Overkill pr-1

by James Barrington

  ‘Pardon me, but what exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘When Mr Newman’s family heard that I was being sent to Moscow,’ Richter said, ‘they asked my company if I could collect some items of sentimental value and one or two documents that they would like returned to them immediately.’ He held up his notebook and displayed a handwritten list. He didn’t mention that it was the list he had compiled in his hotel room immediately after lunch. ‘What I can’t find here,’ Richter continued, ‘should be at his apartment, which is the reason I want to visit both.’

  Richter selected a photograph of a handsome, rather than pretty, woman that stood on the desk, and an address book, and left it at that. He could hardly take Newman’s desk diary or look through the filing cabinets with Erroll watching. Someone from Vauxhall Cross was going to have to go through the room with a fine tooth-comb, but it wasn’t going to be him.

  RAF Lossiemouth, Grampian, Scotland

  Three Panavia Tornado GR–1 aircraft doing circuits and bumps were told to hold at circuit height until further advised. A fourth Tornado, which had been entering the runway when the line from the Distress and Diversion Cell buzzed, was instructed to turn through one hundred and eighty degrees and clear the runway immediately.

  The Lossiemouth Radar Supervisor was talking to the Distress and Diversion Cell Controller and the Director was preparing to take operational control. ‘Aspen Three Four is identified. Call Lossiemouth Director on frequency two five nine decimal nine seven five.’

  ‘Two five nine decimal nine seven five for Aspen Three Four. Thank you, Lossie.’

  Central Moscow

  Newman’s apartment was in one of the compounds adjacent to the Embassy. The Rover drove through the gates and stopped outside the building, and the black ZIL – the letters stand for ‘Zavod Imieni Likhatchova’ and it’s loosely modelled on an old American Lincoln-Mercury saloon – pulled in fifty yards behind on the same side of the road.

  Number 22 had the same light grey door as all the other apartments on the second floor, and a small white card, with ‘Graham Newman’ typed neatly on it, inserted in a cheap chrome frame at eye level. Selecting a Yale-type key from a bunch he produced from his pocket, Erroll opened the door and ushered Richter inside.

  The apartment was square and basic. Three rooms in all, the largest being the sitting room and dining area combined, and with a small kitchenette at one end, equipped with a tiny refrigerator and a two-ring electric hob. There were three cupboards over the sink, and the single window offered only a view of the wall of the adjacent building. The dining area boasted a table and four chairs, and the sitting room a two-seater sofa and a pair of easy chairs. Opening off the sitting room was the bedroom, equipped with a double bed, wardrobe and a dressing table with a mirror. The bathroom had two doors, one from the bedroom and the other from the sitting room. Compact, unimaginative and basic.

  There was little stamp of personality. There were a few pictures on the walls, quite possibly supplied with the apartment; the carpets were uniform shades, matching the sitting-room furniture, and the few books were a catholic mixture of reference works and a selection of paperbacks, mainly westerns and thrillers.

  Richter took the notebook from his pocket and found the right page, then glanced round the sitting room hopefully. There was a small writing desk in one corner, fitted with a drop-down flap, which was up, and locked. On the desk was another picture of a lady of middle years, similar to the one Richter had already removed from Newman’s office, so he took that. He looked closely at the lock on the writing desk, but there was no evidence of forced entry. That didn’t mean it hadn’t already been searched. It isn’t necessary to leave convenient telltale scratches on a lock when probing with a pick or skeleton key. In fact, if the metal of the lock is of reasonable quality, it’s difficult to mark it at all.

  Erroll produced the key, unlocked the desk and dropped the flap. There were six vertical slots inside, three each side of a central section of two drawers. The top drawer produced assorted cuff-links, paper-clips, drawing pins and an elderly bow tie – the elasticized sort, which caused Erroll to sneer slightly – while the second contained about fifty pounds sterling value in roubles. The slots held an insurance policy, which Richter added to his pile, and a group of letters with a Northumberland postmark. He glanced through two or three, and then put them with the photograph.

  Fifteen minutes later, having briefly checked every drawer in the flat and the interior of the wardrobe, Richter had finished. He wrote out a detailed list of all the items he had removed, duplicated it, and then he and Erroll signed each copy. Erroll kept one, and the second went into Richter’s briefcase. ‘That’s it. Thank you very much for your co-operation.’

  ‘Not at all, old boy.’

  Richter glanced at his watch. ‘How long to the airport?’

  ‘It’s about twenty miles, so say thirty-five minutes, at this time of day.’

  Aspen Three Four

  There are slow descents, there are cruise descents and there are fast descents. What Frank Roberts was doing could perhaps have been best described as a plunge descent, with the aircraft losing in excess of twenty thousand feet a minute. The one thing he could not do was to overshoot the field, because they certainly wouldn’t have the fuel to get back to it, and he knew the USAF would be really pissed if he dumped the Blackbird down on some Scottish hillside instead of a concrete runway.

  At twenty-five thousand feet the sky was clear, but the cloud that the Distress and Diversion Cell Controller had reported over Lossiemouth actually blanketed most of the United Kingdom. It looked like dirty grey soup, and the Blackbird plunged into it twenty-seven miles east of the airfield. The world outside the cockpit immediately went black with zero visibility, but Frank Roberts was already flying solely on instruments.

  He was twenty-two miles out when he raised Lossiemouth. ‘Lossiemouth Director, this is Pan aircraft Aspen Three Four squawking Emergency. We’re IMC in thick cloud, passing Flight Level one two zero in a fast descent on a heading of two eight five, and requesting a straight-in approach to a priority landing.’

  RAF Lossiemouth, Grampian, Scotland

  In the Approach Room at Lossiemouth the Director, a young flight lieutenant, had been watching the rapid movement of the 7700 Emergency squawk across his screen. The Emergency Services were standing by, fire engines and ambulances waiting on the airfield, engines running, fully manned.

  ‘Aspen Three Four, Lossiemouth Director, all copied. You are identified with nineteen miles to run to the field. Maintain your present heading and continue descent to two thousand feet on QNH two nine decimal eight one inches. Confirm you are now subsonic.’

  ‘Three Four is subsonic and in the drop to two thousand on twenty-nine eighty-one.’

  Passing ten thousand feet, the Blackbird crew unsealed their visors and raised the faceplates. As usual, the cockpit smelt of burnt metal. At fifteen miles range, the squall that had been gathering to the west of the field finally hit, reducing visibility to under a mile.

  ‘Aspen Three Four, Director. We’ve been hit by a squall and visibility is under one mile with full cover cloud at three hundred feet. This will be a precision approach to runway two three. Turn left heading two five zero.’

  The Director broke off as the Radar Supervisor touched his shoulder and spoke to him. Rather than risk losing contact with the aircraft on a frequency change, the Supervisor had decided that the talk-down would be carried out on the Director’s frequency.

  ‘Aspen Three Four, you have twelve miles to run to the field. Confirm you are now level at two thousand feet.’

  ‘Confirmed. Level at two.’

  ‘Roger. Squawk standby, carry out final landing checks and listen out on this frequency for your Final Controller.’

  Twelve miles out, the profile of the Blackbird altered as the landing gear was extended, and the aircraft adopted a pronounced nose-high attitude.

  ‘Aspen Three Four, this is Lossiemout
h Final Controller. I hold you on precision radar at range ten. Turn left heading two four five.’

  ‘Two four five, Three Four.’

  Unlike the clipped and precise instructions given by all other controllers, a precision approach has almost a conversational style about it. This is at least partly due to the fact that the controller talks constantly to the pilot from just before the aircraft starts its final descent until it reaches the runway. ‘You’re slightly left of the centreline, closing gently on a heading of two four five. Approximately one mile to run to the descent point.’

  The talk-down controller paused for a few seconds, then pressed the transmit key forward into the locked position, and began talking. ‘Aspen Three Four, seven miles from touchdown, and approaching the descent point. Heading two four five. Slightly left of centreline, closing gently. You need not acknowledge further transmissions unless requested.’

  On the twin precision radar displays the Blackbird’s return was small and painting faintly, but it was visible. Still below the electronic glide path, the right-hand edge of the return was nearly touching the centreline. The controller watched the return on the elevation screen touch the glide path. The trick was to start the aircraft in descent a little before the centre of the return intersected the glide path. This allowed for delays in the pilot’s reactions and the physical time taken by the aircraft to transition from level flight into a descent.

  ‘Six and three-quarter miles from touchdown. Begin your descent now for a three-degree glide path.’ The standard three-degree glide path meant that the aircraft descended at the rate of three hundred feet for every track mile flown. ‘Six miles from touchdown. Turn left five degrees heading two four zero. You’re now on the centreline, but still very slightly above the glide path.’

  By five miles out, the Blackbird had settled down on the glide path, and the controller had no need to give descent corrections. As the aircraft got closer to the ground, however, the gusty wind made frequent heading changes necessary. ‘Three miles from touchdown, heading two three five, very slightly right of centreline but on the glide path. Confirm final landing checks complete – Aspen Three Four acknowledge.’

  ‘Three Four has checks complete.’

  ‘Roger. Heading two three five, on the glide path. You have been cleared to land on runway two three.’

  Passing one mile and three hundred feet above runway elevation, the controller broke transmission. ‘Aspen Three Four inside one mile. Centreline and glide path. Confirm visual with the runway.’

  In the cockpit of the Blackbird, Frank Roberts was dividing his time equally between monitoring his instruments and looking ahead for the airfield approach lights and runway. He looked ahead again. ‘Negative.’

  ‘Roger. I will continue to pass advisory information. Centreline and glide path. Three quarters of a mile.’

  Frank Roberts ignored his instruments, concentrating all his attention on the view ahead. Blank, featureless grey murk met his eyes. Then it was as if a carpet had been dragged out from under them, the grey cloud dispersed as if it had never been and the high-intensity approach lights shone clear and bright, directly ahead.

  ‘Centreline and glide path. Half a mile.’

  ‘We have the runway, we have the runway. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Roger, Three Four. Call Tower on three three seven decimal seven five.’

  ‘Three three seven decimal seven five.’

  The Blackbird punched out of the murk at a little under one hundred and fifty feet. The Local Controller, looking out to the east through binoculars, saw an unfamiliar grouping of lights materialize at precisely the same moment that the aircraft called him.

  ‘Lossiemouth Tower, Aspen Three Four.’

  The controller lowered the binoculars, made a final visual check of the runway and pressed his transmit key. ‘Aspen Three Four, Tower. Confirm landing checks complete.’

  ‘Affirmative. Three Four has checks complete; all green.’

  ‘Roger. Land runway two three. Surface wind green three five at fifteen knots.’ The Local Controller raised his binoculars again and focused on the aircraft as it approached the threshold of the active runway. ‘What the hell is it? It’s a – no it isn’t.’ The controller lapsed into silence and watched the aircraft’s profile become visible as Frank Roberts lifted the nose for touchdown. ‘Fuck me,’ he said. ‘A Blackbird.’

  Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi Headquarters, Yazenevo, Tëplyystan, Moscow

  A little over ten miles south-west of the centre of Moscow, not far from the village of Tëplyystan, a black ZIL limousine pulled off the circumferential highway onto a narrow road leading into dense forest. The car passed a large sign that warned the curious not to stop or trespass, and announced that the area was a ‘Water Conservation District’.

  About two hundred yards down the road the car stopped at what appeared to be a militia post while the driver’s, bodyguard’s and passengers’ passes were examined by armed SVR troops dressed as militiamen. As the electric windows hissed closed, the car surged forward and came to rest in a reserved parking space about a third of a mile beyond. The driver and bodyguard got out immediately and opened the rear doors, but the passengers seemed oddly abstracted, and remained in the car, talking, for a few minutes more.

  The two passengers finally emerged, acknowledged the salutes somewhat listlessly, and made their way through the turnstiles in the guardhouse, the only break in the high chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire. Armed sentries from the SVR Guards Division, wearing khaki service dress uniforms, with blue flashes on the lapels and blue stripes on the trousers, inspected the special passes each officer showed. They were buff-coloured plastic cards that showed the bearer’s photograph and incorporated coded perforations designating the areas he or she was authorized to enter.

  Through the guardhouse, the two officers made their way slowly along the driveway through the lawns and flowerbeds to the SVR building, the former headquarters of the KGB First Chief Directorate. It was designed by Finnish architects and constructed, at least in part, with materials and equipment purchased in Scandinavia. The original seven-storey structure is shaped like a three-pointed star, incorporating a lot of glass and aluminium, with a blue stone trim around many of the windows, but is now dwarfed by a twenty-two-floor extension at the end of the western arm of the building.

  The officers passed through the double glass doors and entered the large marble foyer, again showing their passes to armed guards, and walked over to the main group of elevators located in the centre of the building. Once inside, the older of the two men pressed the button for the seventh floor. When the elevator stopped they got out, walked slowly down the carpeted corridor, and entered an office suite.

  ‘Good afternoon, General.’ Lieutenant Vadim Vasilevich Nilov, a fresh-faced and eager officer in his late twenties, greeted his superior with his usual mixture of deference and respect, and hurried to relieve him of his uniform cap and greatcoat. He snapped to attention and saluted the other officer, and extended him the same courtesy.

  Nilov had, as usual, arrived at the headquarters before seven that morning, had spent two hours reviewing all the overnight signal traffic, marking those of interest, and checking the office schedule for the coming day. He would remain at the headquarters until eight or nine in the evening. General Modin often wondered how much sleep, if any, Nilov needed. He was quite sure he had no social life whatsoever.

  Nilov had been aide to General Nicolai Fedorovich Modin since the day the General had arrived at Yazenevo to head Department V of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate. The metamorphosis of the KGB into the SVR had caused little change, except that the ‘Department V’ tag had been dropped and the section renamed.

  ‘There has been priority traffic all morning, General, about the American over-flight. The signals are in the red folder on your desk.’

  Modin smiled somewhat tiredly. ‘I would have been astounded, Vadim, if there hadn’t been priority signals. What d
o they expect the SVR to do? We have no aircraft or missiles.’

  Nilov smiled. ‘I could not say, General.’

  ‘No matter. Coffee?’

  ‘Also on your desk, comrade General. I will bring another cup.’

  Modin nodded his thanks, led the way into the inner office, picked up the red folder and sat down in a leather armchair by the window. He motioned his companion into the other chair. Nilov returned with a second cup, poured the coffee and set the cups on the low table between the chairs. Then he withdrew, closing the office door quietly behind him. Modin picked up his cup and looked thoughtfully at the other man. ‘Well, Grigori. What do we do about it?’

  General Grigori Petrovich Sokolov was technically Modin’s subordinate, but the two men had known each other for so many years that their working relationship had developed into a firm friendship. Sokolov was short and slim, with a friendly, open face under thick grey hair. He didn’t look like a Russian, a fact that had helped his career. An old KGB hand, he had headed the First Chief Directorate’s Twelfth Department, a somewhat unusual and very powerful organization staffed by veteran KGB officers who had a remit to identify and pursue their quarry – anyone in any Western military, intelligence, business or government organization who might prove useful to the Soviets – anywhere in the world. As with Modin, the metamorphosis of the KGB into the SVR had changed virtually nothing.

  Sokolov put down his cup. ‘I don’t know, Nicolai, I really don’t.’ He paused for a few moments. ‘What can they discover from the films?’

  Modin sighed. ‘Not very much, I think. I talked to our technical specialists this morning, as soon as Nilov telephoned, but they do not know how good the American cameras are. However, even if the cameras are excellent, there was little that they could see. What worries me more are the radiation detectors, and also why they flew the spy-plane at all.’