A Cold Flight To Nowhereville

by Steve Fletcher

  “But…”

  “Don’t kill me, Dmitri. Shoot me in the shoulder, here. Can you do that?”

  “I do not wish to, comrade Colonel. But I can.”

  “It’s the only way. Retreat a few paces and fire one round into my shoulder with your pistol. Just one will be enough.”

  Dmitri took a few steps back, raised his pistol, and after a moment of hesitation fired.

  Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

  As the truck bumped over the snowy steppe, Ushakov drifted in and out of consciousness. How much I owe you, Loginov. How much more than you know. Because of you I will become powerful. I will become powerful enough to control your interrogations, and just so that you do not cause me trouble I shall have you quietly killed. No one will be the wiser. It happens all the time. But you pushed me, you challenged me. In your quest to be the consummate asshole you drove me to think in ways I hadn’t before and made me smarter. You have been a worthy adversary, Yaroslav Ivanovitch.

  A worthy adversary indeed.

  Tyuratam Gulag, Kazakhstan

  Katia gathered up the knapsack from the remains of their erstwhile campsite as Hardin worked on the motorcycle. Her spirit felt leaden and she was trembling with reaction as she slogged through the snow and wind towards the American.

  She had failed. All had been for nothing. Kingfish, her handler—they had been right. After all her internal storming and protestations, they had been right. She had seized the chance to plan her own mission and had failed at it. Now Ushakov was heading east across the steppe with Loginov, the camera, and the film. His triumph had been as complete as her failure. Now she lacked even the energy to rage at herself.

  Ushakov had beaten her.

  Hardin jumped on the bike’s starter, jumped on it again, and the big Ural fired. He twisted the throttle and revved the engine, and the Ural responded smoothly. The large headlight shone brightly against the weathered gray wood of the old barracks. “You were right,” he told her. “They didn’t hit it. I didn’t think they had since it was still going when it hit the ground.”

  She nodded dully. “Yes.”

  Accepting the knapsack from her, he began anchoring it to his on the rumbling Ural’s gas tank. The American seemed agitated. “All right. Hop on.”

  The passenger seat on the Ural was mounted on sturdy springs, positioned slightly above the driver’s saddle and over the rear fender. She climbed aboard, slipping her hands around Hardin’s middle. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied quietly, her voice heavy with depression. “But we don’t need to hurry, John. He won’t be back and he won’t send anyone after us. We’re free.” The statement gave her no comfort.

  Hardin craned his neck to look at her. “You think he’ll honor that deal he made?”

  “He must. If he tells his superiors in the KGB that he let us go, they will have him in the Lubyanka. So he won’t tell them about us. Not ever. And not only that, if I am ever interrogated I will tell of the deal he made, so he will go to any length now to ensure I am never apprehended.”

  “Well, I prefer to be the eternal pessimist,” he muttered. “We’ll travel southwest for an hour or two and then stop for a rest. We’ve got a full tank of gas and that should be good for 150 miles or so before we’re on foot again.”

  He kicked the shifter down into first, released the clutch, and the big bike surged smoothly away, fishtailing up the western hill, away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Tyuratam and the old gulag.

  Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

  It was almost dawn.

  Four men entered the cold office of Director Kalyugin: Ushakov, his shoulder heavily bandaged and his arm in a sling, supervisor Fedoreev, praporshchik Timofeev, and Dmitri Osipov. Timofeev and Osipov wore AK-47’s slung at their side; Fedoreev wore a pistol. Kalyugin’s face was ashen and his hands trembled on the desktop, but his eyes were steady as they fixed on the grim form of the chekist. “So,” Kalyugin muttered. “I am under arrest.”

  Ushakov’s voice was cold. “I place you under arrest for incompetence. Osipov, Timofeev, put the handcuffs on him.”

  Kalyugin offered no resistance as the men jerked him from his chair, hauled his arms roughly behind him and snapped the steel handcuffs on his thick wrists. “So, Pavel Sergeivich, this is how it all works out. You rise in the Party while I fall, eh?”

  He drew the small Minox out of his pocket and laid it carefully on Kalyugin’s desk. “As they say in America, you backed the wrong horse,” he replied matter-of-factly. “You took your chances and lost. You behaved stupidly and nearly cost me the traitor Loginov. You would not act without evidence—well, here it is. The difference is that I did not need the evidence of my eyes to tell me it existed.”

  Kalyugin stared at the tiny camera for a moment. “So now you become Director while I go to the Lubyanka?”

  “No, I have appointed comrade Fedoreev to that duty until a replacement is sent. I have been on the telephone to Moscow for several hours. I will be accompanying you to the Lubyanka, comrade Director, where I shall be designing the interrogation pipeline on my friend Loginov. You three, lock the criminal Kalyugin in the interrogation room and bind him to the chair. Ensure he is placed into submission.”

  The former Director was pulled roughly from the room. Ushakov knew Timofeev and Osipov would have some amusement with him when the door to the interrogation room closed. They wouldn’t kill him, though. That would happen at the Lubyanka. They’ve done well; let them have their fun. Highly satisfied, Ushakov left the Security building, standing outside in the darkness and snow of the MIK-2-1 compound. His shoulder ached. He shoved his good hand into his pocket and drew out his pack of cigarettes, maneuvering one into his mouth. With a dint of effort he managed to strike a match and light it, drawing the harsh smoke deep into his lungs. He smoked for a while, rocking on his heels as he watched the distant lights around the smoldering Oxygen/Nitrogen Plant. The fire had been extinguished and no propellants had been involved. The western face of the building was badly burned but reparable.

  The Second Chief Directorate had been stunned by his report. Osipov and Timofeev were to receive awards; Ushakov was to be promoted and commended by comrade General Serov himself. For now he was to dispatch the entire 217th to search the steppe between the Facility and the old gulag to try and find the film, but it had been assumed that the film was lost and ruined by the snow. They wouldn’t find Loginov’s motorcycle either, but that would be easily explained away. The Army couldn’t find their asses with both hands and there were enough nomads in the area that it would be assumed the motorcycle was taken for scrap. His bargain was a secret, and as long as Loginov knew nothing of it, all would be well.

  Loginov was in the infirmary and had not regained consciousness, his pulse remaining fast and uneven. And should he survive the trip back to Moscow, which did not at the moment seem entirely likely, Ushakov had maneuvered himself into a position where he would be keeping close watch on his questioning. He would permit Loginov to be interrogated for a while, then he would kill him. And on the day that Yaroslav Ivanovitch Loginov died, he would mourn.

  Kazakhstan

  Crumbling limestone cliffs loomed over them and a frozen creek meandered down the center of the gorge. The canyons were not very deep but served adequately to protect them from the wind, and Hardin had wrestled the bike down a steep slope of loose scree to ensure nobody would be able to easily follow. They had stopped in a forgotten bend of the canyon after a few hours and Katia judged the time to be somewhere around three in the morning. Hardin had rustled enough sage and odd sticks to build a fire which now burned cheerily on the cold, flat stones. They had cracked the ice covering the creek and filled the drinking tin with water for coffee, and the scent of it was delicious in the still, close canyon. Katia sat on the hard ground with her legs crossed, sipping her coffee, watching Hardin as he tinkered with the big Ural by the light of their campfire. Her tears had stopped, but her heart still ached.<
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  “Boy,” he muttered, using another American word. “This thing is sure a piece of work. They’ve copied a beemer, but damn. The workmanship is terrible. I hope you hold together for a little while yet. I want at least another hundred miles out of you!”

  She watched him for a while, absorbed in his work and clearly enjoying it. “John,” she asked in an uncertain voice, “I’d like to ask you something.”

  He looked up. “Okay. What?”

  “In that situation back there…what would you have done?”

  He stood, turning to face her as he wiped his hands off on his trousers. “Look, Katie, I think what you did was hard, even cold-blooded. But it was the only option. When I think back on it, I don’t see any other way it could have turned out. You took in every factor of the situation and saw what you could get and what you couldn’t, and you made the best deal you could. So we lost your contact. That’s a bad deal and I don’t feel very good about that either. But what you got is our freedom, at least for a while. I wouldn’t have done half as well.”

  “But I gave away the film,” she said dully, staring into the fire. “Why did you let me?”

  “It was your plan, Katia. It wasn’t mine, so it wasn’t a question of my letting you. It wasn’t my place to step in and tell you what to do. Believe me, I’ve made enough bad decisions of late that I’m not about to make another one. Given the choice between your instincts and mine in that situation, I’ll trust yours. It’s kind of a big step for me, you know!”

  She managed a half smile. “You’re trying to make me feel better and I appreciate it, John. But I know what a fine plan I came up with.”

  “Do you? You were able to predict exactly what your contact would do based on some really obscure phrases. You analyzed the situation on the Facility and I’ll tell you something else: you had Ushakov figured out a hell of a lot better than he had you. You knew he had to have your contact alive. Threatening to shoot the contact rather than Ushakov was brilliant and probably saved our lives.”

  He twisted the throttle of the Ural uncomfortably. “I think all you need is a little confidence in yourself, Katie. That’s all. You had Ushakov cold tonight and he knows it. I was really impressed by you tonight. Impressed hell, you were amazing.”

  She looked up at him. “But…I couldn’t convince him to part with the film. I gave up my contact and the film. I gave it all away. Don’t you see?”

  He winked at her and grinned. “I don’t know about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He planted a foot on the motorcycle’s black leather seat and pulled up the leg of his gray trousers. Digging around in his boot he pulled out a minute silver canister, holding it up for her to see. “Your plan worked, Katia.”

  “The film,” she gasped. “H-how did you get it?”

  “Loginov stuck it in my boot. The guy with a gun on me never saw.” He turned the small object over in his hands, studying it. “That was why I was in such a hurry to get out of there. But I think it’s wet on the inside, so I don’t know how much of it will be useful.”

  She ran to him, throwing her arms around him. For a moment he seemed startled, but then to her surprise he did not seem uncomfortable or push her away, but chuckled and gathered her in. And when she could no longer control her tears, she buried her face in his chest so he wouldn’t see her crying as relief washed through her. She felt his arms tighten protectively around her…as though he cared for her. She felt a delightful, unfamiliar warmth at the thought.

  So much, for her, had rested on that small canister of film, that now the outpouring of relief was almost more than she could bear. And with it was the knowledge that John Hardin had trusted her. He had trusted her to come up with a plan and make it work, and had believed in her ability to do so. That knowledge brought more tears to her eyes than even the knowledge that her mission had been a success.

  “Luck be a lady and all,” he breathed.

  “Whatever that means,” she whispered back, wiping her damp cheeks with her gloved hand.

  “It…oh, never mind!” He grinned at her. “I’ll explain sometime. But we’d better get moving.”

  He put their fire out and gathered up the packs. She found herself unable to move as she watched him, and presently he noticed. “What’s wrong?”

  It took her a while to get the words out for she dreaded saying them. But she had to. She could not bear not knowing. As long as she knew one way or the other, even if his answer was the one she feared, she would be able to cope. But to wonder was far worse. “Are you going to leave now?”

  He frowned, seeming puzzled by the question. “Leave you here? What kind of a question is that?”

  “No, I don’t mean that.”

  The American was quiet for a while. “Oh,” he replied slowly, then with growing comprehension. “Oh.”

  An odd look entered his eyes, one she had wondered if she should dare to hope for. He put down the packs and came to her, putting his arms around her waist once more. “I don’t think I’d like that very much, Katie.”

  Her eyes stung and she gave a low laugh. “Thanks, now I’m going to cry again!”

  “That’s okay,” he smiled. “I’m kind of good for crying on.”

  “We should go,” she sighed, releasing him after a while and drying her eyes. “I’ve cried more today than I ever have before. When we get farther south we’ll be able to look for small hotels in out of the way towns like Kyzylorda. We won’t have to sleep out the whole time since there will be no pursuit. As long as we have our papers, we’ll be fine.”

  “So,” he remarked as he threw a leg over the Ural and kicked the starter, “are you going to make me sleep on the couch again?”

  “Oh no, love,” she whispered close to his ear as she mounted up behind him and the powerful motorcycle rumbled beneath her. “I have something else in mind.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Steve Fletcher is a former Navy enlisted man and USAF Intelligence Officer. In the years immediately following the Vietnam War he served on MidwayIsland and aboard the USS Peoria. In the USAF he was stationed at Misawa AFB, Japan, and Nellis AFB, Nevada, among other places. He studied writing at the University of Kansas, where he had his work regularly skewered by Hugo-award winning science fiction author James Gunn. Mr. Fletcher considers himself an expert on technology nobody cares about.