U.S. EMBASSY NO MATTER WHAT!
She was standing there holding the package, shocked at the import of her discovery, when she heard cars roaring onto the grounds. She went to the window, pulled back the curtain slightly, and peered out.
Tvardovskiy’s Chaika and two Volgas came to fast stops on the gravel below. Men in fedoras and black raincoats began piling out of them and slamming the doors. Uzykin came from the dacha and ardently greeted Tvardovskiy, who led the stony entourage inside.
The scene struck Melanie like something out of Nazi Germany — like the Gestapo tipped off to the whereabouts of a resistance organizer. They were there for her, she thought. They’d caught Andrew, and forced him to tell them what he’d done with the package.
She latched the door and began searching frantically for someplace to hide the package. Behind the dresser? No. They’d find it. And deny as she might, who’d believe her? The window. She could throw it out the window into the bushes. They’d think Andrew had ditched it if they found it there — but not if he’d told them she had it. She was darting back and forth across the room gripped by panic when it dawned on her that the dacha was still quiet. The KGB men weren’t clambering up the stairs. Their fists weren’t pounding on the door. If they knew she had the package, if they were there for her, they’d have broken it down and arrested her by now. She stared at the package for a long moment, listening, and thinking of a way to minimize the risks. She put the package on the dresser and picked at the corner of the incriminating label with a fingernail to remove it. But time had firmly affixed the adhesive, and the corner broke off in a little chip. She shuddered with dismay, her mind searching for a way to camouflage it.
Downstairs, Tvardovskiy and his KGB entourage had trooped into the study, joining Deschin and Gorodin.
“We have a hijacking in progress,” Tvardovskiy announced. “I think it’s Churcher.”
“Why?” Deschin asked.
“The plane’s destination was Estonia. You recall Madame Maiskaya?”
“His father’s woman, of course.”
“An Estonian. We picked her up at Yaroslavl Station after she gave Churcher her car, and have been interrogating her since. She insists she has no idea where he’s headed, now.”
“Out of the country. Where else?”
“Then why hijack a domestic flight?”
“Because it would be impossible to elude security at Sheremetyvo and board an international one, but he could get on a domestic flight at Vnukovo undetected and—”
“Yes, yes, and turn it into an international one,” Tvardovskiy interjected, understanding.
Deschin was nodding gravely when the phone rang. Tvardovskiy blocked his hand and snatched up the receiver. It was the chief of air security.
“It’s Churcher,” the embarrassed fellow reported.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. His name’s on the manifest, and the passport control ledger, as well.”
“Destination?”
“The pilot radioed he’s being forced at gunpoint to divert to Helsinki. We had every international flight covered. We never thought he would—”
“Yes, I know,” Tvardovskiy interrupted angrily and, turning to the others, said, “It’s definitely him.”
Deschin leaned across the desk and turned on the speakerbox, so all could hear the conversation.
“Does the pilot still have his weapon?” Tvardovskiy asked.
“No, that was the first thing Churcher demanded.”
“What about the air marshall?”
“He was found unconscious in an airport men’s room. His weapon was taken.”
Deschin burned Tvardovskiy with a look, reached out, and picked up the extension.
“How many passengers aboard?” Deschin asked.
“Seventy-nine, sir.”
Deschin winced and let out a long breath. “That plane must be stopped,” he said.
Melanie had dressed, and was now hurriedly cutting a rectangle out of the paper sack that they’d given her at the hotel concession when she bought the stationery. An Intourist symbol, which she reasoned would give the package of drawings the appearance of having been purchased there, was centered in the rectangle. She put a dab of nail polish behind each corner, and glued it over the existing label, covering Andrew’s message as well as Boulton’s name and address, then put the package in her travel bag, atop the clothes, unhidden. She slipped out of the room wondering how she could leave the dacha without raising suspicion.
She had gone down the stairs and was crossing the entry hall when she heard voices at the far end of the corridor. One of the doors to the study was partially open when she arrived. She peered in.
Tvardovskiy noticed her immediately, and flicked a penetrating stare in her direction, then sent Uzykin to close the door. Uzykin’s approach alerted Gorodin to Melanie’s presence. “I’ll handle her,” he said. He stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind him.
“What do you want?” he asked tensely.
“I feel in the way,” she replied. “I mean, maybe I should go, and come back when he has time to see me.”
“That’s up to Minister Deschin,” he replied. “And he can’t be interrupted now.”
“Why not? What’s going on?”
He eyed her for a moment, deciding, then led her down the corridor away from the door. “Your friend Churcher hijacked a plane,” he replied.
“Oh, my God.”
“He’s a fool. He’ll never get away with it.”
“What are they going to do?”
“Intercept and destroy,” he replied coldly. “The decision was just made.”
Melanie recoiled, horrified. But the initial shock was nothing compared to the chilling realization that followed — the extreme action had been ordered because they believed Andrew had the package. The package in her travel bag. The dilemma was tearing her apart. Every bone in her body was prompting her to shout, “No! No, don’t! Andrew doesn’t have the package! I do! I have it!” But she heard Andrew’s words and saw what he’d written, and she knew what he wanted, and didn’t.
The hijacked Antonov-10 was a regularly scheduled flight from Moscow to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, a major seaport on the Gulf of Finland. The turboprop had turned onto a new heading for Helsinki, barely fifty miles across the gulf, when two MiG-29 Fulcrums scrambled from Ptovshak Airbase on Hiiumaa Island, seventy-five miles due west in the Baltic. It wasn’t by chance that the Fulcrums had been selected. The tactical fighter was the newest and fastest in the Soviet arsenal, armed with six A-10 medium-range air-to-air missiles — three heat-seeking, three radar homing — on two pylons under each wing, and one AA-11 under each engine duct. Only one would be needed to blow the Antonov out of the sky.
“Target is twenty miles from international waters,” ground control reported. “It can’t be allowed to leave Soviet airspace. Rapid closure mandatory!”
“Damn!” Tvardovskiy said in response. The call from the chief of air security had come through the Vertushka. The Kremlin operator had patched the line into the radio transmission between the Fulcrum and ground control, and the group in the study was listening on the speaker-box.
“Projecting intercept in two minutes,” the pilot of the lead Fulcrum reported as he walled his throttles.
The afterburners on the Tumansky R-33D turbofans kicked in. The MiG rocketed forward at Mach 1.8, the rapid acceleration pinning the pilot to his couch. In exactly one minute, the Fulcrum had covered thirty of the seventy-five miles to the Antonov-10.