The Valhalla Prophecy

21

The elevator came to a stop. Eddie and Nina went to one side of the doors, Tova and Kagan the other as they parted. A freezing wind gusted in.

To everyone’s relief, it was not accompanied by bullets. Kalashnikov raised, Eddie cautiously exited. Nina followed. The business jet had gone, though a constant low drone told them that another aircraft was idling on one of the base’s long taxiways. But the only movement was of snow flurries swirling across the flat expanses between the concrete lanes. ‘Okay, there’s nobody here — yet.’

Kagan limped to the racks of gas tanks at one end of the blockhouse and indicated a group of concrete buildings across the runway. ‘We need to reach the base headquarters.’

Eddie judged the distance. ‘Christ, they’re over half a mile away.’

Nina, however, was looking at something closer. ‘Maybe these guys’ll give us a ride!’ she said, pointing in alarm. A military UAZ jeep was tearing along one of the taxiways. On seeing the group, its driver made a sharp turn to angle across the snow-covered grass directly towards them. She turned to Kagan. ‘Good, or not good?’

A man leaned out of the 4x4’s side and raised an AK. ‘Take a guess!’ said Eddie. ‘Get back!’

They retreated — only to come face to face with Tova as the elevator closed. ‘What is happening?’ she asked.

‘No, keep them open — oh, shit!’ Eddie yelped as the weather-scoured metal doors slammed shut. ‘Now Slavin and his guys’ll come up behind us!’

‘Sorry, I am sorry! But you said there was no one here,’ the Swede protested.

‘It’s okay, it’s not your fault,’ Nina told her. ‘What do we do?’

Eddie had an idea. ‘Get behind the bunker,’ he said, gesturing in the opposite direction from the approaching UAZ.

Nina, Tova and Kagan scurried for cover — but Eddie hared into the open, running across the taxiway. ‘Eddie!’ Nina yelled, stopping. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Giving ’em a warm welcome!’ he shouted.

A glance back. The two men in the 4x4 had seen him, the bounding jeep changing direction to intercept. He adjusted his own course; he needed the vehicle to pass close to the bunker—

The passenger’s AK thudded. Eddie heard bullets sear past him, little puffs of snow marking their impacts on the frozen ground. He reached the edge of the concrete and dropped flat on the grass, scrambling around to bring up his own rifle.

The gunman fired again, a three-round burst this time chipping the taxiway only feet from the Englishman. He flinched, then raised his head and took aim. With only three bullets left, he had to make them all count…

He pulled the trigger.

The shot crazed the jeep’s windscreen. The driver made a rapid stop, the 4x4 slithering on the snow to end up almost side-on to Eddie. Both men scrambled out to take cover behind the unarmoured vehicle.

Just as Eddie had hoped.

He switched his aim — to the gas tanks along the bunker’s side, about fifty feet from the stationary UAZ. He aligned the sights on a valve on the nearest tank, held his breath to steady the rifle — and fired.

The shot clanged off the tank just below the valve. The sights were slightly off. Eddie muttered a curse, raising the gun to compensate — just as the two soldiers opened fire.

This time, their aim was much better.

‘Shit!’ Eddie gasped, dropping his head as bullets smacked against the concrete. The shooting stopped, but he knew they had not given up — they would be switching their rifles from burst-fire to single-shot mode for greater accuracy.

He raised his head again, lining up the sights on the tank for his final shot. In the corner of his vision, he saw one of the soldiers taking aim…

He took the shot.

The acetylene tank blew apart, the shockwave throwing the soldiers to the ground. A fireball roared out from the side of the bunker. Both Russians felt the hellish heat sweep over them, and simultaneously made the same wordless decision to jump up and run as quickly as they could away from its source.

Eddie was also back on his feet — running for the UAZ, the front end of which was now adorned by spots of flame where its paint had caught light. He waved for the others to join him. ‘Anyone order a taxi?’ he shouted.

Nina led the others out from behind the bunker, giving the blaze around the remaining acetylene tanks a very wide berth. ‘I am so never putting you in charge of any barbecues,’ she said as she reached the jeep. Her husband, already in the driving seat, grinned.

Tova gave the UAZ an unhappy look as she helped Kagan aboard. ‘But it is on fire!’

‘Second-hand cars’ve always got something wrong with ’em,’ said Eddie. He put the jeep into gear and made a sharp turn to head away from the bunker. ‘Okay, where are we going?’

Kagan was thinking out loud. ‘We will never reach the commander to explain the truth — he has issued orders for us to be shot on sight. The orders can only be countermanded from above… I need to speak to my superiors in Moscow,’ he announced, now focused. Nina started to take out her phone, but he shook his head. ‘All the cell towers in the area will have been shut down when the base was put on alert. I need a secure line.’

‘Where can we find one?’ she asked.

‘The main communications centre — but we will never get to it alive. Or…’ He pointed off to one side. ‘Or there!’

Nina looked round — and did a double-take when she saw what he was indicating. ‘On a plane?’

Standing on one of the taxiways was the silver bulk of a Tu-95MS Bear bomber, the thrum of its eight massive propellers at idle the source of the droning rumble. Ladders led up into its long fuselage, a couple of small trucks waiting nearby. ‘It’s got a radio link?’ Eddie asked.

Kagan nodded. ‘There is an emergency frequency that will connect me to the Kremlin — my superiors can order the base commander to arrest Slavin. It will take only a few minutes.’

‘If we even have a few minutes,’ said Nina in alarm, seeing several other jeeps charging across the great expanse of the airbase.

‘Better than nowt,’ Eddie told her, swinging the UAZ on to the grass to head for the bomber. In the wing mirror, he saw figures piling out of the bunker’s elevator. ‘Shit! Slavin and his lads just got to the surface.’

‘Keep down,’ Kagan warned. They all hunched lower. A few shots cracked after them, but none hit.

‘We’re out of range,’ Nina said in relief.

Eddie dampened her mood. ‘We won’t be for long,’ he warned, glancing back at the pursuing vehicles.

Kagan checked his gun’s magazine. ‘I only have seventeen bullets. It will not be enough to hold them off.’

‘We need more guns…’ Eddie looked again at the Bear. They were approaching the huge bomber from behind — and he saw windows at the very end of the fuselage beneath the tail, a turret mounted below it.

A turret from which jutted the long black barrels of two AM-23 autocannons.

‘And we’ve got more guns,’ he concluded.

‘Where?’ Nina asked, not seeing any in the UAZ.

‘There.’ He pointed at the turret.

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Nope!’ One of the ladders led into the tailgunner’s compartment. He looked under the wings. Pylons were loaded with sleek grey shapes: the Bear was fully armed with Kh-101 cruise missiles. He hoped the cannons were combat-ready too. ‘Nina, Tova — go up the front ladder and get Kagan to the radio. I’ll hold ’em off with the guns.’

Kagan shot him a sharp look. ‘You are going to kill Russian soldiers?’

‘No, just scare ’em — unless they’re stupid enough to keep coming!’

He brought the smouldering UAZ on to the taxiway, the jeep bouncing hard over the edge of the concrete. Two men with thick parkas over grubby overalls were working on the landing gear. They looked round in surprise as the 4x4 skidded to a halt, then hurriedly backed away as Kagan pointed his gun at them. He limped for the steep metal steps leading into the forward fuselage, Nina and Tova going with him.

Eddie, meanwhile, clattered up the aft ladder. A confused face peered down through the hatch at him, asking a question in Russian.

The Englishman reached the top and replied with a punch. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, pulling himself up into the cramped compartment and dropping the dazed airman out of the opening. The fall was about twelve feet; the man hit the runway hard and yelled in pain, but no bones were broken. ‘If I were you, I’d shift your arse!’

He turned to survey his surroundings. The tailgunner’s station was cut off from the rest of the bomber’s interior, a lonely, claustrophobic and noisy eyrie whose sole saving grace on the Bear’s long patrols would be a spectacular vista beyond its panoramic windows. The current view of the flat and bleak expanse of Engels was less inspiring, but Eddie was more concerned with targets than scenery. The incoming jeeps were barrelling down the taxiway towards the Tu-95.

He squeezed into the gunner’s seat. ‘Think in Russian,’ he said to himself as he looked over the instrument panel. The controls all had Cyrillic labels, but he didn’t need to be a linguist to work out the function of the red button on the handgrips beneath the swivelling gunsight mount. The twin cannons were currently pointed skywards in their failsafe position; he rectified that by the crude but effective method of flicking every switch he could see until the guns lowered with a hydraulic whine.

An experimental push on the handgrips was matched by the turret’s tracking to match the movement. Eddie squinted through the gunsight, aiming at a spot on the runway a short distance in front of the racing 4x4s. ‘Hope they’re loaded…’ he said as he pushed the button.

They were.

The chainsaw snarl of the twin 23mm cannons ripping through twenty rounds per second was almost deafening. Eddie winced as the noise pounded his ears. Flames from the muzzles obscured his view — but through the flashes he saw concrete shattering as the storm of explosive shells chewed across the taxiway. The incoming jeeps swerved to avoid the line of destruction as he guided it towards them, one losing control as it turned too hard on the wet surface and flipped on to its side.

Eddie took his thumb off the firing button just before the shells hit the overturned vehicle. The guns went silent, leaving his ears ringing. The remaining jeeps were now heading away from him — but, he realised, they weren’t all fleeing. Some were curving around the bomber, intending to come back in from beyond the turret’s arc of fire. He unleashed a few more brief bursts in the hope of discouraging them, then spotted a set of bulky headphones and put them on. ‘Nina! You in the plane yet?’ he said into the microphone.

She was — and was holding Kagan’s gun on the shocked flight crew as the Russian pulled the communications operator from his rearward-facing seat. He donned the man’s headphones, then cocked an eyebrow in surprise and gestured at another headset. ‘It’s for you.’

Tova passed the headphones to Nina, who wedged the steel container securely behind Kagan’s seat before fumbling them into position with her free hand. ‘Eddie?’

‘No, it’s Leon fucking Trotsky,’ said a familiar Yorkshire voice. ‘Of course it’s me!’

‘We heard shooting — was that you?’

‘Yeah, I scared off those jeeps, but they’re going to come back at us from the sides, where I can’t aim the guns. Is Kagan there?’

‘I hear you,’ said Kagan as he examined the radio’s controls.

‘Tell the pilot to pull up the steps and start taxiing before we get swarmed. How soon can you get your bosses in Moscow to call ’em off?’

‘Two or three minutes. I will have to go through procedures to confirm my identity.’

‘Then bloody get on with it!’

Kagan relayed the order to the pilot, who protested briefly before Nina’s jab of the gun at him convinced him to change his mind. He made a rapid check of the instruments, then released the brakes and eased the four throttle levers forward. The rumble of the propellers rose in pitch and volume, the entire airframe trembling as the Bear started to move. The forward stairway retracted into the plane’s belly, the ladder to the tailgunner’s compartment falling away with a clang as the ejected airman scrambled out of its way.

Eddie looked out of the side windows. Some of the jeeps had almost overtaken the trundling bomber, closing in once more. ‘They’re going to try to block the runway,’ he reported. ‘Don’t let the pilot stop — for anything.’

‘What if they shoot at us?’ Nina replied.

‘They will not,’ Kagan cut in. ‘This plane is fully armed with missiles — it is too valuable to damage.’

‘Hope they’ve been told that,’ muttered Eddie. He looked back towards the bunker. Some sort of large truck or tracked vehicle was heading from the base’s outer periphery towards the burning blockhouse, presumably to collect Slavin and his men, but the drifting smoke from the gas explosion made it hard to identify.

In the forward compartment, Kagan began to send his radio message. Nina turned her attention back to the Bear’s crew. As well as the pilot and co-pilot up front in the cockpit, there were four other men in the cabin, and all looked as if they were considering playing the hero. ‘Hey! Handski upski,’ she snapped, seeing one man’s arm creeping towards a compartment beside his seat. He retreated. Through the porthole next to him, she saw two jeeps overhauling the bomber and turning to rejoin the taxiway ahead of it. ‘Oh, crap. Eddie, they’re getting in front of us!’

‘Tell the pilot to go faster,’ came the reply. ‘If they get aboard, we’re fucked. How’s Kagan doing?’

Kagan was still speaking into the microphone in Russian, breaking off to say: ‘I have made contact and given them my pass codes. Once they confirm who I am, they will put me through.’

‘I hope your bosses aren’t having a coffee break,’ said Nina. Keeping a wary eye on the men behind her, she moved up the cabin to stand behind the pilots and looked through the cockpit windows. Off to starboard, two UAZs hopped over the kerb from the frozen grass on to the concrete. They immediately swung in front of the aircraft, a man leaning from one of the jeeps and gesturing furiously for the bomber to stop. The pilot’s hand tightened on the throttle levers as if to pull them back. ‘Ah-ah,’ Nina warned. The middle-aged man glared over his shoulder at her. ‘Kagan! What’s Russian for “go faster”?’

‘Idti bistryeye,’ he called out.

‘What he said,’ she told the pilot. He reluctantly pushed the levers further forward. The Bear picked up speed. One of the UAZs hurriedly moved clear, but the other held station, the soldier still gesticulating — then he stopped and pulled inside.

Only to lean back out a moment later — holding a Kalashnikov.

‘Shit!’ Nina cried, ducking as he opened fire. Bullets clunked against the bomber’s nose, punching through the aluminium skin and smacking into structural members beneath. Tova shrieked and dropped to the deck as one of the windows crazed. ‘They won’t shoot, huh?’ Nina yelled.

The pilot pulled back the throttles, prompting an angry shout from Kagan, followed by: ‘Dr Wilde! Put the gun to his head!’

‘What? I’m not gonna shoot him!’

‘He doesn’t know that — they don’t speak English!’

‘You hope,’ she said, before hesitantly pushing the gun’s muzzle against the back of the pilot’s skull. ‘Idti bis… istry — that thing he said again!’

Even with her mangled Russian, the pilot got the message. He moved the levers forward once more. The plane picked up speed, closing on the UAZ.

The soldier kept firing. This time, one of the bullets ripped through the pilot’s console — and hit the pilot himself, blood spurting from his left shoulder. He cried out, letting go of the control yoke to clasp his right hand to the wound.

The co-pilot had also taken his hands off the controls, shielding his head as he ducked. More shots hit the plane, another window cracking—

Nina lunged and jammed the throttle levers forward.

The Bear roared as all four engines surged to full power. The communications officer, left standing in the gangway after being yanked from his seat, stumbled and fell. Eight enormous propellers spun up to maximum speed, the great bomber charging along the taxiway—

Straight at the UAZ.

The gunman saw the silver machine’s hefty forward landing gear bearing down on him and yelled for the driver to swerve, but his companion had already seen the whirling propellers on each side in his mirrors and realised the jeep had nowhere to go. He bailed out, bouncing hard off the cold concrete and flattening himself on the ground as the bomber swept overhead. The other man stared stupidly at him for a moment before throwing himself from the careening 4x4.

Driverless, it veered to one side as the Tupolev caught up—

The twin contra-rotating propellers on the port inboard engine nacelle scythed through the UAZ, shredding its bodywork like paper. What was left of the jeep was spat out from under the wing and flung off the taxiway, chunks of mangled metal cartwheeling through the snow.

Warning buzzers sounded, a red light flashing on one of the control panels. The co-pilot grabbed his own set of throttle controls and pulled them sharply back, shouting in panic at Nina. ‘He says an engine is damaged!’ Kagan told her.

‘We can’t stop!’ she replied, pointing her gun at the co-pilot and gesturing for him to reapply power. He looked helplessly at his commander for advice, but the older man’s eyes were clenched shut in pain. With no choice, he grudgingly opened three of the throttles again, leaving the damaged engine at idle.

Eddie’s voice sounded in Nina’s headphones. ‘What the fuck was that? Did we hit something?’

‘We’re experiencing turbulence,’ said Nina. She looked back at Kagan. ‘Have you gotten through to your bosses yet?’

‘I am… on hold,’ he admitted, slightly sheepish.

‘Oh, great!’ She looked ahead once more. The Bear was approaching a parked line of its sister aircraft, beyond them several of the threatening stiletto jet bombers she had seen on arriving. In the distance, but drawing ever closer, were bright lights marking the end of the taxiway. A glance through the side windows revealed jeeps still keeping pace with the aircraft, but after what had happened to their comrade’s vehicle, the drivers were not inclined to play roadblock. ‘Eddie, we’re going to run out of runway soon. Are there any more of them chasing us?’

In the tailgunner’s compartment, Eddie saw another clutch of vehicles coming from the airbase’s main buildings. ‘They’ve sent out everything short of the fucking bin lorry. What’s happening with Kagan?’

‘He’s still waiting.’

‘What, have they put him on hold?’

‘Ah… actually, yes.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! How long before we reach the end of the taxiway?’

‘A minute, maybe?’

‘Shit.’ He surveyed the view behind the bomber again. The tracked vehicle had now apparently picked up Slavin and was tearing across the open ground in pursuit, headlights glaring. The long main runway ran parallel to their current route, stretching away into the distance. ‘Okay, tell ’em to turn on to the runway — we’ve got to keep moving for as long as we can. But we need some way to hold ’em off…’

The first of the parked bombers swept past. He grinned, and swung the gunsight around. The cannons followed his movement. ‘Did you just cackle?’ Nina asked.

‘Remembered my training,’ he replied, lining up the sight and pushing the red button.

The guns blazed again, even the headphones doing little to muffle the din. But Eddie didn’t care, walking the line of fire along the rank of bombers. A stream of 23mm rounds blasted holes in the fuselages of the stationary Tu-95s, aluminium shreds scattering like confetti.

‘Chase!’ demanded Kagan. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Keeping ’em busy!’ he shouted back over the noise. ‘Don’t worry, a friend of mine once told me Russian planes are easy to fix.’ The bulbous radar dome beneath the chin of one of the Bears disintegrated as he concentrated his fire upon it. ‘Bit of work with the tin snips and a hammer, that’ll knock right out.’

‘Chase!’

‘Just talk to your fucking bosses, all right?’ He switched his aim to the Tu-95’s forward landing gear. The leg collapsed under the onslaught. The Bear’s front end dropped to the ground, the fuselage smashing flat like a dropped egg and breaking the aircraft’s back.

Most of the more distant pursuers abruptly slowed. The message had got through: back off or I take out your entire fleet. The UAZs hounding the hijacked Tupolev came back into view, veering away. Eddie stopped firing. Turning the AM-23s on them would result in a massacre, and he had no enmity towards the base personnel.

More bombers rolled past, the old turboprop behemoths followed by newer and even larger swing-wing Tu-160 jets. Eddie was sorely tempted to put a few dozen explosive rounds into each to make life easier for NATO, but held his fire; even if they survived long enough for Kagan’s superiors to call off the hunt, they were already in enough trouble with the Russian government — and diplomatic immunity would only extend so far.

Eddie’s voice came through Nina’s headphones. ‘They’ve pulled back.’

‘Good,’ she replied, looking ahead. ‘We’re almost out of road!’ The end of the long concrete taxiway was now only a few hundred yards away. She gestured with the gun for the co-pilot to follow a connecting lane around to the main runway. The Tupolev swung on to its new course, the nosewheel tyres squealing in protest at the fast turn.

Kagan spoke in urgent Russian, briefly holding a hand over his microphone to say to Nina, ‘I am through,’ before continuing.

‘Thank God,’ she replied. ‘Eddie, Kagan’s got through to his bosses.’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope they don’t get put on hold when they try to call the base!’

The pilot gasped in pain. Nina saw blood spreading across his shirt. She searched for some way to help him. A white box marked with a red cross was attached to one of the sickly green-painted cabin walls. ‘Tova, do you know first aid?’ The Swede nodded. ‘Grab that and see if you can help him. I’ll make sure nobody tries anything stupid.’

Tova collected the medical kit and came into the cockpit. The co-pilot appeared briefly confused that his hijackers were also willing to help his injured comrade, but turned his attention back to the view outside as the Bear approached the main runway. ‘Go on to it,’ Nina told him, accompanying the command with a hand signal. He worked the controls to turn the bomber. ‘Kagan, what’s happening?’

‘I have told them about Slavin,’ he replied. ‘They are going to tell the base commander to cancel the shoot-on-sight order and hold everyone until the truth can be determined.’

‘How long will that take?’ The base’s main runway, almost two miles long, swung into sight ahead.

‘Not long — Unit 201 has a high—’

The Bear shuddered as its flank was hammered by a series of explosive impacts.

Holes ripped open in the fuselage. The communications officer was practically cut in half by shrieking metal, his blood splattering the back end of the cabin as shrapnel tore through him.

‘Holy shit!’ Nina yelled as she crouched. ‘What the hell was that?’

The co-pilot screamed into his headset. Nina didn’t need to understand his language to know that he was begging whoever was firing on the bomber to stop. It had no effect, another fusillade hitting the wing. Black smoke belched from the outermost engine nacelle.

Astern, Eddie swore as he shoved the gunsight as far over as it would go, but to no avail — the Tu-95’s turn had put their attacker out of sight. But he knew what it was — and who. ‘It’s Slavin!’

The Russian officer had commandeered a ZSU-23-4 — a tank-like anti-aircraft system armed with four 23mm autocannons much like those the Englishman was controlling. In his desperation, he was willing to destroy the entire aircraft to silence anyone who could expose his treachery. The guns would cut the Bear to pieces — and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

Unless…

More pounding blows shook the bomber. Eddie twisted to look through a small side porthole, glimpsing the ZSU under the port wing. ‘Go! Full power, get us moving!’ he shouted into his headset.

‘We will never be able to take off!’ Kagan protested.

‘I don’t want to take off — I want to get past him so I can fucking shoot back!’

In the cockpit, the Russian urgently relayed the order to the co-pilot. The man hesitated, but more explosive rounds shredding the side of the fuselage immediately erased his doubts. He pushed all the throttles to maximum power.

The wounded Bear surged forward. The trail of smoke from the damaged engine was joined by flames — then an explosion ripped open the nacelle.

Nina risked raising her head and saw the squat ZSU carving towards the runway ahead of them. More fire flashed from its cannons, tracers streaking at her like meteors. She ducked again as the Tupolev took more hits, impacts tearing along the hull. Another set of warning lights flashed on the instrument panel. ‘Eddie! This thing’s going to rip us apart!’

‘Just tell them to keep going — it’s only got light armour, so if I can hit it, it’s dead!’

‘If you can hit it! And we’re a much bigger target!’ She looked up again. The ZSU was about four hundred yards away, but rapidly growing as the bomber bore down upon it.

‘Just tell me how far away it is — and where to aim!’

‘It’s on the left, about — I dunno, a hundred feet from the runway and getting closer. We’re about three hundred yards away — whoa!’ She dropped behind the pilot’s seat as cannon shells punctured the radome below the cockpit. A shrill wind blasted into the cabin.

The co-pilot shouted at her, but she waved for him to keep going. ‘Two hundred yards, we’re almost—’

The ZSU unleashed another ferocious burst of fire.

An entire section of the Tupolev’s port wing blew apart as shells ripped through a fuel tank. A hot gale rushed in through the holes in the hull.

The Russian weapons officer opposite Kagan shouted in panic. Nina looked back to see red lights flashing urgently on his control panel. ‘The wing is on fire — and so are the missiles!’ Kagan yelled.

‘Then tell him to drop them!’ She stumbled back down the gangway.

‘It’s against protocol!’

‘Screw protocol!’ She reached the weapons station. The Cyrillic was impenetrable, but the symbol beside a rank of switches under the blinking lights was self-explanatory. A stylised missile with a downward-pointing arrow behind it, surrounded by an irregular multi-pointed star: explosive release.

She glanced forward, seeing the ZSU whip out of sight as the Bear rushed past it. ‘Eddie, I’m sending you some bombs!’

Before the weapons officer could stop her, she stabbed at the switches.

A series of rapid cracks came from the burning wing pylon — then the three cruise missiles mounted upon it dropped away and tumbled along the runway like skittles.

Eddie’s view of the runway’s edge had been blotted out by a huge cloud of swirling black smoke. If he didn’t destroy the ZSU, it would tear the crippled Bear apart, but he couldn’t see his target—

Flashes of pale grey on the ground — and he realised he didn’t need to.

Each Kh-101 was fully laden with fuel and carried a warhead weighing a full metric ton. The 23mm rounds were more than enough to detonate them.

The missiles exploded, their combined blast ripping a huge crater out of the runway. Eddie was thrown back in his seat as the detonation pummelled the Bear’s tail. But the bomber was already haring away from the explosion.

The ZSU was not.

Slavin was in the commander’s cupola, looking out from the top of the turret. His triumph at seeing the Tupolev’s wing erupt into flames changed to terror — then the shockwave pounded his head into a bloody pulp against the unyielding open hatch cover behind him. The ZSU was flipped end over end, the burning wreck slamming down on its back in the snow.

‘I got him, I got him!’ Eddie shouted into the headset. ‘Slow us down!’

Nina desperately searched for somewhere to secure herself. ‘We can’t!’ she cried. The co-pilot had already yanked back the throttles and stamped on the pedal to apply the wheelbrakes, but with half a wing missing the Bear was unbalanced and veering towards the side of the runway. One of the overstressed nosewheel tyres exploded, the metal rim screeching along the concrete in a shower of sparks. ‘Hang on!’

She grabbed the back of the bombardier’s seat as the plane careened on to the frozen grass—

The forward landing gear was ripped away on the rough ground, followed a moment later by the aft legs. The Tupolev slammed down on its belly.

Eight mighty propellers carved deep channels into the soil before the stress ripped the blades out at their roots. The burning port wing was wrenched from the fuselage, cartwheeling away from the plane before the fuel still inside it exploded in a colossal fireball. The rest of the Tu-95 continued onwards, skidding across the snowy plain in a trail of churned earth and mangled aluminium before finally grinding to a standstill.

Nina groggily raised her head. Tova, sprawled in the pilot’s footwell, moaned softly. Kagan had managed to partially fasten his seat belt just before the crash, while the aircraft’s remaining crew were in varying states of confusion and relief at having survived the destruction of their plane.

The sight of gleaming steel amongst the scattered debris on the cabin’s corrugated floor snapped Nina back to full, horrified awareness. ‘Oh, shit!’ she gasped, scrabbling to it. The container holding Thor’s Hammer had been jolted from its resting place, and was now lying on its side.

Kagan saw it too. ‘Is it broken?’ he said, fumbling to unfasten his restraints.

What Nina could see of the container appeared undamaged bar a few scratches. She hesitantly nudged it over to examine the other side, paying close attention to the seal around the lid. ‘Oh, thank God,’ she whispered. It had remained intact.

A crackle came from her headphones. ‘Nina, are you okay? Nina! Can you hear me?’

‘I’m here, I’m here,’ she assured Eddie. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’ll live,’ he replied. ‘Got a problem, though.’

‘What is it?’ she asked, worried again. If the bomber was on fire, or Kagan’s superiors had not yet got their message through to the base commander to stand down…

‘The plane’s landed on its belly, so I can’t get out! Don’t suppose you’ve got a hammer up there to smash open the window?’

Her relieved laughter echoed incongruously through the wreckage.