Games Traitors Play

by Jon Stock

  ‘Dream on, Raptor One. Out.’

  ‘And go to hell,’ the American said to himself as he watched the SU-25 head off to the east. He knew the pilot was from Georgia, one of America’s new allies, but the plane was Russian, and old habits died hard.

  98

  Marchant no longer thought that he had a strong stomach. He had been sick shortly after take-off, when Dhar over-corrected a sudden lurch to the right and put the plane into a 3-G turn. For a painful few seconds, in which he had nearly blacked out, he had wondered if they might not get further than Finland, but he was starting to relax as they flew low and fast over the North Sea towards the east coast of Britain. It was the speed of their progress that he found the most disorientating. At first, it had felt as if he was being dragged along behind the aircraft, like a waterskier. Dhar had told him to look far ahead, to anticipate. Marchant was impressed by how much Sergei must have taught him. He was flying well, untroubled by the G-forces. His only concern appeared to be their ETA.

  ‘You’re a natural,’ Marchant said over the intercom.

  ‘Another two weeks of training and you wouldn’t have been sick, but there was not enough time,’ Dhar replied.

  ‘What’s the big rush?’ Marchant asked. Dhar had synchronised watches before they left, and had regularly asked him to call out the minutes and seconds.

  ‘There is an important air show today. At a place called Fairford. It only happens once a year. I don’t think they would have delayed it while I improved my flying skills.’

  ‘Are we topping the bill?’ Marchant asked, calculating the implications. He knew the air show well, having been taken there by his father when he was a child. Red Arrows and Airfix models, candy-floss and Concorde. Fairford held less happy memories, too. It was where he had flown from with a hood over his head and shackles on his feet, when the Americans had renditioned him to a black site in Poland. But his first thought now was of the number of people on the ground. Tens of thousands of potential casualties.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘Sergei mentioned collateral.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What did he mean?’

  There was a long pause. Marchant adjusted his helmet and oxygen mask, thinking that contact had perhaps been lost.

  ‘One of our LGBs is a dirty bomb.’

  Marchant felt sick. It was only a few feet away from him. He thought of the contamination on the ground, the years of cleaning up. A thousand-pound dirty bomb exploding in the middle of a packed crowd would kill hundreds, but many more would fall ill afterwards from radiation sickness. And no terrorist had ever deployed one before. It had become the Holy Grail, not so much for the number of people it killed as for its propaganda value. The problem was its difficulty to assemble, unless you could tap into the caesium resources of a country like Russia.

  ‘And Sergei didn’t approve?’

  Another silence.

  ‘My mother loved Britain. For a long while I never knew why. Now I know her loyalties were misplaced. Our father’s heart beat for another country. One day I will tell her. Despite Iraq, despite Afghanistan, I never hated Britain in the same way that I detest America. Perhaps I was blind, but it gave shelter to many brothers. Now it has become a legitimate target.’

  ‘Its people or its politicians?’

  Dhar said nothing. Marchant wished he could see his face, gauge his mood from his eyes. It was hard to tell from his voice alone, particularly over the plane’s intercom, but something had shifted. Hairline cracks were appearing. Should Marchant tell him now about their father and Primakov? He instinctively glanced around the cockpit, above and to the sides, checking for threats. Marchant felt vulnerable with his back to Dhar, but there was nothing his half-brother could do except listen. He couldn’t kill Marchant, physically throw him out of the plane, unless he could operate both ejector seats.

  ‘Vasilli Grushko was right to be suspicious of Primakov,’ Marchant said over the intercom, taking the risk. He would tell it to him straight, give the bare facts. ‘What he found in the KGB archives was true. Primakov used to work for MI6. Our father signed him up in Delhi more than thirty years ago. In order for him to recruit Primakov, our father let himself be recruited by the Russians. It was a risk, and once or twice he handed over more than he should have, more than Primakov was giving to London. But he never once betrayed Britain. All the intel was about America.’

  There was another long silence. Again Marchant began to think the intercom was faulty, and adjusted his helmet. He felt so defenceless with his back to Dhar.

  ‘How do you know this?’ Dhar eventually said, almost in a whisper.

  ‘I’ve seen the file. Moscow Centre thought it had the Chief of MI6 on its books, when in fact Primakov was working for us. He was, right up until the moment he died.’

  Marchant closed his eyes, imagining Dhar’s face behind him. He had to keep it together, not let Primakov’s death choke him up.

  ‘Until the moment you shot him,’ Dhar said.

  ‘I’m my father’s son, Salim. I’ve never stopped working for MI6, or believing in Britain. My defection was hollow, nothing more than an elaborate charade, a way of meeting you, my brother.’

  ‘Is there no truth in your Western life? Is everything lies?’ The aircraft rocked in a pocket of turbulence.

  ‘Our father disliked America. There was nothing false about that. If the CIA had ever found out what he was telling the Russians about them, he would have been arrested and tried for treason, if they didn’t torture him to death first. I dislike America too. I mistrust its military foreign policy, its corporate and cultural power, its fundamental values, the way it’s started to define what it means to be human. But our father loved Britain with a passion, just as I do. Your mother wasn’t misguided. She was right. And she isn’t in the hands of the CIA. She’s safe, in Britain. I give you my word, just as I gave it to her.’

  Marchant was bluffing now, but he was confident that Shushma hadn’t been with Spiro for long in Madurai, that it had just been a ruse by Fielding to get him into the right mental place. And Lakshmi wouldn’t have allowed any harm to come to Shushma, he was sure of that. Despite everything, he realised how much he had come to trust her.

  ‘So you lied to me about my mother too,’ Dhar said.

  ‘I had no choice. Unlike you. What is our exact target? Why the dirty bomb, the air-to-air missiles?’

  ‘Do you know why I agreed to bring you along today?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Because I discovered that Fairford is close to Tarlton, where our father lived, where you grew up with your other brother. I wanted you to show me the village as we flew over, point out the house. It is 18.5 kilometres due west of the airfield.’

  Marchant was taken aback by the way Dhar’s mind worked. Everything was thought out, had a reason. For a moment, his task seemed hopeless, but he had to turn around the jihadi juggernaut.

  ‘I can still show you. Tarlton’s a beautiful place. We used to play in the orchard, Sebbie and me, throw apples into the long grass behind our father’s back, pretend the rustling sound was approaching tigers. He was always fooled – at least, he said he was. Do you know what his wishes were? Why he asked Primakov to bring you and me together? He wanted you to work for MI6. He didn’t expect you to change your views on America – he shared many of them himself, as I do. It’s what unites all three of us. He just hoped to explore some common ground. Find out what each side wants from the other. We need a back channel into the global jihad, just as you need one with the West. It’s what our father most wanted, Salim.’

  After another long pause, Dhar eventually spoke. ‘I’ll be of no use to anybody if I don’t go through with this today. The jihadi who almost shot the US President, who almost –’

  ‘Almost what? Tell me the precise target.’

  But before Dhar could speak, a deafening noise above the cockpit made Marchant duck. He turned around and saw a jet fighter disappearing into
the distance.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Marchant asked.

  ‘Another SU-25. From the Georgian air force. And only thirty seconds late. Inshallah, our time has come.’

  99

  The Aerospace Battle Manager on duty at RAF Boulmer had been tracking the solitary Russian jet for some time now, ever since the Finns and Noggies had flagged up a warning. It was heading from the north-east directly towards the UK’s ADIZ at 600 mph, and was running out of time to alter course. In a few minutes it would be flying over the Humber estuary. Of equal interest was another trace heading towards the coast in exactly the opposite direction. He had run a check on its assigned squawk transponder code, and it appeared to be an authorised aircraft flying out of the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford. It was north of its permitted flyzone, but what concerned him more was that it was on a near-collision course with the incoming jet.

  He had been off-duty when his colleague had cocked up over the MiG-35s, but everyone at RAF Boulmer had been dragged over the coals afterwards. So he didn’t hesitate to call up Air Command at High Wycombe and recommend that two Typhoons be scrambled from RAF Coningsby to intercept, identify and report. Their reaction made him break out into a cold sweat. There were no incoming or outgoing military jets showing up on Air Command’s Recognised Air Picture for the region.

  The crowd at Fairford was loving the Raptor display, particularly in the main hospitality marquee, where the Georgian delegation was now drunk on the spectacle as well as their wine. Each manoeuvre was accompanied by a thumping soundtrack: ‘Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting’, by Nickelback, for the high-speed pass; ‘Come Back Around’, by Feeder, for the J-turn.

  ‘Major Brandon will now utilise the awesome vector thrust of the twin engines to literally rip the aircraft through the vertical and back to a level flight,’ the commentator continued. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the power loop.’

  The mood was no less ebullient in the static display behind the Georgians. A child in a pram wearing big red headphones arched his back and clapped with joy as the plane made another fly-by in a weapons-bay pass. An American crew in their flying suits was perched on the wings of a Lancer B1 Bomber that had flown in overnight from Texas. They were enjoying the sunshine, heads rocking to the music as they admired their compatriot’s performance.

  ‘Supercruise speed?’ one of them asked.

  ‘1.7,’ another replied, shielding his eyes from the sun as he tracked the plane into the distance. ‘He’s yanking and banking the hell out of it today.’

  The commentator came over the loudspeaker system again as the Raptor turned sharply at the western end of the runway.

  ‘The pilot will be experiencing something approaching 9G as this fine fifth-generation fighter sweeps through a flat 360,’ he said. ‘On his return to the display line, Major Brandon will perform a slow high-alpha pass at 120 knots, then hit the afterburner and accelerate into a near-vertical climb to 10,000 feet in a manoeuvre we proudly call the “muscle climb”. After that he will be rejoined by the SU-25 Frogfoot, which should be heading back towards the airfield from the east any time now – providing it hasn’t run out of gas.’

  Fielding rang through to Armstrong as he watched the Raptor climb vertically into the sky at the end of the runway. He remembered seeing the Vulcan do something similar in the 1970s.

  ‘Can you hear me? It’s Marcus. Any news?’ Armstrong was sitting at the COBRA table in the underground crisis-management centre, monitoring developments.

  ‘Air Command has just given the order to scramble two Typhoons from Coningsby,’ she said. ‘There’s been a similar systems error with the Recognised Air Picture. They’re not taking any chances this time. It seems a rogue Russian jet is heading your way fast.’

  ‘It’s Dhar,’ Fielding said quietly.

  ‘A ground sighting in the Midlands suggests it’s a two-seater.’

  ‘Dhar and Daniel Marchant.’

  ‘I hope to God you know what you’re doing, Marcus. The Typhoons have orders to shoot it down.’

  The Aerospace Battle Manager at RAF Boulmer was relieved that the two Typhoons had been scrambled, but he was still dealing with the most stressful day of his professional life. The Russian jet was now deep inside British airspace, flying fast and low towards southern England, but what had happened to the outgoing Georgian aircraft? It seemed to have vanished moments after it had passed the Russian one, just off the coast. What was more, the incoming Russian jet was broadcasting exactly the same transponder squawk code as the one that had disappeared off his screens.

  He put an emergency call through to the coastguard, informing them that a plane had gone down ten miles off the coast of Grimsby, and then he rang Air Command again.

  Major Brandon glanced down at the crowds as he flew over them in a dedication pass. After banking, he looked across the airfield towards the east. Frogfoot One had enjoyed its farewell tour of the British countryside and would shortly be rejoining the air show for the finale, a dogfight that would leave no one in any doubt about the superiority of the Raptor. He didn’t really know why the Georgian pilot was bothering to show up again for a humiliating few minutes. It was just a shame that he was only carrying dummy weapons today. Two clicks over the r/t alerted him to someone else on frequency, and he saw a familiar shape closing from the east at his altitude.

  ‘Welcome back, Frogfoot One. You’ve missed quite a party. Give me thirty more seconds before I’m on your six o’clock. I’m about to pull that Pugachev cobra we were talking about. One final treat to keep your generals sweet.’

  Dhar heard the American, but chose to remain silent, just giving two more taps on the PTT switch to signal his assent. He was confident that everyone – the crowds, air-traffic control and the American pilot – would assume that his aircraft was the same one that had left the air show twenty minutes earlier. After all, SU-25s weren’t a common sight over the Cotswolds. To look at, it was identical – except that the weapons slung beneath its wings were not dummies. A few moments ago, he had held a brief conversation with the control tower at RAF Fairford. The exchange had passed without suspicion, their warm welcome back confirming that the switch of squawk codes had been successful. Dhar had never met the brave Georgian pilot who had been recruited by the SVR. All he knew was that he had orders to ditch his plane and eject after passing him over the North Sea.

  ‘Frogfoot One, do you copy me?’ The American said. ‘I’m proceeding east to west along the display line, with all due respect to Viktor Pugachev. Watch and learn, Frogfoot.’

  Dhar could see the Raptor in the far distance now, rearing its nose as it seemed to almost stall, exposing its underbelly. He flicked the weapons select switch on the stick, just as he had done countless times on the simulator with Sergei. Only this time it was for real. The Vympel under his left wing was a heat-seeking air-to-air missile that travelled at two and a half times the speed of sound. It was packed with a 7.25-kilogram warhead and had a maximum range of twenty-nine kilometres. Dhar was less than two kilometres away now, and closing. Minimum engagement range was three hundred metres. He looked across at the American aircraft, using his helmet-mounted sighting system to designate the target. And then he fired.

  Marchant thought they had been hit when the missile scorched away from under the plane’s left wing. Then he realised what was going on.

  ‘Jesus, Salim, what are you doing?’

  ‘Exploring the common ground.’

  100

  At first, the crowd assumed that the missile streaking across the sky was all part of the spectacular show, and a cheer went up. Major Brandon was less ecstatic. His heart missed a beat when an alarm in his cockpit warned that an incoming missile had locked on to the infra-red heat of his F-22’s exhaust. His first thought was that the aircraft’s flat vector nozzles were meant to disguise the heat. His second thought, honed in hours of training, was to deploy his Chemring flares, but he wasn’t carrying any because their use had bee
n banned by the air show’s organisers. The last thought he ever had was that he was a sitting duck, nose stuck in the air and travelling at a hundred knots.

  ‘Frogfoot One?’ he said, a moment before the missile found its target, embedding itself deep within the left engine and then tearing it apart.

  Dhar took the plane on a long sweeping arc away from the airfield, glancing down to his right at the plume of smoke rising from the runway.

  ‘Now we drop our first bomb.’

  ‘Salim, we’ve got to stop this!’ Marchant shouted. ‘We’re going to be shot down any minute. Every fighter in southern Britain will have been scrambled.’

  ‘Frogfoot One, please identify yourself,’ a voice from the control tower demanded on the military emergency frequency. Dhar flicked off the radio. He could see the flames of the Raptor now, the wreckage on the runway, as he continued to bank around to the east. He thought of Sergei, the photos he had shown him of his own crash, the carnage as his MiG had skidded through the crowds, carving families apart. The Raptor had broken up over the runway, causing little collateral damage. But Dhar knew that what he was about to do now would not be so precise. The hospitality marquees were to the left of the runway, just before the control tower. The American military had assembled en masse in the largest tent, entertaining their Georgian counterparts. Enemies didn’t get more legitimate.

  ‘Tell me the target,’ Marchant said, desperate to engage Dhar. The aircraft had levelled out now, and was about to begin a low approach from the east.

  ‘The Georgian government is converting their country into a Christian one, turning their back on our Muslim brothers to appease America.’

  ‘Are they here? The Georgians?’

  ‘In the marquee next to the control tower. Here to buy F-16s from the Americans.’

  So that was why they had flown to Fairford. There was a logic to Dhar, a rationale, however dark, that demanded Marchant’s respect, if not his understanding. He knew that neither the SVR nor Georgia’s Muslim population was keen on the country’s realignment with America. Had Dhar done enough already in the eyes of other jihadis to cool the relationship? Marchant looked down through the canopy. The SU-25’s cockpit visibility was not great, but he could make out a row of stalls, packed with people, immediately behind the hospitality marquees.