Manhunt (41 page)

‘Not yet. But we know roughly where she is, and we should have her by the end of the day.’

Abramov smiled inwardly at the man’s response, recognizing that Zharkov probably still had almost no idea where Raya had gone to ground, because if he had, she would already be in
custody.

‘So where is she?’ he asked.

‘Northern Italy. We have all the borders covered, and our people there are working closely with the Italian police. Every means of transport she could possibly use is being monitored. She
won’t get out of the country, that I can assure you. Now, Abramov, since you suggested Kosov’s ridiculous allegations are worth investigating, you can help us while we do so.’

‘Does this mean you no longer believe I was involved in her defection – or whatever you’re now calling it?’

Zharkov shook his head. ‘The general seems convinced of your innocence, but I do not share his view. I will be watching you very carefully from now on. I have decided to let you assist in
the investigation only because you are familiar with the security procedures and computer systems, but everything you do will be checked and double-checked.’

‘Where do you want me to start? With the Top Secret files?’

‘No, I’ve already assigned one of my men to check those. You can inspect this office Kosov claimed somebody was using illegally, and find out exactly where this Moscow telephone
number is located.’

Checking the number didn’t take long, and within a few minutes Abramov knew that the telephone which the unknown traitor – for, unlike Zharkov, he was prepared to accept that Raya
had been telling the truth, until unambiguous evidence was provided to the contrary – had dialled, from Yasenevo, terminated in an office within the Lubyanka, in central Moscow.

‘The number’s in the Lubyanka?’ Zharkov asked yet again.

‘That’s what the trace reports, yes,’ Abramov replied.

‘Right, contact the Lubyanka security staff and tell them to identify which office that telephone is located in, and to go there immediately. Anyone they find in the room is to be
arrested. If it’s empty, they’re to seal it pending my arrival.’ Zharkov stood up and walked to the door, then turned back to glare at Abramov. ‘Get up,’ he snapped.
‘You can come along as well.’

London

Andrew Lomas had received three more ‘wrong number’ calls, each providing him, through the Russian website, with a continuing update of information on the hunt
for Raya Kosov.

The last message had been the most encouraging. Moscow, through the Russian Embassy in Rome, had enlisted the help of the Italian police and security forces, and this had now paid dividends. A
car had been spotted close to the French border and, when a police officer had tried to stop the vehicle, the driver had accelerated away. Then both of the pursuing vehicles had been immobilized by
two extremely accurate rifle shots, which was almost a confirmation that Raya Kosov was the fugitive inside the car. Lomas already knew, from a brief telephone call to his other asset, both of them
using public phones, that the defecting officer was now accompanied by an ex-military pilot called Paul Richter, and by a specialist sniper from the SAS.

The Italians hadn’t caught Kosov yet, but the net was certainly tightening around her. The pursuers now knew, to within a mile or so, exactly where she was, and could concentrate all their
resources in that area. The next message, Lomas was confident, would merely confirm that she had finally been captured. And then he, and more importantly, his senior asset in the SIS, a man
code-named ‘Nick’, could relax. ‘Nick’ sounded suitably English, but was actually a contraction of
Vnutrennik
, a Russian word meaning ‘insider’, and was
specifically used to mean a penetration agent. In this case, the use of this word was extraordinarily accurate.

Above Piemonte, Italy

The Piper rocked slightly sideways in the turbulence caused by the jet fighter powering past it, and Richter put both hands back on the control yoke.

‘Shit!’ Dekker said, and automatically reached for the case containing his sniper rifle.

Richter glanced sideways, saw what he was doing, and shook his head. ‘Forget it. Now he’s shown us that he’s here, he’ll stay behind us, where we’re nicely within
range of whatever weapons he’s carrying. And any second now he’ll call and tell us what he wants us to do.’

Dekker stared out of the side window. The Aermacchi was in a tight right-hand turn that would bring it up behind the Piper.

‘How will he know what frequency we’re on?’

‘He’ll call us on Guard, which is twelve-fifteen megahertz. All civil aircraft are supposed to monitor it.’

The radio speaker suddenly crackled, and a heavily accented voice filled the cabin. ‘Unidentified aircraft, you are instructed to turn onto a heading of one one zero immediately, and
commence descent.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Raya asked, her voice choking with fear.

‘Well, not what he tells us, that’s for sure,’ Richter said. ‘Not after all we’ve already been through.’

‘But that’s a jet fighter, for fuck’s sake,’ Dekker snapped. ‘How the hell are you going to outrun it? He’ll be all over us.’

‘I can’t outrun it,’ Richter said simply, ‘so I’m going to have to out-fly it. Make sure you’re belted in, both of you, and get that rifle secured, Colin. I
don’t want that case flying around the cabin and braining someone. Your bag too, Raya. This is going to be bouncy.’

‘Oh, God,’ Dekker said, and jammed the rifle case under the seat.

Richter reached out and pulled the throttle back gently, reducing power and watching the airspeed dropping.

‘You’re slowing down,’ Dekker said nervously.

‘I know. Trust me, there’s no point in trying to go quickly, because that jet’s got a top speed about four times faster than we can manage. He can probably do about five
hundred knots, and I already know this aircraft is flat out at around a hundred and twenty. But we do have one advantage: we can fly slower than him.’

‘And that helps how, exactly?’

‘His stall speed will be at least one hundred knots, almost as fast as we’re going now, which means he has to keep travelling faster than that, or his aircraft will fall out of the
sky. We can go as slowly as fifty knots and still keep flying.’

‘But he can keep circling around us.’

‘I know. But he can’t stay behind us, and that’s the point.’

As Richter spoke, the Aermacchi flew past them again, this time on the left side of the Piper, the pilot gesticulating for them to head back the way they’d come.

‘He looks pissed off,’ Dekker remarked.

‘He’s going to be a lot more pissed off in a minute. Now, let’s see how good a pilot he is. Hold on.’

Richter pulled smoothly back on the control yoke, and simultaneously applied full right rudder. The Piper’s nose rose high in the air, then the aircraft’s right wing dropped with
sickening suddenness. Instantly, the Piper started to fall, plummeting straight down towards the ground, the whole aircraft rotating clockwise, clearly completely out of control.

Above Rhône-Alps, France

‘I hold visual contact with the target aircraft,’ the U2 pilot reported. ‘It’s still in Italian airspace, but getting close to the border. Wait.
There’s also a military aircraft in the same area, behind the target. Waiting for identification now. Confirmed. The military bogie is an Italian Air Force Aermacchi MB-339.’

‘What’s your assessment?’ Westwood asked. He was sitting in the luxurious cabin of the Lear 60 as the pilot taxied towards Fiumicino’s active take-off runway, talking to
the U2 jockey on a discrete Company UHF frequency. ‘Is the Italian aircraft acting as an escort, or is it hostile?’

‘Difficult to say. Standby . . . something’s just happened. It’s definitely not an escort. The target aircraft has just started a spin, so it’s possible the Aermacchi
engaged it with a gun. Definitely not a missile, beause my systems would have detected missile launch.’

‘Oh, shit,’ Westwood muttered, a feeling of impotent disappointment flooding through him as he visualized the unarmed civilian aircraft crashing onto some unforgiving Alpine slope.
‘Pinpoint the crash site,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the emergency services moving.’

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Dekker muttered, ‘you’ve bloody lost it.’

Richter calmly shook his head, keeping the controls in the same positions and alternating his attention between the instruments in front of him and the swirling landscape visible through the
windscreen. ‘We’re in a spin. We’re losing height very quickly.’

‘I can fucking see that. More to the point, can you get us out of it?’

Richter nodded, looked again at the altimeter and then at the compass, its needle swinging wildly. He waited until the aircraft had almost completed another revolution, then removed his right
foot from the rudder pedal. Almost immediately the Piper stopped spinning, but continued its uncontrolled plunge towards the floor of the valley.

‘Where’s that jet?’ Richter asked.

‘What?’ Dekker couldn’t tear his eyes away from the terrifying view through the windscreen.

‘Where. Is. That. Jet?’ Richter asked again, enunciating each word very clearly.

‘It’s a long way above us,’ Raya said. ‘It seems to be flying in a circle.’

‘Good.’

As Dekker watched with horrified eyes, Richter pushed the control yoke fully forward.

‘But that’s the wrong way?’ Dekker said. ‘You need to pull back.’

‘It’s counter-intuitive, I know,’ Richter said, his tone almost conversational. ‘I’d stopped the spin, but the aircraft was still stalled, which means the wings
weren’t generating any lift. We were in free fall, if you like.’

‘I kind of fucking guessed that.’

‘So what you have to do is un-stall the wings, and you do that by pushing the control column forwards. Then,’ Richter added, his words mirroring his actions, ‘you increase
power and ease back slowly, and that brings the aircraft back under control.’

Steadily, and without any drama, the nose of the Piper rose until the aircraft was flying level again, now only a couple of hundred feet above the high-altitude valley floor that stretched
between the peaks of Pointe de Charbonnel and L’Albaron, and still heading west.

‘Where’s that Aermacchi? The jet? Where is it?’

‘It looks as if it’s still circling,’ Raya said, ‘but it’s still quite a long way above us.’

‘Good. We’ll stay down here in the weeds. I tried to make it look as if the aircraft was completely out of control, so hopefully he’s waiting to see the ball of fire that would
mark our impact site.’

‘He wasn’t the only one expecting that to happen,’ Dekker muttered.

Richter grinned at him. ‘Have a little faith in me, Colin.’

‘Now it looks as if it’s descending,’ Raya said sharply.

‘Bound to happen.’ Richter pushed the throttle as far forward as possible. ‘Now let’s try a bit of psychological warfare.’

He grabbed the aeronautical chart he’d been looking at previously, then selected the civilian Guard frequency, 121.5 megahertz, and pressed the transmit button. ‘Mayday, Mayday,
Mayday. This is French civilian aircraft Foxtrot Lima Yankee Charlie Papa. My position is near Bramans, about ten kilometres from the Italian border, and I’m under attack from an unidentified
Italian Aermacchi fighter aircraft. Somebody, anybody, please help.’

Richter released the button and glanced at Dekker. ‘That might give the Eyetie flying that Aermacchi pause for thought, simply because we
are
in France now. Shooting us down on the
Italian side of the border is one thing. Following us into France and doing the same thing is a whole different ball game.’

‘And that broadcast might be picked up by other aircraft or air-traffic control units near here as well?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. We’re surrounded by mountains here, so most probably not, in fact. Really, that was for the Aermacchi pilot’s ears only. Where is he now, Raya?’

‘He’s climbing again, and he’s started turning back the way we came, towards the east.’

‘Forget the emergency services,’ the U2 pilot corrected Westwood. ‘I said it was in a spin, not crashing. The pilot’s just recovered, and the target
aircraft has now crossed the border. The Aermacchi’s still in the area, but I don’t think there’s anything he can do now that the civilian aircraft’s in France. And . . .
wait.’

There was silence on the frequency for a few seconds, then the U2 pilot transmitted again.

‘OK, the guy flying the target is English, and he’s cute. He just made a Mayday broadcast on twelve-fifteen – that’s the civil emergency frequency – to say
he’s flying a French aircraft and he’s being attacked by an Italian military jet.’

‘We didn’t hear anything,’ Westwood remarked. The Lear had just lifted off the runway, and the pilot had been cleared by ATC for an unrestricted climb.

‘You wouldn’t. You’re well out of range. In fact, I doubt if many people heard it, because of where he is, deep down in that valley. But it does prove he’s listening to
twelve-fifteen, if you want to talk to him. He’s using the French call sign Foxtrot Lima Yankee Charlie Papa, which he’s obviously just made up if the aircraft’s on Italian
registry.’

Then the radio speaker in the Piper crackled again, and the same harsh voice issued from it. ‘Very clever, but it won’t help you. We will be passing your details on
to our French colleagues. They will undoubtedly take care of you.’

‘Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,’ Richter said. He glanced again at the topographical chart. ‘Change of plan. I was going to keep heading west, but that Italian
comedian is right: the Eyeties
can
ask the Frogs to force us down somewhere, so that’s starting to sound like a really bad idea. Especially as that fighter pilot will have noted our
real registration number and description, and he’ll also be able to give the French an accurate starting point for a search.’

‘So?’

‘So we’ll head north-west, up into the Tarentaise area of France. It’s home to some of the most expensive ski resorts on the planet – places like Val d’Isère
and Les Arcs – and we’ll try to find a flat bit of land where we can park this thing.’