become famous for it during the Cold War. His father had once told him a story about the
‘Listen, bit of a turf war going on at the moment,’ Marchant said, anxious to change the subject. ‘I need your help.’
‘New government, new rules. Fire away.’
Marchant knew that relations between Fielding and his opposite number at GCHQ, where Myers worked, had not been great in recent weeks, ever since Myers had pulled his rabbit out of the hat at the Joint Intelligence Committee. GCHQ was much more friendly with the Americans than MI6, and it had felt embarrassed by Myers’s role in Spiro’s humiliation. Myers was still meant to be on secondment to MI6, but had been ordered home.
‘We need to put the wind up the National Security Council. The coalition has been throwing its weight around.’
‘We?’
‘Fielding. Armstrong. Listen, a couple of Russian fighters will be tipping their wings off the Outer Hebrides next Tuesday. Usual operation. Into our Air Defence Identification Zone, fly along the borders of UK airspace for a while. Only this time we want them to get a bit closer. Smell the whisky.’
‘Nice one,’ Myers said, his eyes lighting up. ‘MiG-29s?’ Marchant knew that he liked his planes, and thought the idea might tickle him. Myers was an active member of a remote-control flying club in Cheltenham.
‘35s.’
Myers let out a loud whistle of approval, as if a naked blonde had just walked past. He had no self- awareness, Marchant thought, looking around the pub.
‘No one’s going to get hurt,’ he continued, ‘just a few politicians’ noses put out of joint. Any ideas how we do it?’
‘Build a massive wind turbine off Saxa Vord.’
‘Why?’
‘They’re degrading our air-defence capabilities. It’s quite a worry. Apparently, they create a confused and cluttered radar picture. Too much noise. Above, behind, around the turbines — you’re invisible.’
Myers lived and breathed this stuff, Marchant thought.
‘I’m not sure we’ve got time for that.’
‘They’re upgrading the system soon, anyway. No, what you need to do is take out a couple of remote radar heads. Saxa Vord, Benbecula, maybe Buchan. Depends where they’re flying in.’
‘We can’t really “take out” anything. This is meant to be low-key, deniable. I was thinking of a cyber attack, untraceable.’
‘The radar housing’s reinforced anyway.’
Marchant tried not to be impatient, but Myers had an annoying habit of suggesting seemingly credible options, only to point out their flaws.
‘Thinking about it, your best option is to target the Tactical Data Links, either the communication system between the radar heads and the Control and Report Centre at Alnwick, or between Alnwick and the Combined Air Operations Centre at High Wycombe.’
‘Which would you suggest?’
‘The second one. The inter-site networks are fully encrypted, but they still use an old 1950s NATO point-to- point system called Link 1 for sending the RAP from Alnwick to High Wycombe.’
‘The RAP?’
Myers always seemed puzzled when others didn’t understand what he was talking about, which was most of the time. And he used more bloody acronyms than the military, Marchant thought. ‘Recognised Air Picture. It’s a real-time 3D digital display, based on primary and secondary radar traces, showing what’s in the skies over Britain and evaluating contacts against specific threat parameters.’
‘And this vital part of our national defence is transmitted using sixty-year-old technology?’
‘The Americans have been trying to get NATO to upgrade it for years. Link 1 does the job. It’s a digital data link, but it’s not crypto-secure. As it hasn’t been encrypted, it would technically be possible to corrupt the air- surveillance data before it reached High Wycombe.’
‘So the order to scramble the Typhoons might never be issued.’
‘In theory, yes. At least, the order could be delayed. Only High Wycombe can send up the jets, and they like to have the full picture.’
‘Could you do it? Get into Link 1 and delay the message to High Wycombe? The Russians will be out of there in two minutes. We don’t need long.’
74
Salim Dhar pulled back the stick and put the SU-25 into an unrestricted climb. He felt in control, stomach tensed, ready to absorb the G-forces. For the first time, he had taken off on his own, without any help from Sergei, who was in the instructor’s seat behind him. He wasn’t one to lavish praise, but even the Bird had been impressed. The speed with which everything happened would still take some getting used to, but Sergei had drilled into him the constant need to think ahead.
All that remained now was for Dhar to release his ordnance onto the firing range that lay 20,000 feet below. According to Sergei, only the best jet pilots were able to fly solo and drop bombs accurately at the same time. It required precision flying and a rare ability to focus on specific parameters — height, speed and pitch — in order to get inside the ‘basket’. The SU-25 had eleven hardpoints that could carry a total of almost 10,000 pounds of explosive. There were two rails for air-to-air missiles, and the capacity for a range of cluster and laser-guided bombs, two of which his plane had been loaded with before take-off.
Dhar felt for the weapon-select switch. It was on the stick, along with the trim, trigger and sight marker slew controls. Laser engage was on the throttle, along with the airbrake, radio and flaps control. He was finally beginning to know his way around the cockpit. From the moment he had first sat in it, he knew that the plane’s myriad dials and switches represented order, not chaos, that each one served a specific purpose. He liked that. All his life he had been guided by the desire to impose discipline on himself and on the world around him. It was his mother who had taught him the importance of daily routine: prayers, ablutions, exercise, meditation.
Sergei had worked hard with him on the simulated targeting system for the laser-guided bombs, or LGBs, and he felt confident as he reduced power to level off at 25,000 feet and settled back. For the next few minutes, until they reached the target zone, the plane would fly with minimal input from him.
He was less happy with Primakov. It was never going to be an easy relationship with the SVR. In return for his protection, Dhar had agreed to strike at a target in Britain that was mutually important to him and to the Russians. It wasn’t a martyr operation, but it was beginning to feel like one. There wasn’t enough detail about his exit strategy. In Delhi, his escape route had been planned meticulously, from the waiting rickshaw to the goods carrier that took him over the Pakistan border.
Whenever he raised his concerns with Primakov, the Russian reminded him of the risks Moscow was taking by shielding him. Without the SVR’s help, he would be dead. It was hard to disagree. The global scale of the CIA’s manhunt had taken Dhar by surprise. It had also upset him. Drone strikes were killing hundreds of brothers. Using six kidnapped Marines as a decoy had bought him time, and the taste of revenge, but he knew he had been close to being caught on several occasions. Primakov reassured him that the SVR would help after the attack, but the truth was that he would be on his own again, on the run.
‘Do you know what your final combat payload will be?’ Sergei asked over the intercom as they approached the target zone. Dhar moved the gunsight onto a column of rusting tanks.
‘A pair of Vympel R-73s,’ he replied. He was sure that he would be able to deploy Russia’s most advanced air-to-air missiles after endless sessions on the simulator. Besides, if all went to plan, the enemy would be unarmed and unprepared. And he would only need one of them.
‘Watch your trim on the approach. What about LGBs?’
