The Kremlin Phoenix (30 page)

“But general,” the pilot said,
“If they start shooting, one hit will destroy the plane, and kill us all.”

“They’ve got to hit us, to do
that,” Sorokin said. “Now go!”

The pilot exchanged doubtful
looks with his co-pilot and engineer, then powered up the engines and released the
brakes. The A320 rolled forward as a muted crump sounded from an artillery
piece firing. At the end of the runway, a cloud erupted from a shell exploding
against the reinforced concrete, carving a shallow crater in the surface.

“They’re trying to wreck the runway,”
General Sorokin said as another shell exploded slightly closer, blasting a
second crater into the airstrip. He turned to the pilot. “Keep going. Get into
the air as fast as you can. Don’t stop for any reason.”

At the far end of the airstrip, another
shell landed as the creeping barrage came closer still, this time ripping up a
slab of runway as the pilot pushed the throttles to maximum. The speaker suddenly
blared with a stream of angry demands from the army officer commanding the gun
battery.

“What’s he saying?” Craig asked.

“He’s ordering us to stop, or we’ll
be destroyed.” Sorokin reached forward and switched off the radio as another
shell thumped down into the runway, reducing the length of the airstrip by
another hundred meters.

“Must be only one gun firing,”
Sorokin said, realizing the army still hadn’t had time to set up the entire
battery.

“Do we have enough room?” Craig
asked.

Sorokin’s jaw tensed. “It’ll be
close.”

The artillery spotter saw the
A320 speeding down the runway, and redirected his gun towards the center of the
airstrip in an attempt to hit the jet, while beside him, another gun crew
worked feverishly to deploy a second artillery piece. Precious seconds passed
as the jet picked up speed while the artillery crew reset the gun and fired. The
shell landed behind the jet, cracking the runway but failing to penetrate its hardened
surface. The gun crew compensated for the A320’s growing speed, sending their
next shell bursting in front of the big airbus. The projectile landed to the
side of the runway in open ground, throwing a high plume of dirt above the port
wing as the second gun opened fire. It’s poorly aimed shell soared over the jet
and landed well beyond the airstrip.

Sorokin estimated the distance to
the craters and the slab of concrete blocking the runway shortened.“Get up!” he
urged as the first crater approached.

The pilot glanced at their
airspeed indicator. It was still below a hundred knots, but climbing fast. “Not
yet!”

Craig leaned forward as the first
artillery piece fired again. There was a flash from among the trees at the end
of the airstrip, then another shell fell on the reinforced center of the
runway, cracking the surface, but not breaking through it.

The closest crater was on the
right side of the runway, so Sorokin pointed to the left side. “Ease her over a
little!”

Sensing his meaning, the pilot let
the aircraft drift towards the edge of the runway. The aircraft vibrated as it
sped over a thin layer of dirt thrown out from the crater, then its starboard
wheels narrowly missing the jagged hole in the concrete as the jet raced
towards the second crater.

“Now!” Sorokin yelled.

The big jet shuddered in protest
as the pilot pulled back on the stick, lifting the nose wheel. A moment later,
the main wheels floated off the ground as they passed over the second crater. The
A320 began to climb as another 105 millimeter shell dropped past its starboard
wing and struck the runway, but the jet was travelling too fast now to be
caught in the explosion. The white jet swept on through the thinning cloud of
black smoke dispersing from the first shells, then it was in clear air and
climbing steeply.

Below, they saw three guns lined
up, set to fire, and three more partially sited. There was one more flash from
among the trees, then the gun battery fell silent and the crews looked up, watching
as the A320 escaped into the safety of the sky.

“Next stop, Alaska,” Craig said
as the airbus banked towards the rising sun.

Nogorev and Chernykh crept through the
dark maintenance crawlway stretching from the forward cargo compartment to the
avionics bay beneath the flight deck. It was several hours since takeoff,
enough time Nogorev calculated for the passengers to have fallen into the
drowsy boredom of long distance air travel. He’d been surprised by the crump of
artillery during takeoff. No one had told him the army had been ordered to
wreck the runway, but now that they’d failed, he had sole responsibility for
preventing Craig Balard from aiding Gundarovsky’s burgeoning resistance
movement.

Nogorev squeezed into the small
engineering space beneath the access hatch that opened into the flight deck. He
held his knife in one hand as he quietly turned the locking handle with the
other, then eased the hatch up enough for a crack of light to appear. He stole
a quick look, then lowered the hatch and held up three fingers to Chernykh, indicating
the positions of the two pilots and the engineer above them. Chernykh readied
his Skorpion machine pistol, even though he would only use it if Nogorev was
overpowered.  They both knew the risks of discharging a gun at high altitude,
something they’d only do as a last resort.

Nogorev readied himself, then
quietly raised the access panel and stood. The engineer sat dozing, the
co-pilot was gazing absently through the cockpit window and the pilot sat with
arms crossed, watching the instruments. Nogorev climbed quietly out of the
avionics bay and cut the engineer’s throat with a single savage stroke. The
engineer’s eyes opened in shock. He gurgled momentarily before slumping forward
in his safety harness.

“What the - ?” the pilot turned,
finding himself nose to barrel with Nogorev’s silenced Skorpion.

Nogorev held a bloody blade in
front of his lips like a finger, ordering silence. Chernykh climbed up onto the
flight deck and locked the door to the passenger compartment, then aimed his sub-machine
gun at the pilots.

“Who are you?” the pilot asked.

“Are you on autopilot?” Nogorev
demanded.

“Yes,” the pilot replied. “If you
fire that gun in here, you’ll kill us all.”

“Where are we going?” Nogorev
asked.

“Anchorage, Alaska.”

“Where are we now?”

“Approaching Kolyma Gulf, on the
north Siberian coast.”

“Land immediately.”

“We can’t. Not out here. There
are no runways long enough to take an aircraft this big.”

Nogorev suppressed his
irritation. “If you had to divert, where would you go?”

“Ugolny,” the co-pilot said.

“Where’s that?” Chernykh asked.

“On the Chukotka coast, near the Bering
Sea.”

“That’s too far north.” Nogorev
said. Even at low altitude, it would be too cold for a parachute jump. “What
about further south?”

The co-pilot looked at the
navigation display. “Yelizovo?”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s on the south eastern tip of
Kamchatka,” the co-pilot replied.

Nogorev thought for a moment. It
would still be cold, but it might just be bearable. “How long to get there?”

The co-pilot did a quick
calculation. “Three hours.”

“That’s a long way off our
course,” the pilot said. “We couldn’t–”

Nogorev stabbed the pilot in a
lightning fast stroke, driving the knife up into the captain’s brain, killing
him instantly. The pilot slumped forward, the knife embedded beneath his jaw. Nogorev
turned to the co-pilot. “You are now flying this aircraft. Determine what fuel
you need to reach Yelizovo. Dump the rest.”

The co-pilot glanced at the dead
pilot and nodded. He quickly calculated the fuel requirements, then with
Nogorev’s gun aimed at his head, began dumping fuel, very slowly. After a few
minutes, he turned nervously back to Nogorev. “That’s it.”

“Can you reach Alaska with the
remaining fuel?”

“No sir,” the co-pilot said
truthfully. “We have just enough fuel to reach Yelizovo.” The co-pilot
swallowed, hoping his lie would not be detected.

Nogorev waved at the controls. “Set
the autopilot for Yelizovo, four thousand meters altitude.”

“Four thousand?”

Nogorev gave the co-pilot a
deadly stare, silencing further questions.

“Yes sir.” The co-pilot reset the
autopilot with shaking hands. Slowly, the A320 banked to the south east,
towards Yelizovo Airport on the outskirts of the coastal city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
Presently, the airbus leveled off on its new course and began gently descending
toward its new altitude.

“Now what?” the co-pilot asked.

Nogorev released the engineer’s
safety belt, letting his body fall onto the deck, then sat in the seat. “We
wait.”

* * * *

Once airborne, Craig and his father exchanged
histories, trying to learn in a few hours what the other had done over many
years. Craig had shown him his old KGB file, but as neither could read it, it
was quickly consigned to a vacant seat. When his father started to doze, Craig walked
forward to stretch, past empty seats and a handful of sleeping old men. After a
few knee bends, he glanced through the window beside the emergency exit door,
gazing out across wispy clouds and a vast expanse of green Siberian forest. For
a while, he marveled at the immensity of the frozen wilderness, then became uneasy
as he remembered having seen the Arctic Sea approaching in the distance a few
hours ago.

How could he now be looking down
at an endless forest?

He went back to where General
Sorokin slept and quietly roused him. “We’re over land,” he whispered. “Shouldn’t
we be over water by now?”

Sorokin blinked, snapping fully
awake. He moved to a window, where he studied the terrain and the angle of the
sunlight on the wing. Surprise flashed across his face. “We’re on the wrong
course!”

By now, the Lieutenant and
several of the General’s guards were watching with growing interest. Sorokin
motioned for them to follow with their weapons as he hurried towards the flight
deck. He tried the door, surprised to find it locked.

He knocked, yelling, “Open up, it’s
General Sorokin!”

When no one answered, he stepped
back. “Break it in.”

The lieutenant stepped forward and
slammed the butt of his rifle into the door lock. A moment later, he spun around
and fell to the floor, pressing his hand against his shoulder. When they saw
blood seeping through his fingers, they realized he’d been shot, although no
one had heard the silenced gun fire.

The air force soldiers raised
their weapons to return fire, but General Sorokin held up his hand. “No! Not in
here.” Their high powered assault rifles would destroy fragile equipment in the
cockpit and easily puncture the outer hull.

One of the general’s escorts dragged
the lieutenant to safety, then pulled open his shirt to check the wound. There
was a small entry hole, but no exit wound, indicating he’d been hit by a low velocity
bullet which had lodged against bone.

“Identify yourself!” General
Sorokin ordered. “What do you want?”

There was no response. Sorokin
tried several more times, then motioned for one of the soldiers to break in the
cockpit door from the side, where he would not be so easy a target. The soldier
fixed his bayonet and struck the door once, quickly darting aside, but no shot
sounded from within. He drove the bayonet into the lock, levered it apart, then
kicked the door open. The cockpit was empty, except for the bodies of the engineer
on the floor and the pilots in their seats. The captain still had the knife in
his throat, and the co-pilot’s head was twisted unnaturally from a broken neck.

General Sorokin led the way into
the cockpit, running his eye over the dead aircrew with growing anger.  His
gaze settled on the hatch down into the avionics bay. He nodded to a soldier to
aim at the floor hatch, then he lifted it quickly, but the dark space below was
empty. “Whoever did this, is down there,” he said slowly, replacing the hatch
and standing to study the aircraft’s controls. He motioned for the soldiers to
remove the bodies as Valentina and Colonel Balard arrived to peer into the
flight deck.

“Who’s going to pilot the plane?”
Valentina asked.

“There are twenty seven pilots on
this aircraft,” Colonel Balard said. “Flying the plane shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Twenty eight,” General Sorokin said
as he climbed into the captain’s seat.

“Could you use a co-pilot?”
Colonel Balard asked. When Sorokin nodded, he slid into the other seat.

The General studied the controls
a moment. “We’re way off course.” The Siberian plain stretched off to the left
and right, while a wide expanse of water lay dead ahead. A ribbon of land was
just starting to creep up over the horizon in the distance. “That’s the
Kamchatka Peninsula!”