The Rybinsk Deception

by Colin D. Peel

  ‘Can you see anything?’ Coburn’s view was obstructed by trees, and with a logging truck coming up behind him, he’d gained no more than a fleeting impression of the place.

  O’Halloran was still peering out of the rear window of the car. ‘House and garages,’ he said. ‘And what could be a stable block. Matches the sat photo pretty well. If you let this truck by, we might get a better look at the next entrance.’

  Pulling on to the shoulder, Coburn waved on the driver, then proceeded at an even lower speed, continuing to slow the car so that by the time they reached the Stony Bridge entrance the Chrysler was travelling at less than twenty miles an hour.

  They were rewarded with a view of cattle yards, an open-fronted shed in which stood several tractors, an ATV and what Coburn thought was some kind of harvester that was being worked on by two men in overalls.

  He was about to say the men looked more like mechanics than trainee security guards when he heard the sound. It was drifting in through the open windows of the car, faint but unmistakable – the distant crackle of small-arms fire.

  O’Halloran had heard it too. ‘How about we check that out,’ he said. ‘The better picture we have of what goes on here, the better chance we’ll stand.’

  ‘Of doing what?’

  ‘Breaking into the house. What did you think I meant?’

  If Coburn hadn’t witnessed the carnage at the Fauzdarhat shipyard and had he not met a young woman there called Heather Cameron, he would have rejected the idea out of hand. But he had been at the shipyard, and he had met Heather Cameron – the reason why the FAL had been trying to kill him ever since, he thought, and why, in the absence of a more sensible proposal, maybe he ought to be considering whether this one could be made to work.

  ‘Well?’ O’Halloran was getting impatient. ‘Are we going to check out that gunfire, or aren’t we?’

  ‘Yeah. All right.’

  ‘OK. Keep your eyes open for a dirt road that looks like it leads down to a ski field called Star Ridge. I can’t see it on the sat photo, but it’s shown on the map. I don’t think it goes through Shriver’s land, but it’ll take us closer than we are right now.’

  O’Halloran had barely finished speaking when, at the entrance to a pot-holed track, Coburn caught sight of a plywood offcut nailed to a tree. It was a sign, set back some distance from the highway, hand-painted and so riddled with bullet holes that the words Star Ridge had been all but obliterated.

  Wondering whether they were doing the right thing, he swung the nose of the car on to the track, avoiding the largest of the holes before hurriedly winding up his window.

  ‘This isn’t going to let us sneak up on anyone without them knowing,’ he said, ‘not with us kicking up this much dust.’

  ‘We’re out of town fishermen.’ O’Halloran wound up his own window. ‘If anybody asks, we’re looking for a good steelhead spot along the river.’

  The surface of the track wasn’t getting any better. In winter, when the ground was hard, it would probably be OK, Coburn thought; in the middle of a dry July it wasn’t, in places so soft that the car was bottoming out, and in others so heavily rutted that the Chrysler felt as though it was steering itself.

  They had travelled little more than half a mile when the track became less overgrown, and the countryside began to change. Instead of the lodgepole pines along the highway, areas of juniper and sage were competing with huckleberry and bluegrass, and on some of the high-desert knolls wildflowers were still in bloom.

  Too busy at the wheel to appreciate the scenery, Coburn was nearly at the point of suggesting they should go no further when O’Halloran called a halt to their drive.

  ‘Over there.’ The American pointed ahead to a small clearing. ‘We can walk the rest of the way.’

  After checking that he had sufficient room to turn the car around, Coburn parked at the edge of the clearing, cut the engine and kicked open his door. ‘Walk to where?’ he said.

  ‘Listen.’ O’Halloran had already climbed out and was already listening, looking through the binoculars he’d brought to scan a bank of scrub 200 yards away.

  From where they were parked, although the sound of gunfire was being muffled by the vegetation, it was loud enough and distinct enough for Coburn to recognize the characteristic crack of M16s. He could hear other sounds as well – the occasional crump of a mortar shell and, now and then, the voice of someone shouting out instructions.

  Wondering what was attracting O’Halloran’s interest, he went to find out.

  The American continued using his binoculars. ‘Not that much to see,’ he said. ‘Barbed-wire fence, a couple of warning signs saying firing range, keep out, some kind of building, and what looks pretty much like a burned-out World War II battle-tank. I can’t tell whether that’s what’s being used for target practice.’ He handed Coburn the binoculars. ‘What do you make of the building?’

  About twenty feet long and eight feet high, it was painted white and constructed from concrete blocks, but otherwise unremarkable. A row of low level ventilation slots had been cut in the south-facing wall which was the only wall Coburn could see, but it had no other features that would indicate what it could be for.

  Judging by the number of rounds being fired, as many as a dozen men could be using the range, he decided, either recruits being trained as bodyguards and mercenaries before they were hired out to work for anyone who could afford their services, or others like Yegorov whom Shriver could rely on to support the cause of the FAL wherever in the world they happened to be sent.

  Was Yegorov here, Coburn wondered? Could he be here now, only a few hundred yards away on the other side of the fence?

  Either the same thought had occurred to O’Halloran, or he’d grown impatient again. He set off by himself, moving cautiously from one tree to another, using what cover he could find until he was in a position to get a better view.

  Coburn followed him, taking a similar route and joining the American behind a group of spindly bushes on the north edge of the clearing.

  ‘Well, what do you know?’ O’Halloran pointed. ‘How about that?’

  From his new vantage point, although Coburn could see little more of the firing range than he’d been able to before, he was looking at the building from a different angle, and he was closer to it – close enough to see padlocks hanging on a steel-reinforced door and to read the notice bolted to it:

  DANGER

  EXPLOSIVES AND LIVE AMMUNITION

  NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY

  He was annoyed for not realizing the place was a magazine – an explanation for it being the only smudge on the satellite photo located safely away from all the others.

  Using the binoculars again, he studied the door and took another look at the ventilation slots.

  ‘Have you seen something?’ O’Halloran was curious.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why are you looking through my binoculars then?’

  ‘I’m not.’ Coburn gave them back. ‘Come on. We’re wasting our time. We’re not going to learn anything by hanging around here making out we’re fishermen.’

  Preferring not to consider the implications of what he’d seen, he returned to the car where he made the mistake of declining O’Halloran’s offer to take over the driving.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I drove us here, so I might as well drive back. I know what the track’s like, you don’t.’

  ‘Now tell me the real reason.’

  ‘There isn’t one – only that if I have to come back it’ll be easier to remember where the worst of the bends are.’

  ‘Why would you need to come back?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s no big deal.’ Refusing to be drawn, Coburn successfully avoided answering the question during their return drive, and had begun to think he’d got away with it until they were sitting at a table in a small diner in John Day where they’d stopped for lunch.

  ‘Right.’ O’Halloran finished eating his sandwich and pushed his plate away.
‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you want to carry on with this job by yourself, just say the word.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ Coburn thought for a moment. ‘Do you remember saying I’d stand about as much chance of pulling this off as you would of getting a pat on the head from the President?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘If we try to walk in to Shriver’s place on a dark night and help ourselves to his files, neither of us will be around long enough to get a pat on the head from anyone.’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘Shriver won’t be living in his house alone. Unless we can get him out of it and get his men out with him, we’ll never make it past the front door.’

  ‘So?’ O’Halloran tipped more sugar into his coffee.

  ‘So there are two of us. It’s about the only edge we have. What if you’re waiting in the right place while I’m somewhere else, and I get everybody out of the house? Do you think you could find what we’re after?’

  O’Halloran frowned. ‘Are you talking about setting off a fire alarm or something?’

  ‘No. I’m talking about blowing up that munitions store. If you want a diversion, I can give you a diversion that’ll scare the shit out of half the people in Canyon City.’

  ‘How are you going to do that? Didn’t you see the padlocks? There’s not a window in the place, and if you hadn’t noticed, it’s got a nice steel door. Without a truckload of dynamite you’d be better off trying to blow up Fort Knox.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Coburn said. ‘All we need is a propane cylinder, a length of hose and a couple of candles. I’ve seen it done before.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Iraq. What do you know about gas explosions?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘The ones you hear about are accidents, but you can set up your own accident. Pump propane into a room for long enough, and sooner or later the ratio of gas to air will reach what’s called the Lower Explosive Limit or the LEL. After that, fix up some kind of ignition source and you’re in business.’ Coburn paused. ‘It happens all the time on board boats and yachts when a cylinder in a galley springs an overnight leak, and some poor bastard gets up in the morning and lights a cigarette.’

  O’Halloran hadn’t touched his coffee. ‘But we’re not dealing with a boat, are we?’ he said.

  ‘No, we’re not. We’re dealing with a concrete storeroom that should have enough high-explosive in it to blow out your eardrums and flatten everything inside a quarter of a mile.’ Coburn smiled. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Why the hell wait until now to tell me?’

  ‘Because until now I figured one of us was going to come up with a better idea. I wouldn’t get too enthusiastic. If we give this a try, you’re the guy who’ll be taking all the risk.’

  Coburn had intended the statement to be a warning, hoping it would persuade the American to consider an approach that would be less of a gamble. But, during the rest of their drive back to the motel and for much of the remainder of the day, instead of O’Halloran worrying about the risk, or being willing to explore alternatives, he appeared to be more interested in discussing the details of a proposal so sketchy that the longer Coburn thought about the possibility of it going wrong, the more foolhardy it seemed to be.

  By late evening, all talked out and having eventually agreed that there was no reason why tomorrow night wouldn’t be as good a night as any to see whether the plan would work, Coburn left O’Halloran sitting by himself in the motel restaurant and went to his room to make his second call to Heather.

  It had been three days and two nights since he’d spoken to her last. The days had been more or less OK, he thought. But the nights hadn’t – in part because he’d had trouble getting to sleep, but mostly because of his dreams; two of them triggered by his memories of her lying beside him on the bed in his Singapore apartment, and one in which he returned to the village to discover she’d never meant to wait for him and had left for an unknown destination as soon as she’d been able to.

  When he’d phoned her from Maryland she’d answered right away. Tonight she didn’t, sounding pleased but out of breath when she eventually said hello.

  ‘Did you have to run from somewhere?’ Coburn asked.

  ‘I was outside, helping Indiri’s husband. He’s trying to chase a porcupine out of the drainage ditch behind the hut. I forgot to take the phone with me.’

  ‘I seem to remember you promising not to do that.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She pretended to sound apologetic. ‘Do you want me to promise again?’

  ‘You can make it up to me later. Anything interesting going on? What happened about the guy who was selling amphetamines?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nobody does. He just disappeared. Hari said to tell you that he’s thinking of organizing another raid. He’s heard about a shipment of Chinese DVD players that’s due through the Strait on Saturday. I can’t see him going ahead unless he can pre-sell them, though – you know, because they’re on a big ship that would be dangerous to board, and right now the black market’s oversupplied with pirated consumer goods, so the profit margin wouldn’t be that good.’

  Coburn couldn’t help but be amused. ‘You want to be careful,’ he said. ‘Give yourself another couple of weeks and you’ll be walking around the village with a parrot on your shoulder.’

  ‘That’s not how long you’re going to be away, is it?’

  ‘No. With any luck by this time tomorrow we’ll have the hard part wrapped up, and O’Halloran can take things from there. He’s a pretty good guy once you get to know him.’

  ‘He’s not there with you now, is he?’

  ‘Not in the same room. Are you still OK?’

  ‘Of course I am. You asked me that last time.’ She hesitated. ‘I want you back here. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah I know that.’ Coburn wished he hadn’t mentioned tomorrow, knowing that if the mission were to fail it could be a while until he’d be able to see her again.

  For a few more minutes he continued talking, more conscious of the distance between them the longer he did so, and feeling even further away after he’d said goodbye to her and hung up the receiver.

  It was his own fault, he decided. He should have put off the call until tomorrow when he’d have a clearer idea of where he stood. But instead, he’d called her tonight with no real news, and as a consequence, had found himself repeating the promise he’d made her when she’d kissed him goodbye at the airport in Singapore.

  At least things had progressed a bit since Singapore, he thought. He had twenty-four hours in which to figure out how to avoid any screwups, then, as long as there was none, for the first time he’d have a chance to secure a more certain future not just for himself, but for the young woman who, unlike the girl in his dream, seemed to have every intention of waiting for him at the village.

  CHAPTER 14

  EVERY SO OFTEN, headlights from approaching vehicles were illuminating the interior of the car. In between times, because O’Halloran was black, and because of the dark-coloured jacket and jeans he was wearing, he was almost impossible to see.

  He was sitting in the passenger seat with his laptop balanced on his knees, and for the last five or six miles had been staring at the screen while he punched at keys with a single finger.

  ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ Coburn asked.

  ‘Checking.’

  ‘Checking what?’

  ‘That I can download files from Shriver’s computer in a hurry if I have to.’

  ‘Suppose he doesn’t have a computer.’

  ‘He has.’ The American folded down his screen. ‘All four of the FAL websites list his email address. Even if you wanted to run an outfit the size of the FAL without a computer, you couldn’t.’

  ‘So why bring a camera too?’

  ‘Quick and easy if there’s hard copy lying around.’

  Despite O’Halloran sounding confident,
Coburn knew he wasn’t. Since leaving their motel, when the American hadn’t been busy at his laptop he hadn’t said a great deal, and only now they were approaching the east-west highway crossing did he seem more willing to talk.

  ‘Have you ever had a go at anything like this before?’ Coburn asked.

  ‘If you work for the National Counter-Proliferation Centre you don’t spend your time breaking into places. Taking pictures of a Pakistani nuclear reactor or having a look round inside a uranium-enrichment plant in Iran might sound like a good idea, but nobody knows how to do that.’

  ‘You don’t know how to get inside Shriver’s house either,’ Coburn said. ‘Not yet, you don’t.’

  ‘Listen.’ O’Halloran kept his voice level. ‘If you and I start going over this again, we’re both going to get pissed off again. You worry about the munitions store – I can handle the break-in. If the place has closed circuit television cameras, I’ll work round them. If it has a security system, I’ll have a go at deactivating it, and if the password I’ve got for Shriver’s computer doesn’t work I won’t hang around any longer than I have to.’

  ‘What if Shriver’s been smart enough to change his password?’ The possibility hadn’t occurred to Coburn before.

  ‘He isn’t smart enough. Lucky for us he’s been using the same one for the last 18 months. According to the guy who ran Yegorov’s facial recognition search, if Shriver wasn’t in the habit of accessing his home computer when he’s away on trips, we wouldn’t have been able to get it at all. Not even his internet service provider would have known what it is.’

  ‘Your CIA friend made a call to Shriver’s ISP, did he?’

  ‘Not much point working for an intelligence agency if you can’t put the screws on to get what you need to keep the country safe.’

  Coburn tried to see if the American was grinning, but in the dark it was hard to be certain. ‘Are you going to tell me what the password is?’ he said.