Red Strike

by Chris Ryan

  Now he wanted revenge.

  He pushed the Lexus hard, hunting down the jet. In the rear-view he glimpsed Porter, Lyden and Rowe standing over the slotted Russians, pointing their rifles at the Phenom. Aiming single rounds at the back end of the jet in an attempt to get the pilots to stop. Rounds clanged off the tail and the wings, throwing up a shower of hot sparks. The pilots didn’t slam the brakes. Instead they carried on towards the runway at the northern end of the taxi road.

  The maximum taxi speed for a small jet was around twenty knots, Bald knew. At its current speed he figured it would take the Phenom another twenty seconds before it hit the runway and commenced its take-off roll.

  He pushed the Lexus harder, upshifting into Fifth. The speedometer needle tickling the seventy-per mark, engine roaring, rapidly gaining ground on the Phenom. The gap was eighty metres. Then forty. Then nothing at all. He was coming up fast on the tail, speeding towards the fourteen-metre wing on the left side of the fuselage.

  Bald jerked the wheel hard to the left, steering the Lexus away from the wing at the last possible moment. The wagon juddered violently as it swerved off the road and rumbled across the grassy strip parallel to the taxiway. The wheel shaking in Bald’s grip, rear tyres throwing up fists of dirt.

  A quick glance across at his three o’clock. Between the constellation of bullet-cracks in the passenger window he could see the jet cabin. One of the co-pilots had exited the cockpit and stood over Widow’s Peak, reaching for the airstairs lever. The nearest Malinois turned on the co-pilot, clamping its jaws around his wrist while the other dog tore into Widow’s Peak with its razor-sharp teeth.

  Bald looked ahead. Nothing but bare ground in front of him for a hundred and fifty metres, and then the horizontal grey bar of the runway, edge lights glittering like candles on top of a birthday cake.

  He kept pushing the Lexus.

  A second later he nudged ahead of the Phenom.

  Ten metres, then twenty. Then fifty. The speedometer needle ticked past a hundred miles per. Bald half-circled the wheel to the right and steered the Lexus back on to the smooth tarmac of the taxiway, rocketing eighty metres ahead of the jet. A hundred metres from the northern end of the taxiway.

  Now, Bald told himself.

  He released the clutch, stamped hard on the brakes. The Lexus lurched forward, almost throwing Bald out of his seat. He gripped the wheel tightly and felt his guts surge up into his chest, the tyres screeching, rubber burning as the wagon rapidly lost speed. The speedometer needle plunged down past the fifty-per mark. In the next instant Bald threw the wheel hard to the right, skidding to an abrupt halt across the width of the taxiway, twenty metres south of the airstrip.

  Blocking the road.

  A hundred metres to the south, the private jet rolled on ominously for a few moments. For a cold second, Bald feared the pilot might risk going on to the grass to avoid hitting the Lexus. But no. The jet would lose all stability the moment it left the tarmac. And the pilot couldn’t very well drive through the Lexus. The collision would chew up the nose and cockpit, frazzle the on-board computers, render the jet impotent. No way that thing could take off after a side-on encounter with an SUV.

  Eighty metres between the wagon and the jet.

  Bald heard the high-pitched squeal of the airbrakes engaging, the machine-whine of the engines dying down.

  The Phenom slowed to a gentle halt, the nose stopping forty metres away from the passenger side of the Lexus, airstairs still in the lowered position. From his vantage point Bald couldn’t see what was going on inside the cabin. But he could hear intermittent cries of pain from the Malinoises’ victims, fading in and out above the drone of the jet engine.

  Further to the south, sixty metres away, he spotted Porter, Lyden and Rowe, sprinting forwards across the taxiway.

  Bald hit the parking brake switch next to the gearbox, engaging it. He scooped up his L119A2 from the passenger seat, leaped out of the Lexus. Circled around the back of the wagon and rushed across the tarmac, his heart thumping frantically inside his chest. Lyden and Rowe reached the airstairs first, a couple of paces ahead of Porter. Ten metres ahead of Bald. Bald saw the two lads charging up the treads, shouting orders at the Malinoises, wresting them free from the two stricken figures in the open doorway. He heard a foreign-accented voice screaming for mercy, interrupted by the throated bark of a rifle. He saw the rag-doll body of Widow’s Peak tumbling down from the top of the airstairs, the wet slap of dead flesh hitting tarmac.

  Bald sidestepped the dead Russian and followed Porter up the airstairs. Lyden and Rowe shifted to the right of the open doorway, making room for the other two Blades as they ducked into the main cabin compartment. Volkov sat on the divan opposite the doorway, his back pressed up against the armrest, edging as far away from the Malinoises as possible. The two dogs stood watch beside the divan, black eyes locked on Volkov, low-growling and snarling as Lyden and Rowe held tightly on to their collars. Everyone stooping in the low-ceilinged confines of the cabin.

  To the left of the divan was the galley separating the cockpit from the passenger cabin. The co-pilot lay sprawled on the floor beside the drinks cabinet, his left hand wrapped around the wrist of his bite-marked right arm. He was puffy-faced and double-chinned, with bowl-cut brown hair and thin pencil marks for eyes. There were a couple of puncture wounds to his forearm, Bald noticed. Not deep. Not enough to incapacitate the pilot, he hoped. But the guy would need to get it cleaned out and bandaged to stem the blood loss. Drops stained his torn white shirt, spattering the grey-carpeted cabin floor.

  The other pilot was up front in the cockpit. Bald spotted him beyond the galley and the curtain divider. He stood with his back to the controls, his shaking hands raised in the air in a pose of surrender. Bald ignored him, lowered his rifle and grabbed hold of the blood-streaked co-pilot by the epaulette on his left shoulder, hauling him upright. The guy was stiff with fear, breathing erratically, narrow eyes flittering between Bald and the two Malinoises standing close behind him.

  ‘You speak English?’ Bald demanded.

  The pilot didn’t meet Bald’s gaze. He stared at the two dogs, clutching his injured arm, thin lips quivering. ‘Some.’

  ‘Listen carefully. There’s been a change of plan. You’re heading to England. RAF Northolt. Know it?’

  The pilot nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Pull any tricks, try and fly us anywhere else, and the lads will set the dogs on you and your mate. They’ll tear off your balls, face . . . everything. By the time they’re done, you’ll be chewed to shit. Got it?’

  The pilot nodded quickly. Bald searched his pasty face to make sure that he understood. There was no hint of resistance there. The guy wasn’t a warrior. He flew planes for a living. He wasn’t about to argue with the four heavily armed Brits in front of him.

  Bald said, ‘You got enough fuel on this thing to get us to England?’

  The pilot glanced over his shoulder at the cockpit, made a quick calculation. ‘We have enough to get us to Moscow. Thousand miles. How far away, Northolt?’

  ‘About the same,’ Lyden cut in. ‘One thousand and fifty miles, according to Strickland.’

  ‘We can make it,’ the pilot said. ‘No problem. When do we leave?’

  Three or four minutes since the first rounds had gone off, Bald calculated. The guard at the front gate would have been on the blower to the police by now. Cops were probably on their way at that very moment.

  ‘Now,’ Bald said. ‘Get us ready.’

  ‘But the car . . .’ The pilot gestured to the cockpit, the Lexus blocking the taxiway.

  ‘I’ll move it,’ Bald said. He spun round towards Porter and the others, tipping his head at Volkov. ‘Wait here. Keep an eye on him.’

  Volkov looked up at Bald, eyes brimming with tears. ‘Who . . . are you?’

  ‘Us?’ Bald pointed to himself and grinned. ‘We’re the fucking SAS.’

  Volkov’s tear-stained eyes popped wide. ‘You’re taking me back? To th
em?’

  ‘Aye,’ Bald replied. ‘We’ve got orders to bring you back to Vauxhall. Them lot want a word.’

  Volkov shook his head. ‘You can’t do that. Please.’ He looked frantically from Bald to the other three Blades. ‘They’ll find me and kill me if I go back.’

  ‘Who?’ Porter demanded.

  ‘My old comrades,’ Volkov said despairingly. His breathing was erratic and shallow. ‘They told me they could find me anytime. Anywhere. They said it was easy for them. Told me I would never be safe.’

  ‘Not our problem,’ Bald responded tonelessly. ‘We’re leaving. That’s it.’

  ‘Now? But . . . my daughter.’ Tears welled in Volkov’s eyes. His chin wobbled. ‘My princess, Nadezhda. Please, we can’t leave her body here.’

  ‘Tough shit. We have to get moving. Cops will show up any minute.’

  ‘Please, I beg you. Don’t make me leave her. Not like this . . . like dog.’ He pressed his hands together pleadingly. ‘Let me take her with me. All I ask. I do anything. Anything!’

  ‘We can’t. There’s no time.’

  ‘She’s my daughter! Nadezhda doesn’t deserve this!’

  Bald shrugged indifferently. ‘You should have thought about that before you chucked your lot in with the Russians,’ he said.

  Volkov slumped back in the seat, mouth slackened, tears dribbling down his gaunt cheeks. He stared vacantly at a spot on the floor, looking nowhere, peering into an abyss of unimaginable grief. The kind of despair only known by a parent who has seen their own child die. Porter felt a pang of sympathy for the guy. But then he remembered how Volkov had betrayed his own country, and then later the country that had offered him protection.

  Lyden pulled him away from the divan and guided him over to the main passenger section to the right of the galley. There were six seats in an ocean of luxury wood and leather. Four of the seats faced one another in the middle section, with two separate seats located at the rear of the cabin, next to the belted toilet. Lyden dumped Volkov in the middle seat on the port side of the aircraft, facing forward. He sat down opposite, with the two Malinoises beside his feet, remorseless eyes pinned on Volkov. Porter took up the rear-facing seat on the starboard side, rifle across his lap, while Rowe manspread himself across one of the spacious single seats at the back.

  At the forward end of the cabin, the co-pilot was leaning into the cockpit. There was a brief exchange between the Russian and his fellow pilot, terse and mute. Discussing the last-minute change of plan, maybe.

  Bald turned away from them and hotfooted it down the airstairs. He broke into a run across the tarmac, making for the Lexus 570 parked sideways across the northern end of the taxiway. He’d left the engine running when debussing from the vehicle. Now Bald jumped behind the wheel, hit the parking brake switch and shunted the transmission into Reverse. Backed up thirty metres from the taxiway, braked, turned the engine off. Hurried back across the grass to the Phenom.

  The co-pilot was waiting for him just inside the cabin entryway.

  ‘Get us moving,’ Bald said. ‘We’re getting the fuck out of here.’

  The co-pilot swallowed, nodded anxiously. He bent down and drew in the airstairs using the lever handle. The steps and cabin door folded smoothly upwards. Once the stairs had been fully taken in the co-pilot gripped hold of the door handle with his left hand and lowered the internal locking handle with his right, sealing the entry door. He ducked into the cockpit, dropped down into the seat next to his fellow pilot. Panels were checked, buttons pushed, indicators consulted. Bald paced over to the passenger seats, slumped into the spare seat opposite Porter on the starboard side of the Phenom.

  The jet rumbled forward. It turned left at the end of the taxiway, pointing west down the runway.

  The engines blasted.

  The jet rocketed forward. The cabin shuddered.

  Two minutes later, they were climbing through the night sky.

  Bald eased out a deep breath. As the Phenom banked he peeked out of the cabin window at the ground below. At this height Bald could pick out the ant-sized bodies lying on the tarmac, faintly illuminated by the edge lights. Further away a cluster of red and blue police lights flashed in the blackness as they raced towards the airport. He watched them for several moments, swarming across the tarmac stand.

  The plane banked again, climbed higher, levelled out.

  Bald looked away from the window.

  Porter was smiling at him with relief.

  ‘Christ, that was close,’ he said. ‘Thought we were done for back there.’

  Bald nodded with feeling. ‘You and me both.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘Fuck it. Let’s just get this twat home,’ he said, cocking a thumb at Volkov. ‘Then we can celebrate. After the day I’ve had, I’m gonna need a drink. A fucking big one.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The co-pilot with the dog-bitten arm told them the journey to Northolt would take around two and a half hours. Which meant they would be landing at the RAF airbase at a quarter to midnight, UK time. They found a first-aid kit stowed in the aft cabin, cleaned out the co-pilot’s wound and dressed it, then handed him a couple of painkillers and promised him proper medical attention once they reached England. Bald went off in search of refreshments, parched after the stress of the firefight. He found a rack of soft drinks and mineral water in the cabinet in the forward galley, but no booze. He overcame his disappointment with heroic restraint, grabbed a couple of cans of full-fat Coke and made his way back down the aisle. Chucked one of the Cokes at Porter, cracked open the second for himself. On the opposite side of the aisle, Lyden was busy on his iPhone, tapping out messages to Vauxhall. In the back of the cabin, Rowe had gone into sleep mode. Eyes veiled, head arched back against the headrest, hands planted on his knees.

  Volkov gazed absently out of the port-side window with bloodshot eyes, staring into the abyss of the night, hands resting limply in his lap. The ex-spy was taking it hard. First the execution of his daughter, right in front of him. Then the extraction back to the UK. His whole world had been turned upside down.

  ‘They killed her,’ he said as he looked out of the plexiglas. The Russian’s voice was thin, scratchy and weak. ‘They killed my beautiful Nadezhda.’

  Bald took a sip of his sugary Coke, stared down at the ring tab. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t a therapist.

  ‘They killed her right in front of me,’ Volkov went on, his lower lip trembling. ‘Those bastards. Shot her, like animal. She did nothing wrong. All because of him.’

  Porter inclined his head. ‘Who?’

  Volkov turned towards Bald and Porter across the aisle. He looked at them for a moment, blinked tears out of his eyes. ‘The president.’

  ‘Kolotov?’

  Volkov nodded slowly. ‘The men who took me to the airport . . . they told me Kolotov had ordered them to kill Nadezhda.’

  Bald thought back to something that had puzzled him earlier. ‘Why would the president do that?’

  ‘To punish me. That’s what they said. The men from the FSB. They said it was the price I must pay, for being a traitor to the motherland.’ Volkov sniffed. ‘Those bastards, they used me. They promised me that I would be back with Nadezhda, as long as I did what they said. They lied.’

  Porter said, ‘That’s why you were working for the Russians? To get your daughter back?’

  Volkov nodded. ‘All I wanted to do was protect her.’ He looked down at his dirt-smeared hands. ‘They said all I had to do was blame London for the poisoning. Take the heat off the Kremlin and make Britain look bad. If I did this thing, they would let me see my daughter again. If I refused, they said they would find me. Poison me again. They would make sure I suffered badly the second time, and they would kill Nadezhda too. I had no choice.’

  ‘There’s always a fucking choice,’ Bald muttered. ‘Grow a pair. Own the decision.’

  Jock Bald, therapist.

  Porter shot him a look, turned back to face Volkov. ‘Why did the Russians poi
son you in the first place?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Volkov wiped tears from his eyes with the back of his left hand. ‘Doesn’t concern you. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, anyway.’

  ‘We know about your big meeting,’ said Porter. ‘That right-wing get-together at Koman Castle tonight. Your man Lansbury was wearing a listening device the whole time. Got it all on tape. Me and Porter heard everything. There’s no secrets.’

  The ex-spy lifted his head, looked at Porter with an uncertain expression. ‘You know about the plan?’

  Porter nodded and said, ‘We know about President Drummond’s plan to withdraw from NATO. We know the part you were playing, with the press conference. ‘

  ‘Your president,’ said Bald. ‘He’s planning to retake the Baltic States. That’s why he’s going to all this effort to help the Yanks pull out of NATO, isn’t it? So there won’t be anyone around to kick up a fuss when he invades the Baltics.’

  Volkov smiled weakly. ‘Fools. There are things you don’t know. Things that weren’t said at the meeting. Things that Lansbury and the others were not told.’

  Porter knitted his brow, glanced at Lyden and Bald in turn. He looked back at the ex-spy. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Volkov said, ‘The American president knows about the plan to retake the Baltics. He’s in on it. In fact, he discussed the details of the arrangement with Kolotov.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Bald. ‘He’d never agree to that.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Volkov insisted. ‘I can prove it.’

  The tears had stopped flowing. The Russian was regaining some of his old strength, the grief-stricken old spy demonstrating his superior knowledge and influence.

  Porter said, ‘Why the fuck would Drummond let the Russians invade the Baltics? Even he isn’t that thick.’

  ‘Because that’s part of the agreement he struck up with Kolotov,’ Volkov replied. ‘The two presidents are carving up the world between them. To create a new Christian empire.’

  Bald and Porter and Lyden listened in silence as Volkov explained. Choking back his grief, Volkov told them how he had heard rumours of a planned invasion of the Baltics from his sources in the wide network of Russian dissidents living in the UK. There had been rumours of secret undercover FSB and GRU units being dispatched to the capitals of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, with the aim of fomenting unrest among the ethnic Russian communities in each country. The undercover units would spread propaganda, recruit members and hold mass demonstrations, claiming that the rights of ethnic Russians were being violated by the fascist national governments and demanding that Moscow come to their aid. Volkov suspected that the undercover groups were doing more than just stirring up trouble: he believed they were laying the groundwork for a full-scale invasion. With the protests on the streets, the Kremlin would have a credible motive for rolling Russian tanks through the streets of European capitals.