by Glenn Meade
Massey looked back as Saarinen shouted above the engine noise, “Whenever you’re ready.” At that moment he pursed his lips.
There was a tangible tension everyone could feel. Massey said to Slanski and Anna, “Well, I guess this is it.” He shook Slanski’s hand, then Anna’s. “Good luck.”
It seemed as if there was nothing else to say. For a moment Anna hesitated, then she leaned forward and kissed Massey full on the lips. “Do svidaniya, Jake.”
For a long time Massey looked at her face, but before he could reply she climbed into the Norseman, Slanski after her, closing the cockpit door as Massey stood back.
Immediately Saarinen revved up the engine, and the snow gusted around Massey like a blizzard. In the surge of power as the aircraft strained to move, he looked at the three faces in the cabin, Saarinen working at the controls, Anna and Slanski in the back. He gave a thumbs-up sign, and Slanski did the same.
There was a crunching sound as the skis started to move out slowly onto the ice to the right of the string of yellow lights. Then came a sudden harsh growl of power as Saarinen eased forward the throttle. There was a momentary lag before the propeller bit the air hard, and then the Norseman started to move more rapidly.
It took only a couple of seconds for the speed to build up, and then the little aircraft was skimming fast over the uneven surface of the frozen sea, the skis bumping every now and then when she hit a rough patch of ice.
The sound of the engine faded in the wind, and the plane was sucked up and disappeared into the swirl of snow and blackness.
• • •
At fifteen thousand feet, skimming above the clouds in darkness, Lieutenant Arcady Barsenko, age twenty-one, watched the rush of black and winking stars against the cockpit glass of the Soviet Air Force MiG 15P, and the scene almost put him to sleep. He yawned. The noise of the Klimov turbojet engine roared in his ears, and he rubbed his nose tiredly with his fur-lined leather glove.
He swore. He could have done with being back in the mess in Tallinn toasting his feet at the stove. A crazy night to be out with the storm below, but the commander of Leningrad Air Base had insisted the patrols go ahead and warned the crews to be extra vigilant.
Crazy.
Barsenko ran his gloved fingertips lightly over the panel instruments and grinned. She was a beautiful machine, the latest-model MiG. Over six hundred miles an hour with an engine that sounded like a pack of wild jaguars fighting in the back of the aircraft.
Barsenko loved the MiG. His one regret was that he had been too young for the war. Machine and man in perfect harmony in a battle through icy Baltic skies. And with a machine like this he would have blasted those Germans out of the blue, no question. His leather thumb playfully rubbed the smooth red cap at the tip of the control stick. Underneath the hinged cap were the red plastic buttons that fired the twin 23mm and single 37mm cannon.
As for the Finns . . .Bah! Those reindeer-eating losers hardly ever crossed into Soviet airspace. Still, they had fiercely held the might of the Red Army at bay in Karelia in 1940, he’d give them that. His own father had been among the dead. That’s why he had particularly wanted this posting. If the opportunity ever arose and a Finn came into his airspace, Barsenko was going to make the most of it and scorch the swine.
The MiG bumped fast in sudden clear turbulence, then settled. Barsenko checked his instruments. Everything was fine, all the white pointers on the dials perfectly and correctly aligned.
Six more minutes to go, and he would be ready to set a course home for Tallinn and base. A couple of large vodkas in the mess and then meet his girlfriend, Magda. Barsenko grinned at the thought of her.
He had the new onboard radar switched on, and he idly twiddled the knobs until the indicator that showed the position of the antenna inside the MiG’s nose cowl pointed down into the gray mass of cloud below. He glanced at the green illuminated glass. Nothing but clutter.
Suddenly he saw a bright white blip, twenty miles ahead and below. Then another. And another. Three blips.
They vanished.
What in the name of . . .? Barsenko came wide awake and rubbed his eyes. Had he really seen something? Snow sometimes gave ghost images in bad weather. Or else the radar was acting up.
But three strong blips? Three fast aircraft out there in the blinding swirl of the storm at eleven o’clock, still in Finnish airspace but coming his way? What was going on?
His radar had to be playing tricks on him. It was probably clutter. He could call up Tallinn radar, but those lazy swine hardly ever answered in lousy weather, or the reception was too bad to decipher what they were saying.
Still, no harm in having a look below. The cloud was broken in places, and maybe he’d see something. He eased back on the throttle and the roar of the jet engine softened to a hush, then the nose of the MiG dipped into a gentle dive.
Barsenko kept his eye on the radar and anxiously fingered the red cap on the control stick. Anyone tried to move into his territory and he was going to get blasted out of the skies . . .
• • •
Massey stood over the stove and nervously lit a cigarette.
His hands shook as he tried to warm them. They were numb from the chill outside, and he went to pour a glass of vodka to stop his shaking before he checked that the radio was still working. The red light glowed on the panel. Good. A heavy gust of wind raged outside, and he looked up as he heard snow dash against the window clapboards. He thought, What a lousy night.
He swallowed the vodka in one gulp and refilled the glass, then pulled up a chair beside the stove. Suddenly figures stormed into the room out of the darkness and crashed into him. He was winded and fell back onto the floor, knocking over a chair.
“What the—” As Massey struggled to his feet something as hard as steel hit his skull.
27
* * *
Janne Saarinen had smelled trouble for some time now. He was sweating, perspiration running down his face. Twenty minutes after takeoff and the Norseman was rocking violently. It plowed through the thick swirl of cloud in blinding whiteness at fifteen hundred feet, the little aircraft tossing about like a balloon in a hurricane. He was fighting hard to keep her under control, and some instinct told him it was going to get worse.
He turned to glance at his passengers. The woman’s face was a mask of white, and she looked as if she was going to throw up. The American seemed calm enough, but he was gripping the seat hard to stop himself being thrown around. Luckily the two of them were strapped into their seats.
As the Norseman bucked wildly again Saarinen looked back. A flash of light appeared on the window, and the cockpit glass glowed brightly. Thick veins of electricity coursed rapidly all over the panes like creeping vines in a glowing, blue-green color, until they covered the front windows. It was an eerie sight, and Saarinen shouted to his passengers, “St. Elmo’s fire. A strange phenomenon. You often get it in weather like this. Don’t worry, it’s relatively harmless.”
Slanski said, “How long before we drop?”
“About fifteen more minutes should do it. We can’t stay in this cloud for much longer.”
He turned back to scan his instruments, fiddling with a knob on the panel while Slanski and the woman checked their parachute harnesses.
Slanski looked at her. “Okay?”
Anna’s face was green. “You didn’t tell me it was going to be like this.”
He smiled. “Some things you’re better off not knowing. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of it soon enough.”
There was a sudden violent crack and the Norseman lurched, then another crack and Saarinen had to work the stick feverishly to maintain control as the aircraft slewed to the left. Anna gripped Slanski’s arm painfully hard.
“What’s the matter?” Slanski shouted at the Finn.
“Lightning strikes. This buffeting is too severe. If it keeps up, it could do damage.”
Suddenly a sound like machine-gun fire hit them in a fierce wave, the shock slam
ming into the aircraft, shaking it hard. The sensation ebbed away, then slowly built up again, only this time more intensely, until the whole structure of the plane seemed to be quaking violently.
Saarinen shouted above the noise, “It’s bad, I’ll say that.”
“What’s causing the sound?”
Sweat dripped from Saarinen’s brow. “There’s hail the size of tennis balls hitting us. We’ve got to get out of here fast. We’ll just have to take our chances out of the cloud.”
He pushed the stick forward and eased off on the throttles, and the Norseman began to nose down. The hail and buffeting became even worse for several moments, then they broke into misty clear air at twelve hundred feet and it subsided, wisps of thin cloud and flakes of snow bursting past them, the frozen Baltic below.
Saarinen pointed to a faint haze of lights far over on the left. “That’s Tallinn. The drop’s another eight minutes east of here.”
There was a sudden swish of violent air, and Saarinen looked up as the Norseman rocked fiercely in a wash of turbulence and a flash of gray rocketed past on their port side. “Crap!”
“What was that?” shouted Anna.
Before Saarinen could reply they saw a burst of tracer fire off to the right, and another flash of gray roared past out of nowhere.
“What the . . .? This isn’t our night. We’ve got company. Let’s see what we can do about it.” Janne quickly applied power and pulled back on the stick, dropped the flaps, and the Norseman rose back into the turbulent cloud again, shuddering as it was sucked up into the air and the buffeting resumed as before.
“What’s up?” Slanski demanded.
“You tell me!” said Saarinen frantically. “Those were Focke-Wulfs from the Finnish Air Force. I don’t understand it. Those guys shouldn’t be up in weather like this. And they’re in Soviet airspace. We must have been picked up on Helsinki military radar and the air force decided to investigate. They probably think we’re a Russian reconnaissance plane making the most of a bad night. That’s why they’re firing, but it doesn’t make sense.”
“What do we do?”
“The only thing we can: stay in cloud and carry on. Uncomfortable, but safer than having one of my own countrymen shoot us out of the sky.”
Saarinen quickly retracted the flaps and checked his instruments. Sweat glistened on his face, and the instrument panel was shaking fiercely with the turbulence. It felt as if the little Norseman were driving over cobblestones, then the sensation slowly reduced as the flaps came in, but it didn’t go away completely.
“Another thirty seconds and we’ll be over Estonian soil. If those Focke-Wulf pilots have any sense they won’t follow us in. Seven minutes to the drop zone by my reckoning. When I give the word, open the door and be ready to jump. And don’t hang around.”
Janne turned back to his instruments. The waiting seemed to go on forever as the Norseman was rocked from side to side. Finally he roared, “I’m coming out of the cloud. Get ready with the door. I’m going to try and find your drop!”
Slanski and Anna prepared themselves, and then Saarinen eased back on the throttle and pushed the stick forward. Seconds later they broke cloud at twelve hundred feet into almost completely still air. The night was still misty with light flakes of snow, but they could see faintly the glow of Tallinn’s lights again off in the distance.
Saarinen had his earphones on, and he was fiddling with a knob on the radio receiver, at the same time watching his instruments and compass. “Darn it!”
“What’s up now?”
He glanced over at Slanski. “I’m just getting crackle where the Russian beacon ought to be. It’s the damned weather.”
He looked out of the side window into the misty darkness, perspiration dripping from his temples as he tried to make out the contour of the land below. It seemed impossible to Slanski and Anna that he could discern anything out there, the land below all starched white in the blackness, here and there tiny pinpricks of light, but suddenly he tensed as he concentrated on the earphones. He fiddled with an instrument knob on the panel, then turned back and shouted, “Got the beacon! Drop’s coming up in twenty seconds. Open the door!”
Slanski pushed open the door. A blast of freezing air raged into the cabin. It was almost impossible to get the door fully open, the force of the air against it like a ton in weight, and then finally it gave and Slanski locked it in place. He gripped Anna’s arm, pulled her closer, and indicated that she go first.
She moved across him to the door, and then Saarinen roared, “Go! Go! Go!”
For a second she seemed to hesitate, then Slanski pushed her out, counted to three, lunged after her, and was swallowed up by the rush of freezing air and darkness.
In the cockpit, Saarinen held on to the stick with one hand, reached back, and released the arm catch, and the door slammed shut with a thunderclap. He locked it, then turned back as the Norseman lurched violently again, then settled.
He let out a sigh of relief, wiped the lather of sweat from his face, then banked the plane around in a perfect arc. He just hoped those Focke-Wulfs were not still lurking out there somewhere, because if they were he might be in trouble. It meant he would have to stick in the cloud, despite the risks.
He gritted his teeth and sighed again. “Right, my sweet, let’s see if we can get you home in one piece.”
• • •
The blood was pumping through Arcady Barsenko’s veins like fire as the MiG tore through the cloud at five thousand feet, with four hundred knots on the airspeed indicator.
A minute ago he had seen another blip on the radar. Slower and smaller. A light plane, he guessed. Seconds later it had vanished in the clutter on the screen. Barsenko frowned. He had definitely seen the blip off to his right, maybe five miles away and moving slowly. No question about it.
The other three blips he had detected earlier had come and gone on the screen at intervals, and he couldn’t get a good fix on them. It was the lousy weather making the radar act up, but they were definitely there. Three fast aircraft and a little light plane out there in the blinding swirl of cloud.
It didn’t make sense in these conditions. Like playing Russian roulette. The light aircraft could be a reconnaissance, but even that didn’t figure in this weather, and if he wasn’t mistaken it appeared that the three faster planes were hunting the light one.
Unless the light aircraft was Soviet. A reconnaissance from Leningrad Air Base that had strayed into enemy airspace and the Finns were looking for him: it was the only explanation. Barsenko scratched his chin and glanced at the radar.
Seconds later the three fast blips showed up again. Five miles away and coming at him fast. This time they stayed on the screen. But no sign of the light aircraft. Maybe the Finns had already shot him down?
Barsenko grimaced angrily at that thought and said to the three blips, “Just stay right where I can see you, you slobs.” He decided to come out of the cloud to see if he could make visual contact. If he could, then he was going to blast the Finns right out of the sky. He could argue about it afterward. The aircraft were very close to Soviet airspace, and by their maneuvering and speed they could only be military. Barsenko grinned as he disengaged the autopilot, eased forward on the stick, and pulled back on the throttle.
The MiG reduced speed and dipped into the cloud with a terrible buffeting that seemed to go on forever, but ten seconds later, as he broke cloud at fourteen hundred feet into a sudden clear pocket of air and started to pull back on the stick, Barsenko’s jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide in horror.
He saw the little light aircraft dead ahead, approaching on a direct collision course. He banked frantically to starboard.
• • •
If there was a purgatory, then this was it, Janne Saarinen decided. Static arced across the cockpit window, veins of electricity dancing before his eyes, and every now and then the little Norseman reared up like a wild horse, shuddering as big lumps of hail smashed into the fuselage again.
> He had been in bad weather many times before, but nothing as bad as this. Besides, when he saw storm cloud he avoided it if at all possible.
This time it wasn’t possible. A second later, as he scanned his instruments, a sudden downdraft dropped him out of the cloud, and as the aircraft was spat out into a patch of clear dark sky, instinct made him look up sharply as he heard a faint howling in his ears. “No . . .!”
He saw the lights of the MiG as it roared toward him. He frantically pushed the stick to the right, and the Norseman banked sharply with such a force that his skull cracked into the cockpit door.
The MiG crashed into Saarinen’s left wing, tore it off with a terrible, juddering bang, and then came a grating sound of shearing metal, exploding in his ears, the Norseman yawing violently to the left.
Saarinen suddenly felt an odd sensation, as if he was suspended in midair, and then came a second bang somewhere behind him as the MiG exploded in a burst of violent, intense light.
The third explosion came a split second later, but this one tore through Saarinen’s cockpit like a roll of thunder as his own fuel tank ignited.
There was a brief, intense feeling of searing hot pain, and then he was consumed by a ball of orange flame.
• • •
Slanski sank through the freezing air, a vicious cold cutting into his bones, icy wind rushing in his ears.
A sparkle of lights that was Tallinn glowed in the distance off to his left. He had counted to ten, and now he tugged hard on the ripcord. There was a deafening crack as he was sucked upward, his breath snatched away as the parachute blossomed.
As he floated down he saw fields of white and patches of dark forest below. He tried quickly to find his bearings and saw a ribbon of road far off to the right, pools of light and shadow from streetlamps on either side. What appeared to be the lights of a convoy of military vehicles snaked along the road, and he guessed it was a highway. He craned his neck and swung in the harness, trying to see Anna’s parachute.
Nothing.