Sheikh Tala Qabandi climbed out of the Jet Ranger in the courtyard of his palace and walked over to the building’s imposing entrance. Alexander followed dutifully a few paces behind. They’d left Al-Shahrood following further inconclusive investigation. Despite widening the search to cover the desert immediately surrounding the stables, not the slightest trace of anyone had been found.
The police inspector had already initiated a missing-persons report on Osman bin Mahmoud and his wife — the only people Qabandi was certain would have been at the farmhouse — and placed a watch order, effective throughout Saudi Arabia and all the adjoining states, for the missing Range Rover and the horse transporter. And that, as the inspector said, was about all they could do, since there was still no proof that any crime had been committed.
Inside the palace’s cool interior, William Alexander headed straight for his office. He had a few lines of inquiry he wanted to check himself, the first of which was the most obvious. To his surprise it produced immediate results.
The transport itinerary for the racehorse Shaf had been supplied by bin Mahmoud a few weeks earlier, and it specified the flight to Dubai, the stables booked there and the staff accommodation. All these arrangements had been charged to the sheikh’s account and, as the horse had now vanished, they could be cancelled and refunds obtained. Alexander was used to paying close attention to such minor details, which was one of the reasons Qabandi employed him.
But when he got through to the airline office at Riyadh to cancel the tickets, the response was not what he had anticipated.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but no refund is possible.’
‘Why not?’ Alexander demanded.
‘Because the tickets have already been used.’
‘What?’
‘According to our computer records, Osman bin Mahmoud rescheduled the flight so that the horse and stable personnel flew out to Dubai twenty-four hours earlier. Would you like the revised flight details?’
Alexander grabbed a pen and paper. ‘Yes, please.’
Six minutes later he put down the phone and leant back in his seat. As soon as he’d finished the call to the airline he’d contacted the Dubai stables where Shaf had been booked for the duration of the World Cup. It had turned out to be a very confused call, and difficult to say which party was the more perplexed: the stable manager who knew perfectly well that Shaf was alive and well and eating hay in his stall, or William Alexander who was trying to work out what the hell was going on. Why would someone kidnap or maybe even kill about a dozen people, steal a three-million-dollar horse, only to deliver it safely to the place it was supposed to go, and then walk away? It made no sense at all unless, he reflected with a slight smile, the kidnappers happened to be Irish.
But it was progress of a sort, and he was certain that Qabandi would want to fly immediately to the UAE to check on his treasured thoroughbred. So before he told the sheikh what he had discovered, he booked seats on the first available flight to Dubai, organized a limousine to collect them at the airport there, and confirmed their pre-booked hotel suites.
The Turkish Air Force is one of the best-equipped units in the eastern Mediterranean, operating a wide variety of aircraft, principally of American manufacture. Because of the country’s proximity to the old Soviet Bloc, Turkey also possesses an extensive radar network to provide early warning of aircraft or missiles approaching from the north and north-east.
The long-range radar had detected the Cessna long before its pilot called Ruzgar and identified himself, but the slow-moving target was not assessed as a threat. Once the Turkish controllers had established the aircraft’s identity, allocated a squawk and given the pilot permission to transit Turkish airspace, they basically forgot about it.
The Fulcrum was a different matter. The air-defence radars located at Sinop, almost the most northerly point on the Turkish mainland, detected it as Beleshayov was approaching Novorossiysk on the Black Sea coast, and an ‘unknown’ track identifier was allocated to it. Sinop is jointly operated by the Turks and the Americans, who refer to the facility as ‘Diogenes Station’ after the ancient Greek philosopher, who was born close by.
When the unidentified aircraft continued heading south, directly towards Turkey, and accelerated to Mach 2, the ‘unknown’ label was replaced by ‘hostile’, and scramble orders were sent to Merzifon.
151 Filo, the on-alert squadron, operates General Dynamics F-16C ‘Fighting Falcon’ air-superiority fighters and, within eight minutes of the scramble call, two interceptors, equipped with full tanks and live weapons, turned on to the end of the duty runway, paused for just seconds as they waited for take-off clearance, then accelerated hard as the burners cut in.
Once airborne, the two aircraft moved into battle-pair formation, the number two positioned behind and to the right of his leader, and then turned north-east, directly towards the incoming MiG-29. And approaching a point some five miles above the Black Sea, where the Turkish fighter control computers had already calculated that their interceptors would meet the unknown Russian aircraft, the Cessna 340 continued its relatively slow but steady progress towards Turkey.
‘Romeo Charlie Three Six, Ruzgar, traffic information. You have very fast-moving traffic, five o’clock at range eighty-five, heading towards. Single contact. No height information.’
Wilson was in the co-pilot’s seat, headset draped around his neck. When he heard the start of this message over the loudspeaker he pulled up the earphone and listened intently. ‘Just acknowledge it,’ he instructed.
‘Three Six, Roger.’ Vassily glanced at Wilson. ‘What is it? A Russian fighter?’
‘That’s what I was expecting, but it changes nothing. Just keep going.’
‘I can increase speed — another thirty or forty knots.’
‘Don’t bother. It wouldn’t make any difference if they are going to intercept us, and it would reduce our range too much. We must have enough fuel to make Cairo.’
‘How long before we cross the border?’ Dawson asked from the cockpit doorway.
Vassily studied the GPS display in front of him, then the navigation chart. ‘Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.’ He turned to Wilson. ‘Listen, if we increase speed we can—’
‘It wouldn’t help, and we don’t need to. There’s another factor here.’
The pilot looked sceptical. ‘What other factor? That interceptor could blow us out of the sky before we even see it.’
Wilson nodded. ‘I know it could, but it won’t happen. Just wait.’
‘For what?’
The noise from the speaker broke the sudden silence in the cockpit. ‘Romeo Charlie Three Six, Ruzgar, with additional traffic for you. Two identified high-speed contacts in your one o’clock position range fifty-two, heading towards, level at Flight Level two eight zero. Maintain your present level and heading.’
‘For that,’ Wilson announced. ‘That’s a pair of Turkish fighters going to intercept the Russian. That was what I was waiting for, and that’s why there’s no need for us to increase speed.’
‘Zero Six Eight, target bears one seven five at forty-five.’
Beleshayov stared at his radar screen. The return he believed to be the Cessna was painting clearly, forty kilometres directly ahead. He pulled the MiG-29 out of afterburner. He had to start reducing height and speed, otherwise he’d overshoot it by miles.
‘Zero Six Eight, caution, caution. Two fast-moving contacts twelve o’clock range seventy-three. Possibly Turkish interceptors, high-speed and heading towards.’