Games Traitors Play

53

Salim Dhar sat back and stared at the screen, watching his plane spin in a sickening cartwheel of flames.

‘You forgot to add some right rudder,’ Sergei said, coming over to the simulator with a cigarette hanging limply from the corner of his mouth. He was tall and loose-limbed, wearing a flying suit and holding a helmet in one hand. His face was awkward and angular, almost avian in its features. Dhar assumed that was why comrades called him the Bird.

After the air-show crash, Sergei had been stripped of his wings, tried and sent to prison, where he would have remained for the rest of his life if it hadn’t been for the unusual summons to train up a surly Muslim for an SVR black op. He knew enough not to ask any questions, that he was expendable if he played up. ‘They will shoot me after I have served my purpose,’ he had once said, only half jokingly, to Dhar.

The daily training sessions took place in an airless hut across from the hangar where Dhar was living at Kotlas airbase. Dhar didn’t know where the Bird roosted at night. They didn’t do small talk. No one else was in the hut, and there were two armed guards positioned outside the door.

‘How will you ever learn to deploy your missiles if you’re always crashing on take-off?’ Sergei continued. ‘We’ve one week left and you’ve only got the Grach airborne twice.’

Dhar sat in silence, his hands resting on his legs. He tried to filter out the instructor’s tone of voice and focus on the content. He was right. Just then a jet roared low over the hut, mocking Dhar with its menacing ease.

‘Let’s do it again,’ Dhar said calmly. ‘In formation this time.’

Sergei looked at him for a moment and smiled.

‘OK,’ he replied, tossing away his cigarette as he walked over to the other simulator. ‘So the Bird is your wingman.’