The Consul's pilot saw the fireb.a.l.l.s blossom and fall.

Signalling frantically with both arms, he managed to attract the attention of his wingmen. They drifted in until their wingtips were almost touching. The lead pilot shouted vainly to his colleagues, pointing repeatedly over the nose. The flaming debris had plunged earthwards, but the drifting trail of smoke that marked the formation's fall was still visible. Both wingmen indicated that they understood.

The Consul'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 *foot-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 pa.s.sageway 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 j.a.p 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 j.a.ps 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.

Clearwater, Cadillac, Jodi and Kelso threw themselves down beside Steve as he hit another b.u.t.ton, triggering the six charges s.p.a.ced alongside the inside of the flanking walls.

BB-B-BBABAMM!.

The double-sided blast tore through the walls and through the j.a.ps trapped between them, and the six incendiary grenades that Steve had taped to the plastic spewed out a glutinous rain of fire in all directions.

Seconds later, racks of timber, wooden workbenches and the rafters of the collapsing roofs were ablaze.

'Shee-itt,' breathed Kelso. 'This escape plan of yours had better work. I'd hate to be here when they start figuring on just who's gonna pay for the damage!" Jodi pointed to the south-east corner of the sky.

'Three on their way in! See 'em?!" 'Yeah, they're next,' said Steve.

'C'mon!" Grabbing Clearwater's bundle, he motioned to her and Cadillac to follow him in a crouching run. They left the cover of the bushes and leaped into the ditch that ran behind the low gra.s.sy earth bank made from the outfill.

The bank divided the western edge of the field from the smaller adjoining pasture. The ditch was calf-deep in water, but by moving along it they were able to remain hidden. So far, the only people who had seen them were dead, or too ill to talk about it.

When they drew level with the four planes perched on their launching trolleys, they flopped against the bank and peered over the top. Drawn up behind the four planes were two carts containing racks of the plump launch boosters and the thinner rocket tubes carried by the planes.

Steve drew Kelso's attention to the handful of d.i.n.ks . who hadn't been sucked into the alley and were now running around like headless chickens on the edge of the raging inferno. 'Think you can frag them from here?"

Kelso weighed up the yardage involved. 'Be easier to pitch it from behind that end cart."

Steve patted him over the shoulder. Kelso slithered sideways over the bank and ran for cover.

'I think we've been spotted,' said Cadillac.

Steve looked up to his left. The approaching three-plane formation had broken up. Two were now descending in line astern along the northern edge of the field where he had taken his flying leap over the stone wall into the pond. The third aircraft had stayed high and out of trouble.

That would be the Consul-General. Yeah... Had to be.

The two planes made a wide sweeping turn behind them just as Kelso stood up and winged the first of two fragmentation grenades at the panicky d.i.n.ks. Now only 500 feet up, the two-man crews could not miss seeing them crouched in the ditch.

The Herald saw the two flying-horses pa.s.s over the burning workshops and dip towards the grandstand just as the commander of the Min-Orota troops dispatched half his force across the field to tackle the blaze.

Toshiro ordered the government troop detachment to stand fast. It was Min-Orota property that was going up in flames.

Until called upon to help, he was not required to do so.

Grasping the radio transmitter in both hands, Steve used his thumbs to press b.u.t.tons six and eight.

Baa-bamm I Both aircraft disintegrated as they angled across the path of the advancing troops - the first at a height of some two hundred feet, the second at barely a hundred.

Their forward momentum caused the debris to arc down like a salvo of air-to-ground missiles upon the already jittery formation. The commander was swept from his horse by a charred, half-naked body.

Discipline cracked; the soldiers turned tail and fled to the comparative safety of the access road beyond the eastern edge of the field.

Shouting above the tumult, Toshiro Hase-Gawa called upon the garrison commander to pull back his own small force. By the convoluted laws of protocol, he himself could not leave the field before the Consul-General, and he was thus obliged to remain astride his terrified horse.

It was a parade animal, unused to being subjected to a rain of fiery projectiles, and was now circling restlessly, pitting its strength against his. Eyes rolling, teeth bared, neck arched, it tried its utmost to grasp the bit between its teeth, but Toshiro held the reins in a vice-like grip, drawing the horse's foaming jaws against its chest. His own eyes were fixed on a more tranquil animal; the flying-horse now circling high overhead.

Come on, Brickman! What are you waiting for?

Steve had already handed the transmitter to Clearwater and the tip of her finger was, at that very instant, exerting a downward pressure on the appropriate b.u.t.ton.

Having just witnessed the inexplicable destruction of his escort, the Consul-General's initial terror returned. His fears had not been groundless. The kami had held back their anger, choosing to strike at a moment when they could inflict the greatest possible humiliation on the vain and foolish men who had dared, once again, to flout the divine plan!

They had been taught a richly deserved lesson. But he was an innocent pa.s.senger; his only error that of blind obedience to his sovereign liege-lord. And here he was in mortal danger of .being consumed by a fiery thunderbolt from heaven!

Oh, Ameratsu-Omikami! Have pity on this unwilling trespa.s.ser who was driven by duty alone to set foot in your cloudy domain! If I must forfeit my life for this foolish act, then let me die an honourable death with a sword in my hand! I will face it unflinchingly this very day! This very hour! But let it be among men, with the ground beneath my feet!

Forcing his bulky body round in his seat, the Consul shouted to the samurai pilot. 'I wish to alight! Go down!