Authors: James Barrington
Dekker studied the map for a few seconds. ‘I won’t be sorry to get my feet back on the ground, that’s for sure. And if a simple soldier like me can make a suggestion, if you
can land somewhere near either Séez or Aime, that would help us.’
This time it was Richter’s turn to look puzzled. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘We could try to steal or even hire a car,’ Dekker said, ‘and that would inevitably leave a trail of some sort. But if you can get near either of those two places, we
won’t need to, because there’s a railway line there. We can just buy our tickets for cash, and let the French railway system whisk us away. No paperwork, no paper trail.’
‘As long as the trains are running, that sounds a very good idea. And railway tracks tend to run on level ground, so we might well find a convenient field to land in somewhere
nearby.’
Still keeping the aircraft reasonably low, but mindful of the dangerous atmospheric effects, such as sudden updraughts and downdraughts, which could plague flying across mountains, Richter swung
the Piper northwest, and increased their speed slightly.
‘The target’s changed course. He’s now heading northwest, currently approaching the Pointe de la Grande Casse.’
‘Copied that,’ Westwood said, studying a map of the French border area. ‘Thanks for your help. Stay in the area and monitor the situation, please. I’m going to call the
aircraft now.’
‘Roger.’
Westwood selected intercom on the control panel beside his seat. ‘Give me twelve-fifteen megahertz,’ he instructed, ‘and a VHF chat frequency.’
‘You’ve got the civil-emergency frequency on button two,’ the pilot replied after a moment, ‘and you can use seventeen-fifty-five on button three.’
‘Thanks.’ Westwood clicked button two, and then pressed the transmit key.
‘Foxtrot Lima Yankee Charlie Papa, this is November Two Four. I gather you need some help.’
As they passed the peak of Pointe de la Grande Casse, and altered course to transit to the west of Mont Pourri, Richter gestured over to the right, where two lakes sparkled in
the sunshine.
‘Val d’Isère is somewhere over there,’ he said, ‘and Les Arcs is just ahead of us.’
‘How far away now?’
‘About twenty miles or so.’
From the twin peaks, the ground sloped away to the north dropping down towards the gentler slopes of the ski resorts, where the green and brown hillsides were cut through by the skeletal black
lines of unused ski lifts. Beyond them, at the foot of the valley, Richter could discern the town of Aime, with a road and the parallel glint of a railway line. More importantly, there were several
areas of seemingly level ground, hopefully long enough to accommodate the fairly short landing run the Piper would need.
Then the radio speaker crackled again, but this time the voice was unmistakably American. ‘Foxtrot Lima Yankee Charlie Papa, this is November Two Four. I gather you need some
help.’
‘What the hell?’ Dekker muttered.
Richter picked up the microphone and depressed the transmit key.
‘Thank you, November Two Four, but I think we’re OK now.’
‘Are you sure about that? The Italian fast jet has run for home, but how’s your passenger? Is she OK?’
‘What passenger?’ Richter asked, looking genuinely confused.
‘Sierra Lima minus one,’ the American voice replied, then fell silent.
Richter looked at Dekker, then glanced back at Raya. ‘What the hell’s he talking about?’ he asked, of nobody in particular.
‘He means me,’ Raya said. ‘Sierra Lima minus one. Take one letter away from each and you’ve got Romeo Kilo – my initials. That’s what he means.’
Suddenly Richter remembered what Simpson had said, and pressed the transmit key again. ‘OK, let me use the same convention, Kilo Xray. Give me a frequency.’
‘Neat,’ the American replied. ‘One seven five decimal five.’
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Dekker demanded, as Richter changed frequency.
‘If I’m right, the guy who’s talking to us is a senior CIA officer named John Westwood, hence the “Kilo Xray” tag I gave him. “JW” equals “Juliet
Whisky”, and adding one letter in each case gives you “Kilo Xray”. He’s obviously worked out that Raya’s travelling in this aircraft, and the fact that he’s
talking to us means he’s also airborne somewhere nearby, flying in an American-registered aircraft, because of the “November” call sign.’
‘So?’
‘So let’s hear what he has to say,’ Richter replied, and pressed the transmit key. ‘You there, Kilo Xray?’
‘Do I know you?’
‘Not yet, no. What can we do for you?’
‘I think it’s more what I can do for you. I’m in a Lear 60, way up above you, and I’m prepared to offer you and your passenger a lift, if she’d want one.’
Richter glanced at Raya before replying, and she shook her head firmly.
‘The only problem with that, Kilo Xray, is that you’d probably have a destination in Virginia in mind. Somewhere near Langley, perhaps?’
‘That’s what I’d like to suggest, yes. But my first priority is your passenger’s safety, because she’s really important to us as well as to your own people. So if
you accept my offer, I’m prepared to take you anywhere you want to go. Once you climb into this Lear, we can have you both in London in a couple of hours, no problem.’
‘Give me a minute,’ Richter said, and sat back in his seat.
‘You’re not going to agree to that, surely?’ Dekker asked.
‘I don’t know. Raya, were there any leaks that you knew of in the CIA?’
‘Not that I was aware of. If you hadn’t turned up in Nervi, my next move would have been to approach the Americans.’
‘OK,’ Richter said. ‘It might just be worth hitching a ride with the CIA, not least because the French are going to think twice about interfering with an American-registered
and CIA-owned executive jet. And it might even give the Russians pause for thought. And we do have an ace in the hole.’
‘What?’ Dekker asked.
‘You, Colin,’ Richter replied. ‘John Westwood thinks there are two people in this aircraft – just Raya and me. When, or if, we decide to meet him somewhere, you can stay
out of sight and cover us with your rifle until we know for sure that we have the situation under control.’
‘You really sure that’s a good idea?’
‘Listen, Colin, we’ve got a hell of a long way to go. The Italian authorities will know for sure that we’ve made it as far as France, and that means the Russians will know it
as well. I really don’t fancy trying to fight our way through teams of Moscow hit men all the way to Calais. If we can hitch a ride on that Lear, we can be in London
today
. In a couple
of hours. We just have to make sure that’s where we end up, and not in Virginia.’
‘OK,’ Dekker replied. ‘So how do we do it?’
‘That’s the tricky bit. Let me have another look at that map.’
‘I’ve now picked up two further contacts in the vicinity of the target aircraft, both heading north-east and in loose formation,’ the U2 pilot reported to
Westwood on the Company chat frequency. ‘Slow-moving, so probably rotary wing. I’m waiting for the computer to confirm that.’
‘Position?’ Westwood asked.
‘Just about to cross the E70 autoroute near St Michel de Maurienne. That puts them about twenty miles from where the target turned north-west, and twenty-five miles from its present
position. Computer now confirms they’re helicopters, most likely a pair of French Eurocopter Dauphin gunships. If they catch up with the target – and they will – they’ll be
able to blow him out of the sky.’
‘Thanks.’ Westwood switched frequencies. ‘Foxtrot Lima, November Two Four, update. You have two probable helicopter gunships approaching you from the south-west. You
can’t outrun them, so I suggest you land as soon as possible, before they force you down, or worse.’
‘That’s it,’ Richter said. ‘Decision made.’
He called Westwood. ‘OK, Kilo Xray, we’ll grab a ride with you. If you can land the Lear at Chambéry, we’ll put this thing down as soon as we can and meet you there.
Agreed?’
‘That’s a deal. I’m up here with a friend, and we’ll fly top cover for you until you’re on the ground.’
‘A friend?’ Richter asked.
‘One high letter and one low number.’
‘Copied.’
‘You’re going to tell us what the hell he’s talking about, I hope,’ Dekker said.
‘It’s easy,’ Richter replied. ‘There’s only one aircraft operated by the Americans that’s designated by a letter that occurs late in the alphabet and also a
low number. There’s a U2 somewhere way up above us. That explains how Westwood found us, and how he’s been getting information on other stuff flying around.’
‘A U2? You’re kidding.’ Dekker glanced at Raya with new respect. ‘You must be a hell of a lot more important than I thought,’ he said. ‘Makes me wonder why
they sent a knackered old shag like Richter here to bring you in.’
Raya grinned at him. ‘Because that’s what I wanted,’ she said. ‘Somebody who wasn’t a member of your SIS. And he’s not that knackered, and I can prove
it.’
Dekker glanced from Raya to Richter, and back again. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Message received and understood.’
‘OK,’ Richter said, as the Piper covered the remaining distance, ‘make sure your seat belts are tight, because the landing’s going to be bumpy. I’ll make a low pass
over the field first, just to check for obstructions like cows or power lines, then I’ll put it on the ground.’
Dekker was still looking at the topographical map. ‘You’re heading for Aime?’ he asked.
‘Yes, it’s slightly closer, and the contour lines suggest there might be a bit more level ground there.’
A few minutes later, Richter throttled back, dropped the Piper down to about five hundred feet above ground level, and banked to the left as he studied the ground below them. A road and railway
line were now clearly visible to the north, while below there was a largely open field, lying south of the railway line, which lay south of the N90 road. The field had clumps of trees growing at
both ends, but there was an open area between which looked to Richter about five hundred yards long. It would be tight, but doable. And there was nothing else nearby that looked any better.
‘I suppose it’s a bit high here for growing most crops,’ Dekker remarked, ‘but I can see a few animals over to the north of the main road. Grazing the mountain pastures,
I suppose.’
‘Ski areas are a pretty depressing sight in summer,’ Richter said, ‘but they’re also usually deserted, which suits us. That’ll do fine,’ he added, turning the
aircraft left, to point back the way they’d come.
‘There?’ Dekker sounded horrified. ‘It’s like somebody’s back garden. You’ll never get it down into that space.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ Richter said, ‘but it’s actually long enough, and quite wide. I just need to drop down as near to those trees at the north-east end
as I can, and then get this thing stopped before we run into the trees at the other end.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Dekker muttered, and pulled his seat belt a little tighter.
‘And, actually, there’s nowhere else,’ Richter added.
‘The two helos have split, one left, one right,’ the U2 pilot advised Westwood. ‘It looks like they’re starting a search for the target. The guy going
north-east is going to spot the aircraft within a couple of minutes, if he stays on the same heading.’
‘Roger,’ Westwood said, and switched back to the frequency he was using to communicate with Richter. ‘This is November Two Four. You need to get that thing on the ground right
now. One of those gunships will be on you in about three minutes.’
‘Copied. We’re almost downwind, should be on the deck inside two minutes. And thanks.’
The field was covered with grass, but it was far from a bowling-green surface, looking rough and lumpy. But, on the good side, it was reasonably level, and just about long enough for the Piper
to land in, with no obvious obstructions apart from the trees. Like all pilots, Richter had a well-deserved fear of power lines, telephone cables and the like, which could rip off a wing or
propeller in an instant, and turn any landing into an uncontrollable and fatal crash.
He continued around in a tight turn – to start what would have been called the downwind leg if he’d been at an airfield circuit. That took him over what looked like a small, recently
built housing estate. He eyed the trees carefully as he prepared to land, but their branches seemed almost stationary, so he knew there was no significant wind.
Richter reduced speed still further, selected full flap and then lowered the undercarriage, dividing his attention between the instruments in front of him and the open field to his left.
With the airspeed indicator showing just over seventy knots – on the plastic board, the stall speed of the aircraft was listed at fifty knots – he turned the Piper onto base leg and
continued the turn until he was lined up with the field. Then he continued reducing speed slowly.
As always, the aircraft seemed to go faster the closer it got to the ground, an optical illusion Richter was very familiar with. The trees seemed to rush up towards them, the field in front now
looking deceptively short, and the surface slightly worse than he’d expected. He held the speed at sixty knots, which would give him sufficient speed to go around again – to carry out a
missed approach – if he wasn’t happy with the look of the surface just before the Piper touched down.
Directly ahead was a short line of trees, at right angles to his line of approach, which marked the end of the clear area.
He watched the tops of the trees getting closer, and for an instant it seemed they were too close, that the undercarriage was going to clip them. Beside him, Dekker muttered something under his
breath.
Monday
The Lubyanka, Moscow
Just under an hour later, Zharkov strode into a small office on one of the upper floors of the Lubyanka and looked around. Abramov and two of the building security guards
followed him into the room. The security staff had found the door locked, with nobody inside, when they’d arrived to secure it. They’d also reported that it was normally only ever used
as overflow accommodation for SVR officers temporarily appointed to the building.