Authors: Christopher Sherlock
‘
Don’t push me,’ he bristled.
‘
You’re under arrest. Direct orders from General Vorotnikov.’
Ivan moved towards him, instinctively reaching for his pistol as Fernandes retreated, desperately searching for an angle of escape. He pointed his Berretta at Ivan. The Russian had cornered him.
‘
Come on, Fernandes. Put that pea-shooter away. It’s time we had a little talk.’
Fernandes looked nervously at the big Russian. To him it was a simple enough equation: kill or be killed. He would be tortured and he knew he couldn’t face that.
‘
You wouldn’t do it, Fernandes.’
Fernandes closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
When he opened them again, Ivan was lying on the floor screaming, blood pouring from a wound in his side.
‘
You fucking bastard! You’re going to die for this!’
Fernandes shot Ivan a second time in the chest, and the Russian slumped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. But, as Fernandes ran out into the street, Ivan pulled himself up, sighted his pistol and fired two shots before finally collapsing. The bullets hit Fernandes in the centre of the spine and flung him across the tarmac.
The two bodies, both covered in blood, lay quite still in the pouring rain.
Vorotnikov felt his world collapsing around him. The stabbing pains in his chest, which had started earlier in the afternoon, were becoming more pronounced every minute. Was this a heart attack? He tried to stagger towards a chair, but knew he couldn’t reach it. The pain, the pain! He fell across the floor. He felt his body start to convulse and he screamed out in agony.
The world went very black. He was being drawn towards a place he did not want to go. The face of the American journalist came into his mind, the long blonde hair, the beautiful husky voice, but every time he tried to fix on her image it began to fade. He knew now that he would never catch her.
Relaxing with a whisky in one of the sumptuous leather-covered seats of his private jet, Bernard Aschaar was beginning to feel rather more philosophical about the whole business. Perhaps, indeed, it had all been a giant mistake from the beginning. Anyway, he would negotiate with Mugabe when he came to power; at least the groundwork had been effectively laid.
He smiled as he looked through the report he had taken from his briefcase. It made pleasant reading. It was an analysis of his plan to gain control of the world’s gold mining production. He would step up the pressure on Sonja Seyton-Waugh - he was sure he could break her - then she would sell up, and her mines would give him the edge he needed to acquire world control.
The interior of the cabin was dark and soothing, the only light coming from a spotlight on the ceiling. Bernard’s whisky was nearly finished. As he rose to pour himself another Dufftown Glenlivet from the elegant crystal decanter, a sudden, interesting thought crossed his mind. He sat down, and raised the captain on the intercom.
‘
I want you to make direct contact with Vorotnikov’s villa.’
Bernard waited patiently. Eventually the intercom crackled into life. ‘I have Vorotnikov’s servant on the line, Mr Aschaar, he’s not very cooperative.’
‘
Just make the connection.’ Immediately the sound of static dominated all else.
‘
General Vorotnikov?’ There was a lengthy pause and Bernard’s pulse began to race furiously.
‘
I am afraid the General is unavailable at the moment.’
Bernard recognised the routine stalling tactics. He said, ‘The General and I had agreed to speak to each other at this precise time. Please connect me, this is irritating.’
‘
My apologies, sir, but you will not be able to speak to General Vorotnikov.’
‘
Why the hell not!’
‘
He died of a heart attack late this afternoon. You will have
to . . .’
Bernard switched off the transmission, then walked over to pour himself another Scotch. His hands were rock steady and his face sported the biggest smile it had worn for a considerable time.
Almost at the rendezvous point, they saw a Russian patrol coming in the opposite direction. Rayne screamed at Sam to hang on as he accelerated off the road and pulled the bike down.
Trembling, they lay in the foliage as vehicle after vehicle rumbled by. If they were spotted, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
The moment the patrol had passed Rayne dragged the bike back into the road. Sam leapt on the back and Rayne accelerated off, pushing the machine as fast as it would go.
Everything was a blur. The bike was running rough. A knocking sound from the engine indicated that there was something seriously wrong. Ahead, through the trees, he could see the flat stretch of ground that was the old airport. Languid palms ran along the sides of the grass runway and an air of foreboding hung over the place.
The engine seized moments later, pitching them both forward onto the road.
Rayne was winded by the force of the impact and for a few minutes he couldn’t move. He was terrified that they had been followed - that a truckload of Soviet soldiers would come around the corner at any minute and open fire on them.
At last he staggered over to where Sam lay silent on the ground.
She opened her eyes as he bent down and managed a smile. ‘Next time I go for a bike ride, I’ll make sure it’s with someone who knows what they’re doing.’
He helped her to her feet and they walked towards the runway. If John Fry kept his promises, the plane circling above would land as soon as he released the flare to indicate that they were all in place.
‘
This is the six o’clock news. Reports have just been received that a large Soviet invasion force, based in Beira, has been attacked and destroyed. Both the United States and Great Britain have voiced their dissatisfaction with the Soviet Union’s tactics at this delicate stage of the Rhodesian Independence negotiations . . .’
John Fry listened to the BBC World Service report with satisfaction. He imagined the consternation it would cause in Moscow. Now he would wait eagerly for his agent in Beira to report back on the extent of the damage and the effectiveness of Gallagher’s attack.
He was in black tie, ready to attend a ball at the American Embassy in Pretoria. In his hand was a glass of neat whisky and in the elegant glass ashtray on his desk lay a smoking Hauptmann cigar.
John Fry never regretted the loss of life that was the inevitable by-product of his profession. During his twenty-five-year career in espionage he had learnt to distance himself from people and events - a necessary form of self-preservation, for otherwise he would have found orders like the one he was about to give, almost intolerable. But to John Fry agents were simply pieces of vital equipment, to be used tactically at the right time. They did not have families, or souls.
Sometimes he remembered the time when he had fallen in love with a woman agent. She had been expertly briefed and was quite convinced that the information she was carrying was of vital importance to the Soviet Union. Only he and a few other top officials knew that she had been fed a story to tell her Soviet captors once she had been arrested. He had almost cracked, almost broken the rules and gone over to get her. Betty.
That was when it had all started, the complex web that he had spun over so many years. He had never slept with any women except prostitutes since that time. He hadn’t married. He was more successful than ever at his job, but somehow something was missing.
The monitor above his desk crackled into life and he heard the unemotional tones of the radio operator who sat in the basement four floors below him. This innocuous building, at the heart of Pretoria, was to all outside appearances the head office of a large American import and export company. Only a few top people in the South African National Intelligence Service knew that it was the headquarters of the CIA’s Southern Africa section. In the basement was a labyrinth of electronic listening equipment that monitored broadcasts from agents operating throughout the African continent.
Intelligence that Fry had gathered here over the past year had pointed to the existence of a frightening Soviet strategy: the Russians were infiltrating the government of every single African country. Though Fry kept much of this information to himself, his directive from the US government was clear: to thwart Soviet expansionism in every conceivable way without letting the situation develop into another Vietnam.
It was a tough assignment, especially now that Rhodesia was on the verge of getting a new government. Gallagher’s attack on Beira, for example, would have to appear to have been the work of the Rhodesians, and this he would engineer over the next few days. The Soviet government must never know that the true instigator was John Fry of the CIA.
The voice of his agent in Beira came through on the speaker, and Fry pushed the red button on the intercom to open the conversation.
‘
This is Lynx. Please give me your account of the weather.’
‘
Affirmative, this is Cub. The business is good and the weather excellent. Gallagher is performing up to expectation. Everything is as it should be, apart from one major difficulty.’
John Fry tensed. What the hell was wrong? He had not calculated on Captain Gallagher making any mistakes.
‘
The eagle has died.’
John Fry went white. He had given Rayne no instructions to kill General Vorotnikov. Perhaps he had heard incorrectly.
‘
Cub. Is the eagle the king of the birds?’
‘
Affirmative.’
He could be recalled to Washington for this, it was a major catastrophe. Vorotnikov had been a man they could out-guess; his replacement might be a different animal altogether.
John had chosen Rayne carefully on Martin Long’s advice; he’d been certain that he would be reliable. Why had he killed Vorotnikov? Whatever the answer to that question, one thing was certain: Gallagher knew far more about what was going on than was good for him - and that John Fry could not tolerate.
Though the outside world might still be persuaded to believe that it was the Rhodesians who had attacked Beira, Fry knew that the Soviet government would never buy that story now. The death of Vorotnikov would be a big issue. There could well be reprisals. There would definitely be investigations.
‘
Lynx. It is past my bedtime.’
The transmissions were always kept short so that there was no possibility of their being traced. Already this one had gone on beyond the recognised time limit.
‘
End report Cub.’ The silence that followed was one of the nastiest John Fry had experienced.
He made another radio transmission.
‘
This is Lynx.’ The distortion from the other end was horrendous. ‘Affirmative, this is Swallow.’
‘
Cancel collection.’
‘
Are you fucking crazy?’
Fry exploded. The pilot had broken the code sequence. ‘Abort collection, Swallow.’
There was a grim silence. Then, ‘It’s your party, Lynx.’
‘
You will abort collection?’
‘
Affirmative.’
Fry switched off the receiver and smiled. If the Soviets caught Rayne they might just make him talk - but perhaps he didn’t need to worry. It was far more likely that they’d just shoot him on sight.
He walked over to the drinks cabinet in the corner of his office, took some ice out of the concealed fridge and dropped the cubes into his glass. He poured himself another generous whisky.
He wondered how Rayne would react when the plane did not land. He knew they wouldn’t last long in Mozambique. Of course, he’d made quite sure they wouldn’t by ordering his agent in Beira to make certain that the Russian military knew where the collection point was. With a bit of luck they’d just gun the lot of them down without taking any prisoners. After that Soviet high command could guess all they liked, they’d never find out the truth.