Pandemic (17 page)

‘Flyco, Homer. I’ve just had a call from Tiger Two. He’s on recovery now, estimating about a half-hour transit from Brindisi.’

‘Excellent. I’ll get the deck cleared.’ Black selected the deck broadcast and leaned close to the microphone. ‘Flight Deck, Flyco. We have one Harrier on recovery.
Estimate for landing is thirty minutes. Ensure two spot is clear by then.’

On the steel deck below, the Flight Deck Officer raised an arm in acknowledgement.

Arlington, Virginia

Once the three-man team was on its way to Crete to try to recover whatever the meddling diver had found, and with firm instructions to bury whatever evidence there was of
the thirty-year-old plane wreck, John Nicholson had completed the first phase of the recovery operation.

McCready – who knew nothing more than the brief outline provided by Nicholson – had given Krywald the most specific instructions: the plane was to be totally destroyed and the diver
silenced one way or another. The only thing Nicholson expected the team to recover from the wreck was the steel case and its contents, and that was to be returned to Langley as quickly as
possible.

But his work was far from finished. The men he had dispatched were en route but, without the proper equipment and support on Crete, their mission was doomed to failure from the start. Nicholson
ordered a pot of coffee from the kitchen, pulled out a dark blue file from his briefcase, opened it and began making notes. Then he reached for the phone – the number of which was not listed
in any directory, anywhere, and that was checked at least once every two days to ensure there were no taps on it – and began making calls.

Just over an hour later he drank the last of the coffee and leaned back. Through a series of cut-outs, Agency sleepers and even some legitimate channels, he had arranged everything he thought
the team would need: the hire of a boat, the provision of a quantity of plastic explosive and under-water detonators, a complete set of diving equipment including extra compressed-air tanks, a hire
car, hotel accommodation, press credentials – ostensibly the three men were travel reporters – and personal weapons.

His final task was handling Krywald and Stein once they had completed their part of the mission: McCready had already issued instructions to Krywald about Elias.

Nicholson was fighting a rearguard action, protecting the Company, but also his career and everything he had worked for over the last forty or so years. All other considerations, in his opinion,
were secondary, and all the assets he employed were ultimately expendable. He had made plans to ensure the permanent silence of the only three surviving former CIA officers who had been deeply
involved in Operation CAIP thirty years earlier, and McCready’s usefulness was already over.

What he couldn’t and wouldn’t permit was any hint of his activities leaking out. That meant no loose talk, and that in turn meant that all three of the men even then approaching
Crete at around five hundred miles an hour were expendable too.

And even before he’d started arranging the overt and covert support they would need on Crete, he’d made one other, very short, phone call.

Sea Harrier ‘Tiger Two’ and HMS
Invincible
, Ionian Sea

Twenty minutes after Richter’s initial call, and with his radar selected to a one hundred mile radius, John Moore noticed a contact that could be the returning Sea
Harrier, close to the edge of the screen and heading directly towards the ship.

‘Tiger Two, Homer. Transmit for bearing,’ Moore requested.

‘Homer, this is Tiger Two, transmitting for bearing.’

With no flying operations under way, the Ops Room had retained skeleton manning only, but the Air Picture Compiler (APC) on watch had already allocated the label ‘I2’ –
Interceptor Two – to this return, based on secondary surveillance radar interrogation, and the RDF bearing confirmed that identification.

Moore depressed the transmit switch again. ‘Tiger Two is identified. Pigeons one six zero at ninety miles. Flying course will probably be due west, and we have no circuit traffic at
present.’

At six hundred and thirty knots, it doesn’t take long to cover ninety miles. When the return on his radar set reached twenty-five miles, John Moore made a slight adjustment to
Richter’s heading and instructed him to descend to two thousand feet, and advise when visual with the ship.

Moore leaned forward and selected an intercom line. ‘Flyco, Homer.’

‘Flyco.’

‘Tiger Two is on recovery just inside twenty-five miles.’

‘Thank you, Homer.’

Close liaison between Flyco and the Officer of the Watch on the bridge is essential, for both Sea Harriers and helicopters require very specific wind speed and direction for take-off and
landing, and the ship has to manoeuvre quickly and accurately to achieve this.

As soon as he’d deselected the intercom to Homer, Roger Black bent forward over his flying course calculator, an analogue device designed to predict the course and speed the ship would
need to achieve in order to generate the correct wind over the deck. He checked his calculations twice, then called through to the bridge. ‘Bridge, Flyco. I’ve got one Sea Harrier to
recover in around five minutes. Request flying course of two seven five, speed eighteen.’

‘Flyco, Bridge. We’re well ahead of you. Turning to starboard.’

Black grinned. Already he could feel the faint vibration that told him the ship was increasing speed, and the bearing on the compass repeater was moving steadily clockwise. Malcolm Mortensen,
the young lieutenant Officer of the Watch, was highly efficient and well attuned to the requirements of the Air Department. Black enjoyed working with him.

‘Flight Deck, Flyco. Stand by to recover one Sea Harrier, number two spot.’ Roger Black’s voice boomed out over the tannoy system, and two seconds later he received an
acknowledgement from the FDO. Black glanced down at the deck to ensure it was clear and ready, nodded to Commander (Air) who’d just appeared beside him, and began looking out to the east for
the returning aircraft.

In the Operations Room the RDF tube sprang to life again.

‘Homer, Tiger Two is visual and level at two thousand.’

‘Roger, Tiger Two,’ John Moore replied. ‘When ready, descend to six hundred feet and contact Flyco.’

‘Roger, Homer.’

In the descending Sea Harrier, Richter changed his UHF box to Flyco frequency.
Invincible
was now clearly visible, nine miles ahead and slightly to port, the ship’s wake a slowly
straightening white curve against the aquamarine of the sea.

‘Flyco, this is Tiger Two. Visual with Mother, request flying course.’

‘Tiger Two, Flyco, roger. Steady on flying course of two seven five, speed eighteen. Wind straight down the deck at twenty-three knots, gusting twenty-eight.’

In Tiger Two, Richter held two thousand feet and aimed straight for the ship, flying directly overhead. As soon as he’d passed, he throttled back slightly and began his descent,
simultaneously pulling his Harrier into a hard port turn. He levelled at six hundred feet above the surface of the sea and continued the turn until he was flying parallel with the ship’s
course and just off to the port side of the
Invincible
’s track.

Six hundred feet, four hundred knots, past the bow. Then throttle back to idle, airbrake out and bank left, hard, into a 4g turn. The speed bled down to three hundred knots, and he heard and
felt the growl as the Pegasus hit idle. Then briefly downwind, looking left to check the Flight Deck before pulling the Harrier round into its final approach.

Richter wound on the power again and pulled back on the silver-coloured lever that controlled the nozzle angle, preparing the Harrier for transition to vertical flight. Astern and to port of the
ship, steady on west and down to one hundred and fifty feet, he watched his airspeed carefully.

The most critical period during a carrier landing is when the Harrier’s weight is transferred from the lift generated by the wings to the delicate balancing act required to support the
aircraft solely on the twenty-one thousand six hundred pounds’ thrust of the Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine. And the most dangerous phase of this procedure comes when decelerating from about one
hundred and twenty knots down to around forty. The pilot must progressively increase engine power as lift from the wings is reduced, but ensure that the nose points into wind and that the angle of
attack is within limits. Get this wrong and it bites: the aircraft will flip onto its back and hit the sea in a little under one second. Neither the pilot nor the aircraft will survive.

Richter checked the Flight Deck. As his Harrier approached the stern of the
Invincible
, slightly to port of the ship and still travelling at over one hundred knots, he pushed the nozzles
into the braking stop position – fully forward – and then began using the speed trim on top of the throttle to control his approach. This allowed him to adjust the nozzle angle within
ten degrees of the vertical position, and enabled him to position the aircraft with remarkable accuracy.

Richter made his final landing checks, lowering the undercarriage and checking the engine temperature to ensure that he had sufficient thrust margin to transition the Harrier into a full hover.
He was already ‘wet-committed’ – to stop the Pegasus overheating, a powerful pump forces water into the engine during a vertical landing. Once started, the pump cannot be switched
off, and it runs for only ninety seconds, so Richter had to be on deck in under a minute and a half.

Toggling the speed trim backwards, Richter slowed the Harrier until he’d exactly matched the ship’s forward speed. He looked over at the Flight Deck, watching for the signals from
the FDO, eased the control column over to the right, then almost immediately moved it left to stop the Harrier drifting too far.

Richter established his aircraft in the hover, checked the deck markers to ensure he was positioned correctly over two spot, then reduced thrust to start the Harrier in descent. Immediately the
aircraft began losing height, Richter increased thrust again. This was essential to avoid the Pegasus engine pop-surging as it ingested its own hot exhaust gases, that were bounced back from the
steel deck below.

The Harrier landed, as usual, fairly hard, bouncing a few inches upwards before settling back on the Flight Deck. Richter hauled the power back to zero, rotated the nozzles to the fully aft
position, and wound a little power on again to move the aircraft away towards the parking area. This would avoid the heat from the deck melting or exploding the tyres on the Harrier.

The yellow-jacketed ground marshaller directed Richter forward and to starboard into a parking space, and then gave a balled fist gesture to indicate brakes on. Richter waited, engine running,
until the ground crew had finished chaining his aircraft to the deck, then methodically switched off all the Harrier’s electrical systems and shut down the engine.

A detachable red ladder had already been secured to the side of the Harrier when Richter slid the canopy open, replaced the ejection seat and MDC – Miniature Detonating Cord – pins,
and climbed out.

Tuesday
HMS
Invincible
, Ionian Sea

In his cabin Richter peeled off his flying overalls and underwear, wrapped a towel around his waist and headed straight for the Two Deck showers. He ran the water hot and
long, washing the blood off his hands and forearms. Fortunately most of it had dried before he’d pulled on his flying overalls at the airfield, and what stains there were on the material
he’d easily brushed off.

Back in his cabin he dressed in 5J rig – black trousers, white shirt and black pullover – then looked at the plastic bag containing the clothes he’d worn at Matera. Richter was
acutely aware that he had attempted to kill Lomas – and he hoped he had succeeded – in full view of a number of hostile witnesses. He had also, without question, left hairs, fibres and
who knew what other trace evidence behind at the villa, in the Alfa Romeo and the Agusta helicopter that he had ‘borrowed’, and in the squadron briefing-room at Brindisi, not to mention
the blood-stained Kevlar jacket he’d discarded. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about either the witnesses or this evidence.

But he could at least get rid of the clothes and the knife. What he needed was some kind of a weight that would take that specific evidence straight to the bottom of the Ionian Sea. There was
nothing in his cabin that would help, so he locked the door and walked down to Five Deck, opened the bulkhead door and entered the hangar.

As always, it was a scene of coordinated chaos as maintainers worked on the Sea Kings, Merlins and Harriers. The helicopters were both parked and serviced at the aft end of the cavernous
structure, where there was a little more width available, and the Harriers at the opposite end. With a full complement of aircraft on this ship, the hangar was always noisy and crowded, so Richter
took care not to trip over or walk into anything as he made his way forward.

The squadron Chief Petty Officer who’d headed the team that had flown to Brindisi spotted Richter and immediately walked over to him.

‘You made it back, sir,’ he said.

‘Thanks to your efforts, Chief, I did,’ Richter replied, shaking the CPO’s slightly grubby hand. ‘If you hadn’t pre-flighted her it would have been rather a close
call. As it was, I had to get quite persuasive to leave that airfield.’

‘That would be thirty-millimetre persuasion, as supplied by a pair of Aden cannon?’ the Chief asked.

‘Got it in one,’ Richter said. ‘Thank you again. Now, a small favour. I need something reasonably heavy that can also be discarded.’

‘Discarded as in dropped over the side?’

‘Pretty much, yes.’

Four minutes later Richter was walking back through the hangar, heading aft, clutching a collection of nuts and bolts with stripped threads, and two small pieces of steel plate.

Back in his cabin he laid out his bloody T-shirt on the floor, put the flick-knife and the metal bits and pieces in the middle of it, and rolled it up. Then he wrapped the jeans around the
T-shirt and put the whole bundle into the carrier bag. He put his discarded trainers right on top and then tied the neck of the bag securely. Richter made his way down the stairs to the Quarter
Deck, walked over to the starboard side guard rail, and dropped the bag straight down. As it hit the water, it floated for a couple of seconds as the air was expelled from it, then sank swiftly
beneath the waves.