Hard Cover

by Adrian Magson

‘You did what? Who gave you permission to do that? Did I say you could do that?’ Gretsky’s voice was almost a squeak now and rising.

  ‘You didn’t have to. We run these checks all the time down in Shaykovka; some aircraft don’t have a detailed flight plan or they switch off their transponders – even their radios. It’s standard procedure when one of the three elements is miss—’

  Gretsky yelled, ‘Like I give a shit what’s standard procedure in freaking Shaykovka! This is a civilian facility, not military, you dumb fuck! And I know what the three elements are, thank you very much – I don’t need a lecture from you!’

  ‘But the code—’

  ‘Code nothing. It was probably an echo. In case you forgot, you’re here as an observer, Datsyuk. That means you observe but you do not interfere, you understand me? Now check yourself out; you’re off duty until tomorrow.’

  Maxim swallowed hard. Ouch. He’d really touched a sore spot, although he couldn’t understand why. He decided not to mention that he’d tried making contact with the helicopter; it would probably give Gretsky an aneurism, the fat bastard.

  ‘I didn’t hear an answer, Datsyuk! Are you listening to me? You’re off duty.’

  ‘OK, I understand. Got it, sir. I’m leaving now. Over and out.’ He banged the receiver down, the sarcasm probably lost on the fat man, and turned off his monitors. Jesus, these civilian time-servers didn’t know they were born.

  Echo, my ass.

  NINETEEN

  Victor Simoyan was woken from a fitful sleep by a soft buzzing sound. He turned over and slid open the drawer of the bedside table. Taking out the cell phone inside, he slipped out of bed, careful not to wake his wife, and left the bedroom. He walked along the landing to his home office, which was equipped in similar fashion to his workplace.

  The cell phone was a throwaway containing numbers he liked to keep separate from his usual business and domestic matters. He studied the screen to see who was calling. Probably one of the Wise Men, having second thoughts and pissing in their pants in terror at the idea of being found out. He’d thought that coming home and getting some sleep while the team got into position for the operation might keep them off his backs for a while, but evidently not.

  He was surprised to see the name of the caller and debated for a moment ignoring it. But instinct told him that could be a mistake.

  ‘What is it, Gretsky?’ he murmured. He sat in his office chair and poured a whisky. He rarely got back to sleep once roused and had a feeling this call wasn’t going to be good news. Gretsky was one of many individuals around the country that he kept on a small retainer, guaranteeing a flow of information on all manner of subjects where knowledge was key.

  Like many functionaries Gretsky was a weasel, but weasels had their value. As an Air Traffic Control supervisor, his inside knowledge allowed Simoyan to gain first-hand details of certain flights of interest anywhere in the country and beyond its borders; details that might prove useful for future plans. In return, like all his sources, Gretsky enjoyed a regular sum of money paid into a secret account. Right now the only topic he could think of in Gretsky’s viewfinder was one involving Chesnokoy and his team of mercenaries, and a certain helicopter travelling north.

  ‘We have a small problem, sir.’ Gretsky’s voice floated down the line in a near-whisper, as if he were crouched under his desk to avoid being overheard. ‘A problem with the flight situation.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Um … we currently have a visiting observer from the military down here learning how we do things. He’s a young man, of no great importance or talent, but he’s keen and ambitious, and is currently on duty observing traffic patterns and procedures. Personally, if it was down to me I wouldn’t have him around, but—’

  ‘Get to it, Gretsky. What’s the problem?’

  He listened as Gretsky outlined the conversation with the visiting ATC. The news wasn’t good, but he’d heard worse. So some eager beaver of a visiting controller had spotted and reported an Ansat – the Ansat with Chesnokoy and his team on board, as it happened. Slightly unfortunate but by itself it wasn’t a huge problem.

  ‘He spoke to you about it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Fine. Then you can contain it.’

  ‘Well, I can contain Datsyuk, yes, sir – that’s the name of the controller in question. I must stress that he went way beyond my strict instructions in what he did—’

  ‘Is there any danger he’ll talk about it outside?’ Simoyan asked coolly. That was the nub of the problem; if this leaked out, it could throw the entire plan into disarray and threaten them all. In which case he might have to take steps to deal with it.

  ‘I’m sure he won’t, sir. He’s from the Ministry of Defence Air Safety Service at Shaykovka and they have strict rules about divulging confidential information. He’s here for a short while only – a short-term transfer only. He’ll be gone in a couple of days. I just thought I should alert you—’

  ‘Quite correct, Gretsky,’ Simoyan said, interrupting him before he could gabble any further. He made a note on his desk pad. ‘Make sure this man stays away from any further probing and keeps his mouth shut.’

  ‘Of course, sir. I will. There is just one more thing, sir.’ Gretsky sounded as if he were having trouble breathing. ‘It has just come to my attention that he tried to make contact with the flight to verify its course and destination. You see, I took the precaution of placing a recording facility on his assigned workstation, and played it back. Again, I must stress that he had no authority to make contact; he was supposed to be observing traffic movement only, not interfacing with it. Fortunately he was unsuccessful.’

  By all the saints, Simoyan thought savagely, don’t these bloody people ever get to the point? ‘So why mention it, then?’

  ‘When there was no response he logged the sighting on the system as an unidentified craft with elements missing.’

  ‘Elements what?’

  ‘It means no radio, no transponder signal and no flight plan. But it had a beacon signal and that’s what triggered his interest; turns out it was an old beacon attached to a military aircraft that was supposed to have been decommissioned a couple of years ago. The beacon was still operative and emitting a signal.’

  Simoyan felt himself go cold. It might go unnoticed, it might not. The worst case scenario was that somebody higher up with a rule book up his arse might see it and start asking questions about unusual night flights with outdated – but ultimately traceable – beacons. And that could ultimately lead right back to himself. ‘So delete the report. Override it. Do whatever you have to do. Make sure it never appears.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s already been circulated and archived, as all reports are. It can’t be deleted or altered.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir. I can’t. I mean … there’s no way. But there are dozens of such reports every day and it’s quite probable that nobody will notice this one.’

  Simoyan stood bolt upright in a burst of energy. ‘You think? Gretsky, your assumption is redundant. If you recall, nobody was supposed to notice a decommissioned Ansat leaving Moscow and heading north. Nobody was supposed to be in a position to notice a signal and start asking questions. Isn’t that what you promised me would be the case – that if it were seen you would ensure it was passed off as special military traffic?’

  ‘Yes, sir, that’s quite correct, but I—’

  ‘Then I suggest you make that your main priority. And make sure this Datsyuk doesn’t put his interfering nose anywhere near another monitor. Understood?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. I’ve already seen to it and sent him home. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get the chance to do it again.’

  Simoyan cut the call and dropped the cell phone on the desk. Then he snatched it up again and began to dial a number, before changing his mind. He’d been about to speak to Chesnokoy and warn him, but that was futile. There
was nothing the former soldier could do about his situation other than to follow orders and complete the mission.

  He finished his whisky and went back to bed, ignoring his wife’s grumbles. As he waited restlessly for sleep to claim him, he found a distant, nagging voice telling him that this wasn’t over. Not by a long way.

  TWENTY

  High above the carpet of trees and an occasional glimpse of water, and shielded by the encroaching darkness and a ceiling of low clouds, Alex Chesnokoy and his three companions were unaware that their journey had been noticed and logged. Sitting in the cabin of an Ansat-U light utility helicopter, they were too focussed on trying to ignore the buffeting of the weather outside and the thrashing cacophony of the rotors overhead.

  Nobody was talking; it was a habit they’d given up a lifetime ago, when too much chatter from a colleague during an operation usually betrayed a nervous disposition – something nobody wanted to hear going into a hot zone. For now each man was concentrating on thoughts of what lay ahead while trying to push aside the darker concerns about what might be awaiting them when they landed. As for now, getting them there in one piece was up to the experts at the controls.

  The pilot was a former major, a specialist with many years of experience flying Spetsnaz troops into battle zones. Flight operations in lousy weather had long been part of his life, taking men and equipment into the air when others were happier being grounded. Alongside him sat a former lieutenant navigator, also with special forces experience, whose ability to find his way in atrocious conditions had kept them working together long past most men in their positions. Now they worked for private individuals as well as taking on occasional jobs for government departments with lots of acronyms but few faces. They had been well paid for this job, and what the four men behind them were going to do on this trip was none of their business.

  Chesnokoy was checking a small electronic box on his lap, no bigger than a cell phone, waiting for a signal to show up on the map outlined on the screen. They were still too high and far away, he figured, but getting closer all the time, if the navigator was doing his job properly in this shit weather. If the target had continued on the same road after the tracker had been attached, there weren’t too many places they could go off the main route to the north. But if they did, and the tracker signal came up, it shouldn’t take too long to home in on their location.

  He sat back and closed his eyes. Waiting; it was always about waiting. What was it someone had once said about war? Months of boredom interspersed by moments of terror. They’d certainly got that right.

  After receiving the ‘go’ for this assignment, he’d ordered his colleagues out of the apartment and into a small removals van out back. Each man had carried a heavy-duty canvas holdall, from where they had taken camouflage uniforms and boots, changing quickly from their civilian clothes once the van was on the move. Their discarded clothes had been placed in their bags for use later on.

  If there was to be a later on.

  Arriving under cover of dark at a small airfield several miles away from the Golyanovo District, they had found the helicopter and two-man crew waiting and ready to go. Within minutes they were in the air and heading towards the north-west.

  The helicopter lurched suddenly, dropping fifty feet and causing each of the men to look up and grab their seats. One or two may have even offered a prayer to whatever god they favoured to keep this godless lump of metal, glass and electronics in the air where it belonged, instead of plunging into the black waters or the spears of trees, where lay certain death either way with no chance of escape.

  Chesnokoy inspected their faces in turn. He could read them like a book and had absolute faith in each one. He was experienced enough to know that no soldier, no matter how skilled, could be entirely free of fear in the face of the unknown. Those who pretended otherwise were a danger to themselves and others, and rarely lasted long. Fear was what made you cautious enough to survive – if you were lucky – and gave you that edge to succeed where others might hesitate and fail.

  And these three were at least honest enough with each other to not try hiding their concerns; that only made them stronger and more reliable.

  He had a feeling they’d need it for this job, which had been sold as a simple task of taking out two men, one of them old, who were ‘a perceived and serious threat to the state’, as Victor Simoyan, the man who’d recruited him, had said. Chesnokoy had worked for Simoyan before, and the arms manufacturer had made a good case for accepting the job, along with the conditions he’d imposed about disappearing afterwards. But Chesnokoy had learned a long time ago that nothing was entirely free from risk, no matter how persuasive the sales pitch.

  There was also the unusual amount of money on offer: a third paid up front and the rest on completion, along with documentation to help the men disappear. He’d talked to other freelance contractors and had come to the conclusion that the sum promised was usually in direct proportion to the dangers involved. Maybe this one was one of the rare good deals. Time would tell.

  ‘Hey, look.’ Georgi Gorin was staring out of the window and nudged him with his elbow. ‘I’d rather be down there than up here.’ He was pointing at a flicker of lights below, and Chesnokoy realized they were looking down at a vehicle travelling along a road. It seemed frighteningly close, and even closer were the glimpses of treetops between them.

  At that moment he caught a movement against the console display in the pilot’s cabin and looked up. The navigator was waving at him to put on a headset hanging from a communications point behind his head.

  He did so and said, ‘Why are we so low?’

  ‘We’re using a military flight corridor as extra cover,’ the man explained. ‘We’ve turned off the transponder so we’re not emitting a signal, but if we get pinged by radar they’ll think we’re part of the regular traffic. No questions, no lies.’

  ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘It’s happened already. We heard a call earlier from a civilian ATC in Moscow wanting to know who we were and where we were going.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I didn’t. It’s none of his business. Hell of a thing, though; I don’t how he spotted us – as I said. We’d turned off the transponder.’

  ‘So where are we?’

  ‘That’s what I was going to tell you. We’re still on course but we’ve got a solid front of rain coming in dead ahead. We’re going to have to put down on the first bit of clear ground we see. Tell your men to get ready and brace for a rough landing.’

  ‘No.’ Chesnokoy leaned forward. ‘You land when I say so. Keep going or go round it.’

  ‘We can’t. If we hit it head on, this weather will blow us out of the sky, and going round it isn’t an option – it’s too big. We have to land.’ The navigator’s face showed briefly as he was thrown sideways in his seat, a pale oval beneath his flying helmet. Chesnokoy wasn’t certain, but the man looked scared.

  ‘Don’t be a fucking pussy,’ he snarled. ‘Keep going!’ As he spoke, he saw a spot of red appear on the tracker unit on his lap. At last: the signal was calling. It was weak but definitely there. If this box of tricks was working correctly, the target looked to be about twenty miles away and slightly to the left of their current heading. Good navigation or pure luck? Who cared – it was time to get going.

  The pilot came on the wire. ‘We land when I say so, not you,’ he said calmly. ‘I promise you, if that weather front hits us this crate will bounce like a ball and won’t stop until we’re splashed in pieces all over the landscape below. Now, are you ready to try winning a pissing contest against Mother Nature or do we land and let the weather go by? We won’t lose more than about twenty minutes and we’ll soon make up that time. In any case, don’t you have a signal to lock onto?’

  Chesnokoy considered taking out the Makarov semi-automatic he had in his holdall and shooting the navigator. That would show who would win the pissing contest. But the weather chose that moment to prove the warning cor
rect by flipping the helicopter to the right and down as if by a giant swipe of the hand. The twin engines howled in protest as the pilot fought to regain control, swearing loudly over the noise and seemingly hauling the machine back from the brink of disaster by sheer muscle-power and spit.

  ‘See what I mean?’ the pilot shouted, once they were flying relatively level again. He sounded angry and ready for a fight. ‘What do you want to do? Try staying up here and die? Or land? It’s your fucking choice!’

  Chesnokoy bit down on his tongue, then shouted back, ‘Very well, land. But you’d better not cause us to lose the target or I’ll shoot both of you.’

  There was no response, but the helicopter immediately began to lose height as the pilot took it down under the directions of the navigator, now using a night vision device to find a clear landing area below.

  On the other side of the cabin, Ignatyev, who had always hated flying, groaned and vomited on the floor.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The road in front of me had opened up as darkness fell, as if the traffic around me had found other places to go for the night. I figured it couldn’t be long before Tzorekov and Gurov decided they’d had enough and found somewhere to rest up. The weather seemed to be worsening by the hour and my wipers were having a hard time clearing the screen. I’d seen no signs of hotels in the area, although there had to be something catering for weekenders and long-distance travellers. But until the two men stopped, I had to keep going or risk losing them in the middle of nowhere.

  As the road dipped between another long strip of trees on both sides, with nothing but blackness beyond and above, I felt a vibration through my elbow where it was resting against the glass of the side window. At first I figured it had to be the condition of the road, which was steadily getting pretty much Third-World crappy. But I realized after a moment that the vibration wasn’t being transmitted through the frame of the vehicle.

  I lowered the window, letting in a blast of cool air and a shower of rainwater, and the echo of the engine and road noise bouncing back at me off the trees.