Red Deception

by Gary Grossman

  It was more information than Reginald Thompson’s pilot wanted to give. He counted on mission of mercy and his lack of fuel to get him on ground. One was true. One was not.

  “Roger, understood,” the base replied. What is your bingo fuel?”

  The pilot of the mercenary Airbus lied. He had more than enough to land, take off and get to their destination in England. But not so if they were in a long holding pattern off the southern coast of Ukraine. Russian fighters might take interest. Maybe they’d ask questions. Maybe they wouldn’t and just fire their air-to-air missiles.

  “Standby Charter 1066,” the Zhytomyr ground controller responded. “Prepare to reroute.” He gave a heading.

  The problem at the airfield was the impending helicopter arrival of the Ukrainian president who was on a mission of self-preservation.

  “Roger, Zhytomyr control.”

  The charter began to circle as instructed over the Black Sea. The pilot was pissed. He decided to give it 30 minutes. No more. Thirty minutes maximum. Then he would return to Jordan. A fucked mission.

  “Ebat!” Volosin yelled.

  Reilly understood little Ukrainian, but given the context, it sounded like a familiar Russian expletive. Blyad! Fuck!

  “Volosin, what’s wrong? We’re ready to roll.”

  Now Reilly heard shouting back and forth on the open mics. He motioned for his driver, who had started his bus, to open the door. He got out. Flanders followed.

  “Stay in the bus” he ordered.

  “Where you go, l go.”

  Reilly had no desire to argue with his shadow.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He ran to bus three, directly in front, which was filled with confusion and more shouting. Volosin’s men, equipped with flashlights, were searching for something. The klyuch. Volosin was inside doing the same. The driver was checking under his seat.

  Volosin screamed at his man, which made the passengers more nervous than they already were. Reilly tapped Volosin on the shoulder and signaled with his thumb to come talk to him—outside.

  “Asshole!” The Ukrainian paced, shaking his head. “He was supposed to stay with the bus. But he goes out for a smoke and loses the fucking key! Imbecile.”

  Reilly demanded. “Can’t you jump-start it?”

  “Like in your movies? Not this.”

  “Then we’ll split the sixty here in the other three buses. They can stand in the aisles and double up.”

  “And start a riot because now there’ll be no room for any carry on?” Volosin replied. “No. Three buses leave. One comes back.”

  “That could take hours,” Reilly responded. “And if things don’t hold—” Reilly didn’t need to complete the thought. They both had been measuring the elapsed time between bomb flashes and the sound of the blasts. Time tightened. They didn’t have hours.

  “I’ll get another bus!” Reilly declared. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, load everyone up in the three buses, toss out whatever’s necessary, steal cars if you have to, and leave.”

  Volosin smiled. “Where will you find another fucking bus?”

  “Saw one on our way in. Possibly guarded.”

  “Then you’re going to need this.” Volosin reached behind his back, under his leather jacket, and produced a Soviet Marakov PPM 9x18 mm handgun.

  Reilly took it, expertly released the twelve-round magazine, checked the capacity—fully loaded—and slammed it back into place.

  “Jesus, Reilly,” Flanders exclaimed.

  Volosin snickered. “Standard training for a hotel executive?”

  “Fifteen minutes!” Reilly snapped. He checked his watch.

  “Got it.”

  Reilly started down Prorizna.

  “Wait!” Flanders shouted. “Like I said, where you go, I go.”

  “Then keep up!” Reilly replied.

  Twenty-five minutes before turning back. The Airbus pilot wished he’d only given it fifteen, not thirty. According to Zhytomyr he was to continue to circle and await further instructions. Radar showed air traffic avoiding Ukrainian airspace and fewer planes taking off. Twenty-five minutes more was all he’d allow himself. Money be damned.

  President Dmytro Brutka was tightly buckled into his seat on his Mil Mi-8 Russian-built twin-turbine helicopter. He traveled with two suitcases full of Euros, equally secure. Fifty million. Just part of the bounty he had squirreled away. The copter, normally his presidential airborne command post, flew at maximum speed, 260 km/h. Fast, but as far as Brutka was concerned, not fast enough.

  “ETA?” he demanded over the intercom.

  “Twenty minutes, Mr. President.”

  “Twenty!” Brutka complained.

  “Yes, sir. Air traffic.”

  “I don’t care about any other traffic.”

  “Enemy forces, sir.”

  This quieted the president. Brutka checked his watch and worried more about his money than the country he was abandoning. His Minister of Defense had his orders. Defend the country from what Nicolai Gorshkov was selling inside Ukraine as pro-Russian nationalism.

  A minute, two minutes later, Brutka was all the more impatient.

  “Faster!” he yelled over the comm.

  “We are at top speed, sir. Seventeen minutes.”

  “Zhytomyr Tower, this is United Nations 1066 requesting status.”

  “Charter 1066, remain in a holding pattern at 28,500 and await further instructions.” He was at the far end of his circuitous route. Fifty minutes from the airport on a straight shot.

  “Charter 1066 requesting new flight plan.” He radioed the coordinates that would at least get him closer.

  “Negative Charter 1066. Hold. Will advise.”

  Reilly turned down Pushkinka Street. Looking south, nothing but cars. He ran.

  “This way,” he yelled to Flanders. She kept pace with Reilly.

  At the next intersection he turned right onto Bohdan Khmelnitsky Street. Ahead, a building he remembered.

  “There!” Reilly said.

  “There, where?”

  Five minutes into the fifteen, they came up to an historic blue and white mansion converted into The National Museum of Natural History. Across the street, were three museum vans and a school bus in a fenced-in parking lot. Reilly and Flanders crossed over.

  “Locked,” Flanders said.

  A thick steel cable chain was wrapped around the fence gate, secured with an over-the-counter keyed Master Lock. Impossible to break apart—but not impossible to shoot apart.

  “Back! Behind me,” Reilly ordered. He aimed the Marakov from an obtuse angle three feet from the lock, held his breath, let it out slowly, and fired a single shot. The first missed. He adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger again. The lock shattered.

  “Now let’s hope there’s a key somewhere.”

  They ran to the bus, checked under the front bumper, the foot panel at the door, and behind the front license plate. “Got it,” Flanders announced. She found it hanging on the driver’s outside mirror.

  “Thank you,” Reilly said. He opened the door, sat in the driver’s seat, and examined the console.

  “Tell me you know how to drive a stick,” the reporter asked.

  Reilly inserted the key, started the engine, released the brake, and put the bus into gear. It stalled immediately.

  “You do know how to drive it, right?” she reiterated.

  He started it again, got a feel for the gas and clutch and inched forward, first scraping one of the vans, before he had real control.

  “Yes.”

  Ten minutes down. Five before the caravan was to leave.

  As he rolled forward an army LuAZ, the Ukrainian version of an American jeep, pulled into the lot and blocked Reilly’s exit. The doors flew open and two uniformed soldiers exited with weapons drawn.

  “Prypnennya!”

  Though he didn’t speak the language, it was clear the soldiers were ordering him to freeze.

  Amateur Facebook Live videos stream
ed around the world. Ukrainians were on Facetime with relatives in Europe and the U.S., and CNN and BBC bureaus sent out footage from the apartments atop the 533-foot tall Klovski Descent 7A—the city’s tallest building. Viewers from across the globe watched, including millions in Moscow and Stockholm. Meanwhile, U.S. audiences also learned that Russian T-62 tanks were pressing forward from the border and Ukraine’s president was unaccounted for.

  Inside the Kremlin, Nicolai Gorshkov beamed. He was following through on Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Crimea: finally taking Ukraine back. In addition to the tanks and paratroopers and ground forces, he had S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missiles to guard against incoming aircraft. The guiding belief was to hold and protect the capital, because once Kiev fell, all of Ukraine would fall.

  Gorshkov already had intelligence that Dmytro Brutka was on the run. His command had coordinates indicating where he was currently heading: Zhytomyr Airport, west of Kiev.

  “Sir?”

  His command requested an order to attack.

  The soldiers’ headlights blazed straight at them. Reilly thought this would not to end well. Two Americans breaking into a private lot, stealing a bus, and armed in the middle of an invasion? They’re scared. We’re out of our league. He pressed the talk button on his radio.

  “Volosin come in.” The radio squawked.

  “You’re running short on time, Reilly.”

  “Got a bus. Up and running, but we’re staring at two assault rifles. Ukrainian Army regulars. Any words of wisdom?”

  “Yes, stay in the bus. Repeat everything I say. Loudly, friendly. Then tell me what they say.”

  “Okay.”

  He had stopped the bus some twenty-five feet in front of the soldiers—close enough they couldn’t miss if they fired. Reilly kept his hands visibly on the steering wheel. Volosin slowly dictated a response.

  “Say it. Slowly. No sign of a threat in your voice. I’ll give it to you in pieces. Just repeat it.”

  Reilly shouted what Volosin told him as best he could, not knowing what he was actually communicating. After the fifth of five short sentences, the two Ukrainian infantrymen argued.

  “What’s happening, Reilly?”

  “They’re thinking.”

  “Your Ukrainian is piss-poor, but they’re trying to figure you out.”

  “With their weapons still on us.”

  “Time to see if money changes their minds. How much do you have?”

  “Two envelopes. No Ukraine hryvnas—five thousand euros.”

  Volosin dictated another message for Reilly to repeat.

  “Okay. Put two—no, three thousand in one envelope. And is that reporter with you still alive?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell her to do something useful. Take the fucking money and walk with it raised high. Nothing threatening. You go with her, but keep my gun tucked in your belt in the back. If all goes well, they’ll be thinking about the money more than killing you. If they make any threatening move, don’t hesitate, shoot them.”

  Every minute Butka looked at this watch he got more worried. His pilot dropped to under 91 meters, barely 300 feet above the ground. That’s what saved his life: the Russian pursuit jets lost him. But so did Zhytomyr radar.

  “Charter 1066, Zhytomyr clears you to approach.”

  Instructions came through for a new west-to-east flight plan which was going to cost more fuel. But at least he could continue. A minute later, when Zhytomyr re-established contact with Butka’s government helicopter, the charter was put in a holding pattern again.

  Ten minutes, the pilot said to himself. Ten more minutes.

  Flanders stepped out. She had both hands raised. In her right hand, a business size envelope from Reilly. The money. Reilly received one more instruction over the radio from Volosin.

  “Got it,” Reilly replied. He followed Flanders.

  The reporter stood three feet from the door, allowing room for Reilly to stand beside her, but he held back a step and to her right side. He had his hands in the air as well. They waited.

  “Tell me you’ve done this kind of thing before,” Flanders whispered.

  “I have.”

  “And you’ve lived to tell the story.”

  “I’m here.”

  She looked at him briefly, then back into the jeep lights.

  “And we’ll be talking about this tomorrow?”

  “If we stick with the plan.” The jeep’s lights blinked once.

  “That would be our signal,” Reilly said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.” They walked forward. “Smile,” he said under his breath, “and stay close. The more they look at the pretty girl, the less they think about me.”

  They were getting too close to talk aloud. Especially in a language the soldiers didn’t understand.They could see the two Ukrainian soldiers now rising behind the open doors. Young, maybe nineteen or twenty. Three thousand Euros could make a difference in their lives. Most of all, they could leave the parking lot richer than when they arrived. Reilly counted on that.

  Be smart, he thought. Take the money, call it a day.

  Reilly stopped short of the jeep by ten feet. Volosin had told him to say these words: “Boh stvoryv nas yak vil’nkykh stvorin’. Say them warmly,” the Ukrainian underscored, “with a nod and a smile. They will either lower their weapons, return the greeting, take your money and leave, or you will have to quickly kill them.”

  Reilly offered the soldiers a friendly nod and rattled off, “Boh stvoryv nas yak vil’nkykh stvorin’.” Flanders quickly glanced at him, not understanding, but catching the need to smile. He repeated the phrase and Flanders did her best to mimic him.

  Ten seconds. Five more. Then a monotone “Tak,” from the soldier on the driver’s side.

  “Tak,” repeated the other.

  “Tak,” Reilly replied. Yes.

  The two soldiers relaxed their aim. Savannah Flanders brought her hands down and forward, offering the envelope. The second soldier slipped his rifle strap over his shoulder and approached the attractive woman. She nervously handed him the money, now also adding, “Tak.”

  Reilly lowered his hands, but this time with a slow parade salute. He had given them more than they expected. Respect and money. The Ukrainians returned to their vehicle, backed away, and waved them forward.

  “Wait,” Reilly said. “Just nod. No quick movements.”

  Flanders didn’t need to be told twice. Once the LuAZ was away, Flanders asked, “What was it that you said?”

  “A quotation Volosin gave me from a Ukrainian cleric who died awhile back. Apparently, his memory meant more than a Spetsnaz major’s name.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “I don’t know, he just said memorize it and try it. We’ll have to ask.”

  “First thing when we hook up with Volosin,” the reporter replied.

  “Second. First, we get our asses onboard and out of Kiev. Fast.”

  64

  Brutka’s helicopter touched down. The president barreled out with his suitcases, ducking under the still rotating blades. But he didn’t know which way to go. An officer appeared out of the darkness.

  “This way, Mr. President,” he said. He offered to take the bags. The president held onto both tightly.

  Two minutes later he was onboard a Gulfstream charter, on loan—actually requisitioned from an oil executive seeking new business in Ukraine. A government pilot instructed Brutka to fasten his safety belt and prepare for immediate takeoff. It wouldn’t be soon enough.

  “Charter 1066, you are now cleared to approach,” Zhytomyr Tower advised. The mercenary pilot was instructed to drop to 25,000 feet and come in on a new heading. The money seemed real again, but the landing would be fast and the takeoff even faster.

  The buses rolled slowly and cautiously through the inner city with escaping traffic, past armored vehicles heading in. They stayed true to Volosin’s plan, taking a meandering
route. The interior lights remained off making it relatively impossible for other vehicles or posted sentries to peer inside. They moved as a loose group. Never speeding, allowing other vehicles to move around them. Always in radio contact, on course, until—

  “We’ve been waved to stop,” Volosin announced from the lead bus. “Stay cool,” he said in English. “Don’t come out unless I say.”

  Reilly detected a few more colorful Ukrainian words when Volosin gave the instructions to his team in his native language. The caravan slowed and finally rolled to a stop on the T0611 heading north, just before the M06 onramp to Zhytomyr. The radio was silent. Reilly assumed Volosin would bound out in some official manner, flash an old ID, bark orders or outright lies about the buses and the passengers. Undoubtedly, he would count on the guards being nervous, uncertain what their real duty was, and not able to easily communicate with command, which was likely confused.

  Sixty seconds into whatever was happening, Volosin radioed.

  “Reilly, we’re going to make it very easy for these young men. You pay the toll, then they let us through.”

  “How much?” Reilly now asked.

  “Five hundred per bus. Two thousand.”

  The president boarded his jet and put safety belts around the two suitcases. He was surprised to see a woman and child already onboard.

  “Who are they?” Brutka demanded of the pilot, a Ukrainian air force colonel he didn’t recognize.

  “My wife and child. You’re giving us all an all-expense paid vacation.”

  He now stood over the president, appearing more in command than Brutka.

  “I’ve got the keys to the plane and,” he looked at the suitcases, “you’ve got means to pay for your flight.”

  “This is the government’s money,” Dmytro Brutka replied coldly.

  “Of course, it is,” the pilot bellowed. “Of course, and you’re keeping it safe.”

  “I’ll have you court martialed,” Brutka screamed.

  The pilot’s wife turned in her seat and smiled. A cold smile that showed no sympathy for the country’s president who had slipped away from his own security, stealing money, and unwilling to fight the Russians.