Chapter Twenty-Four
Just under an hour later, Zharkov strode into a small office on one of the upper floors of the Lubyanka and looked around. Abramov and two of the building security guards followed him into the room. The security staff had found the door locked, with nobody inside, when they’d arrived to secure it. They’d also reported that it was normally only ever used as overflow accommodation for SVR officers temporarily appointed to the building.
And, indeed, the office’s furnishings were extremely sparse. There were two desks, positioned back to back against the longer wall of the room, and a pair of swivel chairs. The desks were bare apart from a desktop computer sitting on one of them, two telephones, a few sheets of blank paper and a handful of pencils.
‘So why would anyone phone here,’ Zharkov mused, ‘if there’s nobody to answer?’
Abramov looked closely at the two telephones, then bent forward to peer, under the desks, at the wall sockets.
‘They might not have been calling anyone actually in this office,’ he said, reaching forward under one of them.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean this looks like a call diverter,’ Abramov said, pulling a small oblong box out from the underside of one of the desks. One lead ran from the box to the line socket on the wall, and the other to one of the two telephones. A third, very thin lead ran to a power socket, but it was wired directly into the back of it, so that the main socket could still be used for a computer or any other piece of mains-powered equipment.
‘Clever,’ he said. ‘This box is well hidden and, because the room’s only used by temporary staff, probably none of them would ever wonder what it was, even if they’d noticed it.’
Abramov pressed the power button on the desktop computer.
‘Can you find out what number the diverter’s set to call?’ Zharkov asked, seeming noticeably more subdued now that at least a part of Raya Kosov’s story appeared to have substance.
‘I already have done,’ Abramov replied. ‘As soon as this computer’s working, I’ll look it up in the directory.’
Zharkov nodded absently, and sat down in the other seat while they waited for the desktop’s operating system and application software to load. After a couple of minutes, Abramov opened the directory program that would allow him to trace the number he’d copied down from the tiny digital display on the call diverter. He entered the digits in the correct field and then pressed the Enter key to obtain the details.
Then he sat back in the chair and looked across at Zharkov.
‘Well?’ the colonel demanded. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s you,’ Abramov said, his voice hushed. ‘According to this directory, the number the diverter calls is your Moscow apartment.’
Then they were over the trees, the branches rushing beneath them so close that it looked to Dekker as if he could almost lean out of the window and touch them.
Richter eased the throttle back, dropping the speed still further, and lifted the nose slightly as the aircraft lost more height. By now they were committed to a landing. They dropped quickly towards the field, heading for touchdown.
The two main wheels of the tricycle undercarriage thumped on the ground. The Piper bounced once, then settled on the grass surface, as Richter closed the throttle completely. The nose-wheel dropped and the aircraft bounced and shuddered, seeming almost to lurch from wheel to wheel as its speed fell away.
He controlled the aircraft’s direction with the rudder pedals, keeping it straight. There was another group of trees over to the left, which he needed to keep well clear of. As the aircraft slowed down, Richter opened the throttle again to keep it moving, aiming towards the far end of the field, which lay closer to the village of Aime, and which would mean they had a slightly shorter distance to walk once they stopped.
Beyond the far end of the field was another line of trees, about fifty yards clear of the main copse. Richter steered the aircraft over to the right-hand end of it, swung in behind it and braked to a halt. Then he switched off the engine and applied the parking brake. While the aircraft would still be easily visible from the air, stopping it in this spot meant that most people on the ground would only be able to see it if they looked from a certain point on the railway line running just to the north of the field, or actually entered the field itself. Of course, he’d landed so close to the housing estate that no doubt somebody from there would come wandering over fairly soon.
‘Pretty bumpy landing,’ Dekker observed, ‘but on this surface it’s not surprising. And you definitely know how to fly.’
‘I’ve had the same number of landings as take-offs,’ Richter declared, ‘and in the Royal Navy that counts as exceptional flying ability.’ He glanced behind him. ‘Are you OK there, Raya?’
The Russian girl nodded shakily, unclipped her seat belt and grabbed her bag, ready to get out.
Dekker pulled his rifle case from under the seat, opened the door and climbed down. As soon as he was on the ground, he checked all around, looking for any sign of trouble. But, as far as he could tell, nobody had noticed them land — or at least there was nobody, in or near the field, watching them. Raya and Richter followed him out of the aircraft and stood beside him.
Then, with a roar that was deafening and a blast of air almost knocking them off their feet, a Eurocopter Panther gunship roared past above their heads, and then seemed almost to topple onto its side as the pilot pulled it around in a brutally hard turn, the sound of the rotors beating the air like distant thunder.
‘One of the choppers is right over the target aircraft now, and turning hard.’ The U2 pilot sounded calm and controlled.
‘Thanks for the update,’ Westwood replied, ‘but there’s nothing we can do to help them now.’
‘You’re obviously mistaken, Abramov.’ Zharkov’s voice was low and menacing. ‘You must have looked up the wrong number.’
Abramov glanced at him, then at the two Lubyanka security guards who’d accompanied them. He absolutely knew he’d got the correct telephone number from the call diverter and, unless somebody had tampered with the directory, that telephone line terminated in Colonel Zharkov’s Moscow apartment. There were only two possible conclusions he could draw. Either there genuinely was a mistake in the directory, which seemed fairly unlikely, or Zharkov himself must have had something to do with the security breach that Raya Kosov claimed to have discovered.
Suddenly, the security colonel’s obvious reluctance to initiate an investigation made perfect sense. And Abramov knew there was now only one thing he could do, despite the risks.
‘I’m sorry, Colonel,’ he said, ‘but I have no option but to place you under close arrest until we can resolve this matter.’
‘You what?’ Zharkov couldn’t believe his ears. The worm, classically, had turned — and it had turned on him. ‘You will do no such thing. This is clearly a mistake. A stupid mistake made by somebody, and they will pay for it when I find out who they are.’
Abramov nodded. ‘No doubt you’re correct, Colonel, but I have no choice. Guards, you will place this officer under arrest, immediately.’
The two security guards had been following the conversation between them with bemused expressions, but a direct order was a direct order, even when delivered by the more junior of the two SVR officers involved.
One of them drew his weapon, covering Zharkov, while the other man stepped forward and removed the colonel’s personal weapon from his belt holster.