A loud boom from the Viking interrupted Rublyov. He and the CMO looked up to see a hole blown through the fuselage, black smoke rushing out of it.
Seconds earlier, Lowell had keyed another sequence into the remote control unit, setting off an explosive charge in the fuselage just aft of the flaming wing.
“Geezus! We’re losing the hydraulics,” Arnsbarger exclaimed. The explosion had no such effect. Nor did the damaged fuselage compromise the Viking’s ability to maneuver. The puncture and blown fuel line had been meticulously engineered — for effect only. The Viking was totally airworthy as Arnsbarger put it on an erratic flight path, making it appear out of control.
“Kira? Kira, this is Viking. Negative on that ditch,” Arnsbarger said, resuming the scenario. “We just lost our hydraulics. I can’t control her.”
Rublyov and the CMO exchanged pained looks.
“Read you Viking. You’re positive you can’t set down on the sea?” Rublyov prodded.
“Negative,” Arnsbarger said sharply. “I have no controls. We’re bailing out.”
“Shit—” Rublyov said under his breath.
Arnsbarger clicked off and started to chuckle, picturing the look on the Russian captain’s face.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t mind skipping this part.”
“Ditto. Let’s set it up and get out of here.”
Lowell nodded crisply. There would be no more talk. They had practiced this dozens of times. Now both moved with precision and speed. While Arnsbarger put the Viking on autopilot, Lowell keyed another sequence into the remote unit, and hit the TIME DELAY key. Then, he placed the unit on the floor and nodded to Arnsbarger. The pilot’s gut tightened as he reached for the bright yellow ejection seat lever and pulled it.
The tinted canopy blew off before Arnsbarger’s hand had released the lever. An instant later, the side by side ejection seats exploded upward from the Viking’s flight deck at slightly divergent angles. In a matter of seconds, they both had reached the apex of their trajectories and began plunging toward the sea.
Lowell was falling like a rock, when the chute blew out of his backpack, unfurled behind him, and mushroomed with a loud whoosh, bringing his free-fall to a sudden stop. The jolt jerked the harness hard up into his groin, then the pressure eased and he began floating toward the sea. He looked up to see Arnsbarger’s chute mushroom, then glanced to the Viking. It was diving toward the sea, like a spent rocket-casing, when the remote unit sent the delayed signal. Two hundred pounds of plastic explosives packed into cavities in the plane’s airframe erupted. The Viking disintegrated in midair, and showered the sea with debris.
Rublyov winced, then barked to the first officer, “Get the launch over the side.”
Lowell splashed down, and popped his harness. He was floating in his Mae West amidst an ever-widening slick of shark repellent. A life-raft was in the water behind him and had already started inflating. A long tether ran from it to Lowell’s wrist. He reeled it in, pulled himself over the side, and broke out a paddle.
Arnsbarger was still high above the sea; he saw the bright yellow shape below, and began working the control lines of his chute angling toward it.
The Kira’s engines were at full stop now. Her launch hit the water with the first officer and three crew members aboard. The diesel roared to life, and the launch pulled away from the huge vessel, cutting through the swells toward the bobbing raft about a thousand yards away.
Arnsbarger splashed down closer to the raft than he ever thought he could, shed his chute harness, and started swimming. Lowell paddled toward him, and in no time, Arnsbarger was crawling into the raft.
“You okay?” Lowell inquired intensely, as he helped him over the side.
“Yeah,” Arnsbarger grunted, flopping next to him like a boated tuna.
“Nice jumping.”
“Thanks. I spotted a welcoming committee coming this way just before I went in.”
“Great,” Lowell replied. “This thing’s going like clockwork.”
“That was the easy part,” Arnsbarger said. “Wait and see what kind of welcome we get if they catch us looking for those damned missiles.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
The fifth floor hall attendant in the Hotel Berlin was a pudgy middle-aged woman who had learned a bit of English from the hotel’s business clientele. It was mid-morning when she glanced down the corridor and saw Melanie approaching in her springy splayfooted walk.
The prior evening Melanie and Andrew whetted their appetites and promised to satisfy them soon. She laid awake thinking about that — about how long it had been since she felt a rush at the thought of being with someone, since she allowed herself such a feeling. She enjoyed it, but she didn’t trust it. Events of extreme intensity had brought them together, and she thought perhaps they were the reason. The feeling gave way to an uneasy awareness of where she was and why, and she fell asleep thinking about the need to become acclimated and to plan a course of action.
On waking, she did just that, and as always, the first step was the phone book. But she couldn’t find one in her room, so she went to the hall attendant, who not only keeps the keys but also takes messages, calls taxis, and serves as general advisor to her charges.
“Dobraeoota,” Melanie said hesitantly, trying out one of the four Russian words she had memorized that morning as part of her plan.
“Good morning,” the attendant said. She pointed to Melanie’s feet, their turned-out position confirming what her walk suggested, and added, “You’re a dancer.”
“Yes, yes I am,” Melanie said.
“I love ballet. But it’s so expensive, and—” The hall attendant heard the elevator opening, and before seeing who exited, she cut off the sentence, and got back to business. “May I help you, now?” she asked.
“Oh sure,” Melanie said, seeing her uneasiness but not understanding it. “I’m looking for a phone book.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” the attendant said blankly, ignoring a nod from a maid who had gotten out of the elevator.
“Tye-lye-fon-niy spra-vach-neek?” Melanie said, resorting to the words she had memorized.
“Tyelyefoniy spravachneek?” the attendant said, still without comprehension.
“It’s okay. I’ll ask downstairs,” Melanie said, trying to exit gracefully. She gave the attendant her room key in exchange for her hotel pass, and exhausting her Russian vocabulary, said, “Spaseeba.” Then she smiled and headed down the corridor.
As soon as Melanie stepped into the elevator, the hall attendant took a small journal from the drawer of her key desk, and made a notation.
Earlier that morning, Andrew departed for Tersk from Vnukovo, the domestic terminal south of Moscow. Two hours later, Aeroflot SU-1209 landed in Mineral’nye Vody, a resort area below the foothills of the Caucasus. An Intourist car and driver were waiting for him.
The battered Moskvich station wagon headed south on a narrow concrete ribbon that climbed gradually toward the towering mountain range in the distance.
Yosef, the driver, spoke no English and smiled at everything Andrew said. His pulpy jowls shimmied along with the Moskvich, which rattled despite the smooth road. He was flabby, simpleminded, and wholly un-threatening. Too much so, Andrew thought, deciding Yosef had to be KGB — which he was.
After about fifty miles, the road forked west into the Olkhovka Valley. Here, the flat terrain gave way to Tersk’s gently rolling pastures and bubbling springs that provide the nutritious bluegrass and rich mineral water on which Soviet Arabians are raised.