But that was before, when Soviet expectations were low. Last night’s phone call had hammered home with crystal clarity the horrible mistake he had made. He had been tempted to tell Boris Badanov with the thick Russian accent to go to hell, had done exactly that, in fact. The KGB could come and take him out if they wanted; he’d probably never see it coming, and death would at least be a way out of the corner he had painted himself into.
But the implied threat to his family had changed everything. Tom hadn’t even realized the Russians knew he was married until last night. He knew now how foolishly blind he had been — of course the KGB would learn all they could about their new employee, of course they would keep that information close to the vest, pulling it out only when needed — but Roberta and Sarah were thousands of miles away, safe and anonymous in Herndon, Virginia, well out of range of the KGB.
That was what he had thought. How wrong he had been. Kopalev knew way too much about his family, tossing the information out casually, like it was no big deal. Tom’s blood had frozen in his veins last night with Kopalev’s threat to snuff out the lives of his wife and child, and in the most agonizing way possible.
He thought hard, his eyes alternating between the B-52’s instruments and the endless blaze of impossibly bright stars outside the wind screen. Maybe he could question the CIA agent currently dozing in the rear of the aircraft. No one besides his Soviet contact had confirmed that she was CIA, but then, no one had needed to. It was obvious. A civilian woman, appearing at Ramstein out of nowhere carrying Top Secret paperwork, with instructions from the highest levels of government for a priority lift across the pond?
CIA.
As a CIA spook, she might be able to use her connections to protect Tom’s family. But she certainly would ask the obvious question of why the family of an Air Force nobody was in need of protection from the KGB, a question he could not answer. He would be forced to kill her anyway.
Tom shook his head and cursed under his breath. He knew Wilczynski was looking at him curiously. He didn’t care. He was fucked. He was well and truly fucked.
As an Air Force pilot, Tom Mitchell was intimately familiar with the concept of parallax view, which stated that the angle at which objects are viewed will determine how they appear to the viewer. Parallax view was one reason why a good pilot learned early in his career to rely on his instruments when flying, even on a clear, bright, sunny day. Eyes could be fooled. Instruments could not.
The concept of parallax view applied to other situations, too. Look at a scenario from one angle and it can appear completely different than when viewed from another. But Tom realized this situation was the exception. No parallax view in the world could change one simple fact: he was going to have to do as he had been ordered by the KGB, or sentence his own wife and child to death.
And that he could not do.
So the decision was easy, but executing that decision was not, and Tom knew he was running out of time. Soon the giant B-52 would be approaching land, flying over U.S. soil down the east coast to Andrews Air Force Base, and while he could still carry out the murders, crashing the jet onto U.S. soil would never satisfy the KGB. There would be no way to guarantee the item they wanted destroyed had actually been destroyed, and his family would remain at risk.
He had to do it soon. The clock was ticking.
13
Tracie tried with little success to catch a few Zs in the minimally-upholstered seat. It was bolted to the side wall of the B-52, which had probably flown hundreds, if not thousands, of missions. The seat-back was rickety and the vinyl upholstery worn and cracked.
The ride was free, though, and complaining would accomplish nothing, so Tracie stretched out as well as she could and dozed, unable to manage a deep sleep. Something was bothering her.
The sense of unease she had felt upon meeting Major Tom Mitchell back at Ramstein Air Base had only intensified after departure. Several times during the first couple of hours of the flight, Mitchell had stepped back from the cockpit and observed her as she pretended to sleep, her eyes barely open under her thick eyelashes. In each instance, he had approached stealthily and stood off to the side in an attempt to remain unobserved.
He was sizing her up; that much was obvious. The question was, why?
After the first time, Tracie had debated opening her eyes and asking him directly what his problem was, but her instincts told her that would be a mistake, and Tracie had learned years ago not to question those instincts; they were the subconscious mind’s way of protecting its owner when the conscious mind could not quite wrap itself around a problem. Following a nagging feeling had saved her life on more than one occasion, and Tracie was no more likely to ignore her instincts than she was to jump out of this B-52 with no parachute.
Mitchell hadn’t appeared at all over the last couple of hours, though, which meant either his curiosity had been satisfied, or he was flying this leg of the trip and couldn’t leave the flight deck. She guessed it was the latter — his ongoing nervousness and desperation were clear to her. The man was obviously operating under some serious stress.
She opened her eyes a slit, observing her surroundings without revealing her wakefulness. All was quiet in the cargo area. Mitchell was nowhere to be seen.
Tracie stretched and wondered how close the big aircraft was to the North American shoreline. She had flown from the U.S. to Europe and vice-versa plenty of times and had developed an innate sense of the trip’s timing. They had to be getting close. She was thinking about unbuckling her lap restraint and wandering up to the cockpit when a sharp popping noise erupted from the front of the aircraft. Then another. It sounded like exploding firecrackers.
Except they weren’t firecrackers.
Someone was shooting on the flight deck.
A voice shouted in surprise and alarm. The B-52 yawed violently to the left and began a steep dive. Tracie felt her body pull against the seat restraints and she fumbled with the buckle. Her fingers scrabbled for the metal release and missed. She tried again and managed to lift the buckle, but the straps would not budge.
She was trapped. Her heart was racing and she felt a rising sense of panic. She had just seconds to get to the front of the airplane or likely become a victim. She yanked on the seat belt release again, as the sound of the jet engines screamed in her ears, the aircraft still in a diving left turn.
Then she realized why she could not escape — the tension of her body pulling against the seatbelt would not allow the mechanism to unhook. She reached for a handhold built into the side of the plane and pulled hard, grabbing the metal seatbelt release with her other hand and yanking it upward. Finally it gave and she was free.
She tumbled into the aisle, sliding into the fuselage and smashing her shoulder against an aluminum duct, denting the ductwork. Then the aircraft leveled off and she fell to the floor.
Tracie slipped her Beretta out of her shoulder holster and sprinted toward the cockpit as a third shot ripped through the aircraft.
The scene on the flight deck was chaotic and gruesome. Navigator Nathan Berenger lay on the floor, partially blocking the narrow entrance to the cockpit. Most of his skull had been blown off, his head barely recognizable as human. Blood had splattered everywhere, as had bits of bone matter and human tissue. Tracie’s half-second glance at Berenger told her all she needed to know. The navigator was dead, beyond help.
At the controls, Major Stan Wilczynski was struggling with Tom Mitchell. Wilczynski had been shot at least once and was bleeding badly from a wound in his shoulder, but fought grimly for control of Mitchell’s gun. He had somehow managed to level off the diving B-52 while locked in a life-and-death struggle with his fellow crew member, and was now screaming obscenities at him.