Black Ghosts

CHAPTER 28

“Well?” Rogov fixed his eye on Yakov, who remained several feet back from the large desk, like a child frightened of getting too close to an angry teacher. “Do they, or do they not have him?”

“We can’t be sure, sir. We can only assume that he’s there. We have no one in that organization.”

“Why not?”

“Well, sir, like all the rest of the underworld, they were tagged for elimination. Once we have control they will be rounded up and liquidated. And they were never regarded as a threat to us, sir. So there was no point in trying to infiltrate them.”

“If I may,” Major Androva said, her voice soft and soothing, “the colonel is quite right, but only regarding the gangsters. When it comes to the American, it’s a different story. We know he managed to change the landing location of the president’s plane. That means he has made contact with someone high enough up to do so. We also know that he has a group of extremely well-trained soldiers coming in on a stolen plane. Their sole purpose in coming here is to stop what we are doing.” She turned to look at Yakov. Her voice was still low, but now it was more like the hiss of a snake. “The Americans are a threat; we must stop them all before it is too late.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Yakov asked somewhat sarcastically. “Russia is not a small island. It is fairly easy to get lost here, even if you don’t intend to. What we need to do is find this Edward. He’s the key. If we get him, they are lost.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Major,” the general interrupted, leaning back in his seat, “please get to the point. We have a coup to attend to, and we do not have all night.”

“I don’t believe Edward would not have some contingency plan for them. If he is eliminated, someone else will be ready to take over. We should find them and eliminate them before they can harm us.”

“But how?” Yakov shrugged.

“We know they are coming by plane. We know it’s not a scheduled flight, so that eliminates all the regular airports, which we control anyway and they know it. We know they are going to land somewhere outside Moscow.” She walked over to a large map of the city on the wall opposite the general’s desk. “How many places are there around here where you could land a large plane? Where else could they land? If we can figure that out, we’ve got them.”

Yakov smiled. “Why didn’t you get it out of your American when you had him — or were you too busy playing the part?” Before he had finished his sentence, he realized from the general’s expression that it was a mistake to say what he did. There was a moment of silence in the room. They both looked at him. Yakov lowered his eyes to look at his boots. “I apologize, Major. That remark was totally uncalled for.”

“You are a very lucky man, Yakov,” the general said, “but you are also very stupid. I see that you are afraid of me and yet you allow yourself to speak this way to her. If I were you, from now on I would sleep with one eye open.”

“I’m sorry,” Yakov said, feeling very small.

“My dear,” the general said as if nothing had happened, getting up from his seat. “I have a final coordination meeting to attend in the CIC room in five minutes. I want you to take whatever you need and get these men. I’m placing clever little Yakov here under your command.” The general again stared at the small man, who was clearly unhappy with what he was hearing. “I want you to get this Edward and his men.” He turned to Yakov. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” He snapped to attention. The general walked out, leaving the young colonel and the beautiful woman standing in his office.

“So what do you propose we do?” Yakov asked bitterly.

“We have to handle it on two fronts,” she said, seating herself in the general’s chair.

Yakov’s eyes opened wide, surprised at her audacity. “You will go to the Pozharsky Corporation offices and conduct a raid, even though I doubt very much if the American is there.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I did some checking. I found out that the safe house where Edward was hiding belonged to one of Sergei Pozharsky’s people. Edward was in with them from the start. He met someone in Kirov, during a train stop on the way to Moscow. When he came here he already had a name.”

“So what?”

“Don’t you see? The airfield, the safe house, everything he has or is getting comes from Pozharsky, and Pozharsky doesn’t give anything away. He does things for money.”

Yakov was getting his nerve back, and he chuckled. “What’s your point? Pozharsky is a gangster. What did you think he was doing things for?”

“Let me enlighten you, my Muzik,” she said, using the word for the lowest form of peasant to offend the small officer. “Edward has a lot of money. He had almost three hundred thousand dollars on him in cash, and could probably get millions if he only wanted to. The man behind him, Larry Williams, has access to as much money as they might need. Now you see why I’m very doubtful Pozharsky will hand him over to you. This is a trick. Edward is probably already at the airfield. And his men should be arriving any minute.”

Yakov’s face was serious as he walked over to look at the map next to her chair.

“Like I said,” she went on, “we have to tackle this thing on two fronts.” She stood up and spread her palm over the map and ran it in a circle around the city. “Somewhere here there is an airstrip where they are going to land. We must find it and eliminate them before it’s too late. You take your men and arrest Pozharsky. If you find the American, just make sure you don’t kill him.”

“You like the guy?” Yakov smirked.

“Don’t start with me again, you fool. I’ve killed better men than you for much less, and them I loved. We need him to talk. He made plans when I was not with him. He had someone on the inside working with him. I need to know who. Could it be you, little man?” She sounded tough, angry. Yakov backed off a step. “What are you waiting for? Go get the man. Call me here if you have anything.” She looked at the map again. Now her voice was low, as if she was talking to herself. “Where could they land a goddamn plane?” She was still looking at the map as Yakov quietly left the office.

Major Androva walked out of the general’s office and made her way to the CIC room. In the glass-paneled office at the corner of the large room, the general was talking to a group of officers gathered around a metal desk. Androva crossed the room to one of the computer operators. “Who handles the radar maps?”

The young man took his headset off one ear. “What did you say, Major?”

“I said, who handles the radar maps?”

“What is it you need?”

“I need to see the radar coverage around the city and then for a larger area.” She looked at the map of Russia. “Say, as far as the Baltic.”

The young man, very much aware of the woman in the uniform, turned his swivel chair and pointed at a screen on the wall. “I’ll put it on that screen for you.”

Androva nodded to him. “By the way, is that a live radar reading or just a schematic?”

“Both,” said the young man, turning to type something on his keyboard. Several seconds later, the map of Russia’s northern coast blacked out and the area Androva was interested in appeared. There were green, blue, and red circles covering almost the entire map, with smaller yellow circles covering the gaps.

“What do the colors represent?” asked Androva.

“Those are the various radar frequencies. X band, Y band, and the combination. Those are the red, green, and blue circles.”

“What are the yellow ones?”

“Those are activated only during emergencies. They are mobile radars, mounted on trucks. They are used to close any possible gaps in the coverage.”

“Could they be activated now?”

“No. You have to put the mobile units in place first, then activate them.”

“So if I had a copy of this map, I could get into Russian airspace without detection?”

“Smugglers do it all the time. Once we’re in control, the general plans to close the gaps.”

“Yes, but for now?”

“You could very well get in, but only with very small airplanes or big ones that fly very, I mean very, very low.”

“Can you show me the Moscow airports on this map?”

He typed another set of codes into the computer and a series of colors lit up the screen. She stared at them for a moment. “Any others?”

“No, not airports.”

“What, then?”

“Well, we do have a list of emergency landing strips. You know, parts of highways, areas of flat terrain, and incomplete airfields.”

“Put them on.” Her voice was tight.

An extensive series of red dots flickered on. She grinned. “There they are,” she said. “Only three options.” She grabbed a piece of paper from the young man’s desk and with his pen wrote down several names, copying from the map.

“Where do we have friendly helicopters?”

“At Zelenograd Airfield, it’s a military base—”

“I know what it is.” Her voice was harsh. She needed the young man no more. “Get me the officer in charge.”

“Yes, Major.” After a short and frantic attempt on his part to move fast, he handed her the receiver.

“This is Major Androva.”

“What is the status of this call?” asked the voice on the other end of the line.

“Phazar,” she answered, using the code name — meaning “blaze”—which was the active code for the final stage of Operation Czar.

“This is Colonel Techyanov. What can I do for you?”

“I need you to send helicopters to check the following locations.” She read the names to him.

“I can only spare one ‘coper at the moment, Major.”

“This is of vital importance.”

“I will have him in the air as soon as we hang up.”

“I need to be informed immediately once you have found any suspicious activity in any one of those locations.”

“I will keep you informed, Major.”

“Tallinn Tower, this is Zebra Tango seven ninety-nine, en route to Gorky, over.”

“Zebra Tango seven nine nine, this is Tallinn Tower. Welcome to the Republic of Estonia, keep your heading of 275 at thirty-five thousand feet, routing alpha six nine two.”

“Thank you, Tallinn, I will direct through Novograd.”

“Zebra Tango, do you want me to raise Novograd for you?”

“No thanks, I will take it from here.”

“Have a nice trip.”

“What now?” asked Mario, seated behind Dan, the pilot, on board the jumbo that was heading toward Russian airspace at nine hundred kilometers per hour.

“Looks like they’re not aware that the real flight to Gorky from Sweden was delayed.”

“I guess Larry took care of that. He said he had a friend at the Swedish intelligence who could do just about anything.”

“Be great if he could take over this operation,” Archie, the second pilot, remarked with a yawn. “I’m tired, and the hard part is still ahead.”

“Six minutes to disconnect,” said Dan, becoming very tense. “Taking out of auto.” He flicked a series of switches.

“Closing auto,” Archie said, reaching down to another set of switches. “Ready?”

“Disconnect.”

The plane dropped slightly, swaying from side to side until Dan got full control of it. “Four minutes to range,” he said, watching as the small blip on his console radar slowly came closer to the rim.

“Once we get out of their radar range, we drop to tree height and make the rest of the way almost on the ground. From the looks of it, we have enough gas for one round. I hope they have the field ready, because I’m going down whether I can see it or not.”

“Ivan Four requesting permission for takeoff.”

“You are clear for takeoff, Ivan Four.”

“Do you have the location plotted?” Captain Oleg, the Mi-8 assault helicopter pilot, asked the navigator sitting in the copilot’s seat. These were not the glorious old days when all positions were filled and a full crew meant a full crew. With the cutbacks, Oleg couldn’t remember the last time he’d flown with a co-pilot. With the fuel shortages, he couldn’t remember the last time he had participated in an exercise. The only thing he got to do these days was fly politicians around, and for some reason there was always enough fuel for that. In protest, he had stopped wearing the pilot’s wings he had worked so hard to get, as had many of his friends. We don’t need wings to be taxi drivers, they said.

In the last few days, however, things had changed somewhat. They were flying military missions, taking various high-ranking officers from one troop location to another. Oleg couldn’t exactly put his finger on it, but there was an excitement in the air. The brass he was flying around seemed cheerful, optimistic. He actually saw officers salute each other with a smile.

And now this order to search for anything he might regard as suspicious. They were leaving to him the decision as to what might look suspicious. They’d given him three locations to check out, and he was going to do exactly that — as fast as he possibly could. Whatever was going on, he was happy about it. Even if he wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

“Take heading one nine seven,” the navigator said. “We should be there in four minutes. It’s a strip of highway just outside of Pushkino. Then we head zero eight two. That’s an old military airport which has been closed for years.”

“Is that near Klimovsk?”

The navigator looked back at the map, “Yes. About two miles south of the town.”

“I trained there many years ago. And the third location?”

“Kolomana. They were building the new airport there when they ran into communication problems.”

“Didn’t they test the array there?”

“I don’t know. I was never there. I just read about it a few weeks ago. They’re having an investigation into the money they poured into that place.”

Scattered clouds were obscuring sections of the star-filled sky. They were flying at four thousand feet, which was low enough to see just about everything but high enough to stay out of the way of the occasional power line or angry farmer with a shotgun.

“There is our first location,” Oleg said. “I’m going in for a better look.” The helicopter banked sharply and dived almost three thousand feet, stabilizing over the deserted strip of highway. They flew a circle around the area. Then, just to be sure, Oleg brought the helicopter down, almost touching the road. He turned on his night-vision goggles and searched.

“Nothing,” he said finally. Almost at once, he was back at his flight level, heading for the second location. He repeated the procedure over the deserted airbase. When he again saw nothing, he reported back to base that he was now heading for the third location, as the first two were clean. He got the go-ahead and turned his chopper toward Kolomana and the deserted airfield.

Oleg calculated that the flight would take about fifteen minutes, as he wanted to see also if there was anything suspicious on the way. Three minutes in, he heard a rumble, gradually getting louder and louder. Both men looked with their night-vision goggles at the sky around them. The sound was of a big plane with large jet engines, closing in from a distance. But they saw nothing. The sky was clear — until the navigator yelled over the microphone, almost tearing Oleg’s eardrum.

“Pasmatry, pasmatry!” he shouted, pointing down. Look, look!

What Oleg saw was something he had never seen before. Almost two thousand feet below them, a giant four-engine monster was hurtling through the air. It seemed to be skimming the tops of the trees.

At first, Oleg couldn’t quite make it out. He had never seen such a plane from this angle. Then he recognized the hump on the front section of the fuselage and saw that it was a jumbo jet. As it swept below, opening a larger distance between itself and the helicopter, the first air waves began to shake the chopper. From this angle, Oleg couldn’t make out what markings it carried, but as he fought to maintain control of the helicopter, he knew he had definitely seen something very unusual. He would head for the third location, just to check if the plane had landed there. Then he would inform his control tower of what he had seen.

“Boshey moyeh,” said the navigator. “What the hell was that?”

“A Boeing seven four seven,” said Oleg, sounding like a fisherman who had just made his biggest catch ever.