She tightened the seat restraints one more notch and breathed deeply through her mouth in a failed attempt to calm herself. Her nerves were thrumming exactly as they did before engaging an enemy one-on-one, but this nervousness was much more difficult to deal with because she had absolutely no control over the outcome. Her status was reduced to that of helpless observer, forced to rely on the training and judgment of others, men she had known only for a few hours and who, upon mission completion, she would likely never see again.
She wasn’t the only one feeling the pressure as the plane leveled off one final time, now practically skimming the treetops. The atmosphere on the flight deck was electric. All extraneous chatter had ceased, the only words spoken being those necessary for a safe landing. The flight engineer was reading off numbers at set intervals, and after a moment Tracie recognized them as altitudes above the surface of the ground expressed in feet.
Airspeed seemed to increase as their descent stopped, the trees sliding beneath the windscreen, massive and ancient and terrifying. Again Tracie flashed back to her last panic-filled seconds inside the cockpit of a B-52 making a desperate attempt at an emergency landing at Bangor International Airport last spring.
The stricken Major Tom Wilczynski had succumbed to his injuries in the last few seconds before touchdown. Tracie recalled grabbing for the yoke and missing as the plane descended into the forest. It was the last thing she remembered before regaining consciousness inside the vehicle of the man who’d pulled her from the burning wreckage.
This is different, she reminded herself. These guys are professionals and they’ve practiced maneuvers exactly like this hundreds of times, probably thousands.
The pilot called out a number she guessed was probably airspeed. The speed that had seemed so slow a moment ago now seemed much too fast, and the small snow-covered lake rushed toward them, filling the windscreen in a monochromatic white.
They cleared the last of the trees and Tracie’s stomach dropped as the C-130 lurched downward. The nose of the plane pointed directly at the LZ and for a moment she feared they would prang into the frozen lake like a lawn dart.
Then the pilot raised the nose in a gentle flair and the rear skis touched down with a muffled thump that was noticeable, but only just, over the sound of the engines screaming in the high-altitude air. The nose lowered until the front skis impacted the surface as well, and then the plane was decelerating rapidly. Brakes would be useless during a landing on snow and ice, obviously, and Tracie realized the pilot was using reverse thrust on the four props to slow the aircraft.
The moment the front skis touched down, the props whipped up the powdery mountain snow. Near whiteout conditions instantly enveloped the plane, resembling the worst winter blizzards Tracie had ever seen growing up in the D.C. area. Visibility through the windscreen plummeted, dropping from poor to nearly nonexistent.
And she knew the trees at the far end of the lake were approaching.
The plane began to slide to the right, like a car in an uncontrolled skid. The pilot cursed softly and adjusted the power settings. Tracie assumed he was adding power to the engines on one side. Whatever he did seemed to work, as the aircraft straightened out again but continued to slide forward.
She was holding her breath but couldn’t force air into her lungs as she peered through the windscreen. She was certain the last thing she would ever see would be the massive figures of the trees looming through the blowing snow, then impact and violence and darkness and death.
And then it was over.
The C-130 shuddered to a halt and the blowing snow began to settle. Visibility through the windscreen improved again, and as it did, Tracie saw that her concern about the trees lurking at the far end of the LZ had been justified. The shoreline stood no more than fifty feet from their position, marked by a slight incline and then the trees, omnipresent and lethal.
Tracie breathed deeply for what felt like the first time since they’d turned toward the LZ five miles ago.
Major Corrigan turned to face her and said, “I don’t mean to rush to you, ma’am, but every drop of fuel is precious if we’re going to make it back to Incirlik. We need to offload you and get back in the air absolutely as quickly as possible.”
“Of course,” Tracie said, and began unbuckling her safely harness.
As she did so, Corrigan flipped a switch and the C-130’s rear hydraulic cargo door began lowering. Within seconds it had dropped to the snow, acting as a ramp off which the Lada SUV would drive.
Frigid mountain air raced into the cabin and for the second time in a matter of minutes, Tracie found it hard to take a breath. The first time was from tension, this time from the shock of exposure to the extreme cold. She shrugged into her parka and lifted her equipment bag onto her shoulder before following Lieutenant Schlichter to the cargo area.
“The keys are in the vehicle,” he said, “and one of our people filled it with as much fuel as it would hold back at Incirlik before we loaded it aboard the plane. Obviously I don’t know your assignment and I don’t want to know. But we were told this LZ is no more than thirty miles from mission location.”
Tracie nodded and the man continued. “The long-range weather forecast is for a couple of days of high pressure and then gradually worsening weather conditions, with a storm system moving into the area in four to five days. We can’t land here if the conditions are too poor, because we have no nav guidance, so we’ll be back here February third at fourteen-thirty hours to extract you. It’s the most time we can offer you given the incoming weather.”
“Understood,” Tracie said. That gave her four days to accomplish as much surveillance as possible.
“I want to stress,” Schlichter said, “our fuel situation will be the same in four days as it is now. You’ve got to be here and ready to go when we land, because we can’t afford to hang around. If you’re late, you’ll be standing on the lake alone because we’ll have to turn around and take off for Turkey again immediately. Do you understand?”
“I do,” she said. “And thank you. Your fuel situation is obviously a major concern. Are you guys going to be okay?”
“We’ll be alright,” Schlichter said. “But Major Corrigan’s point about a quick turnaround is a good one. We can’t return to Turkey via the same route we used to get here, because there’s a good chance the Soviets would be waiting for us. The return route is somewhat longer, so even with our aux fuel tank we’ll be cutting it close. We really need do to get airborne again ASAP, and that scenario will be equally critical when we return.”
“Got it,” Tracie said. She opened the Lada’s driver side door and tossed her bag into the passenger seat, then looked back at Schlichter to see him removing a series of four heavy chains from the vehicle’s frame. The chains had been pulled taut and attached to U-bolts embedded in the C-130’s fuselage to keep the truck from shifting inside the cargo hold during the flight.
He completed his task in seconds and then approached her quickly. He offered a salute and a smile and she stepped forward and surprised him with a quick hug. “Thanks for everything,” she said. “And please pass along my appreciation to the rest of your crew. You guys are the best.”
“You can thank them in person in four days when your mission’s complete,” he answered.
“I look forward to it,” she said.
She released her hold on the lieutenant and slipped behind the wheel. The Lada’s engine caught immediately as she turned the key, and she shifted into reverse and began backing down the cargo ramp, mindful of the crew’s need to get in the air immediately.
The moment all four tires crunched into the snow and Tracie rolled away from the C-130, the cargo door began lifting back into position. She backed a safe distance away and then shifted into first gear, thankful for the four-wheel-drive transmission. Without it she doubted she would have gotten ten feet in the deep snow.
In the time it took to reach the shelter of the trees at the edge of the lake, the flight crew had t
urned the C-130 one hundred eighty degrees. Snow flew in a wind-whipped frenzy around the airplane and Tracie imagined the men inside straining to see anything at all through the windscreen. The plane began inching forward. In seconds it had reached takeoff speed and lifted into the air, seemingly on a collision course with the same trees they had barely cleared on arrival.
She realized she whispering, “Come on, come one, come on,” as she watched, alone inside the Lada.
For a moment she was sure they weren’t going to make it. Then the plane nosed more aggressively toward the sky. It leaped over the trees and vanished, still climbing steadily.
Tracie listened as the roar of the C-130’s engines faded to a distant hum.
Then the sound disappeared entirely and she was alone.
9
January 31, 1988
9;05 a.m.
Ural Mountains, Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
The silence that descended on the isolated mountain lake following the departure of the C-130 was as all encompassing as anything Tracie had ever experienced. She’d undergone sensory-deprivation training during her time at The Farm, and the current lack of aural stimulation brought her right back to that experience, even now, nearly eight years later.
There were no birds chirping in the trees.
There was no airplane noise.
No faraway construction sounds.
No vehicles rolling past on a distant highway.
Nothing but the low hum of the Lada’s engine, idling softly as Tracie sat on the snow-covered ice. She cranked up the heat and prayed it was operational.
***
Although nothing concrete was known about the secret Soviet installation, Stallings had provided what little intel he could prior to Tracie’s departure for Incirlik. One of the items she’d been given was a vague set of directions to the base, known as Ipatiev.
The Air Force C-130 crew had transmitted a list of three potential landing zones to the CIA after studying the aerial photos provided by SR-71 surveillance. The LZs were numbered in order of preference from one to three, based on proximity to the Soviet base and estimated degree of difficulty in traveling to the installation.
If the flight crew had determined that their first landing option was not feasible—and there were an almost limitless number of reasons why a mountainous LZ could have been deemed unusable, from reduced visibility to low ceilings to obstruction clearance to aircraft performance—they would have proceeded to their second option and, if necessary, to their third.
The return flight in four days held the potential for being much more problematic. There would only be one useable LZ for the flight crew: this one. If conditions did not permit a C-130 landing here, traveling to a second or third landing zone would be pointless, because there would be no CIA operative there to pick up.
That was a worry for later.
For now, utilization of the first option meant Tracie would be afforded the easiest and most direct route to Mezhgorye, the small Bashkiri town located just outside the secret facility she would be surveilling. Everything is relative, though, she thought. The definition of ‘direct and easy’ travel in the Ural Mountains probably bears little resemblance to the same definition almost anywhere else in the world.
But first things always had to come first. Before worrying about getting to Mezhgorye she had to first find a way off the lake. Among the intel Stallings had provided for each potential landing zone was a crude map worked up by an agency analyst showing the approximate location of the nearest road and its orientation to that particular LZ.
In this case, Tracie estimated that if she were able to exit the lake on a north-northwesterly bearing she should cross the road to Mezhgorye in less than a quarter mile. But a quarter mile of driving through these harsh conditions would not be easy, and Tracie was anxious to get started.
She shifted into first gear and crept along the lakeshore, peering into the forest as she drove. Official sunrise would occur within the next few minutes, but the sky was overcast, thick with clouds, and the trees and mountainous terrain cast everything in a shadowy cloak. It seemed clear the twilight-like conditions would remain until the sun had climbed high into the sky, and maybe even well past that time.
Tracie compensated for the lack of daylight by zigzagging as she drove, angling the Lada toward the forest to illuminate the trees with her headlights, then turning away, driving farther onto the surface of the lake to allow herself to angle back toward the shoreline again.
The trees were dense and thick, packed closely together, and before she had traveled a hundred yards she began to fear she would be unable to find sufficient clearance for the vehicle to exit the ice anywhere. The occasional gaps between trees that were large enough to steer the SUV through were filled with smaller trees and scrub brush, and she suspected that were she to try to ram through the brush, her wheels would be lifted off the ground and traction would disappear.
And then she would be stranded.
The LZ was located close enough to Mezhgorye that hiking into town would present little challenge under normal circumstances. Tracie estimated the distance from LZ to mountain village as barely farther than a typical training run, something she could complete in just a few hours.
But these were not normal circumstances. The bitterly cold January morning temperatures at five thousand feet of elevation on a Soviet mountain would require specialized equipment were she to attempt a hike of more than a few hundred yards, equipment she did not have. Her go bag contained heavily insulated clothing designed to protect against sub-zero temperatures while conducting surveillance, but nothing that would permit traveling long distances on foot under these conditions.
So she continued driving, scrutinizing the shoreline, covering as much ground as possible before turning back toward the middle of the lake and starting again. The wind whistled through the trees, swirling onto the open expanse of lake and kicking up snow eddies, occasionally gusting strongly enough to replicate the near-whiteout conditions experienced by the C-130 flight crew during landing.
Tracie’s spirits began to sink. The trees were everywhere, crowding the shoreline, hanging over the lake, bunched together like bristles on a giant’s hairbrush. Dammit. Might be time for Plan B. If only I had a Pla—”
There.
A small gap in the thick timbers.
Maybe.
She couldn’t quite tell if what she thought she could see was an optical illusion. It was an area slightly outside the yellow semicircle cast by her headlights, but it offered the first tantalizing hint of a possible start toward Mezhgorye since the C-130 had disappeared toward Incirlik.
She adjusted her driving path slightly to the right and accelerated, feeling a rising sense of excitement as she closed in on the shoreline. There was definitely an opening in the trees. And what was more, the opening didn’t appear to be natural. It looked man-made, like it had been hacked out of the forest at some point in the not-too-distant past.
She slowed again as she neared the opening, approaching it head-on and breaking into a relieved smile. What had at first appeared in the distance to be a small gap in the trees continued as far into the woods as she could see. The path was straight, more or less, and wide enough—barely—to permit passage of the Lada.
It was definitely man-made, a trail or primitive roadway that nearby residents must have cleared at some point to allow them access to the lake for fishing or swimming or boating.
Or whatever.
Tracie didn’t care why the trees had been taken down and the area cleared. If it was man-made then it stood to reason the rough trail led to an actual road. This region was so remote, so isolated, that Tracie guessed that road would in all probability be the one leading to Mezhgorye.
And if it weren’t, she would worry about that when the time came.
She aimed the SUV into the opening in the trees and hit the gas. The truck clawed its way up the embankment and plunged into the relative darkness of
the forest, bouncing and lurching. The cover of snow made the trail appear relatively flat, but in reality it was anything but. It became clear within fifty feet that there had been no grading involved when this track or pathway had been constructed.
Branches scraped the side of the truck, gouging the paint job and slapping at the windows, and she kept going. Tracie ran over something hidden under the snow without a clue it was there, slamming up and over what she guessed was a downed tree, fortunately a small one, and she kept going.
Her fear was that if she stopped the vehicle she would lose traction and become stranded, even with the heavy-duty off-road tires on the Lada. She was committed to her current course of action and come hell or high water would ride it out to its end.
The track’s width varied, at times becoming so narrow she thought she might have to reverse course and look for another avenue away from the lake. Then it would widen out again and she would continue on. What had originally appeared to be a straight-line trail hacked out of the forest was actually, Tracie realized, a gradual curve to the left.
To the north-northwest.
The direction of the road to Mezhgorye.
She slipped into a trench and the rear of the vehicle whipped to the right, impacting a tree trunk before being jolted back onto the trail. The crunch of crumpling metal told her she’d damaged the rear fender, offering a stark reminder of her isolation, as if she needed one.
She continued another fifty feet, weighing her options, and then reluctantly eased to a stop. Her intention had been to continue moving forward until either reaching the end of the trail or getting stuck, but the situation changed with the literal fender-bender.
Checking the damage to the Lada now became a top priority. She wanted to be sure a sharp piece of sheet metal wasn’t even now wearing through the right rear tire. If it was, she would need to find something to use as a hammer to pound the dent out enough to provide tire clearance. Suffering a flat out here could be a death sentence.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 127