The Target
Page 2
Alda altered course northward when he saw the Lubans Lake, one of the largest in the country. Soon, he was over the forested hills that marked the frontier between Latvia and the enormity of Russian territory.
It was all land that had been fought over, that blood had been spilled over, that had changed hands so many times that even the locals could no longer say for certain whose side they were on. Empires had come and gone, ebbed and flowed. When Alda was a boy, the entire country had been part of the Soviet Union. Today, it marked one of the few places on the planet where a fully-fledged NATO member came up directly against the border of the Russian Federation.
It didn’t look it, but this forest was one of the most carefully monitored places on the planet.
Not for science.
Not in planes like the Antonov An-2.
Not by pilots like Arturs Alda, working for the Latvian forestry department.
Far away, in the Pentagon, in Moscow’s Ministry of Defence, were entire teams, active-duty personnel who would never set foot in the region, who would never breathe the air, or taste the food, or smell the peaty fires that burned in the houses of the villagers. And those people knew the name of every lake, every hill, every river and stream and bog and road. They knew every inch of the terrain, the widths of the bridges, the shapes of the church steeples in each village as if they’d lived their entire lives there.
Under the terms of the Baltic Air Policing mission, top-of-the-range NATO fighter jets, fully loaded and ready for combat, took off daily from Siauliai Airport in Lithuania, patrolling a sky that everyone knew the Russians coveted. It was not unusual to sight US F15’s, Belgian and Danish F16’s, French Mirage 200o’s, German Luftwaffe F-4F Phantom II’s, British Eurofighter Typhoons, and Czech Saab Gripens, rushing by in spectacular flybys, the sound of sonic booms echoing through the valleys behind them.
Far, far above, over a hundred-fifty miles up, the US’s most advanced surveillance satellites, the Evolved Enhanced Keyhole/CRYSTAL class, operated by the National Reconnaissance Office and piloted remotely by a round-the-clock team out of Chantilly, Virginia, had the area on their absolute highest level of priority.
They liked to brag that if a wolf pissed, they saw it before it hit the snow.
From those heights, their cameras, which relied on the most perfect mirrors ever made, resolved wavelengths of 500 nanometers and provided a diffraction resolution of 0.05 arcsecs. That was almost enough to recognize a human face.
The Russians countered with constant Il-20 surveillance incursions of their own.
They also sent supersonic Sukhoi Su-24’s, which played a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the NATO jets, crossing the border and running back before the incursion could be confirmed visually. Those runs were regarded by all pilots involved as the ultimate test of nerve.
And skill.
But mostly nerve.
Those scenes from Top Gun, with the jets being pushed to their limits by pilots so shot up on adrenaline and chutzpah that they were willing to risk their lives, and more importantly, some of the most expensive machinery ever assembled.
Those scenes played out here.
As well as the jets, the Russians were also fond of sending over the occasional Tupolev Tu-134, which rumbled through the sky like a freight train and made the front page of every local newspaper in the region.
It was constant.
A challenge to Russia’s tiny, recalcitrant, former Republics in the area.
A refusal to recognize NATO’s claims.
And it was of absolutely zero concern to Arturs Alda.
He was in a clearly marked Latvian forestry craft whose top speed was less than one-hundred-forty knots. The plane’s capabilities were so modest that it was actually capable of airspeeds as low as thirty-miles-per-hour without stalling. Flying into a strong wind, it’s ground speed could even go negative.
Meaning it would be flying backwards, like those hopeless seagulls in a strong gale.
No Russian pilot worth his salt would give the craft a second glance.
Alda checked his chart and got down close to the treetops, flying as low as he dared, right along the Latvian side of the international boundary.
When he reached his altitude, he lit a cigarette, flicked on the cameras, and began the scan.
He’d gone a few miles when he saw a strange read on his monitor. The signature was like nothing he should have been seeing out there, nothing that had any business being that close to the border.
Immediately, he pulled up and turned westward.
He was in trouble, and he knew it.
And then he saw it.
The distinctive, almost comically flimsy takeoff of what was, in fact, the deadliest man-portable surface-to-air missile ever created.
A 9K333 Verba.
The Russians called them willows.
And it popped out of a tube on the shoulder of an un-uniformed man standing in a clearing about five hundred yards away. For the first few seconds of its flight, it looked like it wouldn’t even clear the tops of the surrounding trees.
But once it caught its stride, there was no questioning the outcome. It’s infrared homing system didn’t miss.
And Alda knew immediately that his forty-year-old Antonov An-2, and his forty-year-old self, had flown their last flight.
2
Agata Zarina didn’t mind working weekends. She was an early riser by nature. Went to bed early. Kept on top of her laundry. The inside of her refrigerator was straight out of a commercial, with green bottles of mineral water in neat rows in the door, an unopened bottle of white wine on one shelf, and a packet of low-fat babybel cheese on the other.
Her apartment was modern, neat, a little expensive, but not egregious. It offered sweeping views of the river, the ferry terminal, and the eye-catching Vanšu bridge.
A brief glance at her kitchen would show she liked espresso coffee, fresh flowers, and maybe apples, although they might have been for show.
The white silk blouses she wore to work were her trademark. She had to send them out to be professionally laundered, but she loved the smell when they returned. She wasn’t required to wear a uniform, but she had that laundered too. It had pride of place in her closet, it’s neat creases perfectly crisp, every button polished.
She was a career woman.
Focused.
Dedicated.
She knew how to have fun, but that was firmly on the second tier of her priorities.
As was dating.
The nightlife in Riga was better than her hometown, but she was still back at her apartment with a glass of wine or a cup of camomile tea by midnight most nights.
Occasionally, she let things go later.
Very occasionally, she would hook up with a guy at a bar and bring him back with her. Always her place.
She’d read far too many crime novels ever to go home with a stranger.
The night before, she’d gone out after work with some of the cadets, and one thing led to another. She should have known better. She was their superior officer and was supposed to set an example. The strapping young man in the bed next to her was proof she was incapable of that.
Apparently, he was on the university swim team. He looked it. He looked like a Calvin Klein model, with chiseled abs and a jawline that could have gotten him a role alongside Burt Lancaster.
Every woman in the bar had noticed him, and if word got out that she’d taken him home, well, it wouldn’t do her reputation any favors.
She looked at him now, sleeping heavily.
She let herself out of the bed carefully, rising on her arms so as not to wake him.
She had a headache.
She’d slept in her makeup.
It looked like it had been applied with a pack of crayons by a two-year-old.
She wanted to get out of the apartment without talking to him. He was a big boy. He’d figure out a way home.
She looked at her phone and saw it was already past ten.
She went to the kitchen, made herself a quick coffee, and took it with her.
The weekend traffic was light, and the day was as gray and drab as they came. She drove into the historic center of the city, an area of cobblestoned streets and throngs of tourists in plastic rain ponchos, and found a parking spot. She didn’t have her own assigned spot yet, but that was something she was working on.
The headquarters of the Latvian State Police was a vast, concrete monolith, built in the Stalinist style, and it looked out of place among the medieval buildings on the square. She flashed her lanyard for the guards at the front entrance, and they waved her through.
In the elevator, she took out her compact and quickly checked her makeup, a pointless endeavor since no one at all was in the office.
She walked through the empty reception, past the seating area with the snack machine and coffee maker, and straight to her desk.
There were usually a few files waiting in her tray, items flagged by the regular police and sent up to her floor for closer inspection. This morning was no different. She grabbed the files and brought them back to the seating area, and put on a pot of coffee.
Then she opened the first file.
Some fishermen had spotted something off the coast at Liepaja. They’d taken photos, and Agata recognized the distinctive profile of a conning tower immediately. It was from a Russian Kilo-Class submarine. The fishermen said they were inside Latvian waters when the pictures were taken, and Agata didn’t doubt it, but there was little she could do. Given the proximity of those waters to the Russian Baltic Fleet in Kaliningrad, incursions like this were far more common than they were supposed to be.
She pulled out her cell and called her liaison at Naval Headquarters in Liepaja.
“What have you got for me?” he said when he picked up.
Agata had never met him, but from his voice, she pegged him at about her age, maybe a little older. He had a slight accent, which she liked, and there always seemed to be something muffling his voice slightly that she thought suggested a beard.
Her voice grew chirpy, flirty even, when she was on the line with him, but she’d never have admitted that.
“A Kilo-Class, about two miles off Liepaja.”
“We tracked it,” the liaison said.
She nodded. It was in the Navy’s hands then. They could decide if it warranted reporting up the chain to NATO. She doubted it would.
She got up and poured herself some coffee. The snack machine contained a row of individually packaged cookies, and she looked at them longingly before going back to her seat.
The next report was an armed robbery on the outskirts of Riga. She couldn’t see why it had been sent to her, no fatalities had been reported, but apparently, the responding officer thought the weapon used might have been military in origin. Nine-millimeter casings were recovered from the scene, but given how widespread they were, Agata really didn’t see what she was supposed to do with it.
She put in a request to the armory at the Ministry of Defense to account for its stock of Heckler and Koch MP5’s and any other weapons chambered for a 9x19mm Parabellum, and moved on.
The third report was for a forestry aircraft that had failed to return from a standard survey flight along the Russian border. She read the report, which had been filed by the flight supervisor at Rumbula, and then gave him a call.
“Mr. Agranov,” she said when he picked up. “This is the State Police…”.
“It’s about time someone called back,” he barked, cutting her off. “My guy’s been missing twenty-four hours. What kind of outfit are you running over there? Connect me ASAP.”
He spelled out ASAP. Articulated each letter.
“Connect you, sir?”
“To your boss or whoever? Put me through to the officer.”
“Put you through?”
“I don’t have time to spell this out to a secretary. I put in a call to the National Security Division. This is urgent.”
“Eh, sir, this is not a secretary. This is the call.”
“You’re with…”.
“I’m Corporal Agata Zarina of the State Police, National Security Division, and I’ve been assigned this report. Now tell me about your missing plane.”
Mr. Agranov was put out.
“Oh, well,” he stumbled, “I was waiting all night for you to decide to pick up a phone.”
“Mr. Agranov. Let’s not waste any more time.”
He proceeded to give her a rundown on what had happened. A small, rickety, forty-year-old biplane took off in poor weather, its second flight of the day in conditions the pilot’s union would have deemed unsafe, and somewhere close to the Russian border, it disappeared.
“Did it cross your mind, sir, that this may simply have been a crash?”
“A crash?”
“Pilot error. Mechanical failure.”
“Pilot error? Not this pilot.”
“That would make him the first,” Agata said.
“Are you saying this was his fault?”
“Of course not.”
“Because it sure sounds…”.
“Mr. Agranov,” she said, moving things along, “it says here the plane was over forty years old.”
“Miss Zarina,” he said, emphasis heavily on the first word. “Are you trying to imply that I sent up a plane that was not airworthy? Because I assure you, I have maintained every nut and bolt of that craft since before the likes of you were even allowed to…”
“Allowed to what?”
“Allowed to impugn the integrity of things you clearly know nothing about,” he said. “I’ve been working on these planes for four decades. How long have you been doing what you do?”
“Mr. Agranov,” she said, saying his name in the most sickly saccharine tone she could muster, purposefully trying to irritate him, which, it appeared, was working very well. “I’m simply trying to determine why this report has arrived on my desk. My job is to identify potential threats to this state’s national security. From the report you’ve filed, all I see is one missing pilot. Have you tried checking with other airports in the vicinity? Maybe he just wanted to get away from things for a few days.”
Things like his flight supervisor, she was thinking.
“Are you suggesting he’s taken a holiday?”
“I’m just looking for more facts, Mr. Agranov.”
“You pencil pushers are all the same. You’re looking for a reason to pass this on to someone else. That’s it, isn’t it? Check a box on your form. Use your rubber stamp. Log your overtime.”
“What made you report this to us and not to Aviation Safety?” Agata said.
“Have you read the report? You can read, can’t you?”
“I can read, Mr. Agranov.”
“Look at the location.”
“I see the location.”
“You do know what’s across that border, right? They do still teach history in the schools? Tell me you’ve heard of the USSR, and Stalin, and the Gulag.”
“Mr. Agranov. That’s quite enough.”
“Do you even know how many good men died so people like you could live without fear of the KGB every minute of the day?”
“People like me?”
“Yes, people like you. Young people.”
“You think we’re all soft.”
“I think you don’t have the faintest clue how dark things can really get. How slippery the slope is. How quickly you can find yourself in the basement of an unmarked building, strung up on a meathook, with electrodes taped to your chest and a wet sack over your head.”
Agata knew this man was speaking from experience.
She knew the things that had happened when Latvia was just another republic of the USSR.
And she knew he was right. Young people in Latvia today, they
didn’t think about the past. They took their freedom for granted.
But she was not one of those young people.
She worked for the National Security Police.
“All right, Mr. Agranov,” she said. “Let’s look at this clearly for a minute. I assure you, I’m not brushing you off. I just need to make sure I’m not squandering resources. Do you understand?”
“Fine,” Agranov said, calming down.
“We get a lot of reports. Someone has to filter them.”
“I said fine.”
“So this pilot. Arturs Alda. That last time you saw him was yesterday afternoon?”
Agranov sighed. Then he said, “He took off at around noon. He should have been back three hours later. Tops.”
“Okay. And let me just back up a little before that. The report says this was his second flight of the day.”
“That’s correct.”
“Is that normal? To perform two flights on the same day?”
“It’s not unheard of.”
“And the weather? Your report said there was a lot of fog. Visibility was compromised.”
“Do I need to explain to you that it’s January?” Agranov said. “We’re not exactly on the riviera here.”
“I see,” Agata said. “And this pilot, Alda.”
“Arturs Alda. Yes.”
“How would you characterize him as a pilot?”
“How would I characterize him?”
“His second flight of the day. Bad weather. Poor visibility.”
“If you’re suggesting this was anything he wasn’t able for, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“I see.”
“That boy’s been flying planes since he was twelve years old. He could have made this run in his sleep.”
“And the craft. I see the maintenance record is up to date, I’m not saying the plane was neglected, but it also says it’s a very old plane.”
“The plane was skyworthy. You have my word as a mechanic and an engineer on that. Look up the record of this department. I’ve been lead mechanic, like I said, for a long time. Eight planes. No money. No budget. But no mechanical failures. Ever.”
“This particular plane was in for repairs seven times in the last eight months.”
“So have all our planes. That’s why I can say with absolute confidence they’re skyworthy.”