City of Exiles (9781101607596)

by Nevala-lee, Alec

  “If I were you, I would look at the prime minister at the time,” Ilya said. “Menderes, I think his name was. And if I’m right—”

  He broke off. From the other end of the line, there was a sudden crash. Wolfe covered her free ear with one hand, trying to hear. “Ilya?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ilya said. “I need to go.” And with that, the telephone went dead.

  Wolfe lowered the phone, sensing that the others were watching her. When she turned around, she found that Asthana, in particular, was looking at her intently. “What was that about?”

  “I don’t know,” Wolfe said, holding up a finger for time. “Something’s happening at Belmarsh. Listen, I need you to look something up. It’s the name of the prime minister of Turkey in the late fifties, something like Menderes. Tell me if he was assassinated or died in office.”

  As Asthana opened her laptop, Wolfe redialed the last incoming call, which went to an automated voice mail message. She hung up, then called the main number at Belmarsh, but heard nothing but a busy signal.

  From the conference table, Asthana spoke up. “I’ve got it. Adnan Menderes was the prime minister of Turkey throughout most of the fifties, before he was executed in a military coup.”

  Wolfe headed to where Asthana was seated. “Any connection to the Dyatlov Pass?”

  “No,” Asthana said. “He was killed more than two years later. And he was hanged, not poisoned. So—”

  “Wait,” Lewis said, pointing to the screen, which displayed a biography of Menderes. “Two years earlier, a plane with Menderes on board crashed just outside Gatwick. It was a special flight from Ankara, carrying Turkish officials for the signing of a treaty in London. The entire crew was killed, but Menderes and most of the other passengers survived.”

  Wolfe leaned toward the screen, scanning it quickly. “You’re right. The reason for the crash is unknown. The last communication was nine minutes before the plane went down in the woods three miles from the runway. There was no sign of technical failure or pilot error. And the date—”

  “—was February 17, 1959,” Lewis finished. “Twelve days after the Dyatlov Pass.”

  “So what are we saying here?” Asthana asked, looking at the others. “That this crash was a failed assassination?”

  Cornwall, coming from behind her desk, bent down to look at the screen as well. “It isn’t entirely out of the question. Russian intelligence has always been active in Turkey. Menderes was moving closer to the West. So it’s possible that this crash was an attempt at regime change.”

  Wolfe tried to think. “Okay. So let’s say that the Dyatlov Pass was an improvised test of a weapon that was used two weeks later. What would happen if you put this kind of poison on a plane?”

  “It’s perfect,” Lewis said. “A plane is a confined space with a recirculating ventilation system, so it’s an ideal place for an aerosol weapon. And from what we’ve seen, it works very quickly.”

  “So maybe it was used to take out the crew,” Wolfe continued, leaping ahead to the next step. “Just the crew, not the passengers. It affected the pilot badly enough to cause a crash, and none of the crew survived to describe what had happened. It wouldn’t show up in an autopsy. The delivery system would be hard to find in the wreckage, if you weren’t looking for it. Not in that kind of crash—”

  Wolfe went pale. The last piece fell into place, appearing in her mind with shocking suddenness, so that she had to grip the table to steady herself. She knew. It had been right in front of her all along. And as she pulled out her phone, her heart pounding, she feared that she was too late to stop what was already coming.

  44

  Powell was in the conference area at the rear of the jet when his phone rang. Because it was a private plane, passengers could do whatever they liked with their phones, and ringtones had been going off periodically throughout the cabin since their departure from Helsinki. He checked the display. “It’s a colleague of mine. Sorry, but I should probably take this.”

  Chigorin only nodded, then returned to his work. The grandmaster was seated at the long conference table, along with his security chief and assistant, going over plans for the meeting in Arbat. Stavisky, who had remained behind in Helsinki, was being patched in. Powell headed for a remote corner of the cabin before answering his phone. “This isn’t a good time. What’s going on?”

  Wolfe’s voice was unnaturally tense. “Alan, I’ve been going through the documents that Chigorin provided, and there’s something you need to know right now. Has the plane taken off yet?”

  “Yes, we’re over Russia.” Powell glanced back at the others. “Is something wrong?”

  “I hope not, but listen to me. You need to land as soon as possible. I think that Operation Pepel was a plot to kill Adnan Menderes, the Turkish prime minister. They put a neurological poison on his plane and caused it to crash. The Dyatlov Pass incident was a dry run for the real operation, which took place two weeks later. You understand? The target was his plane—”

  Powell saw the connection immediately. “So you’re saying that the poison itself—”

  “—was never meant to kill on its own, but to drive its victims mad long enough to be fatal,” Wolfe finished. “In the Dyatlov Pass, they died of exposure. But if you put a poison like this on a plane—”

  “I understand.” As Powell considered the implications, his blood ran cold. Looking at his watch, he saw that an hour remained until they were scheduled to land. “All right. I’ll call back in five minutes.”

  “I’ll be here.” Wolfe hesitated, as if wanting to say something more, then only said, “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” Powell said, and hung up. For a second, he remained standing at the bulkhead, trying to gather his thoughts. Oddly enough, he felt no fear, only a daunting sense of the difficulty of what was to follow, as he turned back to the others, saying, “I need to talk to the captain.”

  Something of the moment’s urgency must have been visible in his face, because he saw that he had Chigorin’s full attention. For the first time, he caught a glimpse of what it must be like to be seated across a chessboard from the grandmaster. “Is there an emergency?”

  Powell weighed his response for a fraction of a second. “Yes. Please come with me.”

  Chigorin gave a nod to his security chief, who followed them as they moved through the passenger cabin to the cockpit. There were twelve people on board, Powell recalled, including members of the staff and crew. As he passed the nearest window, he found that all he could see was a layer of cloud, while far below, he knew, lay the vast expanse of Russia.

  They entered the cockpit, where the captain and copilot were stationed at the controls. Both men were in their forties, professional and trim, and they had been in Chigorin’s service for years. As the passengers appeared at the door, the captain looked back in surprise. “What is it?”

  Powell saw that he had no choice but to dive in. “There may be a destructive device on board. Based on what I’ve been told by a colleague, we need to land this plane right now.”

  Chigorin’s security chief eyed him distrustfully. “You’re talking about a bomb?”

  “No.” As he spoke, Powell kept his eyes fixed on Chigorin, who was the one he really needed to convince. “A neurological device. We believe that Operation Pepel used a similar device in an attempt to kill the prime minister of Turkey, Adnan Menderes, by bringing down his plane—”

  “—which went down just after the Dyatlov Pass incident,” Chigorin said, grasping his meaning at once. A strange smile crossed his face. “Yes, of course. How stupid not to see it before. And you believe it was the same weapon?”

  “I can’t be sure,” Powell said, seeing that the others had no idea what the two of them were talking about. “But if a similar weapon is being used against you now, we can’t take any chances. From what I know about these
toxins, they act fast, and they can either be inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Which means that it’s possible that we’ve already been exposed.”

  The security chief was glowering at him. “This is a trick,” he said to Chigorin. “I told you that we shouldn’t have let this man on board. This is only an attempt to keep us away from Moscow—”

  “I don’t think so,” Chigorin said quietly, his eyes still on Powell. “I think he’s telling the truth. If he is, we need to get on the ground as soon as possible. Dmitri, what do you think?”

  The question was directed at the captain, who had listened in silence. Now he turned to Powell. “This poison. It is an aerosol?”

  “That seems likely,” Powell said. “It could be in the air we’re breathing right now.”

  “Then we go to oxygen.” The captain spoke calmly to the copilot. “Yevgeny, deploy masks with the toggle down. One hundred percent.”

  His face grim, the copilot turned a knob on the console, which set the masks to deliver oxygen from the onboard tanks, without being mixed with cabin air. Then he hit the deploy switch. “Done.”

  Reaching out, the captain turned on the intercom, saying evenly: “Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. Because of an unexpected ventilation issue, oxygen masks have been deployed. Flight attendants, please assist the passengers, then return to your stations.” He switched off the public address system. “I’m initiating a descent to ten thousand feet. Yevgeny, please go back and confer with the others. I will check our options for landing.”

  As he spoke, he removed the oxygen mask from a stowage cup over his shoulder and slid it over his nose. Powell followed the others out of the cockpit. As he did, he felt the plane shift slightly as they started their descent.

  Moving through the cabin, he saw that the other passengers had taken their seats, oxygen masks in place. Several looked frightened. As he passed, Chigorin smiled. “Don’t worry,” the grandmaster said in Russian. “This is only a temporary problem. We’ll know more soon.”

  In the rear conference area, the masks were already deployed, swinging like pendulums from their plastic lanyards. The copilot had brought a binder from the cockpit. As the others gathered around, their masks turning them into a group of strange acolytes, he flung it open. “If they put an aerosol device on the plane, it has to be in the ventilation system. The question is where.”

  Finding a schematic of the ventilation system, the copilot began to point out various features. “I’ll be quick. Bleed air, from outside the plane, flows through the engines to the air-conditioning packs, and from there to the mix manifold and cabin. You with me so far?”

  Chigorin, studying the diagram as if it were a chess problem, nodded. “I follow you.”

  “Now, if the device is located upstream, so to speak, from the mix manifold, we can bypass it using the ram system, which is an alternate source of air from the outside. But if the device is in the mix manifold itself, our only options are to disable it or depressurize the cabin.”

  “We can’t take any chances,” Powell said. “We need to depressurize the cabin now.”

  The copilot shook his head. “We can’t. Not above ten thousand feet. Once we’ve descended enough, we can flip a switch and open the outflow valves. But we won’t be at a safe altitude for another few minutes.”

  Chigorin took this in. His face was very still. “Where do you think it would be?”

  The copilot wiped his brow with the sleeve of his uniform. “If it were me, I would put it in the mix manifold.”

  “So would I,” Chigorin said. “We need to depressurize as soon as possible. But we should shut off the other systems first.”

  “All right.” Rising from his seat, the mask still on, the copilot went to the bulkhead phone. Bringing it to his ear, he dialed the cockpit and said, “We’re switching to ram air. Turn off the air conditioner packs and bleed system.”

  The captain’s voice came over the speakers in the rear cabin. “Done. Recirculation fans are off as well. And I’ve looked into our options for an emergency landing. We’re thirty miles from Krechevitsy Air Base, near Novgorod. It’s our best chance. Shall I divert?”

  Chigorin nodded at the copilot, who spoke into the phone again. “Yes. We’ll divert.”

  “Making course change,” the captain said. “Yevgeny, I’ll need you up here now.”

  Hanging up the phone, the copilot turned to the door. Before he could leave, Powell spoke. “Wait. Just because we’re breathing oxygen doesn’t mean we’re safe. If this substance can be absorbed through the skin, we can’t take the risk of further exposure. We need to look for the device.”

  “I agree,” Chigorin said. “Is there any chance that we can reach it from the cabin?”

  “Not if it’s in the mix manifold,” the copilot said. “There’s no access from here. But if there’s a separate trigger mechanism, it may be visible.” He looked Powell over, as if sizing him up. “If you really want to do this, you’ll need a way to breathe. Please follow me.”

  The copilot removed his mask and headed back to the cockpit. Powell took a lungful of oxygen, then pulled off his own mask and followed, holding his breath as he passed through the cabin.

  In the cockpit, the copilot put on another mask from the stowage unit next to his seat, then went to a plastic case mounted on the bulkhead. As Powell watched, still holding his breath, the copilot yanked away the cover and let it fall to the floor. Inside was a sealed bag with a personal breathing apparatus inside, which he pulled out. “It goes over your entire head,” the copilot said to Powell. “You’ll be able to move around the cabin. Understand?”

  Powell nodded, watching as the copilot pulled a tab to open the bag and removed the breathing gear, which consisted of a visor and transparent hood. Following the copilot’s instructions, Powell ducked his head forward and put his hands into the neck seal, guiding the hood over his head. Then the copilot arranged the base of the hood around Powell’s neck and shoulders, took hold of the straps at the corners of the visor, and pulled them sharply outward.

  At once, Powell heard a rustle as the starter candle went off and the mask was filled with oxygen. As he inhaled, the copilot pulled the straps back, securing the breathing cone to Powell’s face. “How are your glasses?”

  Reaching through the fabric of the hood, Powell adjusted the earpieces at his temples so that his glasses sat more comfortably. “They’ll do.”

  The copilot smoothed down the neck shield at the back of the hood, making sure it was airtight. “Listen carefully. The mix manifold is underfloor at the rear of the cabin, just before the equipment bay. You can’t access it directly, but if there’s a separate trigger, it’s probably there. Got that?”

  Inside the hood, with the rest of the world muffled by plastic, things seemed curiously peaceful. “Yes. I’ll do what I can.”

  The copilot took a seat next to the captain, then extended a hand to Powell. “Udachi.”

  “Same to you,” Powell said, returning the handshake. Then he headed for the rear of the plane, groping his way forward. As he entered the passenger cabin, his heart still thudding, he forced himself to remain calm, knowing that the next few minutes would be crucial—

  —and it was only when he looked at the others that he saw he was already too late.

  Powell halted and stared. The words came without warning. “No,” he whispered. “Oh, no—”

  In the rows to either side, the passengers were buckled securely into their seats, masks in place. Looking from one face to another, Powell saw a cabin attendant, eyes wide, staring at something unseen. She was screaming. Next to her, Chigorin’s assistant wept, her hands clawing at her face. When she lowered them, he could see the bloody tracks left by her nails.

  “No,” Powell said again, and began to move numbly toward the rear of the plane. He could hear the blood thund
ering in his ears, the rustling of the hood like a chorus of voices.

  At the entrance to the aft cabin, he halted again, and felt another wave of despair, so wrenching that it seemed to knock him off his feet. For a moment, he found himself hoping that this was only a dream. But everything around him was too bright, too real, the cabin flooded with merciless light.

  Chigorin was seated at the table, along with his security chief. His face was rigid with horror. When Powell turned to look at the man seated next to him, his own horror grew complete.

  The second man at the table was no longer the security chief. Now it was his father.

  Powell fell to his knees. Now Chigorin was gone as well. His father lolled backward in both seats, bleary eyes turned in his direction, begging and mocking. Both pairs of eyes were bloodshot and filled with rheumy tears. “Alone,” his father croaked. “Left me to die alone—”

  Raising his hands to his face, Powell tried to squeeze his eyes shut, but found that he could not. A black cloud was swirling before him. At first, he thought it was a fire, and that he should take the extinguisher down from the bulkhead, but when he looked closer at the cloud, he saw that it was alive, full of crawling things with claws and insectile skins.

  A freezing horror took hold of him. He told himself that it was just a vision, a dream. Then, tearing his gaze away, he saw the bulkhead standing temptingly to one side. Rearing back, he lunged forward, his right hand clenched, and punched the wall as hard as he could.

  Red and orange pinpoints danced before his eyes, an explosion of pain that cleared the smoke. He looked down at his knuckles, which were bleeding, and noticed, wonderingly, that he had broken his hand. Then he turned and saw that Chigorin and the security chief were back in their seats. His father was gone.

  Rising, he began to fight his way to the aft section, which was only a few steps away. From behind him rose the sound of weeping and screaming. His heart was hammering, the plastic of the hood pressing like a living thing against his face. He gradually became convinced that something unspeakable was lurking in the corner of his vision, just barely out of sight.