James Barrington - Overkill

‘OK,’ Roberts said. ‘Scotland it is.’

Moscow

The hotel lunch was notable for its quantity, rather than its quality, but it was hot. After he’d finished, Richter returned to his room and spent ten minutes composing a list in his notebook. The first item he wrote down was ‘insurance policy’ and the last was ‘letters’. Then he carried his bags down to the reception desk, paid the bill and sat down to wait in the lobby.

Just after twelve thirty a black Rover with a familiar crest on the door and red number plates, the badge of a foreign diplomatic car, purred to a halt outside. Erroll climbed out of the rear seat and walked into the lobby. ‘No parking problems,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a driver as well. Here, let me take that one.’ Richter surrendered his suitcase and Erroll walked out to the Rover and put it in the boot. They climbed into the back seat, Richter still clutching his briefcase, and the driver indicated and pulled away from the kerb. Erroll noticed his frequent glances into the rear-view mirrors. ‘Have we got company, George?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir. A black ZIL, three up. They picked us up outside the Embassy as usual.’

Richter peered out of the rear window. About a hundred yards behind, a large dark-coloured saloon with at least two people in it was following steadily.

‘We get used to it after a while,’ Erroll said. ‘I don’t suppose you get people following you all the time in your line of work, do you?’

Richter looked at him. Erroll was smiling. ‘No,’ he smiled back. ‘Not all the time.’

Erroll sat back in his seat, then fished around in his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. Richter opened it, glanced at the copy of the death certificate and put it into his briefcase, where it could keep the accident report company.

Aspen Three Four

The Blackbird stayed at Mach 3 and eighty thousand feet over the southern tip of Sweden and across Denmark as Frank Roberts pointed the aircraft at the east coast of Scotland. Seventy miles out it began to look as if they weren’t going to make it.

‘Boss, the leak’s getting worse. It’s now more like one hundred pounds a minute. I estimate that we’ve got a maximum of twenty minutes up here before it all goes quiet.’

‘OK. Let’s talk to someone. I’ll raise ATC, you tell Mildenhall what’s happened.’

While Paul James opened the secure channel to Mildenhall Operations, Frank Roberts set the aircraft’s secondary radar transponder to squawk Military Emergency and selected Guard frequency on UHF. ‘Pan, Pan, Pan. This is Aspen Three Four with twenty minutes’ fuel remaining. Request diversion to the nearest suitable airfield and a priority landing.’

Scottish Air Traffic Control Centre (Military), Atlantic House, Prestwick

The Scottish Military Distress and Diversion Cell is part of the Scottish Air Traffic Control Centre (Military) located at Atlantic House, Prestwick, on the west coast of Scotland. The network of direction-finding heads responded to the call from the Blackbird and the Laserscan equipment pinpointed the aircraft’s position on the plotting chart on the wall facing the Cell team. As the assistant guided a laser-produced marker to the indicated location of the aircraft, the duty controller selected the nearest forward radio relay. ‘Roger, Aspen Three Four, Scottish Centre. Steer two eight five for Lossiemouth. Request aircraft type and level.’

‘Two eight five for Aspen Three Four. We’re a military twin-jet, sir.’

‘Roger, Three Four. I say again, what is your level?’ There was a pause. ‘We’re in the upper air, sir.’ The controller’s assistant, who had been using the laser marker to update the position of the aircraft with each transmission it made, spoke. ‘Jesus Christ, will you look at the speed of that thing. Hey, isn’t Aspen a U–2 call sign?’

The controller shook his head. ‘That’s not a U–2, not going that fast.’ He tried again. ‘Three Four, I say again, what is your level, and what is your speed?’ Turning to the assistant, he told him to contact Lossiemouth for an actual diversion and fuel priority landing, aircraft type not specified but fast USAF twin-jet, and to stand by to take operational control.

Roberts finally replied. ‘Sir, Aspen Three Four is supersonic this time, and we’re high. There’s nobody up here but us.’

The controller gave up. ‘Roger, Aspen Three Four. You have forty-three miles to run to Lossiemouth. Decrease speed to subsonic, and descend to maintain Flight Level one zero zero initially. Advise when you’re ready to copy the Lossiemouth weather.’

Forty miles east of the airfield, Frank Roberts pulled the throttles back and the big aircraft began to fall, losing height and speed simultaneously.

British Embassy, Sofiyskaya naberezhnaya 14, Moscow

Newman’s office was a little bigger than Erroll’s, an indication of his slightly more exalted official status. With Erroll watching quizzically from the doorway, Richter began rooting through the contents of the desk.

‘Pardon me, but what exactly are you looking for?’

‘When Mr Newman’s family heard that I was being sent to Moscow,’ Richter said, ‘they asked my company if I could collect some items of sentimental value and one or two documents that they would like returned to them immediately.’ He held up his notebook and displayed a handwritten list. He didn’t mention that it was the list he had compiled in his hotel room immediately after lunch. ‘What I can’t find here,’ Richter continued, ‘should be at his apartment, which is the reason I want to visit both.’

Richter selected a photograph of a handsome, rather than pretty, woman that stood on the desk, and an address book, and left it at that. He could hardly take Newman’s desk diary or look through the filing cabinets with Erroll watching. Someone from Vauxhall Cross was going to have to go through the room with a fine tooth-comb, but it wasn’t going to be him.

RAF Lossiemouth, Grampian, Scotland

Three Panavia Tornado GR–1 aircraft doing circuits and bumps were told to hold at circuit height until further advised. A fourth Tornado, which had been entering the runway when the line from the Distress and Diversion Cell buzzed, was instructed to turn through one hundred and eighty degrees and clear the runway immediately.

The Lossiemouth Radar Supervisor was talking to the Distress and Diversion Cell Controller and the Director was preparing to take operational control. ‘Aspen Three Four is identified. Call Lossiemouth Director on frequency two five nine decimal nine seven five.’

‘Two five nine decimal nine seven five for Aspen Three Four. Thank you, Lossie.’

Central Moscow

Newman’s apartment was in one of the compounds adjacent to the Embassy. The Rover drove through the gates and stopped outside the building, and the black ZIL – the letters stand for ‘ Zavod Imieni Likhatchova ’ and it’s loosely modelled on an old American Lincoln-Mercury saloon – pulled in fifty yards behind on the same side of the road.

Number 22 had the same light grey door as all the other apartments on the second floor, and a small white card, with ‘Graham Newman’ typed neatly on it, inserted in a cheap chrome frame at eye level. Selecting a Yale-type key from a bunch he produced from his pocket, Erroll opened the door and ushered Richter inside.

The apartment was square and basic. Three rooms in all, the largest being the sitting room and dining area combined, and with a small kitchenette at one end, equipped with a tiny refrigerator and a two-ring electric hob. There were three cupboards over the sink, and the single window offered only a view of the wall of the adjacent building. The dining area boasted a table and four chairs, and the sitting room a two-seater sofa and a pair of easy chairs. Opening off the sitting room was the bedroom, equipped with a double bed, wardrobe and a dressing table with a mirror. The bathroom had two doors, one from the bedroom and the other from the sitting room. Compact, unimaginative and basic.