As she spoke with the woman, Faith glanced at the crowd in the jetway. And she recognized someone. The man with the newspaper in the concourse. He was the blond on the plane from Berlin. And now he was tailing her to Moscow. She pretended not to notice him and continued, “You have a choice, babushka: You can keep throwing a fit and we’ll toss you off the aircraft right now and turn you over to German authorities—and I’m sure they’ll notify Moscow—or you can cooperate with this nice woman and let her check your plunder. If you’re lucky, we won’t take anything for our troubles. Understand?”
“Da.” The woman lowered her head in submission.
Faith turned to the purser and said, “I explained how the FAA regs don’t allow such large carry-ons. She completely understands and agreed to cooperate fully. She’ll hand her things over for a gate check.” Faith then switched back into Russian. “Don’t think you just scammed your way into a couple hundred pounds of free excess baggage without us knowing what you’re up to. I’m letting you get away with it this one time, but if you cause me any problems on this flight, I’m personally informing Soviet customs you’re trafficking in Western goods. You might be able to bribe your way through alone, but they can’t turn a blind eye if an American airline reports you. Next time, take the train.”
“What’d you say?”
“I told her I know she has a choice when she flies and I hope next time she again chooses Pan American.”
“You’re on. Take the jump seat up front with me. Now, where are those damn caterers?”
Twenty minutes after the scheduled departure time, Nariskii arrived wearing an LSG Sky Chefs uniform. She was nearly out of breath, but she’d made it. Gudiashvili apologized to the purser for the longer-than-expected delay as he returned the same meal inserts his crew had earlier removed. Nariskii slid in a specially prepared bin, sealed in case anyone tried to open it within the next three hours.
At five-thirty Moscow time, the meal insert would open itself.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
KGB SAFE HOUSE, BERLIN-WEST, DAHLEM DISTRICT
Colonel Bogdanov kicked off her East German penny loafers and pulled off her Soviet-tailored ladies’ suit and exchanged them for a black silk blouse, black Benetton slacks and a matching blazer. She picked up the ugliest piece of jewelry she’d ever seen, an avant-garde brooch with twisted silver icicles dripping from a polished oval of lapis. She flipped it over; a miniature microphone transmitter was mounted on the reverse. She set it on the dresser. After a few brushes of mascara, she put on a pair of blue designer frames with nonprescription glass lenses. As a finishing touch, she rolled up her right pant leg and strapped on her nine-millimeter Makarov service pistol.
Bogdanov walked into the living room. Her assistant, Ivashko, spoke into a radio, holding the receiver against his hairy ear. Did Ivashko believe he was working to save or assassinate Gorbachev? Was he working for her? Titov? Stukoi? She had been on several operations with him over the last decade, but she still didn’t know the man. In Pyongyang while evaluating North Korean nuclear capacities, he had praised the Stalinist regime’s tight social order. On a mission in Cuba, he couldn’t say enough negative things about Castro’s iron-fisted regime. The only thing she was certain about the man was that he resented any physical movement.
Ivashko twitched his bushy white eyebrows when he spoke. “Good. I want you to follow him wherever he goes, and that includes the john. If he starts to leave, figure out a way to stall him. I don’t care what you do—order him a round of beers, fake a heart attack—I don’t care. Whatever you do, prevent him from going onto a US base. If he goes there, it’s over. We can’t touch him.” Ivashko paused. “Think. Cause a minor traffic accident. If he’s on foot, stage an attack on one of our female crew. He’s a good boy. He’d stop to help her. You think you can handle it now? Good. Report back any change in status.” He set the microphone beside him on the sofa but continued to wear the earpiece. He looked up at Bogdanov. “That was a fast trip to Moscow. I thought we’d wrapped up the Berlin side of things and were done with Otter when FedEx left town this morning.”
“It was decided we need to tie up a few extra loose ends. I can’t say more. Any developments?”
“He just bought a third round of beers for the table. That is, the third round that we know about. They were already drinking when we caught up with them.”
“Any idea who his friends are? How many? Are they armed?”
“We know very little, only what we’ve picked up from surveillance. A major and a Negro captain—both US Army. They don’t seem to be carrying firearms.”
“Do you have papers for me in case something goes awry?” Bogdanov said.
“Already in your new purse. You’re now a subject of the Queen, complete with British driver’s license and a few assorted pound notes.”
“I told you I wanted to go as an American. Americans innately trust other Americans more than they do Europeans.”
“I had problems getting the papers together. I got the blank passports and collateral documents you requested, but we didn’t have time to create new ones for you. We had to use papers from an existing legend. I didn’t have the manpower to spare to search your embassy office for one of your American passports, but the residency did have this on file along with a Canadian set.”
“I told you not to use the residency.” Bogdanov raised her voice.
“The last orders I had from you were to use any means at my disposal to pull this off. You required some very specific things. The residency was the only way.”
She removed the British passport and skimmed through it. “Doesn’t look like Veronica gets around much except to Spain and Malta.”
“You’re a nurse from Brighton here visiting a German friend, Beate Hirschbein of Krumme Strasse eleven. You met her while vacationing last October on Majorca. Hirschbein’s a sleeper we’ll reactivate and brief if you’re held for questioning.”
“I don’t anticipate it. I expect he’ll come along with me willingly, particularly if I use that Canadian cover. Americans don’t consider Canadians foreigners—they’re not really sure what to think of them, but they’re definitely family. I want everything possible going for me. It’s also fast for Berlin authorities to get a check on a British national through the British occupying forces here. After three years at the San Francisco residency, my American is much better than my British, so I’m Canadian tonight.” She returned the British passport and driver’s license to Ivashko. Each time she worked with him, it became clearer to her why he had never advanced beyond the rank of major despite his three decades with the KGB.
Ivashko opened his scratched plastic briefcase and removed a manila envelope. He tore it open and let the Canadian documents drop out onto the ratty sofa. Bogdanov thumbed through them, committing the pertinent information to memory.
“I’m now a nurse from Toronto. Otherwise, the same legend.” The colonel slipped the passport and driver’s license into the purse and flicked the gold latch shut.
“I arranged for Kolvich and Valov to accompany Otter as guards on the flight with you to Moscow, unless you want someone else.”
“They’re adequate for the job, but I don’t need anyone,” Bogdanov said.
“Otter is a strong guy, well trained in hand-to-hand combat.”
“He’ll be cuffed and on a plane.”
“Violate protocol if you wish,” Ivashko said.
“Okay, I’ll take the muscle.”
“They’ll be waiting for you at the airport. We have two taxis on surveillance. Both are set up for you. You have to make sure he’s the one who touches the backseat’s door-handle—passenger side. It’s the one inside that you have to worry about. It has sharp edges coated with a chemical that should knock him out in two or three minutes. If he tries to get in on the other side, the driver knows to tell him the door’s broken and he needs to go around. If you absolutely have to get out through that door, roll the window down and use the o
utside latch.”
“Fast work.”
“I think it’s clear to you now that I had to get help from the residency.”
“No, it’s not. My standing orders were to avoid contact. And I have one last order—do not injure Otter. Make sure everyone understands that. The more bruises he has on him, the harder time I’ll have getting FedEx to cooperate. So when they transfer him to the trunk of my car for the ride East, I want them to be civil. I’ve seen what they do and I don’t want a lot of marks, and definitely no injuries.”
“Understood. The other items you requested will be loaded on your Yak by the time you’re there. Looks like you forgot the wire. It’s on the back of the silver pin in the bedroom. Given how cobbled together this operation is, I figured we’d better be listening in just in case something doesn’t go as planned.”
“Things will go as planned. No self-respecting Canadian would wear that piece of trash. I don’t want it.”
“You never know what’s going to happen.” Ivashko leaned forward in his chair, coaxing an extra boost from the inertia of his body. “I’ll get it for you.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Bombs do not choose. They will hit everything.
—KHRUSHCHEV
IVANSKOE AIR CORRIDOR, MOSCOW ATC REGION
5:27 P.M., MOSCOW TIME
Faith picked up the last food tray, stowed it in her trolley and headed back to the galley. Serving meals and apologizing for a shortage of blankets and pillows was not her idea of a good time. At least the flight was going well. She’d been worried that they’d hit turbulence and her fear would give her away. No one seemed to suspect that she wasn’t a regular flight attendant.
The passengers were a typical mix of Russian expatriates and West European businessmen with an occasional Western student thrown in. Only one passenger intrigued her—the striking Nordic-looking operative whom she couldn’t place. When she delivered him the meal, she spoke with him in German and he sounded straight out of Saxony. They chitchatted in Russian when she picked up his empty tray. This time he commanded a perfect Leningrad accent. With her mind on the mystery agent, she wheeled the cart into the first-class cabin before she realized it. She rolled the awkward contraption backward and bumped into someone.
The purser shielded his mouth with one hand. “Let me through. Fast. Mickey Mouse.” He disappeared into the forward lavatory.
She wrestled the cart into the galley. Four flight attendants huddled inside, finishing up their meals. Faith rammed the cart into its dock and locked it into position.
An Asian flight attendant looked up at her. Her name tag read “Mae.” “Help yourself to lunch. From the looks of Jeff, I wouldn’t recommend the stuffed tennis balls today.”
“I need a drink.” Faith rummaged through the drawers of the beverage cart, searching for a tiny airline bottle of booze. She was sure Ian had a dutyfree bottle in his briefcase on the flight deck, but she hoped to make it to Moscow before he realized she was a stowaway.
“This is a Moscow flight. They wiped us out.”
“Guess I’ll eat something after all.” Faith tugged at the small aluminum handle of the meal insert, but the door didn’t budge.
“It’s jammed. We haven’t been able to get it open. Good thing it’s a light load today.” Mae pointed at the bin.
“Forget it.” She wasn’t that hungry and she didn’t want to hang with the attendants and give them a chance to realize she wasn’t really one of them, so she decided to go back and chat with secret agent man. What difference would it make? Her cover was blown with him. His cover was blown with her. And she was very, very bored. She took two spoons and an extra dessert from the presidential-class service and then entered the coach cabin. She glanced at her watch—five twenty-nine, local time. Not much longer.
The operative took up his space in 19A. The armrests of the two empty seats beside him were pushed up and magazines were spread out. Faith decided industry protocol didn’t matter a hell of a lot at that point in her short-lived Pan Am career. She approached him with the chocolate mousse and leaned over the empty 19C. “Compliments of the house. It’s part of our new World Spook Class service. Thought you might share it with me while we get—”
A brilliant flash. A thunderous clap. The plane lurched to port and shook violently.
Lockerbie.
The first row of coach passengers vanished. Faith dived onto the seats beside the agent. Her hand landed on a seatbelt. She grabbed onto the strap. A tornado engulfed what was left of the cabin, whipping purses, swizzle sticks and insulation into anything in its path. Overhead luggage compartments sprang open, their contents flying toward the open sky. She fought to hold on, but the force tore at her, pulling her away. She was being sucked into the air. She strained to hold on, but the strap slipped through her hands.
Frosty was ready to be on the ground and stretch his legs. It’s going to be Georgian food tonight, he decided. Shashlik. With lots of fresh cilantro. He could taste the chunks of marinated lamb as he glanced at his engineering console and the picture of his pooch. Everything was running beautifully and ol’ Clipper was happy as ever. At least they’d managed to pick up some time; they’d be starting their initial descent in about twenty minutes. He decided to go to the galley and see if he could find a snack to tide him over.
He reached to unfasten his seatbelt. An earsplitting explosion went off like a shotgun blast beside his ear. Dirt, charts, loose insulation and Clipper’s picture were sucked backward toward the passenger cabin. The force jerked Frosty’s head toward the door.
Lockerbie.
He snatched up his oxygen mask and donned his headset. The air fogged, then quickly cleared.
“Frosty, Jackson, you with me? Initiating emergency descent,” Ian said, his voice steady but barely audible through the mask mike.
“Affirmative. Initiating rapid decompression checklist.” Frosty’s ears popped like firecrackers and hurt like hell. Within seconds he confirmed that the air-bleed switches were open and that the pack switch was on. He closed the cargo heat outflow and attempted to restore cabin pressure manually, even though he knew it was hopeless. His stomach sank along with the plane.
He visualized the blue and white shell of the Maid of the Seas on the Scottish Highlands.
Lockerbie.
Faith fought to hold on, but the belt slipped through her fingers. She felt her body fly into the air. Then someone grabbed on to her. The operative wrapped his arm around hers. And he squeezed. She struggled to hang on.
Suddenly the sucking force subsided. A mist filled the air and then settled on everything. The roar of the wind and the engines filled the cabin. She could almost feel the sound hitting her body. Her ears throbbed with sharp pain. She moved her jaw back and forth to try to equalize the pressure, but the ringing in her ears wouldn’t stop. She breathed hard, gasping for the thin air.
The yellow oxygen masks dangled above some of the seats, but the ones above her failed to open. She stood and pried at it with her fingernails, feeling dizzier by the second. The operative whisked out a pocketknife and popped the panel open. They both grabbed the masks and inhaled deeply. The front of the plane pitched downward and they began rapidly losing altitude. Someone ahead of her began shrieking. Others joined in. And she wanted to cry out, too.
An icy gale battered her, but she could now stand. The plane’s interior panels had been ripped off and sucked away. A chunk of the ceiling was gone and she stared at the bare green skin of the plane. Overhead bins were open and one bank of them was missing. She looked toward the galley where all the flight attendants had been eating.
Blue sky. Nothing but blue sky.
Frosty flipped on the no-smoking and fasten-seatbelt signs. He felt vibrations and scanned his panel. The EPR on the number-three engine went to hell and the exhaust temp was plummeting. “Ian, number three has low EPR and EGT and no N1 indication. Ate something it didn’t like.”
“Initiate emergency shut—”
The engine-fire warning bell went off, drowning everything out. I should’ve taken that early retirement. What was I thinking? The flight engineer’s console blinked like he’d won the jackpot in Vegas. But Frosty McGuire was never one to walk away with money in his pocket. Like water seeking its own level, he always stuck with something until his luck turned bad. Frosty silenced the bell, then began shutting down the number-three engine. He prayed the other two hadn’t also ingested more debris than they could handle.
Faith stared at the blue sky. An invisible force pulled her toward the hole. She grabbed the back of a seat. She knew she was going to slide out if she took a step and she also knew her fear was taking over. She was probably the only flight attendant on board—or at least the only one wearing the uniform. The galley was gone and the cabin crew with it. Already passengers were beginning to look toward her, their faces expectant. She had to pull herself together and do something. She sat down and took three deep breaths of oxygen. It was just like smuggling across a border, she told herself. Stay in character. You’re Sandy Reeves, Pan Am flight attendant, trained for emergencies. She fingered the wings on her uniform.
Sandy Reeves stood, blocking out Faith’s fears. She knew what she had to do. The first rule of triage: life support. She snatched the pocketknife from the operative and took a deep breath from her oxygen mask. She moved quickly to the next row of passengers, where masks hadn’t deployed. With a twist of the knife, the panel opened and the masks dropped down. Before the passengers could put them on, she tugged on one and took a couple of deep breaths. She worked her way from row to row, hanging on to the backs of seats as she went.
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