The Kremlin Phoenix (28 page)

“We sleep here, until morning.” Siyansky
said.

“What about Fenenko?” Valentina
asked.

“He sleeps in the car too,”
Siyansky said with a grin. “Just not with us.”

* * * *

An hour after sunrise, they drove to
an abandoned airfield used to train Soviet Air Force pilots during the second
world war. They parked the car and dragged Fenenko out of the trunk. He was
fully conscious, but didn’t struggle.

Valentina stared coldly at him,
motioning for Siyansky to remove his gag. “Did you have Yegor killed?”

“No,” Fenenko replied. “I had no
idea there was a second investigation.”

“Who is following us?”

Fenenko remained silent.

“What do they know?” she
demanded.

“Everything,” Fenenko said with a
trace of contempt.

“Maybe we should shoot him,”
Valentina said, triggering a look of fear on Fenenko’s face, then she and Craig,
who now carried the Zamok Branka KGB file under his arm,  walked together towards
the old air strip while Siyansky watched him.

When it was a few minutes to seven,
an aging Mi-26 Halo helicopter came in low over the trees and landed at the
edge of the air strip. The chopper had barely touched down when the side door
slid open and air force General Karol Sorokin jumped out beneath the spinning
eight bladed rotor. He was short, slightly rotund, dressed in dappled
camouflage fatigues and wore a large pistol at his hip. Sorokin was a regional
commander, a former bomber pilot with no love of the army, he’d served under
Marshal Vochenko in the past. At Vochenko’s request, he’d flown through much of
the night to pick up his special cargo, and oversee the coming extraction
operation. Sorokin was flanked by four soldiers from the elite air force defense
detachment. The soldiers, armed with assault rifles, watched the dirt road
while General Sorokin waved for Craig and the others to come to him.

Craig, Valentina and Yashin hurried
toward the giant Halo, while Siyansky produced a small military style knife and
cut the cord binding Fenenko’s legs, leaving his hands tied behind his back.

Fenenko looked puzzled. “You’re
letting me go?”

“You’re not coming with us, but
you will be arrested – eventually.”

“What about my hands?”

Siyansky lightly scratched
Fenenko’s arm with the knife, enough to draw a trickle of blood. “If I were
you, I’d start running. The forest is full of wolves, and they can smell blood from
far away.” Siyansky sheathed his knife, then jogged after the others.

When they reached the chopper,
Valentina introduced herself and Craig to the General, who sized them up with a
look. “You’re a long way from home, Mr Balard,” he said in heavily accented
English, “and I hear you have powerful enemies.”

“So it seems,” Craig said as he
climbed aboard the helicopter, finding several dozen well armed air force
soldiers sitting along bench seats either side of the fuselage. The large cargo
hold, capable of transporting one hundred and fifty troops, looked almost empty,
even with so many soldiers aboard.

Yashin saluted the General as he climbed
aboard. When Siyansky ran up, Sorokin glanced curiously at Fenenko who was struggling
to his feet. “Is that man not coming with us?”

“No sir. He’s walking – maybe
running,” Siyansky replied dryly, then clambered aboard.

Sorokin and his four man escort boarded
the chopper, then it lumbered back into the air and headed west. Ten minutes
later, it passed over the chain link fence of the Zamok Branka Detention Center
and landed on the grassy area flanked by the accommodation buildings and the
tennis courts. Almost immediately, two Air Force SU-25 close air support
aircraft appeared and began circling the Detention Center in a show of force.

The air field defense soldiers poured
out of the chopper and charged the buildings, with assault weapons leveled at
anyone who moved. They quickly secured the facility, disarming the confused camp
guards, who surrendered without a fight. An inmate out for a morning
constitutional and several more emerging from the pool building, looked on with
rising trepidation, wondering if after all these years, they were finally going
to be executed.

Siyansky handed Fenenko’s pistol
to Craig as they stepped off the chopper. “Just in case there’s resistance.”

“Thanks,” Craig said, pocketing
the weapon.

General Sorokin, accompanied by
his escort, strode quickly toward the main building while the disarmed camp guards
were herded to the grassy area beside the pool. The faces of old men appeared
in the windows of the accommodation quarters, roused from their beds by the cacophony
of yelling outside and the roar of jets overhead. They watched with growing
anxiety as the frightened guards, many of whom they knew on a first name basis,
were corralled by heavily armed troops, and control of the facility passed into
new, unknown hands.

Outside the perimeter fence, a
pair of guards with dogs slipped away into the forest to avoid capture, while
several others simply dropped their guns and came in with raised hands. The
guards were there to keep unarmed prisoners in, not fight pitched battles with
regular soldiers. The camp commander soon appeared, escorted by an air force
soldier, sullenly aware that one of the most secret facilities in all of the
Russian Federation had been captured without a shot being fired.

General Sorokin stood in front of
the captured guards and announced in a loud voice, “By order of Maxim
Gundarovsky, Prime Minister of the Federation, this facility is now under the
control of the Air Force.” He turned to the camp commander. “You are relieved of
command. I want a list of all the prisoners you are holding.”

The commander swallowed. “I have
not been advised of this change of command, General.”

“I just advised you. Now get me
that list.” General Sorokin nodded to one of his soldiers, who raised his
weapon threateningly.

The commander hesitated, then motioned
to his adjutant. “Get the list.”

“Yes sir,” the adjutant replied
smartly, then hurried toward the admin building, followed by an air force
soldier.

Near the entrance to the
accommodation block, a small group of old men gathered. Most were in their
sixties and seventies, although one frail old man in a wheel chair was in his
eighties. Craig studied the confused faces of the men, wondering if, after all
this time he would even recognize his father. A few of the men exchanged
whispers, although most just watched, suspecting Moscow had finally decided
they were too much of an embarrassment to keep alive. Soon the adjutant ran
back from the main building, holding a document folder, which he handed to the
general.

Sorokin glanced at the list. “Twenty
seven? Is that all?”

“Yes sir,” the adjutant replied. “One
British, one Australian, the rest American.”

The general passed the list to a lieutenant,
whose job it would be to ensure every man was accounted for.

Sorokin turned to Craig. “You
should be the one to tell them.”

Craig hesitated, unsure what to
say to men who’d spent most of their adult lives as secret prisoners of an
undeclared war. “We’re here . . . ,” he began falteringly, then he had to take
a deep breath to steady his emotions. “We’re here to take you home.”

For a moment, the prisoners
looked stunned, not comprehending what they’d heard, then they whispered to
each other, “What did he say?. . . It’s a trick! . . . Did he say home?”

Craig took a few steps toward the
men. “Is there a Colonel Jack Balard here?”

Heads looked left and right,
searching for the youngest member of their group, then a man about Craig’s
height with graying hair moved slowly forward through the press of men. He used
a walking stick and had a thin scar across his forehead.

“I’m Colonel Balard.”

For a moment, Craig was mesmerized
by the first sight he’d had of his father in many years. The only images he
knew were photographs of a confident aviator, the only memories were of a young
energetic man. This old hobbled prisoner with a face marked with lines and sunken
eyes shrouded in darkness was a stranger.

Craig approached his father,
staring into vaguely familiar eyes. “I have something for you,” he said, offering
his hand, palm up.

Colonel Balard looked down at the
dull metal shapes in Craig’s hand, confused. He took his dog tags and turned
them over. “How’d you get these?” he asked, studying the young man before him, sensing
a strange familiarity. “Do I know you?”

“You did, a long time ago,” he
said with tears forming in his eyes. “My name is Craig John Balard.”

Colonel Balard stared at the
younger reflection of himself, groping for understanding. “Craig? . . . Craig!”
He took a step toward his son, about to embrace him, then stopped, bewildered
by an awkward unfamiliarity. “You’re so . . . big.”

Craig took the remaining step and
hugged his father, then they were both slapping each other’s backs and laughing
as tears rolled down their cheeks. Decades vanished in a heartbeat. Finally,
Craig whispered, “We’re going home, Dad. We’re going home!”

* * * *

The two SU-25’s passed over Zamok
Branka for the last time, then banked away towards their base as Craig and his
father boarded the big transport helicopter. They took their seats, with
Valentina, Siyansky and Yashin, halfway down the Mi-26’s fuselage, while the air
force soldiers, who’d been covering the camp guards, ran to the chopper.

All of the freed prisoners watched
Zamok Branka through the chopper’s open rear door, hardly able to believe they’d
never see it again. Most had resigned themselves to dying in their Siberian
prison, and were now filled with uncertainty about the future. There’d been
escape attempts, but all had failed when exposed to the vastness of Siberia, it’s
freezing weather and the difficulty of the language. Consequently, as the men
had aged and the hopelessness of the task crystallized, the number of escape
attempts had dwindled to nothing. Colonel Balard himself had escaped once from the
old gulag, evading capture for nine days before eventually being returned to
the camp, starving and exhausted.

It seemed such a long time ago
now.

Once all of the soldiers were
aboard, an air force crewman closed the cargo door, cutting off their view of
the compound. The Zamok Branka inmates each felt a strange sense of loss, remembering
the men who’d never go home and marveling at how suddenly the nightmare had
ended. An eerie silence filled the cavernous cargo hold as the freed internees
exchanged smiles and hopeful looks.

The Mi-26’s two big 11,000 horse
power engines roared to life, and the enormous helicopter lurched into the air.
The men began to cheer as the chopper picked up speed, and soon Zamok Branka
was left far behind.

* * * *

The SVR unit in Irkutsk Oblast
detected the arrival of the Mi-26 within an hour of it landing at Bratsk
Airport. They reported the unscheduled arrival without realizing the
significance, but in Moscow, the routine report was paired with a message from
Zamok Branka, describing the use of the same type of helicopter by the air
force to evacuate the center’s detainees. Soon after the connection was made,
Nogorev was advised as to where his quarry had gone.

 He immediately commandeered a
small Forestry Department helicopter for the flight east to Bratsk. The long
range helicopter was used to spot forest fires and track poachers, and had room
only for the pilot and two passengers. Nogorev had taken Chernykh with him,
while the remainder of the surveillance team followed in the refrigeration
truck, although considering the distance they had to cover, he doubted they’d reach
the airport in time.

The remote Siberian runway at
Bratsk was used by both civilian and military aircraft, with the air force
occupying a sprawling area to the south west. The chopper pilot, experienced
from long years skimming tree tops pursuing fur poachers, had no difficulty
staying below the base’s radar. When they landed several hours after sunset
near the civilian terminal, the tower demanded they identify themselves, but at
Nogorev’s insistence, the pilot ignored the request.

Nogorev and Chernykh slipped away
into the darkness before airport security had even been alerted to the
unauthorized landing, then the small helicopter flew off across the runway
towards the north west. They worked their way around behind the civilian
terminal and through woodlands south of the runway towards the air force
controlled end of the airport. After crossing the border between civilian and
military zones, they saw a gleaming white twin-engined Aeroflot passenger jet
taxiing towards the large concrete apron in front of the air force control
tower.

Chernykh studied the aircraft
through his field glasses as the jet powered down its engines. “It’s an Airbus
A320. Must have just landed,” he said as a tanker truck pulled up beneath the jet
and ground crew prepared to refuel the aircraft.