The Saxon Network

by Norman Hartley

  ‘And am I allowed to know which aircraft you suspect?’

  ‘The Sukhoi SU27 Flanker’.

  Weatherby roared with laughter.

  ‘Well, well, so Olgy is into drug smuggling now is he?’

  ‘You know Olgachov?’

  ‘Good lord yes,’ Weatherby said, getting up from his chair, ‘hang on a minute. I’ll show you.’

  He left the room briefly and returned with a framed photograph.

  It showed a Russian aircraft, parked on the runway of what was clearly an RAF base. In front of it was much younger Olgachov in flight overalls. The photo was signed ‘For Mad Mike who is nearly as crazy as I am - Fond Regards Olgy.’

  ‘I’ve flown against Olgy several times. He’s been a member of several Russian aerobatic teams. He started off with the ‘Russian Princes’ that was the team from No 4 Squadron, 219th ‘Proskurovskii’ Guards regiment. After that he flew with the ‘White Stars’, their test pilot team. This photo was taken when the Princes flew a contest against the NATO Pirates at RAF Midwell. He was a Captain then. He’s a beautiful flyer by the way, an absolute born natural.’

  ‘But you’re not surprised he might be into smuggling.’

  Weatherby gave a little smile.

  ‘I’m surprised it’s drugs. His style is selling off Russian military equipment.’

  ‘You know about the Flanker?’

  ‘Of course,’

  ‘But he’s nicked other stuff?’

  ‘Oh yes. And he doesn’t go in for small stuff either.’

  Weatherby grinned. ‘Put it this way, if Olgy were a sailor, and I was his admiral, I’d count my battleships whenever we came back off manoeuvres. Anyway, you say we’re assuming Olgy is using our little airfield to smuggle drugs into the country and you want to keep an eye on him.’

  Weatherby went over to a writing desk in the corner of the room and came back with a thick green folder.

  ‘These are the hangar bookings for the show,’ he said, ‘the Flanker will be in G42. That’s the only one we have that’s big enough. It’s right on the far perimeter, the opposite side to here.’

  He opened the folder and flicked through until he came to a plan marked G42 and traced his finger across the drawing.

  ‘There’s the building,’ he said, ‘the hangar is just barely big enough for the Flanker. At the back there are two workshops.’

  ‘Could they be used to park a vehicle?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Yes, one of them is virtually empty. That’s probably where they’ll make the transfer. You could put a surveillance device in,’ he smiled, ‘always supposing you film types have that kind of kit.’

  ‘We can get hold of what’s necessary,’ I said, ‘but I’m a bit concerned about my lads getting too far on the wrong side of the law.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we could take care of that,’ Weatherby said, ‘I’ve been put in charge of security for the air show. Supposing I hired a couple of your people to watch over our Russian guests and make sure they don’t come to any harm. They’d be under contract to me and, frankly, I wouldn’t care how you did the job.’ He grinned. ‘I’d just expect it to be done thoroughly, that’s all.’

  ‘We could do that job nicely,’ Tim said eagerly, ‘how much time do we have?’

  ‘More than enough. The Flanker doesn’t fly in until six o’clock tomorrow and their advance party is due in at four. Get your people over here and I’ll have them sign casual employment contracts, then they can get to work. Now, how many other people do you want to have at the party? The theme is Edwardian, striped blazers, panamas, that sort of stuff but it doesn’t really matter. I’ve got some kit you can borrow. The Guild often goes in for Edwardian or similar.’

  He smiled at Kate. ‘If you’re going anyway near Olgachov, I’d suggest you wear a long skirt or he’ll have his hand up it in two seconds flat. He’s a terrible womaniser and not very gentlemanly with it.’

  Kate returned the smile. ‘I’ll be keeping well out of the way, I’ll be tucked away safely in a helicopter.’

  ‘If the helicopter is OK with you,’ I added quickly.

  ‘What kind of machine do you want to bring?’

  ‘A Bell JetRanger,’ Birdy said.

  ‘Four-seater?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you flying it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Full commercial licence, all categories?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alright, then why don’t I hire you to give joy-rides during the Garden Party,’ Weatherby said, ‘Kate can act as copilot, since the JetRanger doesn’t need one. That would leave two seats for passengers. That would give you an excuse to toodle around the field whenever you wanted and ferry your own people if needed.’

  ‘What do we do if real passengers turn up?’

  ‘Take them up if it’s convenient. If not, say sorry, you’re booked. If you decide you’re too exposed, you can land out there,’ he said, pointing to the end of his garden, ‘and come into the house.’

  ‘This is one of those situations where you wonder what the hell we would have done, if you hadn’t turned up,’ I said, ‘I really can’t say how grateful I am.’

  Weatherby smiled. ‘Always glad to help the war on drugs and don’t worry, I’m not a fool. Clive’s made it very clear that the kind of film-making involved here can be a dangerous business. The Mad Mike thing, that’s only when I’m in a cockpit.’

  ‘Right let’s get to it then,’ I said. ‘You said Olgachov will be flying in at 1800?’

  ‘Yes’

  ‘No chance of his coming sooner.’

  ‘No. He’s been given specific orders not to. The committee wants to get the regular part of the garden party over first.’

  ‘What does that consist of?’ Kate asked.

  ‘We’ve got beginner’s aerobatics, and a formation flying demonstration by the local Air Training Squadron, not to mention all the stalls and side-shows run by the wives. We didn’t want them upstaged. The Flanker is an amazing piece of kit. Once it’s here, no-one will have eyes for anything else.’

  ‘Is the runway long enough for it?’ Birdy asked.

  ‘Just about. The Flanker was intended for use on combat runways, but Olgy nicked the carrier version.’

  ‘Will Olgachov land before his big demonstration?’

  ‘No, he’ll arrive spot on six-o’clock. We’ll have the crowds in position. He’ll do a pass over the field, coming out of the sun probably. Then he’ll do his aerobatic number. That should last twenty minutes or so.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then he lands and the spectators will get a close look at the plane.’

  ‘So they won’t be able to unload anything straight away?’

  ‘Not a chance. The Guild members will be all over the Flanker like flies. Most have never seen one close up.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Three of our members have paid for demonstration flights. Allow half an hour each for those, plus refuelling.’

  ‘So we’re looking at eight-thirty maybe nine o’clock at the earliest, before they’ll be on their own.’

  ‘I’d say at least that. We don’t need to whip up interest in the aircraft. We just need to space it out as much as we can. I’ll work on that.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘let’s set our priorities. First, we need to establish photographic surveillance of the inside of the hangar.’

  ‘We don’t have enough kit to do all the three sections,’ Tim said.

  ‘Can we do two?’

  ‘Just about. Jay’s given us one keyhole feed that links to a fibre-optic.’

  ‘So the choice is between bugging the hangar itself, or the empty workshop where they’ll load the vehicle?’

  ‘Yes.

  ‘Then we definitely go for the hangar,’ I said.

  ‘But don’t we need proof they’re putting the kit into their own vehicle?’

  ‘Ideally, yes,’ I said, ‘but if we can’t have both, we need proof the kit came o
ut of the plane. Just filming it being loaded into their 4WD won’t help.’

  ‘I presume you’ll be filming them during the garden party itself,’ Weatherby said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK,’ Weatherby said, ‘Why don’t you give me a list of all the people who’ll need watching, just in case you need some extra help!’

  Chapter 23

  Chunk was born to wear a blazer, the rest of the team were not. We established this, to general amusement, at the early morning briefing as we made the final preparations for the Garden Party.

  Birdy and Kate were not a problem. They would be in flying suits with, in Kate’s case, goggles to hand even when the helicopter was on the ground. One of the blazers the gnome had lent us fitted me quite well. The others found when they tried on theirs that they were too tight to fit naturally over their muscular, stocky frames.

  ‘I’ll do a quick bit of sewing,’ Tillie said, laughing, ‘just don’t enter any beauty competitions.’

  The smartest of all was Rachel. She had some of her clothes sent over from Home Farm and put together an outfit with long skirt and jacket that fitted the occasion perfectly.

  When we had finished joking about clothing, we got down to the serious business of final checks on the electronic equipment. Our personal comms had worked well while the Tiger Trap was being dug, but Jay had worked overnight to make the system more compatible with a garden party. He had housed the transceivers into mobile phone units. His assumption was that although spending a lot of time on a mobile on this kind of occasion wasn’t exactly polite, it would not be conspicuous, compared to using military-style headsets. They were all linked on one network which we nicknamed ‘the Loop.’ It was effectively an open line and everyone could hear everyone else but Jay advised that we should check from time to time to make sure no-one had dropped off the circuit.

  After field testing everyone’s unit, we turned to the kit for videoing the actual ambush. Filming at the airfield would not be a problem. We had managed to assemble five Sony Handicams which would give us broadcast quality images and would not be conspicuous at the Garden Party. I was more concerned about the actual ambush itself where the filming and image transmission would effectively be in a combat environment. If things started to go badly, we might need to offer to the media whatever images we had, without time for proper processing and editing.

  Jay was completely unfazed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘when Tim called me in, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting into so I brought a fair bit of kit just in case. From what you’ve said at the briefings, we’re well covered.’

  Jay had calmly produced a mixture of military and civilian equipment that would have made a BBC team happy on any frontline.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he laughed. ‘Hereford won’t miss a few GoPros and a couple of BGANs.’

  GoPros were helmet cameras which the military frequently carried on ops. Jay planned to use Ravenswood Farm as the base. The images would be streamed by army radio transmitter from inside the ‘hot zone’ around the Tiger Trap back to a safer place a few hundred metres away. From there they were to be beamed back to Ravenswood by satellite using an Inmarsat BGAN terminal which Kate was already familiar with from her time at sea.

  Tim had despatched three team members to Westminster for a discreet recce of the underground station and given them photographs of the Iranians and their handler, Metzik. No-one expected them to find anything yet as the Iranians were still in Paris but a quick first look was bound to be useful.

  The issue worrying me most was how involved Ray Vossler would personally get in the operation. According to Weatherby he was definitely coming to the air show but whether he would go on the journey between Danton and Spring House was an open question.

  We discussed it at some length and Cronin felt confident he would.

  He outlined for everyone’s benefit the family feud that had started the whole project.

  ‘He’s trying to show his brothers that he’s capable of more than pushing currency round the world,’ Cronin said. ‘He’s made a point of running this op himself from the beginning.’

  I wasn’t so confident.

  ‘Ray Vossler is essentially a coward,’ I said. ‘He’s also brilliant at scapegoating people in his organisation if things go wrong. He’s quite capable of making it appear he’s leading from the front when in fact he’s hidden safely in a bunker somewhere.

  ‘Sure, he’ll be at the air show. We just have to make sure that we get clear evidence there of his links to Olgachov and the rest of the gang, just in case he decides to chicken out while they’re actually transporting the Spinner.’

  When the briefing was over, Lottery and a three-man team escorted Jay by road to the Air Museum to check on the surveillance equipment. The rest of us sat around and chatted and waited for word from Birdy that the helicopter was ready.

  Birdy had already converted the JetRanger into a credible air taxi and would take Rachel, Kate and me to the air museum. He didn’t want to put down anywhere near Tillie’s farm so we had arranged to drive to the small country estate where the helicopter was normally based.

  The whole journey took less than forty minutes, including barely ten minutes in the air. By the time we arrived, a steady stream of cars was entering the gates of the small aerodrome and private planes were landing at the rate of one every fifteen minutes. By two o’clock the welcome barbecue was in full swing and a crowd of Edwardians was covering most of the lawn area. It was obvious from the costumes that the members of the Air Pilots Guild took their open day very seriously. There was a general air of ease and elegance but despite the heat, most of the men wore boaters and light-coloured flannels with brightly coloured blazers. The women too were obviously prepared to suffer mild discomfort for sake of authenticity and long dresses outnumbered shorter skirts by at least ten to one.

  By three o’clock, I was satisfied that we were as ready as we were going to be. My only concern was that there was nowhere to establish an unobtrusive observation point to photograph the front of the Russian hangar. We would have to rely on filming from the air taxi helicopter if the right grouping presented itself. For the sake of authenticity, Birdy accepted a couple of passengers for a flip round the airfield, then made a second trip and was about to make a third when Tim signalled the arrival of Vossler and Simpson-Carr.

  Knowing Vossler’s taste for showy entrances, I’d been afraid he would choose to arrive separately in some kind of ostentatious limousine. Everything depended on his compulsion to be known as a hands-on operative and I was relieved when they arrived in the long wheelbase 4WD that we had videoed around Spring House. I was even more relieved when I saw the vehicle was being driven by Omar and that Yukovsky was also on board. A full set of enemies together, caught on at least two of our cameras, was not a bad start.

  The vehicle drove on to the main reception area where they were officially greeted. When Omar got out of the vehicle, I saw he was wearing some kind of uniform, a set of coveralls with Russian symbols on the back. He stayed in the 4WD during the pleasantries, then Simpson-Carr got back in beside him and was driven to the Russian hangar, where Omar parked the vehicle.

  Our helicopter took off and headed for the opposite edge of the field, as though to inspect the rows of elderly aircraft parked ready for the vintage flypast. It was not worth the risk of getting in close yet. No photograph taken now would show any suspicious activity and we were recording anything that happened inside the hangar. I just prayed that at some stage Vossler would find a reason to go there.

  The time until the arrival of the Russian fighter passed incredibly slowly. We watched through binoculars as Vossler played the VIP visitor. He strolled about self-importantly, accompanied by two Guild officials, appropriately dressed in a maroon and white striped blazer adorned with some kind of spurious crest. He showed interest in everything from the squadron memorabilia displays to the tea stall, and chatted amiably with everyone until finally, it was time for him to be
escorted to the dignitaries’ stand to watch the first of the aerial displays.

  The air cadets flew their little aircraft in loose formation. Two clubs from different parts of the south of England competed in beginner’s aerobatics. All the aircraft for the vintage fly past managed to get off the ground – something I gathered wasn’t achieved every year - and gave a splendid trip down memory lane for the older members. As six o’clock - the time for the Russian display - approached, the atmosphere began to change. Vintage aircraft were fine and nostalgic but the Sukhoi SU27 Flanker promised a different order of excitement.

  As Weatherby had predicted, Olgachov was a superb showman. His air-to-ground transmissions were being relayed to the loudspeaker system and the first indication of his arrival was a guttural announcement that he was one minute and forty-five seconds from the field. In what was obviously an old air show ploy, he did not specify which way he was coming in.

  Instinctively, the spectators looked in the obvious direction, outwards from the main stand, scanning the horizon expectantly for the first distant shape. Olgachov arrived to the promised second, but not where he was expected. He came in low and fast from behind them, streaking over the control tower. The Flanker’s altitude was barely legal and the noise and dark shadow of the huge aircraft was like a vision of the end of the world, after the stately vintage planes. With a crack like thunder, the Flanker hurtled over the stand and began an ascent right in the centre of the field, with red wingtip smoke on.

  Weatherby had deliberately left his personal communicator open and I could hear him clearly as he gave us a commentary on what was happening.

  ‘Trust Olgy to do the tail slide first,’ Weatherby said, ‘he really knows about scaring the crowd out of its wits from the first moment.’

  As Olgachov circled the field to prepare for the next manoeuvre Weatherby explained that Flanker had been designed, without the aid of computers, to combat the American F-15 Eagle.

  ‘It failed to match the Eagle, but only because Russian radar was pretty ropey and couldn’t cope with the American BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missiles. That aside, in a close dogfight, the Flanker wins out every time.’