measurements was to pull a Blackbird out of retirement at Beale and fly it over the tundra.’
Hicks exhaled sharply and blew a large cloud of tobacco smoke down the table. ‘That was possibly not a wonderfully bright idea, Richard,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask who suggested it, but I would like to know who approved it.’
‘I did,’ Muldoon replied.
Hicks nodded and glanced round the table. ‘Well, the good news is that at least the rest of you have got top cover. The bad news is that if Richard falls into the shit, he’ll have you to land on. What went wrong – I assume something did go wrong?’ Hicks stopped suddenly. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You flew the fucking Blackbird yesterday morning, didn’t you? That’s why every military radar and radio station in the CIS lit up like a Christmas tree.’
‘Yes, we did,’ Muldoon said. ‘The ’bird carried out the mission, but the crew had a few close calls over Russia – Foxbats, Fulcrums and couple of Foxhounds, I believe – and punched out into Scandinavian airspace with light battle damage. Two, or maybe more, of the fuel cells were punctured, and the crew assessed that they couldn’t make it to any of the tankers, refuel safely and get back to Mildenhall.’
‘Let’s hear the rest of it.’
‘The crew didn’t have many options, but they managed to put the ’bird down safely at a Royal Air Force base – Lossiemouth – in Scotland. They only just made it. The approach was through very heavy weather and they had to be talked-down all the way. The Blackbird actually ran out of fuel on the runway.’
‘Could have been a lot worse,’ Hicks grunted. ‘They could have landed in mainland Europe, which would have meant a lot of diplomatic hassle, at best, or they could have ended up in the North Sea. Goodbye one very expensive aircraft and crew, not to mention goodbye to the films and detector records. So, what’s the problem?’
‘The RAF is the problem – or, rather, the RAF and the British Ministry of Defence. They won’t let us have the aircraft back until we tell them what it was doing over the CIS.’
Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi
Sokolov knocked on the door and waited. After a few seconds, Lieutenant Nilov opened it and ushered him into the inner office. Modin was sitting at his desk, studying an open file, but stood up and smiled as Sokolov entered the room.
‘Progress, old friend?’ he asked, hopefully.
Sokolov shook his head. ‘No, nothing. I can find nothing in the personnel files that should not be there, and none of the surveillance measures has revealed any deviations from normal behaviour – at least, not so far. If there is a traitor, I don’t think we’re going to find him unless he does something really stupid, like trying to contact an American here in Moscow. All we can do, I think, is watch and wait. And you?’
‘I have had Minister Trushenko here,’ Modin replied. ‘It was not a pleasant interview, for a number of reasons. First, he has ordered that the assembly of the last device be completed no later than Friday next week, and transport is arranged for the next day. He has also brought forward the implementation date of
Sokolov whistled softly. ‘That’s tight, Nicolai, very tight. There is little time to overcome any unforeseen problems.’
Modin shook his head. ‘You’re wrong, Grigori. There is no time to overcome any problems. Everything must go right, first time. The only insurance policy,’ he added, ‘is me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I will be accompanying the convoy, to oversee the placement of the weapon. It is not a task I relish, but Minister Trushenko was quite specific.’
The courier knocked on Richter’s door at ten minutes to four, and placed an armful of files on the desk. Of the twenty-three files, there were seventeen classified Confidential and above which had to be signed for individually in the Classified Documents Register before the courier left. Then Richter took a ruler from his desk drawer and measured the height of the pile of files before ringing Simpson. He answered at once.
‘I hope you’re not hoping for an answer today on the Newman case,’ Richter said, ‘because the heap of bumf from SIS sits seventeen and a half inches high on my desk.’
‘That’s more or less what I expected,’ Simpson said. ‘Newman would have had some input into virtually every matter that Moscow Station was dealing with. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, so make the Newman stuff your priority. If you need to shunt your other work around, let me know.’
‘OK,’ Richter said, and put the phone down. He spread the files out on his desk and started work. Thankfully, a good deal of the information could be discarded after a cursory glance, but that still left a substantial amount of reading matter in the Station files, and he was going to have to cover all that Newman had personally been involved in from his reports. By five thirty in the afternoon he had done little more than sort the stuff out, and decide what he had to read and what he could ignore or just scan through. Then he put the whole lot in the safe, span the combination, signed out of the building and went home. He would start again on Monday morning.
Richard Muldoon stopped talking. There was a moment’s silence, and then, as if by common consent, everyone looked towards the head of the table.
‘So what the hell are they doing?’ Hicks asked.
‘At the moment, nothing,’ Muldoon replied. ‘The ’bird is sitting on the ground in a hangar in Scotland. We can’t get near it, and we can’t talk to the crew except on an open phone line that’s almost certainly being monitored.’
Hicks ground out his cigar in an ashtray, then looked up. ‘When did the ’bird land?’
‘Yesterday morning,’ Muldoon replied
‘OK, Richard. What have you done since then to get the aircraft back?’
Muldoon coloured slightly. ‘Once we knew there was a problem, we tried through the USAFE to persuade the British to co-operate and release the aircraft, but we got nowhere.’
‘And what do you expect me to do about it?’ Hicks asked.
‘You’re acting DCI at the moment,’ Muldoon said. ‘We have assessed that we’ll probably need strong diplomatic pressure to get the ’bird released without telling the Brits what they want to know. We’d like you to request the President, through the National Security Council, to try to get the aircraft back.’
Walter Hicks picked up the cigar packet and looked inside. Then he pushed his chair back and walked over to his desk, picked up a fresh pack of cigars and sat down again. ‘Kind of “please can we have our ball back, mister”?’ he said. Muldoon nodded. Hicks leaned back in his chair. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let me summarize the situation as I understand it. We’ve had a whisper from a source in Moscow—’
‘A reliable source, Director,’ Hughes interrupted.
Hicks just glanced at him, then continued. ‘We’ve got a whisper from a usually reliable source – I won’t put it any higher than that – in Moscow that some kind of covert offensive is being implemented, although we can’t detect any signs of it whatsoever. We’ve got seismograph recordings of a weapon test high in the tundra. And finally, we’ve possibly got film records of the possible weapon test site stuck in the surveillance cameras of a Blackbird at—’ he checked his notes ‘—at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland that the Brits won’t let us look at until we tell them what the hell the aircraft was doing over-flying north-west Russia, threatening detente and all.’ He looked round the table. ‘Is that it?’
Three heads nodded.
‘It’s a crock of shit,’ Hicks said flatly. ‘It’s rumour and unfounded speculation – you’ve no hard evidence at all. In fact, all the evidence you have says that the RAVEN message is disinformation. You can’t start a covert assault without some signs of military activity. I can’t take that and try to get NSC or Presidential approval for any further action. Christ, it’s going to be difficult enough getting the Blackbird back to Mildenhall without answering a lot of real awkward questions.’
