satellite tracking and battle management. On the northern Russian border LPARs are positioned at Mukachevo, Baranovichi, Skrunda and Murmansk as well as Pechora. The LPAR is configured to look high, for satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles, and outwards from Russian territory, and the contact was only being intermittently detected by its lowest lobes.
Colonel Yazov scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully. ‘First contact over the Kara Sea,’ he murmured, ‘and tracking south.’ He leaned closer and looked carefully at the calculated speed and estimated height of the unknown return, based upon which lobes of the LPAR had been penetrated. ‘At Mach three and above seventy thousand feet.’
He straightened up, gestured at the LPAR display and issued his instructions. ‘Record any other contacts with that object. Designate it Hostile One and get me a predicted track across the whole country, immediately. I’m going to talk to Moscow.’
The captain turned round in his seat, surprised. ‘Do you know what it is?’ he asked.
Yazov nodded. ‘Yes. At least, I think I do. But it doesn’t make any sense.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Willis, but I really don’t see what you’re doing here. I can assure you that the Embassy staff are more than capable of handling matters at this end.’
The man in the crumpled suit looked across the desk. Diplomats were not his favourite people, and diplomats who thought that their abilities were being called into question were even more touchy than usual. He ran a hand through his unruly fair hair and tried again.
‘I assure you, Secretary Horne, nobody is suggesting that your Embassy staff are in any way lacking. I’m here for just three reasons. I have to ensure that the body of Mr Newman is returned as rapidly as possible to Britain. I’ve also been asked to collect some of Mr Newman’s personal effects for his family, but the main reason I’m in Moscow is to carry out an initial investigation into the circumstances of the accident.’ He drew a breath and held up his hand to forestall any protest. ‘There could be some international repercussions, depending on the degree of culpability of the Russian driver. My company won’t be prepared to make any settlement until this unfortunate accident has been thoroughly investigated.’
William Horne, First Secretary to Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, looked across his polished oak desk, then back to the letter of introduction he had been given some fifteen minutes earlier. Horne was tall and thin, and a well-preserved fifty-five. A career diplomat, with a fastidious approach to life and total dedication to his work, he was expecting an ambassadorial appointment the following year. He was keen to ensure the smooth running of the Embassy, and he didn’t like uninvited visitors poking their noses into things that were none of their concern. The man Willis, he was sure, was trouble of some kind – he had a quality of stillness and menace that Horne found quite unnerving – but he couldn’t think of a valid reason for having him thrown out. His instinct, however, was perfectly correct.
The man calling himself Willis, whose real name was Paul Richter, knew absolutely nothing about insurance and cared less. He sat patiently, saying nothing, and looking at Horne with disinterest. Richter was conscious of his somewhat crumpled clothing, the result of hasty packing and a long flight in economy class, which Horne’s professional elegance threw into sharp contrast. Richter had never been concerned with appearances – his or anyone else’s – and Horne’s immaculate suit and mirror-polished shoes amused, rather than impressed, him. While serving as an officer in the Royal Navy, Richter had once, and with a certain amount of truth, been described as looking like a badly packed parachute.
Horne removed rimless spectacles from his large and slightly hooked nose and absent-mindedly began polishing the lenses with a spotless white handkerchief. Replacing the glasses, he looked across the desk again and pursed his thin lips. ‘It is most irregular. There was none of this fuss when the Second Secretary passed away last year – although, of course, he hadn’t been involved in a road accident.’
‘He also wasn’t insured with my company, sir. We pride ourselves on being as thorough as possible in any case involving accidental death on foreign soil. Unfortunately, there are other companies that take their responsibilities a good deal less seriously.’ Richter leaned forward, and assumed what he hoped looked like the expression adopted by an insurance company representative scenting a sale. ‘If you are interested, I—’
‘No thank you, Mr Willis. All my needs in that regard are already satisfied.’ Horne looked at the letter again, then at Richter. ‘Very well. What exactly do you want us to do?’
Richter smiled. ‘Thank you. I would like sight of Mr Newman’s body – not for identification, as that will have to be done formally by his next-of-kin in Britain – but simply to confirm that the injuries as stated on the death certificate issued by the Russian doctor are consistent with those on the body.’ Richter leaned forward and lowered his voice slightly. ‘It is not unknown, Secretary Horne, for some Russian doctors to issue a death certificate without ever seeing the body to which it relates, simply to “oblige” the authorities.’
‘I’ve never heard of that happening,’ Horne snapped.
Nor had Richter, until he’d said it, but he nodded solemnly. ‘I would also like to inspect the vehicle in which Mr Newman was travelling at the time of his death, and I would like access to his office and his apartment.’
‘Why do you need to visit his office and apartment?’ Horne asked.
‘Nothing to do with the insurance claim,’ Richter said smoothly. ‘As I said, my company has been asked by Mr Newman’s family to collect some small items of a personal nature which they would like returned in advance of the bulk of his effects. That’s all.’
‘It is most inconvenient, but I suppose we have little choice in the matter.’
Richter refrained from pointing out exactly how little choice Horne really had and stood up. Horne climbed to his feet, glanced disparagingly at Richter’s rumpled clothing and extended a professionally limp hand. Richter shook it and looked enquiringly at him. ‘See Erroll. Third door on the right. He will make the necessary arrangements.’
‘We’re being illuminated – I’m getting intermittent detection of low Hen House lobes, probably from Pechora.’
‘Roger,’ Major Frank Roberts acknowledged briefly, and again checked his flight and engine instruments. Fifteen miles high and travelling at three times the speed of sound, it was almost entirely silent in the cockpit of the SR–71A Blackbird, the rolling thunder of its two massive engines left far behind. A little over six minutes passed; the Blackbird flew two hundred miles closer to Russian airspace.
‘Thirty-centimetre radar,’ Paul James, the Reconnaissance Systems Officer, reported.
‘OK. Keep it quiet as long as you can.’
Four minutes and one hundred and thirty miles later they couldn’t keep it quiet any longer. ‘Another thirty- centimetre. And I’m getting two ten-centimetre radars and faint unclassified missile fire control radar. They obviously know we’re here. Jamming ten- and thirty-centimetre bands.’
‘Yup. The question is, have they got anything around here that can catch us?’
‘I hope not. Approaching target area. Stand by starboard turn. Turn starboard now, steady heading two three zero. Cameras and sensors now activated.’
The reconnaissance cameras and radiation detectors started working as the aircraft passed over Vorkuta at 1049, and began to cross the Bolshezemel’skaya Tundra. They would continue to operate until Shenkursk, on the river Vaga south-east of Arkhangel’sk, provided nothing happened to stop them.
Russia possesses the largest and most comprehensive air defence network in the world. Its Radar Surveillance Intercept Unit organization covers the entire frontier of the huge Confederation of Independent States and comprises literally thousands of air defence radars and surface-to-air missile sites. The colonel at Pechora had been quick to deduce the type of the unknown aircraft, but the IA-PVO Headquarters in Moscow already knew about the intruder when he got through on the direct line. Two of the northern border radars of the RSIU had simultaneously detected the Blackbird at around two hundred and eighty miles north of Amderma. Of course, detecting it and stopping it were two entirely different matters.
Standard operating procedures call for a minimum of two interceptors to be available at every PVO base at
