by Dean Ing
No, the wings did not flap, but they seemed to be filled with helium. Without helicopter blades or rockets, the vehicle was rising straight up, then nosing forward, dipping a little, almost skimming the brush as it began to pick up forward speed in a whispering rush that changed as the pilot moved those pedals. Only one American military airplane did that, and no light planes at all. But I don't know what the Soviets have, she thought.
Petra knew an airspeed indicator when she saw one. Before it registered thirty knots, a little over thirty miles an hour, Smith had the control stick tilted to the left. The great bird responded sluggishly, and the gust of breeze that struck them before they had risen a hundred feet became a near disaster. The pilot's hand slapped the throttle hard, his feet mashing those pedals, and Petra saw scrubby trees rushing up at them as the aircraft heeled over, pivoting so that the nearside wing missed the upsloping terrain by a foot or so. Then the craft was rising again with a sickening lurch, headed toward the narrow end of the little valley. And even when the tachometer needle strayed toward the red, the engine sounds were muffled.
They circled twice in a tight climbing spiral before rising above the ridgeline, at a pace so lazy as to seem in slow motion, and only then did Petra see the great electronic ears spread out in the distance below. Not far from their takeoff point lay a concrete pad with painted legends and a low shed nearby. "Where are we, Canada?"
"West Virginia," he said, throttling back now, the aircraft still climbing although the antenna complex now slid from sight behind a ridge. "It's a spook listening post, one of the biggest. And this is a spook airplane. Appropriate, huh?"
She ignored the grin that went with his last comment, swallowing to keep her stomach where it belonged. "You're not one of my uncle's people," she said.
"Nope." He tilted the video screen so that it faced him, and began to finger its keyboard. "I'm not anybody's people, Petra Leigh. For that you can thank your uncle's people, the whole miserable lot of them." He swore at the screen, scanned the horizon, then tried the keyboard again. And swore again. "If only that dumb schmuck weren't so cute with passwords," he added.
Petra made it light, airy. "What schmuck?"
"No you don't, kid. Get this through your head: if we don't get shot down or forced down or just plain fall down, sooner or later you'll have a lot of people asking questions. I've spent a long time working this out alone, but some of my enemies used to act like my friends. I know how they think—or at least you'd better pray that I do," he added, punching at the keyboard again. His disgusted grimace suggested another failure.
"When do we get to eat, Mr. Smith?"
"I've got water, cheese, sausage, raisins. Sorry, no eggs Benedict," he said, rummaging with his left hand behind his seat.
That was the instant when she knew him; not the whole picture, but the essential bits. A friend of Uncle Dar's from long ago, one who had learned her breakfast favorite at Old Lyme, but a friend no longer. If she kept cudgeling her memory, she might remember his name. She tried to keep the light of this small triumph from her eyes, accepting the old suede bag as he swung it toward her. He'd put his repair kit back in the bag, which seemed to be full of duct tape, tools, and bottles. She held a bottle up and looked at him.
"Don't drink that, it's full of tetraethyl lead," he said quickly. "Food's at the bottom. And be careful with those cardboard tubes. They're dangerous."
She took inventory, trying to remember it all, even the flimsy bag, model cement, and the tubes of epoxy. The water was in a pair of two-liter plastic Seven-Up bottles. She opened the pound box of Sun Maid raisins as well, and took a handful, pretending not to study the instrument panel. The magnetic compass and the sun agreed that they were climbing almost due south.
While she was chewing, he loosened his shoulder straps for more comfort. "The Cherry Seven-Up bottle is yours," he said. "The diet bottle's mine.
Can't fill 'em again 'til we land, and you keep your hands off mine."
"Oh boy, but you are one tough guy," she said acidly.
A shrug. "Those are the rules. They could get tougher," he reminded her, dividing his attention between the keyboard and the mottled terrain that stretched away below, a rumpled coverlet with long parallel ridges made more flat and featureless as the aircraft continued to climb. He smiled to himself, tilting the control stick to the right, her own stick following suit.
The great bird banked obediently, almost silently, to the right, sliding down invisible corridors of air. Petra took a swallow of water and recapped the bottle. "Changed your mind already, Mr. Smith?"
"A piece of it," he said, and pointed to the right, far ahead. "See that high ridge? Should be some nice thermal air above it, and we can throttle back. If I trusted this sucker for an in-flight restart, I could shut 'er off for hours and let the ridge take us where we're going."
"And where would that be?" It did not occur to Petra until too late that her purring tone was one she generally employed on much younger men.
"You're about as subtle as a tire-iron, kid. South, actually southwest for the moment, as any freshman engineering student should know by now. And you're almost a senior. If I were fool enough, I could show you Roanoke or Asheville on the way but until I get chummier with the brains of this thing I intend to stay well clear of big towns.
"It's been a long time since I was bewitched, bothered, and bewildered by a kid with a cute ass, so save it. We're going to be together for a few days; don't make me hurt you and don't act empty-headed because that would piss me off. When I'm pissed off, I don't care how bad you hurt. For that matter, you could just step out that side right now and things would be easier for me. All that matters is that people think you're in here."
Petra watched distant clouds drag shadows over ridgelines below, her ears popping as the aircraft began to descend with the tachometer needle at idle, and she swallowed hard. "What people? I've been kidnapped, I'm scared, and I don't know what this is all about. Surely you can tell me something. You owe me that much."
His glance held cynical amusement. "I owe you zip. All the same, when you're scared enough you can do something stupid that'll get us both killed." Their descent, now, was carrying them parallel to a series of ridges that seemed to stretch toward the southwest like a single mountain as far as she could see, with vast popcorn bulges of cloud-hugging ridges here and there.
A thin, silver line scrawled a curving "Z" into the nearest ridge and a tiny, squarish black dot traversed it faithfully on tinier wheels. Petra could see the boundaries of farms as geometric shapes, the farm buildings as tiny rectangles, some with sheet metal roofs that glimmered in the sun. In the far distance lay two small towns. She realized now that the pilot was, as he had promised, keeping his distance from population centers.
A series of faint, buffeting pressures shook the craft lightly, and the pilot seemed to be hunting in the clear air for something elusive. As he searched, he said, "You'll learn some things anyhow. I stole this thing from a spook hangar near Elmira, New York. I took you along and left your ID in the Ford so they'll think twice before they shoot us down, assuming they find us. You can pray that they don't find us. And heeere we go," he said, nodding. "We've got some thermal air under us now. I've never flown this thing before last night, so I've still got my training wheels on."
Petra loosened her harness as she had seen him do, sitting up straighter, beginning now to almost enjoy a ride she could tell her grandchildren about—if she survived it. "It looks easy enough," she said.
"It's a tipsy bitch, but it's got no power assists outside of tabs the autopilot can operate for straight-and-level flight. Even have to operate the waste-gate ducts by leg power. It's a lot tougher than it looked on the prints, but your legs are your strongest muscles."
"I'm a cyclist," Petra said.
"I know. I followed you from the campus yesterday."
"How long have you people been planning this, Smith?"
A faint smile as he shook his head. "One people. Me. I
figure they owe it to me—shit," he finished, slamming the stick hard to the left.
Without warning, some invisible demon of clear air had thrust the craft upward, but not on an even keel. The left wing flexed in an impossible bow, not folding but tilting the entire aircraft so that Petra's right-hand horizon lofted until it seemed that the wings must be as vertical as a telephone pole and Petra was staring straight down through her hatch window. Caught by surprise without snug restraints, her shoulders sliding past the straps, she slammed her right arm outward for support, striking the flimsy plastic hatch hard near its lower latch. An instant later the hatch lay ajar, Petra falling out as far as her torso, the sudden battering of wind on her face forcing her eyes shut, her taped wrists preventing her from helping herself. She could scream, though, as she felt her hips sliding from the loosened lap belt.
The rough hand at her belt jerked her inside so hard she yelped as the hatch edge scraped past her ear, and then she was holding tight to the seat with her bound hands between her thighs. Instead of sobbing, Petra lay back and gasped, shaky inhalations that continued long after the aircraft had returned to normal flight. Only when she looked at him, her teeth bared ferociously, did he let go of her belt.
"Secure that hatch, it's not broken. And don't ever do that again," he said, as if someone were shaking him while he spoke.
She had already levered the latch tight again, needing to turn sideways because her wrists were bound, when she realized all of what he'd said. "Me? You're flying this goddamn thing, you crazy old bastard!" She began to tighten her harness again as well as she could, now almost crying in a reaction her close friends could have predicted: rage. "Tie my hands and feet," she snarled, and, "let me loosen these things," she accused with a sob, and, "turn this rinkydink cardboard contraption on end, and—and blame it on me," she howled, watching him through slitted eyes as she regained her self-control. More quietly, and with the sweetness of ant paste: "But I promise to do better, Mr. Smith, really I do."
He looked away, and when a sudden nudge of turbulence made him look ahead, Petra saw a blush fading under the tan on his craggy features. "Okay. You're right, kid. I was just—fuck it, you're right." He stared off, clearing his throat, and Petra realized that he was trying to keep his voice steady. Then he turned back toward her, gesturing with his free hand. "I'll pull that tape off your wrists. You couldn't be dumb enough to try anything up here." She watched his hand unwind the tape, seeing the black hairs still standing erect, realizing that he, too, had been badly frightened.
If there was truth in wine, there was more of it in fear. The first question that occurred to her was, "If you didn't care, why didn't you just let me fall?"
"I don't know. Probably should've, thanks for bringing it up. Maybe next time I will."
"You need me alive for something, don't you?"
"Not in any way you'd believe," he said, "and I don't want to talk about it. You got lucky. We're both lucky, in fact. See that?" He pointed to the altimeter, recording their rise although the engine was idling. "I'm going to try something."
With that, he thumbed a detent on the throttle and flicked off a switch. The whisper of the engine ceased, but before Petra could speak, he released a grin that was utterly and innocently boyish. "We're still climbing. There's a lot of skin and a lot of drag on the hellbug, but she's soaring. Hot damn!"
"Is that what it's called?"
"Sure, why not," he mused aloud. "Its name is Black Stealth One, Petra. Some guys on the project called it the hellbug." He compensated for a gust, looking far off; perhaps, she thought, far into the past. "Some people who make policy in this country decided they needed this thing because they didn't trust other guys who make policy. Then some other squeaky clean policy maker decided they didn't trust me, either."
"When did this happen?"
"Long time back; doesn't matter. I got burned like you'd burn a match, used and tossed out. They thought I was dead." As if to himself, softly: "They tried, God damn them, they gave it a real good shot." His sudden glance at her was quietly fierce. "I was straight, you understand, this wasn't punishment. Just policy on somebody's part. Happens all the time. I've been dead for years, kid." Into her questioning frown he grinned again. "But now I'm burning 'em back, the whole bloody-minded bunch of 'em. And you know what? By God, I feel alive again."
"You're a phoenix," she said. "You know, flying up from—"
"You don't have to explain it," he cut in. "Jesus! College kids think they know it all..."
"I know more than you think," she said softly.
"If you don't, I fear for the future of engineering."
"You helped build this airplane, maybe even designed it. That's the only way you would've seen blueprints a long time back, or worried about control forces. And that's not all I know."
His reaction was an exaggeratedly slow movement of his head until he was staring directly at her. "Well, I'm a dirty bastard," he said.
"At least we can agree on something, Mr. Corbett," she nodded.
FOURTEEN
Karotkin, with deep-breathing exercises, managed to regain his calm before the others reached his office. It was important that he appear unflustered, even bored, in the face of an operation that seemed not so much blossoming as exploding. At the moment, no one could say whether that explosion was showering them with shit or pure gold. Nor, for that matter, whether it would be the KGB that got showered or the GRU, its archrival for Moscow's favors. Suslov walked in first, trailing the journalist, Yevgeni Melnik.
Suslov sat down with only a dry smile and a gesture as if presenting Melnik. "I need time to finish reading the file, comrade Karotkin," said Melnik, who had learned of his own involvement in the past half hour. Karotkin agreed, though he was not happy to see the bulk of that file. It was always an error to tell a man more than he needed to know, even a man with a wife and three children in Smolensk.
An excellent interviewer with a decent command of idiomatic English, Melnik knew how to follow a fast-breaking story in the West. His costume provoked an occasional suspicious glance in the embassy because the tanned little fellow with the loafers, wrinkled trousers, quick smile, loose tie, and ever-present Pall Mall looked so much like an American. Melnik usually needed rewriting because having noticed everything, he tended to mention everything; but his debriefings were things of beauty. A genuine print journalist as well as a spy, he was suspected by some Westerners as KGB because his loafers were by Florsheim whereas most Soviet scribblers shopped, if appearances counted, at Goodwill. In short, Yevgeni Melnik was exactly the sort of man who would already be on a CIA list, ready to be branded "undesirable" by the Americans the next time they decided to demonstrate their displeasure in a highly public way. Meanwhile, Melnik was acceptable so long as he did not get in the way more than any other journalist.
Melnik was still speed-reading when Karotkin responded to the buzzer. "You are here only for background, Melnik," Karotkin said quickly. "Save any questions for later."
Gennadi Maksimov made his usual entrance, sweeping the room with eyes like gray ball bearings, seeming to invest the room with a military presence as he smiled and nodded. They all knew comrade Colonel Maksimov and the figure he cut even in a three-piece suit. They had known him sober and correct, and they had known him drunk as a muzhik, always joking then. He would not be joking now because the man who entered behind him was Karel Vins.
At the level of colonel and above, a man like Maksimov could be both old soldier and diplomat, no longer required to maintain the physical fighting trim of a commando. But the man they knew as Karel Vins was on the rolls as a major. And majors in the Glavnoe Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie, the GRU, were the Soviet elite in military intelligence. An erect, pale-eyed, straight-haired blond of medium height and on the muscular side of forty, Vins might pass as a Finn. He would be good at languages, better at surveillance—and superb at killing.
Maksimov had not said he was bringing his man. To do so without prior agreement was the
kind of gesture the GRU could afford, a way of underlining the fact that Soviet military intelligence and its trained killers were above KGB control. Karotkin noticed the comical movement of Melnik's scalp as the little journalist recognized Vins. That meant Melnik knew his way around.
But still a journalist, as he proved when Karotkin made the introductions. "Vawlk," Melnik murmured as he was identified to Vins. Without the slightest change of his pleasant expression, Karel Vins made a faint inclination of his chin and then passed his gaze on to Suslov. A very few men in the GRU elite were known by nicknames in Soviet circles. Sretsvah, the remedy, perhaps in London to remedy some imbalance; Grichanka, the Greek, rumored a casualty at last, at the hands of an Albanian; Vawlk, the wolf, whose street name was Karel Vins. Maksimov might know the name Vins was born with; more probably not. What mattered, and what Vins chose to pretend did not matter, was that the vawlk was already a legend even among his KGB compatriots who admired, envied, and feared him.
The trainees of Cuba's Direction General de Inteligencia, or DGI, had translated his nickname easily as Lobo during his Cuban tour as an "advisor." Few Soviet field operatives were as well qualified to bring a big operation home in a Latin American country, and the presence of Karel Vins automatically raised the status of the operation. It did not necessarily mean that deadly violence would follow. It meant that a lethal instrument was at hand.
Vins waited for Maksimov to sit, and then sat at his back without comment. Maksimov adjusted his creases and then, in his familiar strong baritone, said, "I must hear it from your mouth, comrade Karotkin: have we really stolen the Black Stealth craft?"
"It would seem that we have," said Karotkin, "judging from the communication traffic we are monitoring. True, it happened sooner than we thought. Since your own people ran the Bulgarian connection, you would be the best judge of that."