Failing that, he guessed he would just have to accept whatever the forensic team decreed, but ignore the conflicting evidence when he came to write the report. After all, the one thing certain was that there would be no court case: this double shooting was a dead end, and was also going to close four open files.
On balance, he was glad Richter had been around, and he was certain he could detect the hand of the Englishman in many of the events following the death of Spiros Aristides. But he was also pleased that Richter was leaving Crete: life there had been both quieter and simpler before he arrived.
The armed sentry posted at the counter-weighted barrier guarding the main entrance to the Souda Bay base took one look at Richter’s Royal Navy identity card and raised the barrier.
‘You’re expected, sir,’ he said. ‘They’re warming up one of the RC-135s for you. Do you know where the flight line is?’
‘No,’ Richter said, ‘I’ve never been here before.’
The sentry handed him a printed map annotated with directions and supplemented it with a string of verbal instructions. Richter drove on into the base, trying to shift a feeling of unreality engendered by the sentry’s casual phrase: ‘They’re warming up one of the RC-135s for you.’
The RC-135 is a highly specialized and very expensive electronic surveillance aircraft based on the ubiquitous and reliable Boeing 707 platform. It was an RC-135 on a regular patrol out of the States that stood off the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1983 and recorded all the transmissions from Soviet ground stations and fighter aircraft, as Korean Airlines flight KAL007 flew increasingly further off-course into Soviet territory and was finally shot down by a Russian Flagon interceptor. That incident resulted in the loss of two hundred and sixty-nine lives but produced for the West arguably the greatest intelligence coup of the decade, comprising Russian radar signatures, radio frequencies, intercept procedures and all the rest. Appallingly, many Western intelligence analysts considered the sacrifice of so many lives to be entirely justified.
The RC-135 is not only an extremely complex and expensive aircraft, but is also highly classified. The Americans are very reluctant to let anyone anywhere near one unless they have a demonstrable and essential need to know what goes on inside the fuselage. So why, suddenly, was Richter being allowed aboard one as a passenger? And as a passenger to where, exactly?
As he hauled the Renault round a corner and headed towards the complex of hangars, he suddenly noticed the unmistakable shape of a Royal Navy ASW Merlin standing over to his right. He checked the mirrors, braked the car to a halt, then reversed back until he could turn onto the dispersal where the helicopter was parked.
He stopped about fifty yards from the Merlin, switched off the engine and climbed out of the vehicle. The chopper’s engines were running and the rotors turning, so he knew that at least some of the crew had to be on board. A ground marshaller was standing in front of the Merlin, wands crossed below his waist in the ‘park’ position. Richter moved across to him and spoke into his ear.
‘Are all the crew still on board the chopper?’
The marshaller glanced at him. ‘No, sir. One of the guys from the back got out a few minutes ago. He’s over in that building to your right.’
‘Thanks.’
The building indicated was about seventy metres away, and as Richter approached the door it opened and a man wearing flying overalls stepped out. Richter recognized him immediately as one of the 814 Squadron aircrewmen.
‘Is that for me?’ Richter asked, gesturing at the buff envelope the man held in his hand.
‘Oh – hullo, sir. Yes, it’s for you.’ He took a crumpled sheet of paper out of one of the pockets of his overalls and proffered it. ‘It’s classified Secret, sir, so you’ll have to sign for it.’
Richter scribbled something approximating his signature in the space the aircrewman indicated, then took the buff envelope from him. He ripped it open and pulled out the message form. The text was brief and specific:
RICHTER, INVINCIBLE. PROCEED NAS SOUDA BAY IMMEDIATE. JOIN FIRST AVAILABLE FLIGHT NORFOLK VIRGINIA. ON ARRIVAL AWAIT CONTACT COMPANY REP WESTWOOD REFERENCE CAIP. SIMPSON, FOE.
Richter walked back to the Renault and dropped into the driver’s seat. He read the message again, then made a decision. He pulled out the Enigma mobile phone and dialled FOE in London. Five minutes later he was talking to Simpson himself.
‘I was called up by your old pal John Westwood,’ Simpson began, ‘and when he found out it was you that was opening cans of worms all over the Mediterranean, he thought the two of you should get together.’
‘Get together on what, exactly?’ Richter asked.
‘Good question. I don’t know, and nor does Westwood, but it looks as if someone in the States is going around permanently silencing CIA personnel who were involved in a deep black operation the Company ran in the early seventies.’
‘So?’
‘So there’s a link to what happened on Crete. A direct link. Pretty much all Westwood has been able to dig up is the name of the operation. Everything else – all the documentary evidence and all records on the CIA’s database – seems to have been destroyed. But the name’s interesting. It was called “CAIP”, spelt Charlie, Alpha, India, Papa,’ Simpson added. ‘The same as the initials on that steel flask and the file you’ve recovered from those Yankee comedians.’
Chapter 26
Sunday
Richter was feeling the strain. His sleep on Friday night had been interrupted by the news that Stein’s hire car had been spotted, and Saturday had been, by any standards, a very full day. He was sitting in a surprisingly comfortable seat in the darkened rear compartment of the RC-135 – none of the electronic surveillance devices had been switched on, and three of the consoles were shielded by tied-on shaped plastic sheeting so he couldn’t even see the displays – and he was now trying to make some sense of the CAIP file.
The problem was, it was full of what looked like complex medical information, none of which meant anything to Richter: his medical expertise basically encompassed taking an aspirin whenever he had a headache. He hadn’t yet found any explanation of what ‘CAIP’ meant, or even what the initials stood for, and he guessed that this file wasn’t a stand-alone. As far as he could see, it dealt only with the strictly medical aspects of whatever CAIP involved. No doubt there had been other files at Langley – presumably already destroyed if what Simpson had said was accurate – which would have contained more general information about the concept and scope of the operation.
Stein’s briefcase lay on the seat beside him, the sealed flask tucked beside Richter’s two mobile phones and his Browning Hi-Power, none of which he’d found the time or the inclination to return to the ship. The steel case was still wrapped in its black dustbin bags but was now, as an additional precaution, locked in a sealed heavy-duty plastic box and tucked away under an adjacent seat. Next to it was Richter’s overnight bag, noticeably bulkier than when he’d packed it on board the
The X-ray machine operator in the military departure lounge had thrown a fit when he’d registered what was in the briefcase, and another one when Richter had put his overnight bag through, but that hadn’t stopped him taking the two cases onto the aircraft unopened. Richter could be very persuasive, and the orders that had caused the ground crew to start pre-flighting the RC-135 had come from a level whose authority couldn’t be ignored.
Richter closed the file, replaced it in the briefcase and snapped the lid shut. None of it made much sense to him. His best guess was that thirty odd years ago a bunch of American scientists had found, or stolen, or maybe even bought, the lethal bug that was sealed in those remaining steel flasks. They’d been returning to the States when fighter interceptors from some hostile power, maybe Libya, had shot down their aircraft, plunging them and
