    ‘So long as the core goes on to do its job, I don’t care if it paints them red, white and blue on impact.’ To end the exchange, Clarence stuffed the container into his pack and concentrated on his coffee. It was all a lot of fuss over nothing, like the mystique that surrounded the atomic demolition troops. Those men thought nothing of racing about the countryside in jeeps, toting suitcase-sized nukes; well, he felt the same about the bullets filled with spent fissionable material. He’d used them when they were first issued, though the strict guidelines had imposed severe limitations on their application on the battlefield. That and the fact that situations where they were suitable or available were not all that common. Even then, by the time he’d observed all the governing regulations, and perhaps first had to eject an already chambered standard cartridge, the moment when he could have used one had often passed.
Now though, he was glad he’d hung on to the bullets, even though coming up with a plausible excuse for not handing them in had not been easy at the time. There was no way he was going to stand by and watch the artillery lads enjoy all of the action. He would find a way to have some portion of it for himself, as large a slice as he could possibly carve.
    ‘I suppose it could be worse, but I don’t see how.’ The pilot handed the weather report to Major Revell. ‘That’s ten-tenths cloud, heavy snow, and winds gusting at twenty plus from the south and south-west. Forecast says the wind will drop, but not soon enough to do us any good.’
    Revell barely glanced at the page torn from the message pad. He’d hardly needed the pilot’s summary either. By following the frequent updates for the DZ he’d gained a good idea of the steadily deteriorating general weather conditions. ‘This mission is important, can you still drop us?’
    ‘According to the orders I’ve got, I drop you, period. I presume that means regardless of weather or anything else from acts of God down. Either this mission is as important as you say, Major, or you got big enemies back at Headquarters.’
    The Starlifter pitched in fierce turbulence, the autopilot correcting the violent motion before the pilot could over-ride it. ‘Will you look at that. I don’t ever get the chance to do any real flying… Like I say though, someone must really have it in for you. Have you crossed anyone real important lately, a three-star general, or maybe a HQ clerk? Tell you what, I wish I weren’t included in the risk with you. I’ve got eight flight-deck and handling crew who feel the same.’
    ‘How big is the risk under these conditions?’ It was Lieutenant Hogg who asked. He’d seen that their Russian was settled on a spare fold-down seat alongside the flight engineer’s control console, and now took an interest, a very personal interest, in the conversation.
    ‘Look, I’m no scaremonger, maybe it’s better you don’t know. This is a case where ignorance could be real bliss. What you don’t know you can’t worry over, and anyway, I’m the pilot, I’m the one who has to place the drop . . .’ ‘And we’re the ones who have to make it, so tell us.’
    The pilot’s hands rested lightly on the control column, riding with the movements dictated by the autopilot to whose cut-off his eyes kept straying. ‘OK, first, low altitude parachute extraction is strictly a clear skies assignment. If we have this,’ he indicated the large flakes of snow self-destructing against the windows in rapid succession, ‘then we also have problems. We’ve got all sorts of fancy gizmos on board, they’ll give me precise altitude so I let you go at the right height, and position so I let you go in the right place; what I haven’t got is a gadget that, as we go barrelling in at zero feet plus a bit in white-out conditions, is going to tell me whether or not there’s a clump of trees or a