Captain Berenger offered his hand, as Mitchell had done before him. In contrast to the copilot, however, Tracie felt a welcoming vibe emanating from the navigator that was almost as strong as Wilczynski’s. She took his hand and a smile creased his tanned face. “Try to ignore Tom,” he said softly. “I don’t know what’s bugging him, but he’s been pretty preoccupied lately. Family troubles or something, I guess. But Major Wilczynski and I will take good care of you.” He raised his voice to a normal level. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, and if you need anything, you let me know.”
Berenger’s grip felt as strong and competent and Mitchell’s had weak and indecisive. Tracie returned Berenger’s handshake—and his smile—enthusiastically. Something was off about Major Mitchell, that was for sure, but these two crew members struck her as competent to a T. Besides, she was standing in the middle of a U.S. air base, aboard an Air Force jet, surrounded by a professional military flight crew. What could possibly go wrong?
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Berenger said, “I’ve got to get busy doing all the real work so this guy,” he nodded at Major Wilczynski, “can play aviator and soak up all the glory on today’s flight.” He smiled at Tracie and clambered down a metal stairway to the navigator’s position below the cockpit.
“Berenger’s the best,” Wilczynski told her. “On a typical combat mission we would feature at least two more crew members, a bombardier and an electronic warfare officer. Since this is a peacetime noncombat mission, it’s been determined that these positions can remain unfilled for today. The rest of my guys are enjoying a little R and R.”
“I’m sorry to add to your workload and take you away from your own R and R,” Tracie said. “I certainly didn’t need this much transportation.” She opened her arms, indicating the gigantic interior of the B-52.
Wilczynski laughed. “No apology is necessary, believe me. In fact, I should be thanking you. I need to maintain flight proficiency in this big beast, so instead of commanding a boring training mission next week, I get to fly across the pond and make a quick trip home. Besides,” he added conspiratorially, “like I said before, if there’s one thing we all love to do, it’s drink.” The comment took Tracie by surprise and she laughed. “But since we can’t be doing that, the next-best thing for us is flying. We love it, and believe me when I say this is not work for us.”
He lowered his voice, as Captain Berenger had done. “Even for Major Sourpuss in there,” he said with a wink. “Now that the introductions are over,” he said, “feel free to check out the rest of the aircraft. Try not to get lost back there, though. I’ll let you know when it’s time to buckle in for departure.”
12
May 30, 1987
10:30 p.m. EST
Somewhere over the North Atlantic
The B-52 floated across the sky nearly five miles above the vast, empty expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The air was smooth, with only the occasional light bump of turbulence—like a city bus driving over a pothole—and the roar of the eight jet engines had been muted in level flight to a steady thrumming that was felt more than heard inside the cabin.
At the controls, Tom Mitchell felt as though his stomach might launch its contents all over the instruments at any moment. The gentle rocking of a large aircraft in flight had never affected him in this way before. But then he had never been about to murder four people—including himself—before, either.
He could barely think straight. He was a traitor, although no one would ever discover that devastating fact. Crashing the BUFF into the Atlantic after killing everyone aboard would eliminate any evidence of foul play, satisfying the Russians and sparing his family. There was no radar coverage hundreds of miles off the United States’ coast, so by the time air traffic controllers realized the B-52 was missing, most of the aircraft and debris would already be beneath the water’s surface, well on their way to the ocean floor.
Add to that the fact that the area to be searched would be massive, thousands of square miles of uninterrupted watery desolation, and Tom Mitchell knew the odds of his treachery being discovered were astronomically long.
So that was the plan. Crash the airplane into the ocean.
The problem was that Tom was having a hard time executing the plan, not to mention everyone aboard the aircraft. It wasn’t that he was afraid of dying—not exactly. Anyone making a career out of military service eventually found a way to reconcile the possibility of sudden violent death. Not to do so was to risk a mental breakdown. Tom had long ago made peace with that concept.
Murdering three innocent people, though, had never been part of those calculations. There was a world of difference between being blown out of the sky by an enemy missile during a bombing run and placing his service weapon inside his mouth and pulling the trigger after first shooting everyone else aboard an airplane. So he delayed the inevitable, stomach jumping and rolling while he desperately searched for another way out.
Working with the KGB had been simple at first. A Godsend. He had raked in some serious cash—two grand a month was a lot of money for a United States Air Force officer—in return for passing along what often seemed like relatively harmless minutia: aircraft specs or division personnel rosters or armament information.
Tom wasn’t stupid—he had known he was crossing a line from which he could never return when he relayed that first bit of intel to the Russians, but keeping a German mistress was damned expensive. Besides, serving in the USAF was boring as hell. Acting as a go-between—he refused to consider himself a spy, although late at night, unable to sleep, tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling, he had to acknowledge that was exactly what he was—brought a bit of excitement into his life.
But that was before, when Soviet expectations were low. Last night’s phone call had hammered home with crystal clarity the horrible mistake he had made. He had been tempted to tell Boris Badanov with the thick Russian accent to go to hell, had done exactly that, in fact. The KGB could come and take him out if they wanted; he’d probably never see it coming, and death would at least be a way out of the corner he had painted himself into.
But the implied threat to his family had changed everything. Tom hadn’t even realized the Russians knew he was married until last night. He knew now how foolishly blind he had been—of course the KGB would learn all they could about their new employee, of course they would keep that information close to the vest, pulling it out only when needed—but Roberta and Sarah were thousands of miles away, safe and anonymous in Herndon, Virginia, well out of range of the KGB.
That was what he had thought. How wrong he had been. Kopalev knew way too much about his family, tossing the information out casually, like it was no big deal. Tom’s blood had frozen in his veins last night with Kopalev’s threat to snuff out the lives of his wife and child, and in the most agonizing way possible.
He thought hard, his eyes alternating between the B-52’s instruments and the endless blaze of impossibly bright stars outside the wind screen. Maybe he could question the CIA agent currently dozing in the rear of the aircraft. No one besides his Soviet contact had confirmed that she was CIA, but then, no one had needed to. It was obvious. A civilian woman, appearing at Ramstein out of nowhere carrying Top Secret paperwork, with instructions from the highest levels of government for a priority lift across the pond?
CIA.
As a CIA spook, she might be able to use her connections to protect Tom’s family. But she certainly would ask the obvious question of why the family of an Air Force nobody was in need of protection from the KGB, a question he could not answer. He would be forced to kill her anyway.
Tom shook his head and cursed under his breath. He knew Wilczynski was looking at him curiously. He didn’t care. He was fucked. He was well and truly fucked.
As an Air Force pilot, Tom Mitchell was intimately familiar with the concept of parallax view, which stated that the angle at which objects are viewed will determine how they appear to the viewer. Parallax view was one reason why a
good pilot learned early in his career to rely on his instruments when flying, even on a clear, bright, sunny day. Eyes could be fooled. Instruments could not.
The concept of parallax view applied to other situations, too. Look at a scenario from one angle and it can appear completely different than when viewed from another. But Tom realized this situation was the exception. No parallax view in the world could change one simple fact: he was going to have to do as he had been ordered by the KGB, or sentence his own wife and child to death.
And that he could not do.
So the decision was easy, but executing that decision was not, and Tom knew he was running out of time. Soon the giant B-52 would be approaching land, flying over U.S. soil down the east coast to Andrews Air Force Base, and while he could still carry out the murders, crashing the jet onto U.S. soil would never satisfy the KGB. There would be no way to guarantee the item they wanted destroyed had actually been destroyed, and his family would remain at risk.
He had to do it soon. The clock was ticking.
13
May 30, 1987
11:15 p.m. EST
Atlantic Ocean, 150 miles off the coast of Maine
Tracie tried with little success to catch a few Zs in the minimally-upholstered seat. It was bolted to the side wall of the B-52, which had probably flown hundreds, if not thousands, of missions. The seat-back was rickety and the vinyl upholstery worn and cracked.
The ride was free, though, and complaining would accomplish nothing, so Tracie stretched out as well as she could and dozed, unable to manage a deep sleep. Something was bothering her.
The sense of unease she had felt upon meeting Major Tom Mitchell back at Ramstein Air Base had only intensified after departure. Several times during the first couple of hours of the flight, Mitchell had stepped back from the cockpit and observed her as she pretended to sleep, her eyes barely open under her thick eyelashes. In each instance, he had approached stealthily and stood off to the side in an attempt to remain unobserved.
He was sizing her up; that much was obvious. The question was, why?
After the first time, Tracie had debated opening her eyes and asking him directly what his problem was, but her instincts told her that would be a mistake, and Tracie had learned years ago not to question those instincts; they were the subconscious mind’s way of protecting its owner when the conscious mind could not quite wrap itself around a problem. Following a nagging feeling had saved her life on more than one occasion, and Tracie was no more likely to ignore her instincts than she was to jump out of this B-52 with no parachute.
Mitchell hadn’t appeared at all over the last couple of hours, though, which meant either his curiosity had been satisfied, or he was flying this leg of the trip and couldn’t leave the flight deck. She guessed it was the latter—his ongoing nervousness and desperation were clear to her. The man was obviously operating under some serious stress.
She opened her eyes a slit, observing her surroundings without revealing her wakefulness. All was quiet in the cargo area. Mitchell was nowhere to be seen.
Tracie stretched and wondered how close the big aircraft was to the North American shoreline. She had flown from the U.S. to Europe and vice-versa plenty of times and had developed an innate sense of the trip’s timing. They had to be getting close. She was thinking about unbuckling her lap restraint and wandering up to the cockpit when a sharp popping noise erupted from the front of the aircraft. Then another. It sounded like exploding firecrackers.
Except they weren’t firecrackers.
Someone was shooting on the flight deck.
A voice shouted in surprise and alarm. The B-52 yawed violently to the left and began a steep dive. Tracie felt her body pull against the seat restraints and she fumbled with the buckle. Her fingers scrabbled for the metal release and missed. She tried again and managed to lift the buckle, but the straps would not budge.
She was trapped. Her heart was racing and she felt a rising sense of panic. She had just seconds to get to the front of the airplane or likely become a victim. She yanked on the seat belt release again, as the sound of the jet engines screamed in her ears, the aircraft still in a diving left turn.
Then she realized why she could not escape—the tension of her body pulling against the seatbelt would not allow the mechanism to unhook. She reached for a handhold built into the side of the plane and pulled hard, grabbing the metal seatbelt release with her other hand and yanking it upward. Finally it gave and she was free.
She tumbled into the aisle, sliding into the fuselage and smashing her shoulder against an aluminum duct, denting the ductwork. Then the aircraft leveled off and she fell to the floor.
Tracie slipped her Beretta out of her shoulder holster and sprinted toward the cockpit as a third shot ripped through the aircraft.
The scene on the flight deck was chaotic and gruesome. Navigator Nathan Berenger lay on the floor, partially blocking the narrow entrance to the cockpit. Most of his skull had been blown off, his head barely recognizable as human. Blood had splattered everywhere, as had bits of bone matter and human tissue. Tracie’s half-second glance at Berenger told her all she needed to know. The navigator was dead, beyond help.
At the controls, Major Stan Wilczynski was struggling with Tom Mitchell. Wilczynski had been shot at least once and was bleeding badly from a wound in his shoulder, but fought grimly for control of Mitchell’s gun. He had somehow managed to level off the diving B-52 while locked in a life-and-death struggle with his fellow crew member, and was now screaming obscenities at him.
Tracie dropped to one knee and sighted down the barrel of the Beretta. “Drop it right now!” she screamed, knowing Mitchell would never do so, but hoping to at least throw the crazed officer off guard. She didn’t dare shoot because the angle was wrong—there was every possibility the slug would strike Wilczynski and she would end up killing the man she was trying to save.
Mitchell glanced back in surprise at Tracie, his eyes wild, and Wilczynski took advantage of the opening, pounding a fist into the side of Mitchell’s face. Tracie could hear bones crack and she wondered as she waited for Mitchell to fall whether the broken bones were in Wilczynski’s hand or Mitchell’s face. Or both.
But Mitchell didn’t fall, and he didn’t drop the gun. He hung on, grappling with Wilczynksi, the two men jockeying for position. The B-52 again began yawing to the left as one of the fighting men jostled the yoke. “Dammit,” she muttered under her breath, itching to put Mitchell down but still without a clear shot.
Then the situation went from desperate to out of control. Mitchell released his grip on Wilczynski, taking another fist to the face but slugging Wilczynski in his wounded shoulder with the butt of his gun. Wilczynski’s eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped back, but before Tracie could squeeze off a shot, Mitchell pulled the trigger. The bullet caught Stan Wilczynski on the side of the head and knocked him sideways, blood misting.
Tracie didn’t hesitate. She fired, and Mitchell slumped against the B-52’s instrument panel like a rag doll. She fired again and the second shot hit home as well. She fired a third time, and Mitchell’s body crumpled to the floor. She kept her gun trained on him, breathing heavily.
There was no doubt Mitchell was dead.
It appeared everyone was dead inside one of the most complex aircraft ever manufactured.
And she didn’t know how to fly.
14
May 30, 1987
11:22 p.m.
Atlantic Ocean, 100 miles off the coast of Maine
Stan Wilczynski had a headache. A bad one. It wasn’t like waking up after having a few too many cold ones at the OC, and it wasn’t like the dull throb at the back of the skull he was prone to getting when overtired. It was more like someone had taken a ball-peen hammer to the side of his head.
He groaned and tried to roll over. Maybe if he could sleep a little longer the damned headache would go away. But he couldn’t turn onto his side. He was stuck. Must have gotten twisted up in the sheet
s. He opened his eyes reluctantly and the pain intensified, a battering ram blasting through his head, building and building until he was afraid his skull would explode.
He blinked hard and his blurry vision doubled and tripled, and it occurred to him with sudden, terrifying clarity that he was dying. He closed his eyes again, willing the pain to go away. It lessened slightly. Thank God for small favors.
Then he realized someone was talking to him. It was a woman’s voice, but it was not a voice he recognized. The voice was tense, worried, speaking to him calmly but insistently. Even with the pain blasting through his head, Stan could sense the intensity behind the words. He kept his eyes closed and concentrated hard. “Stay with me,” the voice was saying. “You can do it. Stay with me and breathe.”
And Stan remembered.
He wasn’t in bed at all. He was in the cockpit of a B-52. He had been flying that female CIA agent back to Andrews Air Force Base from West Germany when Tom Mitchell had gone stark, raving mad, murdering poor Nate Berenger and then shooting Stan. He remembered struggling with Mitchell for his weapon. He couldn’t remember how the struggle had ended, although it seemed suddenly clear he had lost it.
Their passenger must have subdued Mitchell and was now trying to save his life. He didn’t want to open his eyes, having no desire to re-experience the agony associated with doing so a moment ago, but he knew he had to. He screwed up his courage, praying for strength. Then he blinked his eyes open, doing his best to ignore the accompanying flash of pain.
The CIA agent—he tried to recall her name and couldn’t—knelt over him, holding her blood-soaked jacket to his head. Stan knew the blood was his and tried to ignore it. He felt light-headed, weak and disoriented. He focused on his rescuer and her stunning red hair, and after a moment three blurry CIA agents became two, and then one. She was still talking to him, calm and encouraging, but her ashen face gave away her concern. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said tightly.
Black Ops Bundle: Volume One Page 52
