The Russian Affair

by Adrian D'hage

  Akram Mukhtar lined up the Cessna 182 for a final approach to Bankstown Airport’s centre runway.

  ISIS’s chief bombmaker in Australia, Habib Rushdi, was pleased. He had insisted that he and Mukhtar fly at least twice a week, normalising their presence at the airfield. And he had made a great effort to get to know the airport security staff, to a point where they were treated as part of the furniture. When it came to the vinegar flight tomorrow, Rushdi was determined that no one would question it. Today’s penultimate flight had gone well and Rushdi was confident his 28-year-old convert to Islam would complete the mission. The previous week, the shipping container of rice had been delivered to the warehouse he’d rented in Bankstown, and now, all that remained this evening was for him to complete the bomb.

  ‘Bankstown tower, Papa Foxtrot Lima, inbound details.’

  ‘Bankstown tower.’

  ‘Papa Foxtrot Lima, Cessna 182, two POB, five miles to the east, 1500, received Delta, request clearance.’

  ‘Papa Foxtrot Lima, make visual approach, join downwind, track for right circuit runway Two Nine Charlie.’

  ‘Visual approach, right circuit runway Two Nine Charlie, Papa Foxtrot Lima turning right base for Two Nine Charlie.’

  ‘Cleared to land Two Nine Charlie.’

  Minutes later, they taxied to the parking space Rushdi had rented when he’d organised the purchase of the Cessna.

  ‘You flew well, today, Akram. You’re a very capable pilot,’ Rushdi observed as they returned to the apartment Rushdi had rented in Sixth Avenue at Condell Park, less than 2 kilometres from the entrance to the airport.

  ‘Thank you. It’s a pity they didn’t recognise that before they sacked me,’ Mukhtar replied. First Officer Mukhtar had questioned his commercial airline’s safety regime and had been sacked immediately. The chief pilot’s words still rang in his ears every night.

  ‘We can do without pilots like you in this airline, Mukhtar,’ the chief pilot and director of flight operations growled. ‘What do you fucking mean by this?’ Captain Harris thrust a copy of Mukhtar’s Facebook page across the desk.

  First Officer Mukhtar stared at his own comments in disbelief.

  Seriously concerned about safety in my airline.

  Cutting corners. Not good.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ Mukhtar demanded.

  ‘Never mind where I got it. I asked you a fucking question! What do you mean by it?’

  ‘It’s a private comment,’ Mukhtar replied, ‘but since you’ve asked, you would be well aware that last week, my crew were given a flight plan for Darwin based on weight and fuel calculations that were so far adrift – nearly 10 000 kilograms lighter than our actual take-off weight – that had we not detected the error, we wouldn’t have had enough fuel to get to the other end.’

  ‘A one-off! We fixed that!’

  ‘Well, what about the fact our flight planners are now so overworked, they’re taking stress leave? They’re supposed to be preparing 30 flight plans a day – you’ve got them doing nearly double that.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Captain Harris had turned a peculiar shade of purple. ‘How fucking dare you! You towelheads are all alike!’

  ‘I shall be reporting those racist comments to the authorities.’

  ‘Do you see anyone in this building right now, you dickhead? Let alone this office. They’ve all gone home, so I’ll simply deny it. Now get your black arse out of here and fuck off. You’re fired!’

  Captain Harris reached for the bottle of Scotch he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk. There would, he knew, be some serious questions about safety raised at tomorrow’s monthly board meeting.

  ‘That’s the problem with the Infidel, Akram,’ said Rushdi, fanning Mukhtar’s anger, ‘they have no respect for anyone who’s not white or who doesn’t practise the false religion of Christianity. You are one of the best pilots around, but because you have different-coloured skin, they won’t recognise that.’ The last thing Rushdi wanted was for his young pilot to get cold feet. Rushdi was convinced that Mukhtar was a gift from Allah, and by 9 a.m. tomorrow, Insha’Allah, the Infidel’s largest city would be in chaos. Eventually, it would be abandoned.

  ‘By tomorrow, you will get your revenge, my friend, and Allah will welcome you into the kingdom. In the meantime, we need to pray.’

  Their prayers complete, Mukhtar followed Rushdi into the back room of the unit and he watched as Rushdi retrieved the bomb components from where he’d stored them in the wardrobe.

  ‘This is Semtex,’ Rushdi explained. ‘It’s a very reliable explosive, and we use it quite often.’

  ‘The same explosive that brought down the Pan Am 747?’ asked Mukhtar. On 21 December 1988, having departed London Heathrow for JFK in New York, Pan Am’s Flight 103 was flying at 31 000 feet when it exploded over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland.

  ‘One and the same. The Pan Am bombers used Semtex on a timer. It’s far more powerful than TNT, and the older product is also very hard to detect by X-ray. The Pan Am bombers brought the 747 down with just 12 ounces.’

  ‘You didn’t have any trouble getting hold of the Semtex?’

  Rushdi smiled. Normally, he didn’t disclose details of how components for a bomb were acquired, but after tomorrow, Mukhtar was not going to pose a risk.

  ‘Semtex has been around since the sixties,’ he explained. ‘It’s made in the Czech Republic, but they’re now putting out less powerful variants with a better signature for detection. Prior to that, about 40 000 tons of it were stolen, and it’s the older version that’s available on the black market, so it’s not difficult to get.’

  ‘And the lead satchel – that’s the strontium-90?’

  Rushdi nodded. Unlike his counterpart in Chicago, Rushdi had assessed Mukhtar’s simmering resentment and decided that if he knew what was in the bomb, and how much damage he would inflict on the now-hated white Infidel, it would spur him on.

  ‘Semtex has about one and a half times the power of TNT, so the six kilograms here is more than enough to smash the strontium-90 into very tiny radioactive dust particles.’ said Rushdi. ‘And Semtex is very pliable,’ he added, moulding the explosive into a shape that would best destroy the lead satchel.

  ‘Just before you fly into the round skyscraper in Australia Square, you are to press this red button which completes the battery-powered circuit,’ Rushdi said, showing Mukhtar the small plastic detonator. ‘Tomorrow, we will tape that to the top of the joystick where it’s handy, but not in the way. It’s important to detonate the bomb just before you hit the building, so the radioactive particles are spread over the widest possible area.’

  General Dragunov’s Hawker 1000 taxied to a halt at St Petersburg’s Pulkova International Airport. After they’d cleared customs, Dragunov nodded to the driver to put Bartók’s luggage in the trunk.

  ‘While I attend to some urgent business,’ said Dragunov, not mentioning that the urgent business involved the handover of two nuclear warheads from his research laboratory in Sarov, ‘you will be taken to my dacha on the outskirts of St Petersburg where you are to wait for further instructions. You are not to leave the house under any circumstances. Is that understood?’ There was more than a hint of steel in the general’s voice. Dragunov was in no mood for Bartók to cause him any difficulty. He was having enough trouble with ISIS. Bartók nodded and got into the car.

  Every time Bartók travelled, he felt tired, but this time there was added pressure. His thoughts went back to Rabinovich, or Cohen as she now called herself, and her conversation on the penalty for treason. Bartók felt for the thumb drive he now kept in his pocket. He reminded himself that he had something to trade and he settled back into the plush leather of the Mercedes. As they travelled north from the airport, Bartók became a little more energised. It had been over 20 years since he’d been in the city of canals, and as they neared the CBD, it all came back to him.

  Located on the Baltic Sea, 400 miles to the north-west of Moscow, water was as much
a part of the historic city as the palaces, cathedrals, shops, dachas and apartments. Tsar Peter the Great, a lover of all things maritime, had built the city on the Neva River delta when he defeated the Swedish colonists in 1703. By 1712, Peter had moved the capital from Moscow, and apart from a very short period, St Petersburg had been the capital of Imperial Russia until the government relocated back to Moscow in 1918. Variously known as St Petersburg, then in 1914 as Petrograd, then in 1924 as Leningrad, before changing back to St Petersburg again in 1991, the city was colloquially known as ‘the Venice of the north’. Built on a delta with over 300 kilometres of tributaries and canals that were crossed by over 800 bridges, the title was apposite.

  They passed through the CBD and headed north, crossing the south branch of the Neva River and on across the Krestovka Waterway to one of the northernmost islands of the city. The car slowed and they turned into a driveway off Bolshaya Alleya. Bartók’s driver pressed the remote and the huge wrought-iron gates swung silently on their hinges. The dacha was at the end of the tree-lined drive and with high-pitched gables and a mushroom-shaped roof over the conservatory, it looked like something out of Hansel and Gretel. The driver, Bartók had discovered, spoke little or no English but the older housemaid had a little.

  ‘Welcome, sir. You be very happy here. We are hoping.’

  Bartók returned her smile and followed her up a winding wooden staircase to his room at the top of the turreted conservatory wing.

  ‘Tea? Coffee?’

  Bartók shook his head and put his cheek on his palms in a sign he wanted to sleep.

  It was a trip O’Connor had made many times. Sheremetyevo International Airport was only 35 kilometres from the US embassy at Bolshoy Devyatinskiy Pereulok 8, but Moscow’s traffic was, as usual, chaotic, and it took over an hour before they pulled up in front of the heavily fortified gates – gates that were guarded by Russian police who were often boosted by an aggressive FSB presence.

  Once inside, O’Connor was greeted by the chief of station, Ted Howarth. An ex-Marine, O’Connor had known him for years.

  ‘Ted! How are you?’

  ‘I was pretty good until I caught sight of you,’ Howarth said, punching O’Connor on the arm.

  They negotiated their way into the head of station’s fortified zone and made themselves some coffee. ‘I’ve got you a Jeep – a Grand Cherokee no less – so there goes the budget for another year,’ Howarth said. ‘Try not to bend this one?’

  ‘No guarantees on that,’ said O’Connor. ‘And your boat?’ On the flight from Paris, O’Connor had mapped out a backup plan, in case Dragunov’s escape on his superyacht didn’t come off. When he’d put it to McNamara from the onboard secure link, the spy chief at first thought it was suicidal. O’Connor argued that every exit from Russia, other than the one he was proposing as a backup, would be under heavy surveillance. Eventually McNamara went along with it and said he would call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  ‘Our boat is used to escort visiting VIPs. It’s moored in a canal in St Petersburg,’ said Howarth, pushing the keys across the desk. ‘A Sea Ray 195 Sport. It’s powered by a 260-horsepower Mercruiser and it does over 30 knots. If, as a last resort, you have to get Dragunov and Bartók out that way, provided they don’t have anything faster, you might pull it off. I’ve had a long talk with McNamara, and at least the planets are aligned. The chief of Naval Operations is diverting the USS Mount Whitney from a scheduled port visit to Helsinki.’ Named after a peak in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, the 18 000-ton vessel was essentially a command and control ship, but as far as O’Connor was concerned, its critical capability was an MH-60S Knight Hawk – the navy’s equivalent of the Black Hawk. ‘She’ll have to stay in international waters, but if you can get clear of the eastern area of the Gulf of Finland, it just might work.’

  Howarth pushed a slim file across the desk. ‘Mount Whitney’s call sign and the frequencies are in there. They’ll stay just outside of Russian waters – but first you’ve got to capture Dragunov and Bartók. I don’t know what Dragunov’s done to upset Petrov, but he’s being watched around the clock, so snatching him here in Moscow is pretty well out of the question, unless you want a re-run of Rabinovich’s efforts a couple of months back. Geez, did she turn the city on its head.’

  ‘And all for the benefit of the Israelis. Any word on Bartók and Dragunov’s location or the urgent business?’

  As if on cue, Howarth’s trusted PA appeared. ‘Mr McNamara’s on the secure video. He says it’s very urgent.’ Howarth opened up a wall screen to reveal a worried-looking spy chief.

  ‘Two things,’ McNamara began brusquely. ‘Murray’s finally managed to crack one of ISIS’s Dark Web portals, and it’s much worse than we thought. Firstly, the targets for the dirty bombs have just been confirmed as New York and Sydney. Admiral Chandler has put a call through to the Australian head of ASIO and provided him with what we’ve got and the Australian National Security Committee of Cabinet and the New South Wales Cabinet Committee have both been briefed. As to how ISIS are going to deliver the bombs, we’re still in the dark because they’re using codewords on their website. We’ve quietly put the New York police and the other services on high alert, including tightening the air exclusion zone and launching two F-16 combat air patrols. The Australians have done the same over Sydney with their F/A-18s out of their air base at Williamtown. They’ve raised the threat level there from “probable” to “expected”, but like us they can’t search every vehicle going into the city. In the meantime, Murray’s got the big computers out at Utah at full bore, looking for more clues, but to make matters worse, we suspect ISIS is using more than one site on the Dark Web, so they’re getting more sophisticated. That said, the dirty bombs are the least of our worries.’

  Howarth and O’Connor exchanged glances.

  ‘We’re not sure of the content of their video, but whatever ISIS have on Dragunov is so damning that he’s prepared to use his not inconsiderable clout to help them get two Firefly nuclear warheads out of the Sarov nuclear complex. If the terrorists get their hands on those, we’re all in a world of hurt. Dragunov is due to meet up with ISIS at Sarov in the next 24 hours. He’s on his way there right now.’

  ‘Warn the Russians?’ offered O’Connor.

  ‘It’s a tough call,’ agreed McNamara, ‘but that would expose Dragunov and he might hand over Bartók and the Dragon compartment to save his own neck. Your priority is to retrieve Bartók and the Dragon data.’

  ‘Any word on where Dragunov might be holding Bartók?’

  McNamara shook his head. ‘We’re not sure, but Murray’s working on it. Interestingly, our friends in Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure have provided Dragunov’s flight plan and he flew to St Petersburg, and then on to Moscow, so it’s possible Bartók is being held somewhere in St Petersburg. Our best bet is for you to get to Dragunov, preferably before ISIS get their hands on the warheads.’

  McNamara threw up the latest satellite imagery on the Russian nuclear base. ‘To the north is the closed city of Sarov, which is off limits to both foreigners and ordinary Russians.’ Established at the start of the Cold War in 1946, the remote complex now housed over 30 000 scientists and nuclear technicians. It was located some 400 kilometres east of Moscow, and it was here that the Soviets developed their first atomic bomb. As a result, in 1947, the city of Sarov was erased from all Russian maps and documents. ‘You can see the Avangard nuclear warhead production plant here,’ said McNamara, using his laser pointer to indicate a collection of buildings to the south of the city. ‘As you can see, it’s secured behind a high-level security fence. The entry gate is here. Those images should be with you shortly, and I’ve had them annotated to indicate other key points, including their bunker systems, power station, laser range and reactor. If there is a weakness, it’s in the regularity of the patrols around the perimeter fences – two guards on the hour. Your mission is to get Dragunov out, link up with Bartók and get them bot
h out of Russia. Any questions?’

  ‘Walk in the park, really,’ O’Connor responded with a wry grin. ‘Is the president authorising this?’

  McNamara shook his head. ‘Pennsylvania Avenue is still leaking like a sieve. It’s a black op.’

  ‘Which means if it fucks up, we’ve never heard of you,’ O’Connor observed to Howarth after McNamara signed off.

  ‘Standard practice,’ agreed Howarth, ‘but at least the FSB are unlikely to have Dragunov under surveillance down there.’

  ‘Yeah, but for this to come off, we’re going to need more than a little luck,’ said O’Connor, ‘and I’m going to need a little more equipment than I brought with me.’

  ‘Come this way. Our armoury’s not quite as extensive as you might remember, but the diplomatic black bag still comes in handy,’ he said, leading O’Connor down to a part of the dungeon that he was already familiar with. O’Connor chose a Heckler and Koch 416 carbine, as well as two Glock 21 pistols.

  Curtis O’Connor hid his Jeep off a timber track. The fresh snow was soft underfoot and he moved quietly through the thick subarctic forest of spruces and fir trees. A kilometre further on, he chose a large spruce on some high ground overlooking the entrance to the top-secret Russian base. O’Connor crawled under the pine needles, heavily laden with snow, and checked his watch. Six p.m. Less than an hour of daylight. He adjusted his Zeiss binoculars and scanned the nuclear weapons design laboratories and warhead assembly plants.

  Two armed guards from the Ministry of Internal Affairs strolled along the double fence, conducting their hourly patrol. McNamara was right, O’Connor thought. The regularity of their checks was a weakness that might be exploited, but he knew it wouldn’t be easy.

  Suddenly, the gathering dusk was shattered by the roar of high-powered vehicles speeding toward the laboratory complex. The boom gate was already up and the guard contingent had fallen in at attention. O’Connor swung his binoculars toward the road, immediately recognising the convoy for what it was. Four black four-wheel drive SUVs, all with their lights flashing, were followed by a heavily armoured limousine, and another four SUVs. There was only one man in Russia who travelled like this: President Dmitry Petrov. Small presidential flags fluttered from each fender – the Russian red, blue and white tricolour superimposed with the twin golden eagles of the presidential coat of arms. President Petrov was aboard.