James Barrington - Foxbat

‘I’m busy,’ he snapped, ‘so skip the caveats and just tell me what the fuck the man said.’

As usual, the ID looked faintly shocked at Simpson’s language. ‘Well, as I said, it’s not been confirmed yet, but it looks as if there was a major theft of missiles from Dobric in Bulgaria yesterday.’

‘Dobric? Never heard of it.’

‘It’s a disused airfield just over thirty miles north of the Black Sea port of Varna. Though it’s been closed since the year 2000, the Bulgarians still have a lot of equipment stored there. Everything from torch batteries to mothballed aircraft, from what I can gather. According to our source, yesterday some of the locals heard what sounded like small-arms fire coming from inside the base, and late yesterday afternoon a group of Bulgarian Air Force personnel turned up to investigate, heavily armed. According to an eyewitness, they had to force the main gate to get inside, and he claimed to have seen body-bags later being taken out of the base.’

‘And this has what, exactly, to do with Richter?’ Simpson was thinking the ID had strayed somewhat from the point.

‘Dobric holds a large stock of Russian-manufactured AA-6 missiles, NATO reporting name Acrid. They’re the ideal weapon for the MiG-25, and I understand that quite a few nations, including Russia, seem to have mislaid the odd Foxbat recently. The source’s witness reported seeing three trucks leaving Dobric yesterday afternoon, loaded with long wooden crates, each about the right size to hold an Acrid. So perhaps someone, somewhere, is intending to marry the aircraft to the missile.’

Simpson nodded and held out his hand for the file. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll make sure Richter’s informed as soon as possible.’

Perm, Russia

The Bar Moskva stood on the Kama Boulevard, on the south side of the river, and the meeting was set for seven. They’d spent a good deal of time after lunch discussing what options they had, but in the end it came down to Pavel Bardin dialling a mobile phone number and telling the man who answered that he might, after all, be interested in moving to the Gulf. The call took place at just after five.

Once the rendezvous was set up, Richter and Bykov were able to make their own arrangements. In Richter’s case, that didn’t take long. Bykov found him a shoulder holster from somewhere, and Oustenka then offered him a choice of either a Makarov PMM or a Yarygin PYa to carry in it. Richter would have preferred something manufactured well to the west of Moscow, but nothing like that was on offer.

The Makarov is loosely based on the Walther PP and was the standard Soviet Army sidearm until the end of the twentieth century. It fires a non-standard 9x18mm cartridge, and has a relatively small magazine capacity of twelve rounds. But the Yarygin replaced it in 2003, and that was much more to Richter’s taste. It’s chambered for the familiar 9mm Luger/Parabellum, and the magazine holds seventeen rounds – in Richter’s opinion, the more bullets the better, always .

The Bolshoye Savino Air Base, like almost all military establishments in every country, possessed a pistol range, and Richter spent about forty minutes getting to know his borrowed weapon and firing a box of ammunition. At the end of it, he reckoned he stood a fighting chance of hitting most things he was likely to want to aim at, as long as the target didn’t move too quickly and also stayed within about twenty-five yards of him.

Bykov went back into Perm and talked Superintendent Wanov into providing a hidden cordon around the bar. The men were not to move into position until Bykov, who would be sitting in a car parked a short distance down the road, instructed them to. Till then the police officers would wait in closed vans strategically located in adjacent streets, and all of them would be armed.

At six-twenty Paul Richter pushed open the door of the Bar Moskva and walked inside. He ordered an orange juice and a glass of water, and took the drinks over to a high stool situated at one end of the bar. From that position, he could easily see the door, the tables close to it, and anyone who happened to come in.

He’d been there for less than two minutes when his mobile rang. He looked at the number, recognizing it as Simpson’s private line, but checked his watch to ensure that he had time in hand, and only then answered the call.

‘Richter,’ he announced briefly

‘Are you in a secure location?’ his superior demanded, without preamble.

‘More or less. I’m sitting by myself in a Russian bar. Why?’

‘Taken to drink at last, have you?’

‘Not yet, but I’m working on it. I’m also in a hurry here, so what do you want?’

‘A possibly related matter.’ Simpson then outlined what FOE had learned about the robbery in Dobric. ‘We don’t know for sure that these Acrids were taken by whatever group has been acquiring the Foxbats, but being the missile of choice for the MiG-25, that’s at least likely. Where are you? What progress are you making?’

‘Not a lot so far, but I might have something concrete later this evening. I’m currently about seven hundred miles east of Moscow, in Perm, waiting for a couple of bad guys to meet with a MiG pilot from the local air base. If anything comes of it, I’ll brief the duty officer tonight. Anything else you need to know?’

‘No, that’s it. Just keep in touch.’

Five minutes after Richter had ended the call, Pavel Bardin walked through the door. He ordered a vodka, and knocked it back in one as soon as the bartender had placed it in front of him. Then he ordered another, carried it across to a table beside the door, pulled out a newspaper and began reading. Or, at least, appearing to read, for every time the door opened, he looked up to scan the faces of the new arrivals.

The Russian was, Richter realized, both amateurish and terrified, which wasn’t the best combination when about to encounter people who had killed at least once during the past week. But it was too late to do anything about that now, and what could he do anyway, because Bardin was the only one who might recognize the three men who had almost certainly killed Georgi Lenkov.

Seven came and went, and the door opened regularly to admit new arrivals, or to allow customers to leave. On each occasion, Bardin glanced at Richter across the bar and shook his head. The man was being about as subtle as a flying brick, and Richter knew the expected agents would twig what was up the instant they stepped through the door. The idiot would have to be warned.

He stood up to do so, and had taken no more than a couple of steps towards Bardin’s table when the street door suddenly opened again, and two men entered. The pilot looked up at them, then turned towards Richter and nodded. He might just as well have waved a banner over his head carrying the words ‘This is a trap.’

The men stopped dead, then turned round, yanked open the door and hurried outside. Richter muttered a curse and followed them.

He’d expected them to turn either left or right, making for wherever they’d left their car. But instead they sprinted straight across the road, towards the river. Off to his left, Richter saw the brief flash of headlamps, the signal agreed with Bykov to indicate that he’d radioed for the police cordon to be set up. But that now seemed rather academic, because Richter had realized there was a huge hole in their plan. If the bad guys had a boat waiting for them on the river, the police cordon became irrelevant. They’d covered all the surrounding streets, but not the water.

So Richter ran. But he’d barely left the bar when one of the running men looked back, then stopped and turned, tugging open his jacket. The moment Richter recognized the weapon, he dropped flat on the tarmac surface of the road. Because, in the uncertain light of the street lamps, he’d seen the unmistakable outline of a Skorpion machine-pistol and, with only the Yarygin, he was hopelessly outgunned.