Then it was left to a young airman to fill Tracie in on the plan for depositing her safely on the ground in Bashkir. His name was Lieutenant Brian Schlichter, and he was earnest and quiet. He looked to Tracie like he should be on his way to a high school algebra class, not risking his life flying a CIA operative into the mountains of a Soviet satellite state.
“I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have, ma’am,” Schlichter said. He kept his voice down in an obvious attempt to avoid distracting his fellow crewmembers.
“Thank you,” Tracie said. “I guess the obvious question is why such a big airplane? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to smuggle someone into the Soviet Union in something a little…I don’t know, faster and more maneuverable?”
Schlichter grinned. “Something like that beautiful G4 you came in on, you mean?”
“Well, maybe not that exact plane, but something similar, yes.”
“Believe it or not,” the lieutenant said, “this Hercules is perfectly suited to today’s mission.”
“How so?”
“For one thing, we were asked to bring along a piece of cargo that would have had a hard time fitting into a Gulfstream, or almost any other airplane for that matter.”
“What cargo?”
“Look for yourself,” Schlichter said, nodding toward the cargo hold, which stretched out behind the flight deck like a warehouse. “The order to include it came straight from the highest levels at the CIA.”
Tracie craned her neck to see around a large aluminum tank bolted to the floor directly behind the seats. Behind the tank, in the rear of the aircraft’s hold, a vehicle had been lashed securely. Small and compact, resembling a slightly scaled-down version of the Jeep Cherokee or Ford Bronco, Tracie recognized it immediately from her time working in the USSR. It was a Lada SUV.
Manufactured by the Soviet carmaker AutoVAZ, the Lada was one of the most popular automobile brands in Russia. With so much of the Soviet Union facing brutal winters year in and year out, many Ladas featured a four-wheel-drive option, and this one was no exception. It sat high off the ground for clearance and featured muscular-looking tires designed to offer superior traction in heavy snow.
“Where did that come from?” Tracie asked.
Lieutenant Schlichter raised his hands in a warding-off gesture and smiled. “I don’t know, ma’am. A Turkish citizen delivered it to the front gate and the man disappeared before anyone could question him. But according to our commanding officer, the order to deliver the car—and you—to our landing zone came from a senior administration official. When you hear things like that, you keep your mouth shut and follow orders.”
Tracie realized this young man was in the habit of keeping his mouth shut and following orders in any situation. He now reminded her less of a high school kid and more of what he actually was—a dedicated naval aviator.
“Very thoughtful of that person,” Tracie said. It had to have been Stallings.
“Yes, Ma’am. And if you’re going to spend any amount of time—like more than five minutes—in the Ural Mountains, a four-wheel-drive vehicle like this one will be absolutely essential to your survival. The area is rugged and breathtakingly cold.”
Tracie nodded. “What’s the other reason, Lieutenant?”
“Excuse me?”
“When you answered my question about why this C-130 was the right plane to deliver me to the Urals, you said ‘for one thing,’ and then you showed me the truck you were carrying in the cargo bay. That implies there’s a second reason.”
He chuckled. “Well, yes, ma’am. This being an illicit mission into enemy territory, we can’t just call up air traffic control and request permission to land. For obvious reasons, we can’t go anywhere near an airport, not that there are any in the mountains where we’re headed, anyway.”
Tracie blinked in surprise. She hadn’t even considered that factor. “So…where are we going to land? This airplane is big. How will it even be possible to put it on the ground?”
“Yes, this is a big airplane, but big doesn’t always translate into a requirement for a lengthy runway. The C-130 is no longer officially classified as a STOL airplane, but that’s more for political and budgetary reasons than anything else. STOL is exactly what it is.”
Tracie shook her head. “STOL? What does that mean?”
“I’m sorry, I should have explained. STOL stands for ‘Short Takeoff and Landing.’ Essentially it means that the aircraft requires significantly less runway than other airplanes of a similar size and performance.”
“STOL.” Tracie tried the word on for size. She liked it. The notion of an aircraft as large as this one using just a small portion of runway appealed to her. It meant…
“Wait a second.” She scratched her head. “You just said we can’t land at an airport, and that makes perfect sense. What difference does it make how much runway the C-130 uses if we’re not landing at an airport?”
“This airplane doesn’t need any runway.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You probably didn’t notice when you came aboard because it’s the middle of the night and you’re understandably more concerned about accomplishing your mission—whatever that might be—than about the configuration of your transport plane. But if you’d been looking at the landing gear as you approached, you would have seen something unexpected.”
“And what would that be?”
“In addition to conventional landing gear, which we used on departure at Incirlik, this airplane is equipped with skis.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, ma’am, you heard me right.”
“Skis.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’re going to use skis to land on the side of a mountain.”
“Not exactly,” the lieutenant said, “but you’re on the right track. We’ve studied surveillance images taken from SR-71 overflights to identify a large frozen lake located right in the middle of the area in which we were instructed to deliver you. We’re going to use the skis to land on top of the frozen, snow-covered lake.”
Tracie was stunned. No wonder the atmosphere inside the flight deck had been tense since her arrival.
She shook her head in wonder. “I’ve never heard of an airplane this size being equipped with skis.”
“That’s because it’s extremely unusual,” Schlichter said. “The concept of a C-130 on skis was developed back in the 1950s to assist in expeditions to Antarctica. A similarly outfitted airplane—this one—was delivered to our unit several years ago for use in exactly this type of situation.”
Tracie glanced back at the large aluminum tank bolted to the floor of the Hercules directly behind the crew. “That’s an auxiliary fuel tank, isn’t it?”
Schlichter smiled in appreciation of her observational skills. “Yes it is, ma’am. Given our unit’s location, this aircraft was customized to permit longer-range operations than would normally be possible with the typical C-130 fuel capacity.”
“Without the tank, you would risk running our of fuel to deliver me to the landing zone.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s correct.”
“But with the auxiliary tank, that’s not an issue.”
“Uh…” Schlichter looked at his fellow crewmembers for help, but both men returned his gaze with blank expressions. It was obvious they were letting him know it would be his own responsibility to escape the corner into which he’d painted himself.
“It shouldn’t be an issue,” he finished weakly.
“Shouldn’t be. What does that mean?”
“It means that given the winds aloft, the route we’re forced to take to avoid Soviet radar systems, and the conditions we expect to encounter once we get into the mountains, we should have sufficient fuel to deliver you to the landing zone and return to Incirlik safely.”
“Should have sufficient fuel? You don’t know for sure?”
“We’ve never flown this type of mission before, ma’am, certainly not under combat-t
ype conditions. Theoretically, we should be fine. It’s just that we haven’t stretched fuel capacity to the maximum before.”
Tracie felt sick. These men were risking their lives to help the CIA accomplish a mission. If they were to run into fuel problems it would obviously be on their way back to Turkey, long after they’d dropped her off. She closed her eyes.
Schlichter sensed her unease and repeated, “We should be fine, ma’am.” Then he grinned and said, “But I’m sure you’ll understand if we don’t hang around sipping coffee and swapping war stories once we get on the ice at the landing zone. We’re going to kick you out the door, drop the rear cargo hatch and roll out your car, and then be on our way.”
At that moment the Hercules lurched as it began descending sharply. Tracie grabbed a handhold built into the airplane’s fuselage and tried to remain calm as she flashed back to last May, and the uncontrolled descent of a B-52 into the woods outside Bangor, Maine.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Lieutenant Schlichter said. “This is just part of our flight plan.”
“You guys have a lot to learn about passenger comfort,” she joked, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.
He smiled and said, “Sorry about that. But we’re at the point where we have to descend to the lowest possible safe altitude to avoid radar detection.”
“What altitude would that be?”
“Less than fifty feet while we’re over the Black Sea.”
8
January 31, 1988
4:40 a.m.
Black Sea, west of Sochi, Russia, USSR
The C-130 hurtled over the Black Sea, which remained invisible in the early-morning darkness. She could sense the water’s presence, though, lurking just beneath the aircraft like an angry monster waiting to rip the plane to shreds at the first opportunity.
“How do you know your position in relation to water you can’t see?”
“You trust your instruments,” Schlichter said. The tension, already apparent on the flight deck, ratcheted up even further at the beginning of the riskiest portion of the flight.
“We have onboard radar,” the lieutenant assured Tracie. “We won’t run into a ship, I promise.”
She wanted to ask about the accuracy of the altimeter, the gauge that prevented them from descending too low and plowing into the water, but instead said, “What happens once we cross the Black Sea?” The question was meant more as a distraction to ease her nerves than out of an actual desire to hear the answer.
“We’re going to cross into enemy territory just north of the Soviet Republic of Georgia, near the Lazarevskoye Microdistrict. This area was chosen carefully because as seaside real estate goes it’s less populated than other portions of the coastline. We believe it offers the least overall chance of interception by the Russians.”
“Sounds risky.”
“Only if we’ve been detected as we crossed over the water. If we’ve flown low enough to avoid Soviet radar, by the time they see us approaching the shoreline they won’t have time to scramble interceptors before we disappear again into the mountains.”
“And if we weren’t low enough to stay below the radar?”
“Then we’ll be met by a very unfriendly welcoming committee.”
In the distance ahead, Tracie could se what appeared to be a series of lights, dimly visible but rapidly brightening. Within seconds they began to resolve, and shortly after that, she recognized them for what they were: automobile headlights. They appeared almost level with the C-130’s windscreen and were approaching at incredible speed.
“Holy shit!” she exclaimed as the pilot-in-command applied power and eased back on the yoke.
“Time to climb a little,” Schlichter said. “The Black Sea is a popular Soviet vacation spot and as such, there’s a coastal highway running through this area. That’s what you see.”
“And if the Soviets saw us coming, we’ll find out about it any second now,” she said.
“Yes ma’am.”
The cars on the highway passed below the C-130, the plane missing them by what felt to Tracie like a matter of inches, although logic told her it had to be more than that. She pictured the surprised drivers getting a close-up view of a U.S. Air Force cargo plane rocketing just over their heads and disappearing toward the mountains to the northeast.
The pilot eased left and descended once again over a river, making slight course adjustments to follow the meandering water. Time slowed, turning tense seconds into minutes, and after what felt like a very long time they left the relatively densely populated Black Sea coastline behind. As they did so, the crew breathed a sigh of relief almost in unison.
Tracie thought she knew why. “If the Soviets were going to intercept us, they would have done so by now, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes, ma’am, in all probability we would already have either been shot down or received a fighter escort to the nearest Soviet base. We should be okay.”
“But we’re northeastbound. I thought the Ural Mountains were a more northerly heading from Incirlik.”
“I see you’ve done your research,” Schlichter said. “And you’re correct. But remember, we can’t use the most direct routing because it’s critical we avoid known Soviet radar installations. And taking advantage of the cover provided by the terrain in this area will allow us to do that. The plan actually is to continue more or less on this heading, overflying the northwestern portion of the Kazakh Soviet Republic, before finally turning to more of a northerly heading and making for Bashkir.”
The terrain had already begun turning rugged, with signs of human habitation few and far between. The pilot flying this leg began climbing as he continued to follow the river, eventually leaving the waterway behind.
There was still no sign the Soviets had become aware of their presence.
***
January 31, 1988
8:40 a.m.
Ural Mountains, Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Daylight had begun to insinuate itself into the sky above the Ural Mountains of Bashkir as the flight crew initiated descent toward an impossibly small landing area. Actual sunrise wouldn’t occur here for another thirty minutes or more, but the diffuse light was sufficient to finally reveal the snow-covered landmasses above and around which the C-130 had been flying for nearly the past four hours.
When Lieutenant Schlichter first pointed out the landing zone—the “LZ,” as it was known in military aviation jargon—Tracie was unable to discern any area that appeared remotely large enough upon which to land an airplane this size.
Or any size.
She shook her head in confusion. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t see what you’re looking at.”
The senior airman, who had flown the entire leg and who would trade places with Schlichter for the trip home, circled twice above the LZ before turning outbound to begin final descent. As the plane banked but before the area disappeared behind them, Schlichter pointed firmly out the side window and said, “Right there, ma’am. You see that area where there are no trees?”
“I see it,” she said.
“You can’t tell because of the heavy snow cover, but that’s a frozen lake. It’s why there aren’t any trees. That’s where we’re going to put down.”
Tracie was dumbfounded. “I don’t mean to question your professional judgment, but your plan is to land this giant piece of metal on that little frozen patch down there?”
“That’s the plan, ma’am. We’re treating the lake as if it were a short runway, so right now Major Corrigan is turning to the arrival leg known as the downwind. We’ll fly away from the LZ for a distance of about five miles, then we’ll turn to what’s called the base leg before turning again almost immediately onto the final approach course. By then the aircraft will be fully stabilized and slowed to our final approach speed.”
She was still having trouble processing the notion that they would be attempting what seemed a suicidal maneuver.
“Okay,” she replied, hat
ing the obvious skepticism in her voice but unable to silence it. “So we’re going to turn a five-mile final to a runway that’s not really a runway, but rather a snow-covered lake. Then what?”
“Then we’re going to clear the trees ringing the shoreline at the lowest possible altitude and drop right onto the surface of the lake.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes, ma’am, just like that.”
“But the lake seems so…”
“Tiny?” Schlichter suggested helpfully.
“Yes, exactly. It seems far too small to land any airplane on, never mind something the size of this C-130.”
“Remember, this is a STOL airplane. Yes it’s big, but we can land it in a surprisingly short distance. Also, the flaps on this baby can lower to nearly ninety degrees, allowing a much steeper descent profile than the typical airplane.”
“What does that mean?”
“Typical descent profile is three to three-and-a-half degrees when landing. With the C-130 we can descend at around seven degrees, even more steeply if necessary. This means clearing the tops of the trees and then dropping onto the lake is feasible for us, whereas it would be an impossibility for most other aircraft.”
“If you say so,” Tracie muttered. She realized her comment had gone unheard by Schlichter, who had turned his full attention to the flight deck’s instrumentation. He wasn’t flying the plane, but he was concentrating every bit as hard as if he had been.
The skies had lightened noticeably in just the short time she’d been discussing the specifics of the landing with Schlichter. Still, visibility was low in the shadowy half-light of a mountain winter morning. The plane turned from base leg to final, still descending, and Tracie had to strain mightily just to see the lake LZ from a distance of five miles.
The pilot had slowed the plane while descending until now, as the C-130 approached the snow-covered “runway,” it felt to Tracie like they were almost hovering, moving toward the landing zone at barely more than a snail’s pace.
She realized she was perfectly fine with the notion of delaying this seemingly insane maneuver, even if only by another minute or two. Adrenaline pounded through her system, causing her arms to shake as she gripped the handholds tightly.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 126