The plane continued to sink.
The closer Faith got to the former galley, the more the floor sagged. Broken electrical wires hung from the ceiling, buzzing and arcing as they whipped around. She couldn’t hold her breath any longer. She filled her lungs with the thin cabin air. It was icy cold, but breathable. They’d lost a hell of a lot of altitude. Thank God the Russian countryside was flat. She hoped it was flat enough.
Frosty pulled the fire bottle for the number-three engine for the second time as he listened in on the first officer’s exchange with the ground.
“Moscow Centre, this is Clipper ten-seventy-two; we are declaring an emergency,” First Officer Jackson said.
“Here is Moscow Centre. Is that Clipper ten-seventeen on emergency?” the controller said with a heavy Russian accent.
“Clipper ten-seventy-two, ten-seven-two, declaring an emergency.”
“Moscow Centre, Clipper ten-seventy-two, on emergency.”
“Moscow Centre, Clipper ten-seventy-two, descending out of—” Jackson ran his finger down the metric conversion chart “—seven-five hundred meters for . . . four-two hundred meters. Request clearance to nearest airport.”
The controller struggled with the foreign words. “Clipper ten-seventy-two, this is Moscow Centre. Negative on request. Nearest airport is with military restriction. Proceed to Sheremetyevo.”
“Moscow Centre, Clipper ten-seventy-two, we’re experiencing emergency depressurization and failure on number-three engine. Repeat request for emergency clearance to nearest airfield.”
“Clipper ten-seventy-two, here is Moscow Centre. Repeat. Negative on request. Negative on request.”
“Captain,” Jackson said.
Ian visibly struggled with the sluggish controls. “I copied. Distance to Sheremetyevo?”
“One hundred eight nautical miles,” Frosty said. “Real neighborly folks, those Rooskies.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
WEST BERLIN, AMERICAN SECTOR
The Papagei Pub catering to GIs was packed with its usual crowd of servicemen, their German girlfriends and young working-class Berliners looking for American dates. The men at the bar watched a time-delayed broadcast of a baseball game on the Armed Forces Network. Each time a loud cheer shook the room, the mascot macaw perched at the end of the bar squawked, “Touchdown! Touchdown!” The bird then settled back into its routine of plucking out the feathers around its mangy neck.
The blues, pinks and greens of the blinking neon parrot in the pub’s window reflected on Summer’s face. Socializing with his old Army classmates from the joint-services Explosive Ordnance Disposal School was fun, but hardly distracted him from the nagging sense that he should have stopped Faith—even if her fury had meant the end of their friendship. He absentmindedly lifted his beer with his buddies in a toast to younger days and sipped the pilsner through the foam head.
Captain Leroy Walters reached for a handful of popcorn and threw a kernel into his mouth. “Man, I don’t know what’s with the Germans, why they don’t have good finger food. You’d think any people who know how to make beer this good would’ve come up with something to snack on while you’re drinking it. You know, this place only started serving popcorn a couple of months ago.”
“That right?” Summer said automatically.
“Come on, Summer, you ready to tell us now what you’re doing, coming all the way over here on a moment’s notice?”
“I told you, I was on a rescue mission for a damsel in distress.” He picked up a stack of cardboard beer coasters advertising Warsteiner Pilsner and shuffled them. He didn’t like the feeling lodged in his gut: Faith was in trouble.
“I’m sure you did the right thing.”
“She never would let me do that.” He dropped the coasters one by one from one hand into the other. He should’ve stopped her this morning, but she was so damn headstrong.
“What kind of trouble she in? You can get into a lot of trouble in this city.”
“The kind you don’t want to know about.”
“Well, that narrows it down to female troubles or problems with the communists.”
Summer stared at the neon bird.
“Oh, shit, man. You gotta be real careful in this town. You know, I used to use that same Turkish car mechanic—der Meister, we called him. He was the one they busted for helping that guy with the 513th carry all those documents to East Berlin.”
“You don’t say?” Summer said. His thoughts were eight hundred miles east.
“Yeah, I used to take Francine’s Pontiac into his shop. All the guys used der Meister. He could fix anything. The nicest guy you’d ever meet. No one could believe he was a spy. They say he took microfilm to East Berlin through a hole in the fence the KGB showed him. You know, we do get them coming over here, taking pictures of what we’re doing. You can always spot ’em. It’s always one or two little guys in cheap suits. They pretend to walk dogs by you and they’d be taking your picture all the while. They won’t use the same guy twice because we’d be too suspicious, but they never thought to change the damn dog! I tell you, I can spot a KGB agent every time.” He turned his head toward a tall woman walking by. She had closely cropped dark curls that reminded him of an old girlfriend. She slowed her pace as she neared the pub. “Oh, she’s nice looking. Out for a night on the town. You boys might have to excuse me.”
The men turned their heads and watched the sexy woman pass the window. She wore the ugliest brooch Summer had ever seen. She glanced at him and then looked away.
“Her step’s too deliberate,” Summer said. “You might always be able to spot a KGB agent, but I can always tell when a lady is too complicated to mess with. That woman has a mind of her own. Trust me, you don’t want to get involved with that one.”
“Sounds like she reminds you of someone. Your damsel in distress, maybe?” Meriwether finally spoke.
The woman entered the pub and stood near the doorway, surveying the room. When her gaze fell upon their table, Walters smiled at her and motioned for her to join them.
“Control yourself, Leroy,” Summer said. “Don’t let your dick go busting up our reunion.”
“She looks like she’s looking for someone, and maybe I’m her man.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, guys,” she said in an American accent. “But I’m checking out all the military hangouts for a friend of a friend. I know this sounds pretty weird, but it’s real important for my friend Faith that I find him.”
Summer jerked his head up and stopped playing with the coasters. “You know Faith? Faith Whitney?”
“Yeah. I’m trying to find a guy named Max Summer.”
“She all right? What’s happened to her?”
“You’re Max? Thank God I found you. She got word to Hakan she needs you as soon as possible. He’s out looking for you, too.”
“She say anything else?”
“It didn’t mean much to us, but she said it has something to do with a package you helped her with.”
“Where is she?”
“Do you know Berlin?” the woman said.
“Barely.”
“I do,” Meriwether said.
“At an apartment in Steglitz. I can take you to her.”
“Let’s go.” Summer stood, reaching for his wallet.
“I got it, man.” Walters threw a blue hundred-mark bill onto the table.
“By the way, I’m Kathy,” she said as they left the bar. Kathy raised her arm in the air to hail a taxi. A tan Mercedes taxi turned its lights on and pulled up to the curb.
“You don’t need a cab,” Leroy said. “We can drive you wherever you need to go. I’ve got my wife’s Pontiac tonight. We can all pile in the cruiser.” He pointed at a blue Grand LeMans with Virginia license plates.
“The plates kind of give you away as a US serviceman. It could be dangerous for Faith. I think we’d better go for the cab,” Kathy said.
“Thanks again, but she’s got a point,” Summer said as he op
ened the door for Kathy. “We’ll follow you to the base to get my stuff. No telling what she needs help with. Wait at the gate for me and I’ll ride in with you. She can stay with the taxi.”
She slid across the leather seat, making room for Summer. He closed the door behind her and she rolled down the window. “Hey, aren’t you getting in?”
He pulled on the handle of the front passenger door and leaned over to the back window. “I’m kinda funny about riding in the back of cabs—particularly in foreign countries and New York City.” He hopped into the front seat and put on his seatbelt. He greeted the driver with a nod. “Wait a second, then follow that Pontiac.”
The driver shrugged his shoulders. “No English.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Kathy translated for the cabbie. He shook his head at first and then after a few more words seemed to understand. The driver waited for the Pontiac.
“Was that some weird dialect of German you were speaking with him? It sounded kind of funny,” Summer said as he took note of the off-duty cab behind them.
“Oh, I speak Swiss German. I was an exchange student in Zurich for a year. Swiss German is really different from what the Germans here speak. You know, when West German TV shows movies from Switzerland in Swiss German, they use subtitles because it’s so hard for Germans to understand. I keep wanting to learn High German, as they call it, and I’d hoped to pick it up in Berlin.”
“He seemed to understand you without subtitles. It sounded like you switched languages or something all of a sudden.”
“I think he’s an Ausländer, a foreigner. They usually only know Low German because that’s what the Germans speak with them when they work in the factories and stuff. But you did hear a shift. I switched from my stab at High German to my regular Swiss German, which is a sort of Low German. At least I got my point across.”
The cab sped up. Summer jerked his head around. “Hey, where’d they go?”
“I think they’re ahead of us. He’s speeding up to catch them.”
“They must’ve turned. Tell the cabbie to turn around.”
Kathy spoke to the driver, then to Summer. “He says he knows a shortcut to the base.”
How does he know which base we’re headed to? “How did you say you knew Faith?”
“She’s my nephew’s professor at Ozark U.”
“Ozark U., is that right?” A professor? Ozark U.? Bullshit. Summer discreetly unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle.
Before he could jump out, Kathy pushed a gun against the back of his head.
“Put your hands on the dashboard. Now!” Kathy said, then immediately shouted orders in another language.
Now Summer recognized it. Roosky.
He wished he hadn’t had so much beer as he placed his hands on the dashboard and surveyed the front of the cab for potential weapons. Not even a stray pencil lay on the floorboard. A professional must have gone over the car. The taxi raced through the empty residential streets. It felt as if they were going south, but he knew that, in West Berlin, every direction led East.
“What do you want with me?”
“I told you, you’re going to help your friend.”
“Bullshit. You don’t need to kidnap me for that. You know the Allies will stop you before you can get me through the Iron Curtain.”
“Didn’t Faith explain to you that all of Berlin is behind the so-called Iron Curtain? No one checks cars leaving West Berlin. The cavalry isn’t going to come over the hill and save you, cowboy. You were on our turf as soon as you set foot here. The East Germans aren’t particularly keen on it, but it’s quite a convenient arrangement for us.”
“I’m happy for you. Would you mind not pushing that thing against my skull? I’m not giving you any resistance, and I’d sure hate for it to go off next time we bounce over a pothole.” In the rearview mirror Summer saw the Pontiac run the other taxi into a fire hydrant and speed past it. Come on, Leroy.
“Sorry, commander. I know about your training.”
The Pontiac was gaining on them. Punch it, Leroy! The driver turned onto a wide boulevard. Floodlights. Barbed wire. Watchtowers. I’m fucked.
Leroy’s car was closing the gap. Fifty feet. Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Five feet. The border was seconds away.
Now, Leroy!
The Pontiac rammed the Mercedes. Tires squealed. The car spun and the gun moved away from his head. He shoved the door open and sprang from the vehicle. Spotlights blinded him.
“Hände hoch!” A sentry butted a Kalashnikov against his chest.
Summer stared at the white line across the cobblestones. Ten feet. Ten fucking feet behind the Curtain. He threw up his arms.
Guards swarmed around the taxi and the Pontiac, weapons drawn. Steam poured from under the hood of the Pontiac. The engine growled, but wouldn’t turn over. Come on, start, damn it. Start. The engine let out another pathetic growl, but wouldn’t fire. You son of a bitch. The Pontiac straddled the boundary, the front half clearly in the East, the trunk in the Free World. Guards yanked the doors open and dragged Walters and Meriwether from the car. Soldiers poured from a bunker, firearms drawn.
A black Mercedes with red Cyrillic license plates sped across the border and screeched to a halt. At the same time, the driver and Kathy jumped from the taxi. The East Germans drew their weapons. Kathy shouted at them in German, then Russian. She grasped the handle of her weapon with two fingers and held it into the air. A guard stepped forward and snatched the weapon from her. Summer understood her when she cursed him in German.
“Oberst Bogdanov der KGB, du Arschloch. Don’t point your weapons at me.” She repeated herself in Russian, her voice rising in tandem with her anger as she struggled to salvage the botched operation. She gritted her teeth and shook her head as she watched the chaos unfold around her. Where was German order when you needed it? She looked in the eyes of the teenage sentry and saw fear. Not good. His rifle barrel trembled. So did his finger on the trigger. For more than a minute spotlights had been shining on her black operation. Anytime now the West Berlin and Allied military police would be there, photographing the melee. “Get your captain over here at once if you don’t want a tour of Siberia with me. Mach schnell!”
“Captain Holtzer, you’d better get over here. She says she’s a KGB colonel,” the kid shouted.
The captain strutted toward the colonel with slow Prussian arrogance. She yelled at him in German with a heavy Russian accent, hoping it would expedite the situation. “Colonel Bogdanov, KGB. I’m taking charge of the situation. Ivashko in the black Mercedes has my identification. You can verify it when we’re all safely away from Western eyes. Order your men at once to get these cars out of sight. If they’re not concealed within one minute, you fly with me to Lubyanka tonight. Davai! Davai!”
The captain barked orders to his troops. Three guards tossed their weapons over their shoulders and pushed Leroy’s car completely across the divide onto the sovereign territory of the German Democratic Republic.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
LUBYANKA (KGB HEADQUARTERS), MOSCOW
One of General Stukoi’s twelve phones began ringing. He moved his head over the phone bank and touched the third phone. He felt the vibrations of the ringer and picked it up with confidence. “Listening.”
“We’re fucked.” General Titov from the Berlin residency didn’t bother introducing himself. “That drunk, Voronin, just called me from Bonn. His people got a bomb onto the plane they believed FedEx was on.”
“Goddamn it! We’ve got to get that plane on the ground.” He yelled for his secretary without bothering to put his hand over the receiver. “Pyatiletka, get me the supervisor at Moscow Air Traffic Control at once.” He spoke into the phone. “Gennadi, what flight did you say your man followed FedEx onto?”
“I just had that fucking number in front of me,” Titov said, then continued to swear as Stukoi listened to him rustle through papers. “Wait a minute. Here it is: Pan Am 1072.”
&
nbsp; Another phone rang. Stukoi dropped the one with Titov onto his desk and could hear him ranting. Pyatiletka introduced the new caller as the senior supervisor of Aeroflot’s Area Control Center.
“There might be a problem with an inbound Pan American flight,” Stukoi said.
“We’re working it right now.”
“Is it still in the air?”
“It’s up, proceeding to Sheremetyevo.”
“How long until it’s there?”
“Fifteen, twenty minutes—if it makes it.”
“Make sure you get it there.” Stukoi hung up. “Or I’ll have your ass.”
Titov was still carrying on about the incompetence of the Bonn residency and hadn’t noticed Stukoi’s absence. Stukoi grabbed the other phone. “It’s all going to hell!” He threw down the receiver and shouted to Pyatiletka, “Get my car. Now!”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
108 NAUTICAL MILES FROM SHEREMETYEVO
Faith worked her way toward the hole, not sure what to do next and hoping that the sagging floor held. She shivered. It had to be well below zero. Several passengers were bloody from the flying debris. The purser, who had apparently been in the lavatory, throwing his guts up during the explosion, sat, strapped into a jump seat, making the sign of the cross. Over and over. The two men seated behind the galley’s bulkhead were missing. So was their entire bank of seats. In the next row two women sat with their feet dangling over open air. One was screaming, the other staring straight ahead as if engrossed in an in-flight movie.
Faith turned toward the rear of the plane and pointed at the operative. She motioned for him to come. He got up and hurried to her, his gaze fixed on the hole.
She shouted into his ear. “Deutsch? Russkii?”
Rift Zone Page 21
