Air Force One is Down u-2

by John Denis

  But strangely, that mattered less and less to Smith as the elongated hours passed. What was important was the crime he had planned to celebrate his return to life — the big one, which would destroy the credibility of UNACO and its commander, Malcolm Philpott. Smith deeply hated the man who had condemned him to the scarcely endurable catalepsy of imprisonment — but this time he would triumph and UNACO would fall.

  Dunkels would not let him down. Nor would Jagger; nor would Stein. Failure, as always with Mister Smith, was unthinkable. He had felt President Warren G. Wheeler squirming in his hands once before; and he would do so again.

  Smith’s mind conjured up anew the vision of the converted Boeing 707 that was, to Warren G. Wheeler, Air Force One. ‘Oh dear,’ he murmured, ‘has the nasty man taken your toy away?’

  And for the first time in three years, four months and eighteen days, genuine, unforced laughter filled the lonely prison cell, so near to his beloved Paris that Smith could almost smell the drains.

  TWO

  Over the next four days, Cody Jagger survived the mental and physical agony of losing his persona.

  He could not, though, have been in more skilful or patient hands. Stein’s operating theatre, in which he was joined by only two members of his staff, wholly dependent on him for money and drugs, was set out like a society photographer’s salon.

  Every inch of wall space was given over to huge blow-up pictures of McCafferty’s face taken from six different angles, including a shot of the back of his neck, showing the precise set of his flat, trim ears.

  The operating table was surrounded by a forest of tripods bearing multi-bracketed floodlights, adjustable vertically and in their angles of concentration. Stein, bent over the table which glowed under its own bank of arc-lamps, constantly barked instructions to his minions to sharpen or illuminate particular features of the subject.

  Then, squinting fiercely at the pictures that charted McCafferty’s face with the fine detail of an Ordnance Survey Map, Stein wielded his scalpel on the unconscious Jagger to trade cheek for cheek, jowl for jowl, nose for nose.

  With total detachment, and a square centimetre at a time, Stein sliced away slivers of Cody Jagger and moulded them into jigsaw pieces of Joe McCafferty, like Lego bricks of flesh, the common denominators of a man which the surgeon simply rearranged in the shape of a different man.

  Finally it was done, the stitches out, the scars pink and fresh. It was 0330 on the morning of the fifth day, and Stein, slumped cross-legged on the floor studying his handiwork in an enlarging mirror set into the ceiling, reflected sourly that in only a day and a half more, the God of Abraham and Isaac had created an entire world. ‘Probably had better hired help than me,’ Stein chuckled malevolently. He had never felt so enervated, so completely exhausted.

  He looked at the taped and bandaged head. If there was no tissue infection, the bulk of the hard work was over. But Stein had sensed from the mounting urgency in Dunkels’ voice on the phone that Smith’s plans were coming to a head.

  Stein knew he could delay no further in contacting Karilian.

  The Mercedes drew up once more at the Edelweiss Clinic, midway through the evening of the same day. Stein, who had spent the intervening hours sleeping, crabbed down the steps to greet the large, square-faced man who had elbowed the respectful chauffeur impatiently aside.

  The driver, by inclination a gregarious type, was rapidly tiring of ferrying rude and uncommunicative foreigners to his employer.

  Axel Karilian, KGB controller, Switzerland, ignored Stein’s outstretched hand, grasping him instead roughly by the elbow and pivoting him around to face back up the steps. ‘Show me,’ he commanded, propelling the little Swiss doctor through the entry doors.

  * * *

  As a high-ranking and, by definition, high-risk criminal, Smith was customarily fed in his cell, keeping him away from contact with other prisoners. So when his evening meal-tray was removed, and the others in his block (Smith subconsciously counted them, identifying the cells solely by the sounds of their doors closing and the number of steps it took to reach them), he knew that it would be half an hour to the guard’s final round of the day, a further twenty minutes to complete the tour, and an additional fifteen minutes to ‘lights out’. The regimen never varied. Smith would have been distressed if it had.

  That evening, while Doctor Richard Stein was entertaining Axel Karilian in the Edelweiss Clinic’s penthouse, Mister Smith ate his dinner in the prison’s isolation wing with more than usual relish.

  He was aware that it would be the last meal he would ever take there. He lay back on his bunk and considered the immediate and more distant future, while his mind automatically catalogued the jail’s grinding routine, cell by cell, tray by tray, door by door, step by squeaky-booted step (a squeaking boot! Not two, but one! A pleasing paradox to take out with him).

  Smith chuckled his delight, and in his brain the nagging metronome that kept time for him ticked remorselessly on. He fell asleep, but even as he awoke hours later his first conscious impression was of the metronome taking over again, so that he knew for an indisputable fact that the hour was drawing near.

  * * *

  The prison ‘trusty’ bribed to be the prime mover in springing Smith from jail licked his lips and tried to stop his eyes from darting repeatedly to the wall clock in the maintenance block. The second hand clicked over from 0359 to 0400, and the convict jammed the flat of his hand down on the plunger-key of the detonator device that had been smuggled in to him.

  In the isolation wing, two hundred yards away, an electric spark leapt out from a junction box to join a trail of black powder. The powder spluttered into flame, and eleven seconds later a can of gasoline exploded in a bedding store at the end of Smith’s corridor. Soon the store and its adjoining rooms were well alight, and the prison staff, squeaky-boot among them, rushed to the scene. That was when Smith’s cell light came on.

  The alarm from the prison to the local fire-station was automatic on the location of any uncontrolled outbreak, but still the fire-officers tended to wait for a confirmatory phone call. When it came, six fire appliances — two turntable ladder-wagons, a control vehicle and three water/foam-tenders — roared out at a reckless speed into the night.

  The fire spread quickly, yet the prison governor, and the deputy governor and the chief warder, all had to be roused and mobilised before the order to evacuate the threatened areas could be given. The guards drew rifles and riot guns from the armoury, and a nervous police commissioner turned out a cadre of the local CRS detachment, the riot police.

  Arc-lamps and sweep-lights illuminated every cranny of the gaunt building, and Smith sat up and then leaned back on his elbows when his cell door burst open.

  ‘Out!’ the armed guard ordered. ‘There’s a fire. We’re clearing the block. Out!’

  ‘Where to?’ Smith asked, putting on a show of sudden panic.

  ‘The main yard. Join the queue. Hurry!’

  Mister Smith left the place which had been his home for more than three years without so much as a backward glance.

  * * *

  The fire-engine convoy wailed and clanged its way through the dark streets, to be joined at an intersection by police cars and outriders, adding still more manic noise to the already insane cacophony. At the prison, shouting guards urged streams of convicts from five different directions into the large central yard, herding them into resentful chains to feed water and sand to the flames. The keening of sirens and screeching of tyres announced the arrival of the police, who did little apart from get in each other’s way until the firemen came.

  The fire had now spread to the stretch of buildings nearest the high perimeter-wall, and the two big turntable appliances straight away hoisted up their ladders above the wall. Firemen scrambled along them like mountain goats, and trained their hoses on the flames.

  Unnoticed by the firemen, but ushered smartly to the wall by the police, a third turntable engine coming from the opposite directi
on from the main force, also shot its ladder up over the wall. The chief fire-officer in overall charge of operations in the control vehicle screamed directions at the crew for concentrating their water and foam.

  The message was passed up the ladder to the man at the top, Leading Fireman Siegfried Dunkels, who acknowledged with a capable wave. Then he waved again, using both arms and trapping his hose between his knees. This time Smith saw him.

  The yard was filled with smoke, clamour and confusion, and it was easy for Smith to clutch at his throat, retch noisily, and stumble out of the crocodile, which automatically closed ranks to fill his place.

  Smith fell to his knees, apparently choking, then got up and lurched towards a patch of clearer air. It was covered by the harsh white glare of a searchlight, so the prison officer he bumped into en route did not trouble to turn him away from an area that would normally be strictly out-of-bounds to convicts: the foot of the wall.

  Dunkels’ ladder, and the hoses of his men, were pointed at the heart of the fire, but gradually the ladder began swinging away from the blaze and towards the yard until it centred over the crumpled figure of Mister Smith. Dunkels dropped a weighted nylon rope-ladder smack into his lap. Smith grasped it and started to scale the wall.

  A guard — primed, like his colleagues, to watch for signs of a break-out — caught the unnatural movement of the human fly in the corner of his vision, and shouted a warning. As he charged over to the gyrating figure he saw the rope-ladder, and leapt for its trailing end. But Dunkels had already jerked his hose away from the flames and was swivelling it downwards. Carefully avoiding Smith, he aimed the hose, and the high-pressure jet of water took the guard full in the chest, slamming him to the ground and pinning him there like a butterfly in a specimen case.

  Smith reached the top of the wall and clutched the turntable ladder, which retracted, dropped its angle, and deposited him on the ground by the fire-engine. The hard-pressed fire chief also had the bad luck to notice Smith’s escape. He ran in the direction of the third appliance, the presence of which had been bothering him for some little while.

  Dunkels, in the still-retracting ladder, gave him the full treatment, bowling him over like a ninepin and then worrying him until he crawled back to his control wagon, where sympathetic hands hauled him inside.

  Smith jumped into the cab, and the driver gunned the motor and moved the appliance away at top speed, sirens blaring. Dunkels, perched on the end of the now horizontal ladder, used his hose like a tail-gunner to deadly effect, scattering startled firemen and CRS toughies who tried vainly to stop them.

  The madly racing fire-engine left the city limits at an impossible speed five minutes later. In a quiet country road, the appliance stopped. The crew got out, peeled off their uniforms, and six of them piled into a neutral-coloured van which matched the name on their early-shift construction workers’ overalls.

  Smith, Dunkels and the remaining three boarded a pair of Citroën cars, where changes of clothing were waiting for them. The limousines moved off together, and Smith heaved a sigh of profound relief.

  ‘Excellent, Dunkels,’ he said, ‘truly excellent. Now — get me a safe-house and a woman, in that order.’

  Dunkels grinned. ‘Should you wish to reverse the order, sir,’ he said, ‘there’s a woman in the back of the other car.’

  * * *

  Karilian had reluctantly allowed Stein to take the lead when the surgeon ordered him to be gloved, masked and gowned, then demonstrated beyond doubt that Jagger was no longer in the operating theatre.

  They reached Jagger’s off-limits suite, and Stein kept the bad news from him until they had tiptoed across to Jagger’s bedside. ‘What the hell’s this?’ Karilian burst out, jabbing a stubby finger at the bandaged head. ‘I want to see his face. That’s why I’m here, remember?’

  ‘Shhh,’ Stein soothed him. ‘Keep the noise down, I beg you. I don’t want him suddenly awoken. He’s still under sedation and mustn’t move quickly.’

  Without dropping his voice, Karilian demanded when he could see Jagger properly. Stein had assured him that Jagger would wake naturally in the early hours, when the sedatives and antibiotics had worked through his system. But while there was still the risk of tissue infection, or even rejection, the ringer must remain unconscious. ‘Please do as I ask,’ he entreated Karilian. ‘Come and dine with me upstairs. I have some excellent vodka and Beluga caviare.’

  Karilian looked thunderously at him from beneath his shaggy brows, the hard, flinty grey eyes contemptuous and unblinking. Then he gave a half-grunting, half-snorting bark and growled, ‘Make it Glenfiddich, Dom Perignon and a T-bone steak, and I might consider it.’

  Stein also relaxed, his body subsiding from warped tension into its normal question mark shape. ‘But I do want to see him — tonight,’ Karilian warned him.

  ‘So you shall,’ Stein promised, ‘so you shall.’

  The little doctor invariably won their minor skirmishes. Richard Stein, who had started life in Switzerland with the less acceptable name, in those days, of Scholomo Asher Silberstein, had known Axel Karilian for thirty-five years. Stein, then a gifted young medical student, had been trapped in Poland at the outbreak of war, and was sent to the nearest concentration camp with his fellow Jews. Luckily, it was a small and indifferently run camp under a weak but perverted commandant. Stein had wheedled his way into the camp’s medical unit, and the commandant’s confidence, and used the stepping-stones to Himmler’s Final Solution to advance himself into a position of power.

  Stein pandered grossly to the commandant’s twisted mind (and improved his own knowledge of surgical techniques) by performing ghastly and obscene experimental operations on the inmates. His greatest medical triumph had been grafting organs from a large, fully-grown man on to the body of a seven-year-old girl. The child had lived for six weeks until the poisons trapped inside her literally erupted.

  The Red Army surged swiftly through Poland on its way to Germany, and the commandant and his staff were unprepared for the sudden onslaught on the camp. The major in charge of the Soviet force lined up the Germans and shot them out of hand. He did the same with the weakest and most ailing of the Jews.

  But Stein, neither sickly nor weak, was handed over to a young Ukrainian Intelligence captain who had just been posted to the advance armies, and so began the long friendship between Axel Karilian and the soon-to-be Richard Stein.

  Stein was spirited away when the Ukrainian learned of his special abilities, and to protect him from Jewish revenge, Karilian took him to Odessa, where the Swiss Jew passed on enough of his hideously acquired skill in plastic surgery and skin-grafting to enable local doctors to change his face.

  Stein did not stop at that, though; he wanted his shape changed as well. And he told the orthopaedic surgeons how to do it. It was an operation he had performed many times on unanaesthetised Jewish children, with more pliable bones than his, transforming them from human beings into grotesque monsters. Stein laid out every step of the operation for the Russians, endured the agony and, like Jagger, survived.

  Richard Stein was no hapless victim of rheumatoid-arthritis. He was a self-made question mark.

  After the war the KGB set him up in the Edelweiss Clinic, and Karilian joined him in Switzerland as the Geneva-based controller. It frequently amused Stein, as he amassed considerable wealth with the success of the clinic, that many of his best customers now were even wealthier Jews. On them, of course, he operated with the utmost care and skill. And never forgot the anaesthetic.

  Cody Jagger’s path to the embrace of the KGB was equally painful, and was also to involve Axel Karilian.

  After a boyhood of petty offences and a brace of unhelpful prison terms when he graduated from a more serious school of crime, Jagger made PFC in the Army and was captured early on in the Vietnam war, waging a bloody and highly personal counter-offensive north of Hué.

  He was tough, truculent, a born bully, and no trouble at all to the Viet Cong torture squads, wh
o broke him inside a month.

  Jagger was selected for training by a travelling KGB recruiting officer, but far from easing his lot the new status turned Cody’s life into a living hell. Physical torment and mental assault alternated in a pattern of treatment which took him to the very borders of his sanity. Only afterwards did he dimly appreciate that turncoat material was of no use to the Soviet intelligence machine. He had given in too easily to the Viet Cong; therefore, the KGB reasoned, he could just as easily revert back to the Americans. They could not afford that kind of risk, so they handed Jagger over to Axel Karilian, who had picked up any number of useful tips in his fruitful association with Richard Stein.

  Karilian’s programme for Jagger was typical in its uncomplicated logic: the American must be cowed and brutalised into abject, unquestioning submission until he became a safe prospect.

  It took Jagger three years to realise what was happening. When he did, he submitted — and meant it. Moscow sent him back to Hanoi, where the torture was increased daily for two months, to the point where Jagger lived every waking moment in constant, gibbering terror.

  Only then had Karilian been satisfied. Thereafter, the KGB ruled Jagger by fear and fear alone.

  He performed well enough for them as an agent in the States, but at a purely basic level, so that when Smith instructed Stein to find ringer-material for him, and Stein had passed on the news to Karilian, even the Ukrainian had been reluctant to use Jagger. But when he reconsidered the proposition, Karilian knew that Jagger must be the perfect candidate, though Stein still had misgivings.

  Stein and Karilian entered once more the bedroom of the now restlessly stirring man. Jagger’s eyes opened and regarded them through the slits in his bandages. ‘How is he?’ Stein inquired of the nurse sitting by the bed.