Rift Zone

by Raelynn Hillhouse

  “No way, buddy,” Frosty said.

  “What does he want?” she said.

  “To play follow-the-leader.”

  “Distance to West German airspace?” Ian said, watching the intercept.

  “Seventy miles.”

  “He’ll stand down soon. I’m not about to follow him out of the corridor. Faith, just try to relax and enjoy the flight.”

  “Right.” Faith stared at the console’s dials. They didn’t seem to be moving much. Everything about the plane seemed normal and safe, save for the fighter off its nose—the fighter whose instructions they were ignoring. The sky had cleared and she no longer had hope of hiding in the clouds. She had to block out the MIG and focus on her objective. “You know Svetlana?”

  “A most delightful soul. Don’t you remember? You introduced us two, three years ago. She keeps promising to take me on a tour of the Crimea, but the paperwork to travel privately is horrendous. I’m assigned to the Moscow run right now, but my crew visa is good for Moscow only. How strict are they?”

  “The Sovs? Very. They even restrict movement of official visitors from other commie countries. I mean, you can sneak around if you blend in. I might have done it once or twice, but I usually cover myself with the right papers, dress the part and my Russian’s passable.”

  “Are you implying I might not blend in?” Ian said.

  “Buddy, she’s saying we might as well start forwarding your mail to Siberia.” Frosty returned to the engineer’s station and slipped off his shoes.

  Faith pointed to her cooler. “This is a birthday surprise I have to get to her by tonight. A small gift and some Häagen-Dazs to mark the occasion.” Faith heard the tension in her own voice and struggled to sound more lively. “You know how Russians love ice cream. I’m betting she’s never even imagined chocolate cheesecake and chocolate raspberry tort flavors. All I’ve ever had there is . . .” Her voice trailed off. The MIG was again rocking its wings from side to side. “Vanilla.”

  “I had no idea it was her birthday. I’m taking her out to dinner tonight and I suppose now we’ll make it a celebration. That might make the evening even better for me, if you know what I mean.” Ian smiled to himself.

  “So will you take her my gifts?”

  “Have you found anything interesting for me lately?”

  “She’s holding some amazing Armenian glass icons for me. I’ve never seen such intricate work. They’re waiting until I can move them out.”

  “These birds have all kinds of hiding places the authorities never think to look in.”

  “The hitch is Soviet customs.” Faith was always fishing for new contacts and Ian had them. The man knew every corrupt or corruptible airport employee between Karachi and Sofia, but he rationed his contacts, doling them out one at a time. “Frosty, you want to hand me that cooler? I know how Ian always wants to do a visual on whatever he’s taking in for me.”

  “Not that I don’t trust you. I do have a responsibility for my passengers’ safety and we all know I’m not taking something into Russia if I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how to put this delicately, but I find it difficult to believe that you’re sending a mere present.”

  “Come on. My mother smuggles things in. I’m the one who takes them out. That way we both stay out of each other’s way. It works for us.” She opened the lid and tilted it so he could look inside. She glanced ahead. The MIG was still there, waving away.

  “Frosty, would you be so kind and inventory the container?”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  Frosty removed the lid and pulled out packets of dry ice, then the ice cream, two cartons of each flavor. “Whoa, there’s enough here for a little party right now.”

  “Trust me, I didn’t overbuy. There’s always some shrinkage on the border.”

  Frosty picked up a large brown dinner plate with crude blue, yellow and red flowers painted on it. He displayed it to Ian.

  “Ghastly.”

  “What can I say? Sveta wanted genuine Mexican hand-painted dinnerware. Guess you can’t get lovely plates like that in Moscow.”

  “I should hope not.” Ian turned back to the instruments.

  The MIG suddenly broke away to the left in a steep ninety-plus-degree turn. Ian responded by rocking the 727 from side to side, just as the MIG had done earlier. “He’s signaling me that we may proceed. I’m telling him I’ll comply this time.”

  Frosty tilted his head as if listening to something in his headset; then he laughed. “The MIG just broke into the emergency frequency and wished us a safe flight. Didn’t know the Reds had a sense of humor.”

  “Thank God he’s gone,” Faith said.

  “I thought you played chicken with the commies all the time. You going yellow on us?” Frosty slipped his hand into the cooler beside the plates for a perfunctory check. “Just a Leatherman. Those things are great—beat the socks off a Swiss Army knife.” Frosty repacked the cooler and closed it. “Looks like you can trust the little lady.”

  Faith was silent while Ian thanked the Berlin air controller and changed radio frequencies in the hand-off to the West Germans. He confirmed their position and the new flight level, then pulled back on the yoke and began the climb. Faith cleared her throat. “So you’ll have this to Sveta by tonight? I owe her big time and absolutely have to make sure she gets this on her birthday.” Without the delivery, Faith doubted she would ever leave the Soviet Union alive.

  “As I told you when you rang me up, both Frosty and I are scheduled for the Frankfurt–Moscow run this afternoon. We’re only doing the Internal German Service twice a week. You got lucky today.” Ian flipped an overhead switch.

  “Actually, I’m stepping out on you, buddy. I need the cash. I’m doing the IGS milk runs without you in a couple of days.” He turned to Faith. “The IGS is a bit short-handed this month and they’re letting a few of us sub for old time’s sake.”

  “You don’t take this same plane to Moscow today, do you?”

  “No, no. We have an equipment change in Frankfurt. IGS has its own fleet.”

  “I take it the German flight attendants stay with the plane and don’t go on to Moscow?”

  “We pick up a fresh crew in Frankfurt. Anything else you want to know, my dear?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  Ian turned back toward Faith and smiled. “It was cash.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Cash. The shipment for your mother was cash. I haven’t a clue what she’s doing with it, but two days ago I ferried in—”

  The cockpit door pushed open and First Officer Art Kivisto squeezed onto the cramped flight deck. His gaze paused for a second too long on the Moscow-bound cooler; then he intentionally averted his eyes away from Faith. He couldn’t be, she chided herself. Spooks don’t hang out on flight decks. Faith usually trusted her instincts, but maybe she really had spent too much time playing with the communists and was getting paranoid.

  Kivisto slid into the co-pilot’s seat, strapped himself in and checked his radio. “Sorry, guys. Didn’t want you to think I’d bailed on you. Anything interesting happen?”

  “Not a thing,” Ian said. “As I was saying, the shipment included over one hundred thousand quid and I don’t want to know what else—”

  “How much longer until Frankfurt?” She flipped the back of his hairy neck.

  He swung around and looked at her, knitting his eyebrows. “Not your typical Moscow CARE package.”

  Faith made eye contact with Ian. As soon as she had his attention, she looked toward Kivisto, then the cooler.

  Frosty shook his head and giggled to himself. “Slick.”

  Ian reached to the center of the overhead panel and pressed a button while he slipped his other hand down to the rear of the power pedestal. He turned back toward Faith and whispered, “Rest assured, my dear, this conversation never happened.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  LUBYANKA (KGB HEADQUARTERS), MOSCOW

  Colonel Bogda
nov marched past Stukoi’s secretary and entered his office with only a cursory knock. Stukoi studied the urgency in her face and concluded his telephone call.

  Mustering every ounce of discipline, Colonel Bogdanov shoved aside her anger and said firmly, “You didn’t trust me. I’m very disappointed.”

  “We were working on a need-to-know basis, and you didn’t need to know.”

  “You used me.” Her voice grew louder, slipping from her control.

  “I saw to it you’re getting credit for your role.” He took a drag from his cigar.

  “You set me up so I have little choice but to help this succeed.”

  Stukoi opened an envelope, unfolded a letter and began reading it. “It wouldn’t be in your best interest for it to fail, now, would it?”

  “Clearly not. Half the KGB and Soviet Army seems to know what’s going on. They believe I’m the lynchpin to all of it.”

  “Do you have the final operational details from Kosyk?” He didn’t look up from the letter.

  “Yes, but I don’t think his plan is going to work. He says we should expect to receive six kilos of the American plastic explosive C-4 containing microscopic markers linking it back to the American government. We’re to use the explosive to kill Gorbachev. The MfS plan is that we couple the forensic evidence with the fact that FedEx smuggled it into the Soviet Union to blame the Americans and justify political crackdowns here and in Eastern Europe. It might work, but it’s not a plan I want to risk my life on.”

  Stukoi looked up from his mail. His glasses slid down to the end of his nose.

  Bogdanov continued. “Would you buy it? We know the Americans never will. Kosyk’s aiming for public sentiment in Western Europe. He wants to split NATO enough to keep them from destabilizing the new regime, but I don’t think anyone will believe the Americans are behind it when the only body we can link is an expatriate smuggler. Europe will be outraged, and I think we can expect everyone will work against us to subvert our new regime.”

  “Suggestions?”

  “Yes, but I’ll have to return to Berlin at once. If all goes well, I’ll bring back a member of the US military’s elite special forces. He’s cross-trained as a Navy SEAL and an explosives expert. I’ve given him the designation Otter to protect our interest in him, even though he’s not an agent at this time. We have some surveillance pictures linking Otter and FedEx in West Berlin. We can make it look like he carried out the mission after receiving the explosives from the CIA operative FedEx. We’ll apprehend him trying to escape Moscow after murdering Gorbachev. He’s FedEx’s ex and our phone taps indicate he’s still smitten. We can use FedEx against him: her life for his confession. Then we have a swift show trial and you know the rest.”

  “Excellent. Someday we’re going to have to have a talk about your choice in code names. We can always tell which agents are yours. Too much flair.”

  “My style works for me,” Bogdanov said.

  Stukoi shoved his glasses up and returned to reading his mail. “I’d feel more comfortable if you’d stick around in Moscow and have your staff pick up Otter and ship him here.”

  “Too risky. I have to be the one to approach him personally. I know enough about his old girlfriend to enlist his cooperation initially. The last thing we want right now is problems with the Americans for the botched kidnapping of a Navy officer.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

  Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.

  —STALIN

  FRANKFURT AM MAIN AIRPORT, WEST GERMANY

  Resnick stood in front of the center seat in the coach cabin of the Pan Am 727, watching and waiting for the cockpit door to open. As the other passengers crowded the aisle, he smiled and motioned for them to go ahead of him. He was helping a grandmother remove her old-fashioned overnight case from the overhead compartment when he saw light coming from the front of the plane. “I carry it for you. Very heavy,” he said in accented German, certain this was the quickest way to move her along so she wouldn’t slow him down.

  “That’s very sweet of you, young man. Is this your first time in Frankfurt?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m a guest worker. Since fifteen years.” Resnick slowed as he entered the first-class cabin and saw his mark step from the flight deck. He kept his head and upper body bowed as he chatted with the woman.

  “Where are you from, young man?”

  “Poland—Krakow. Same as the pope.” Resnick followed the flight crew down the jetway. As soon as they were at the gate, he presented the woman with her case. He kissed her hand as he wished her a pleasant stay, allowing the flight crew to get a few more meters ahead of him.

  The huge arrivals and departures board clicked and growled as the letters and numbers flipped around, updating the information. Resnick stalked the crew through the bustling Frankfurt airport, always careful to remain anonymous. One of the crew juggled FedEx’s cooler along with his own case. He noted that Kivisto’s head turned each time they passed a telephone. The snitch was probably repeating the contact number that Resnick himself had given him five years before.

  The group stopped at the inconspicuous door to the Pan Am airport operations center. Resnick fell back. He spotted a newspaper on a bank of chairs, grabbed it and took up a position across from the entrance to the ops center. He pretended to read the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

  One of the crew punched in a code for the door. Seven, two, seven, three—Resnick made a mental note. FedEx hugged and kissed two of the crew members good-bye, then nodded to Kivisto. She walked away, leaving the cooler in care of the crewman with the peppery white hair. The crew disappeared behind the security door into the restricted operations center and FedEx ducked into the ladies’ room. With tradecraft like that, no wonder Titov thought she needed a chaperone.

  Resnick turned the page of the newspaper. He had run Kivisto for a year and hundreds of others like him over the last fifteen years. He knew his rats. Any moment Kivisto would tell his crewmates he needed to buy a present for a niece or go for a walk and he’d dash to the nearest pay phone to cash in on his information.

  Before Resnick could finish reading about Bayer Leverkusen’s injured goalie, Kivisto emerged from the door. His rat was beginning to run the maze. Kivisto hurried to the first shop he passed, a pharmacy, and went inside, probably to get change for a phone call. The shops along that corridor had no other public exits, and Kivisto was not one to dare push his way into the back room to find a service exit. Trusting his mark would reappear, Resnick continued reading the soccer article, all the while monitoring the concourse. Then he saw something unexpected.

  A Pan Am stewardess walked out of the WC. In all the time he had been sitting there, an attendant from Lufthansa and two from British Airways had gone inside, but no one from Pan Am. He studied her as she wheeled her flight bag in front of him. He raised his newspaper, but not before he saw the jolt of recognition in her eyes. She approached the Pan Am operations door and entered the security code. So FedEx’s tradecraft was better than he’d thought.

  Resnick didn’t think the same of Kivisto. The target stepped from the pharmacy, counting his change. The first officer looked both ways, then darted to the nearest phone booth and went inside.

  Resnick dropped the newspaper as he got up. He removed his fountain pen from his pocket and took off the cap, revealing the razor-sharp tip, ready to write Kivisto’s epitaph with its poisonous ink. As Resnick reached for the door of the phone booth, he felt a gentle tug on his arm. He swung around, prepared to strike.

  The old lady from the plane jumped back. “Oh, my goodness. I didn’t mean to startle you. While you’re waiting for the phone, would you mind taking my picture with the planes in the background so I can show my grandson? He loves airplanes.”

  Resnick glanced at the phone booth. Kivisto picked up the receiver and held it against his shoulder. He dropped a coin into the slot, but the phone didn’t register any value.

  “It would mean so much, young man
.”

  Kivisto opened the change return, took out the mark piece and tried again.

  The phone call could not be allowed, but Resnick didn’t want to take out the grandma in the middle of the concourse if he didn’t have to. Thanks to Kivisto’s incompetence, he had a few moments to spare. Resnick shoved the cap back on his pen and snatched the Instamatic from the lady. “Quickly. Stand here by the booth so I can get the planes in the background.” His German was now perfect and without accent. He nearly picked up the woman and planted her at the side of the phone booth. Kivisto had now given up on the bad coin and was trying to stuff the phone with a handful of change to get his call through to Bonn.

  “Smile.” Resnick framed the picture so as to cut the woman out of it so that there would be no image of Kivisto for any authorities to pore over after they found his body. The snitch was now dialing.

  “Have a nice stay in Frankfurt.” Resnick shoved the camera at the woman and put his large hand on her back and pointed her down the concourse. “Now go on to your family. They’ll be worried about you.”

  Kivisto dropped the mark into the phone and dreamed of buying his own plane and retiring in the Med. Art Kivisto usually had shit for luck, but today was his lucky day—the big payday he’d been waiting for. The KGB was desperate for any information about an unusual package going to Moscow. Last night was the first time his handler had ever insisted on a rendezvous in the middle of the night. Now he had information Moscow craved. He didn’t fear betraying his country or anyone else, only that he might unknowingly do it for too low a price. The mark clinked as it plopped into the coin return. Damn! Nothing’s ever easy. He scooped it from the coin return and dropped it in again. And it fell through again.

  He reached in his pocket and noticed a man outside the booth taking a picture of his elderly mother. Kivisto fiddled with his coins and jammed every German coin he had into the slot, and then dialed the number.