by R G Ainslee
We stood on the crest of the last ridge before the valley floor. The terrain straight ahead was rocky and too steep to ski down.
"Which way now?" I asked.
"Let's take the skis off and walk down to the flat place below. We can make an open run out to the road and head on down to the plane."
* * *
Morning rose in the east, the first rays of sunlight peeked over the snowy ridges leaving the muted darkness of the night behind. A radio blared from a village of mud houses announcing the execution of several generals, followed by a chorus of revolutionary hymns.
We managed to pass through the tiny village, unnoticed by early risers dressed in tribal garments, or maybe they didn’t care. Two strangers should have attracted attention. But in revolutionary Iran, better to mind your own business.
We debated whether to leave the skis or carry them with us. Jack figured Suslov might have notified whoever was guarding the plane to be on the watch for two men on skis. We abandoned them on the ridge above and replaced the ski boots with our regular shoes. Some Iranian kid would make a lucky find.
The west end of the airstrip lay off to our left. It appeared to stretch for a kilometer or so. A white aircraft was parked beside the little shed about three-quarters down the field.
Jack asked, "Do you see anyone? They should have left a guard or the pilot at least." He glanced back towards the village. "Didn’t see anything unusual back there, but we can't be too careful."
"No, maybe they're in the cockpit or little hut."
"Could be … let me do the talking. I'll try to bluff my way close enough to disarm them. Got your weapon ready?"
"Yeah." I had already flicked the safety to the firing position.
We passed the last house a quarter way down the runway. So far, no one stirred near the An-2. I glanced back towards the village. Something deep inside warned me we were walking into a trap. Too late now … run out of options … gotta keep moving.
100 yards, 50 yards, 25 yards, 10 yards: still no sign of a guard. We approached the aircraft from behind.
Looks awfully big for a single engine. Might’ve bit off more than I can chew.
Jack motioned for me to check the cockpit while he examined the hut. I placed my hand on the cargo door handle. A noise echoed from inside, someone snoring. Caught Jack's attention and signaled him to come over.
Jack pressed his ear against the metal fuselage and listened for a few seconds. He motioned for me to open the door, his Browning Hi-Power drawn, ready to jump in and subdue the sleeping guard before he gained his senses.
He snapped a soft command, "Go."
A hard pull down on the handle — nothing happened — the door locked from inside. We froze, the snoring continued, we waited. Jack tugged at my parka and we retreated behind the shed to talk it over.
I whispered, "Can hear only one man snoring."
"Yeah, but we can't count on it, there may be more than one."
"You want to lift me up and let me peek inside?"
"No, we'll just knock. I'll call them out in Russian. You stand down by the tail, so they can't see you, but keep your weapon ready."
We returned, and Jack boldly pounded on the door. "Prosnisʹ, prosnisʹ, durak." Wake up, wake up, you fool. A scurrying sound came from inside the aircraft. "Ootkrytʹ dverʹ Open the door.
"Kto ty?"
Jack responded with a commanding tone, "Ya kapitan Yakovlev. Otkroĭte dver."
The door swung open revealing a young woman, obviously frightened. Her eyes locked on Jack.
"Kak vas zavut?" Jack demanded her name.
"Roksana — Roksana Marakova."
"Toropitʹsya, vyĭti iz samoleta!" He told her to hurry up, get out of the aircraft.
"Da tovarishch kapitan." She bought the bluff, 100 percent, so far.
She stepped out onto the snow. Her eyes diverted to me, a questioning expression came over her face. Jack grabbed her flight suit by the collar and spun her around, shoving her torso to the side of the fuselage.
"Search her, see if she's armed."
She gasped. "Kto ty?"
"Zatknisʹ, ne govori!" Jack told her to shut up. She began to cry.
Jack jabbered away at her in Russian, asking more questions, she managed to answer through her sobs.
I stepped over and began to pat her down. She flinched and started to whimper. About Lisette's age, in her early twenties, she had a round face and the beginnings of a full figure. She was unarmed, but well built.
"She’s not carrying any weapons."
"Okay, check out the cockpit and see if you can fly this thing."
I climbed the step and scurried through the seats to the front. The cockpit seemed large for a single engine aircraft and offered an excellent forward and side view. I settled into the seat and examined the controls, most were familiar, but the Cyrillic labels left me unsure about the function of a few gauges.
Jack brought the girl, Roksana, up to the cockpit and she took the co-pilots seat. She peered out the cockpit window, searching down the road. Jack spoke to her in Russian.
"Told her not to worry about being rescued, we have her now. I think she can be made to cooperate. You doing any good with the controls?"
"Not sure. This is a pretty big bird for a single engine. It's even bigger than our Aero Commander."
When he asked the question, "Can you fly it?" I experienced an uneasy tightness in my stomach. I swallowed hard and examined the controls one more time.
"If I can get it started, don't have a lot of experience doing that. If I can get it in the air … should be no problem. With all this wing area it should fly okay at slow speeds." I lied. I was concerned.
Jack lowered his head for a moment and then peered down the runway. "Why don't we force her to fly us out?"
I examined Roksana. Her eyes betrayed her fright and anxiety. I had seen that terrified expression before, in Lisette’s eyes, the moment she awoke from a drug induced sleep by her kidnappers in Kenya. I felt rotten, there had to be another way. "What's her story?"
"She's claims she's not military, a crop duster pilot. Told me Suslov commandeered the aircraft and forced her to fly his troops over here. She seems to be genuinely worried, but we can't take any chances."
"I don't want to kidnap her." She looked over at me, tears in her eyes. She didn't understand but must have known what we were talking about.
"Come on, get real, we need her. Do you really think you can—"
"Don't care." My sharp response startled Roksana. "I know what it's like to have someone kidnapped. I understand what Lisette endured when the Cubans abducted her back in Kenya. I won't do that to someone else. She's a victim like Lisette, I won't do it."
Jack shook his head in disgust. "I had hope for you. Are you turning sentimental on me?"
I answered with a sharp retort, "Yeah and I don't care what you think."
Roksana appeared to be confused and asked a question. Jack answered. She gasped, began to cry, and appeared to be pleading with him. Her eyes darted back and forth between Jack and me.
I couldn't understand a word and interrupted, "What's the deal?"
"She wants to know what we plan to do with her. I told her we want her to fly us out of here. As you can tell, that didn't go over well. She says her family will suffer and she will lose her job. Also, it will cause trouble for her fiancé, an army corporal."
"Tell her about Lisette." Jack hesitated. "Tell her, go ahead — tell her."
Jack began speaking again in Russian. At first the fear in her eyes intensified but softened as he went on. Finally, she began to cry again, leaned over, placed a hand on my arm, and spoke with emotion. Roksana’s grip tightened. Her eyes pleaded with a heartrending intensity.
"What did you tell her?"
"What you said, told her about Lisette and how you don't want her to experience the same thing. She seems grateful."
"Okay, ask her if she'll show me the procedures to start the engine and explain the
controls."
He spoke to her again and she answered with an emotional chorus, "Da, Da, Da." Apparently, she agreed.
Jack and Roksana tried their best to explain how to crank the engine. After two failed attempts, she took charge and performed the start-up procedures herself. She pumped the primer, pulled on the starter handle, switched on, and the thousand horsepower radial engine began to whine. The huge engine backfired — pop-pop-pop — a generous stream of grey exhaust gave proof to a successful start.
Jack talked me through the procedures to release the brakes and Roksana's advice on the best way to take-off. She told him the aircraft was easy to fly, stable at slow speeds, and almost impossible to stall, all good news to me.
Jack shouted over the engine noise, "We need to wait for Amadeo. Do you think it'll be all right to keep the engine running?"
"Ask her, I'm not sure how much fuel this thing burns."
Roksana answered Jack's question and he reacted, "Shut it down, apparently the Colt is a fuel hog. We'll need all we have left to get where we're going."
"I don't know where we're going. Mashhad is the nearest airport, but it didn't sound hospitable the other day."
Roksana shut the engine down, I tried to follow what she was doing, but she was too fast. In the ensuing silence, she began to talk to Jack, periodically glancing over at me.
"What's she saying?"
"Telling me about her life. She's originally from the Urals region up North. Her father's a senior supervisor on a large state collective farm up there. Now, she works as a crop duster across the border in Turkmenistan. She's still worried about what may happen to her. Told her I would tie her up and leave her for them to find. That'll be her alibi. She seems to agree."
We waited for more than an hour. Roksana babbled nervously about her life as a crop-duster pilot and Jack translated. She asked if I had children and seemed genuinely happy when I told her one was on the way. Roksana seemed to be a nice girl. Her soldier boy was a lucky man.
The weather improved, but the clouds were still low, the valley socked in. I would have to fly below cloud cover down the valley or risk flying blind over the mountains.
I scanned back up the valley for the umpteenth time, checking the clouds, watching for Amadeo. A flash of movement against the snow caught my eye.
"Something on the road coming out of the pass, we better get the engine fired up."
Jack spoke to Roksana and she fired up the big radial. Jack tried to speak, but I couldn't hear him over the sputtering and backfiring engine. He tugged at her sleeve and motioned for her to follow.
She rose out of the seat, leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, and said, "Spasibo i udachi vam."
Jack shouted from the door, "She thanks you and wishes you good luck."
They exited the aircraft and Jack led her over to the shed, where he tied her hands behind her back, spoke to her, kissed her on the forehead, and slugged her with a vicious right to the jaw. She crumpled onto the snow, unconscious and motionless.
"Why did you hit her?" I yelled when he re-entered.
"Gives her a better alibi. Maybe they'll believe her, maybe not."
"You have to hit her so hard?"
"They have to be convinced or she'll be in even more trouble. I didn't like it either, but it was the best option for her. Can't you understand?"
I looked back with a deflated feeling. She lay motionless on the snow. A sudden pop from the radial engine brought me back to reality. "Okay … how far away are they now?"
"About half way to the village, there're too many vehicles for it to be Amadeo. We'd better go."
"Try the radio. See if you can raise him."
Jack keyed the handheld. "Romeo Alfa." Silence … he keyed it once more. "Romeo Alfa." More silence. "If he's still alive, he must be over the mountain." Jack stuffed the radio in a side pocket. "Let's go."
I goosed the engine, released the brakes to the sound of a pneumatic whoosh, and the Colt began to roll over the snow-covered ground. Roksana told Jack take-off would take a longer roll out because of the soft snow. I taxied down the runway towards the east end, headed for the oncoming vehicles.
Jack shouted, "You're headed the wrong way."
"No, we need to take off into the wind, check out the windsock."
The trucks entered the village at the same time as we reached the end of the runway. I revved the engine and tried a fast turnaround only to perform a ground loop, ending up facing in the wrong direction.
"Ross…"
"Save it — I'm trying." I gave it a little less throttle on the next try and we thundered down the runway, bobbing and weaving a little too much for my, and Jack's, comfort.
Jack opened the side window and glanced back. "Go for it they're almost on us."
I shoved the throttle forward, revs increased, the Colt picked up speed, the tail lifted, wheels off the snow, I flinched, and we hit the snow with a hard bump and bounced back into the air. I pulled back on the control column and the aircraft began to strain. I thought the Colt was about to stall and goosed the throttle again. We were clear, airborne and on our way. Then, I became aware a thwack -thwack sound — bullets hitting the fuselage.
"You did it." Jack was ecstatic. "Can't believe it, thought we were dead for sure."
"Heard bullets. We okay back there?"
Jack swung out of his seat and checked the rear cabin. "Looks fine to me, just a few holes, we were beyond effective range when they started firing. They got off a few lucky shots, don't see no damage."
We were clear, sailing down the valley, gaining altitude, when the aircraft's radio crackled. "Raven-One do you hear me?" The voice familiar — Suslov.
A chill came over me as a new reality hit. I remembered his last words: It’s not over. How? … How did he know where to find us? Raven-One … he even knows our call sign … How? I didn’t have an answer.
I asked Jack, "Should I respond."
"No … let me have the mike." Jack rattled off something in Russian.
Suslov answered in Russian, his tone clearly aggressive and self-assured.
"He wants us to land."
"Did he mention Amadeo?"
"Negative."
Jack responded in Russian, this time with more feeling. I could tell it wasn't a compliment."
"What did you say?"
The radio crackled again, Suslov responded in English, "You will die Mr. Bond."
Jack let out a hearty laugh. "Guess the KGB gets to watch first run movies."
"What did you tell him?"
"Just made a few explicit comments about his sexual preferences, his men should get a good laugh."
I wasn't laughing. Suslov was dangerous. I had the feeling, sooner or later, we would feel his sting.
24 ~ On the Run
Wednesday, 7 February: In Flight
We cruised down the valley, below the clouds, our airspeed just over 150 kilometers per hour. We didn't have a full load of fuel, little more than half-empty according to the gauge.
"What now?" Jack unfolded the Russian aeronautical chart.
"We're flying back towards Tehran. Gotta get out of this valley and head back towards Mashhad. It's probably our best chance."
He held the chart up. "There seems to be a pass through the mountains just this side of the next village."
I glanced at the chart, didn't appear promising. "What’s the altitude of the pass?"
Jack examined the chart and estimated the altitude from the contour lines. "Let’s hope the Russians did a good job mapping this area."
"It’s close to the border, maybe we’ll get lucky."
A gap appeared off to our left, a slight opening below the cloud cover. It was dicey, but we had to risk it. Past the village, I banked to the left and headed up the valley. A farm compound came in to view ahead. We flew low over a group of startled figures and increased altitude to a point just below the clouds.
The gap appeared even smaller up close. The hills closed in. Too late to
turn back, we were committed.
I talked to myself. "Here we go … hope it’s clear beyond … keep your fingers crossed." Guess it's like that when you're about to die.
I struggled to maintain an even course and altitude — gonna be close — and then at the last second, ahead, the ground met the cloud. I pulled back on the control column and took her up into the cloud. Flying blind, I climbed to 1,980 meters.
"On the chart … how far to the next valley?"
"Three or four klicks," Jack inhaled a nervous deep breath, "but you should be clear in a minute."
So much for precise navigation, I was flying by the seat of my pants. Someone who knew what they were doing would have never tried what I was attempting. I noticed Jack out of the corner of my eye holding on to the seat with white knuckles.
"You okay."
"Just keep flying." His voice unexpectedly strained, I couldn’t imagine him being afraid of anything.
Ninety seconds later, I checked the altimeter, glanced at the expired time on the dashboard chronometer, and made a time distance calculation in my head. By all rights, we should be over the pass barring any unexpected complications, such as a headwind. No room for error, if I miscalculated, we would fly into the mountains on the far side of the valley.
"We should be over the pass. I'm taking her down, slowly." Jack grunted an unintelligible acknowledgement.
I eased back on the throttle and the Colt began to dip. I eased the throttle forward and leveled off, eased back again, and moments later, we broke out of the cloud. Bushes and rocks stuck up through the snow, adding definition to the whiteness. We continued losing altitude. I banked slightly to the left to avoid a rise. A river and a primitive road came into view at the bottom of the narrow valley.
Jack ran a finger over the chart. "Go left and follow the river. The river and road will turn to the right through a gap."
Clear of the pass, I banked left and followed the river until it veered right offering a path through the mountain chain. The landscape, like the earlier valley, held only a few dwellings, farmhouses most likely. A man with a rifle over his shoulder, maybe a hunter out for wolves, waved from the road.
I banked to skirt over a ridge, not wanting to draw attention so soon. At last, we cleared the snow-covered mountains and descended into an open valley. A village sat off to our right.