A Colder War

68

‘They’ve told us what? Who did the instruction come from?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t say, sir.’

Kell braced himself in the narrow confines of the cockpit as the Gulfstream hit a river of turbulence. He wondered if the SVR had got to the pilots: Phil offered enough cash to land the plane in Kiev, nobody any the wiser.

‘I’m going to ask you again,’ Kell said. ‘Who is telling you to do this?’

He could already see the glow of an airport, a column of landing lights shimmering in the distance. The plane would be down in less than five minutes, an SVR team swarming all over the Gulfstream within ten.

Phil pulled back a set of headphones, looped them around his neck.

‘Best thing I can do is ask you to sit down, sir.’

The request contained an edge of patronizing threat, the captain pulling rank on a passenger. Kell’s lifelong irritation with bureaucratic arrogance kicked in like the jolt of turbulence.

‘What airport is this?’ he said.

‘Boryspil. Kiev.’

‘International?’

‘That’s the one,’ Bob replied.

Phil was muttering into a mike, presumably to air traffic control. Kell looked at the banks of lights and switches above the pilots’ heads, as mysterious to him as circuit boards. He had no choice but to return to his seat. They were moments away from landing. As he opened the cockpit door, Kell saw Kleckner looking directly at him.

‘Trouble, Tom?’ he said, with a wildcat grin.

‘What makes you think that?’ Kell replied, and buckled himself in for landing.