Foxbat (12 page)

In fact Richter was, at that moment, a long way from Moscow. After leaving police
headquarters, they’d gone straight out to the airfield at Bolshoye Savino, and fifteen minutes later they were sitting in the 764 IAP commander’s office.

Lavrenti Oustenka was a full colonel, and looked it. He was one of those people who, no matter
how they were dressed, where they were or what they were doing, just looked like a senior military officer. His hair was cropped to within a millimetre of his scalp, his chin bore not the
slightest sign of stubble, and even sitting in the chair behind his wide desk he appeared to be fully at attention. He also didn’t appear to show any particular aversion to having a
Western intelligence officer involved in the operation to track down the men who’d recently killed one of his young pilots.

What he did appear to harbour doubts over was how successful that operation might be.
‘Perm is a big city, you know, with well over a million inhabitants. It won’t be easy to find these men, even assuming that they’re still here and didn’t leave
straight after the killing.’

‘My guess, Colonel,’ Bykov said, ‘is that they’re still here. I
won’t insult you by pointing out that this information is classified, but I can tell you that we’re unable to account for sixteen MiG-25 interceptors, from a variety of bases
throughout Russia. We suspect that agents of a foreign power have been approaching MiG-25 pilots and inducing them to defect. And some of those pilots have been taking their aircraft with
them.’

Oustenka shook his head. ‘With respect, General, I find that difficult to believe. We
keep meticulous records of all our aircraft. If a pilot did decide to defect, like Belenko did back in the nineteen seventies, it would be immediately obvious. A plane takes off and
doesn’t return – the station would soon know and Moscow would be informed. And there’s also the question of range. The MiG-25 has a ferry range of about two thousand five
hundred kilometres with full tanks, and it doesn’t possess an in-flight refuelling capability. How could an aircraft stolen from here, say, possibly get as far as China or North Korea?
It would run out of fuel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres before reaching its destination.’

Bykov nodded. This was ground that he and Richter had covered at length on their flight from
Moscow.

‘We’re looking at something a little more subtle than some pilot climbing into a
jet, heading east and hoping for the best. We believe that some senior officers have been paid off, and have been actively assisting
with these thefts. That solves both
the paperwork problem and the actual defection. When the MiG flies away from an airfield, everyone involved knows it won’t be returning. The squadron commander will just instruct that
the aircraft is being transferred to another squadron, or going off for deep maintenance, or is surplus to requirements and is being scrapped.

‘That fabrication serves to keep the documentation correct, and also means that
there’s no problem over the aircraft’s range. The air traffic control or operations people will just schedule the aircraft for refuelling at appropriate airfields along whatever
route they’ve already chosen to get it out of Russia. This isn’t some casual thieving, Colonel. Whoever’s doing this is highly organized and very efficient. We’ve only
just found out that our Air Force is missing sixteen aircraft, perhaps even more, yet until now nobody in Moscow had any suspicion that something was wrong.’

Oustenka now looked a little less doubtful. ‘I can assure you, General, that all
my
aircraft are accounted for.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Bykov replied dryly. ‘Now, the scenario we envisage
is that these foreign agents first find a pilot who’s willing to participate. Then it’s up to the pilot to identify those senior officers whose cooperation would be essential, and
who in turn would be approached with the offer of a bribe. Only when everyone who needs to be involved has been suborned would the theft go ahead, as the appropriate documentation is
prepared.’

‘And you think Lenkov was approached?’

‘Yes – and the fact that he’s dead means he wasn’t prepared to go along
with them.’

‘But why would he even have talked to them?’ Oustenka asked.

‘We don’t know,’ Richter said, ‘but we presume their pitch would have
been credible, and obviously unrelated to their real objective. For example, perhaps they told him they were making a documentary film about the Russian Air Force and would need some shots of
MiG-25s engaged in practice air combat. Or they were trying to recruit current front-line pilots for instructor duties with a Third-World air force. Something like that.’

Oustenka nodded, and Bykov leant forward. ‘Yes, Colonel?’ he said.

‘When I heard that Lenkov had been killed, I interviewed each squadron member
individually and asked them if they had any idea who might have wished to harm him. One officer, Pavel Bardin, told me he’d been with Lenkov in a bar in the city one evening when three
men approached them. They claimed to be looking for qualified MiG-25 pilots to join the air force of one of the Gulf States. Bardin took their contact number, though he wasn’t really
interested in taking such a step, but he said that Lenkov seemed more enthusiastic.’

Bykov looked triumphant. ‘Where is this Bardin? Can we see him?’

Oustenka stood up and walked to the door of his office. He barked an order, then returned to his
seat. ‘He’ll be here in a couple of minutes.’

‘Okay, Richard,’ said Walter Hicks, ‘you’ve almost convinced me about
the “what”. Based on your investigations, I think it’s at least possible that the DPRK has acquired a squadron of Foxbats. But what I still don’t see is the reason.
Why would the North Koreans go to all this trouble to get their hands on some forty-year-old obsolete interceptors?’

‘I have no idea,’ Muldoon shrugged. ‘If they’d got their grubby little
hands on a squadron of any new-generation air-superiority fighters, I’d be a lot more worried, because that could indicate they’re planning an invasion against the South.
You’re quite right, the Foxbat
is
obsolete. It’s not as agile as anything we’re flying today, although it’s
still the world’s fastest interceptor. But sheer speed doesn’t count for a lot. Success in air combat is determined by agility, avionics, radar performance, missile technology and
all the rest, and the Foxbat scores pretty damn poorly on most counts. But there must be a reason. They must want the aircraft for
something
and we have to figure out what.’

‘How?’ Hicks asked.

‘Right now, I don’t exactly know,’ Muldoon admitted. ‘We’ve got
no sources we can tap inside the DPRK itself, and I doubt if Bae Chang-Su would be willing to risk infiltrating another of his agents north of the Demilitarized Zone. The NSA already monitors
what signal and voice
traffic there is in North Korea, and obviously they’ve not picked up anything of interest, or they’d have told us. So I guess the only
avenue we have left is technical intelligence. I’ll mark T’ae’tan and that entire area of North Korea a Priority One target for N-PIC, and suggest they modify the orbits of
the Keyhole birds so that the NKs won’t anticipate when they’re overhead. That way we might actually get to see whatever the hell they’re doing with those
aircraft.’

Pavel Bardin was about six feet tall, with dark hair and eyes and a stocky build. He looked
uncomfortable as he walked into Oustenka’s office, and even more uncomfortable when the colonel introduced his visitors.

‘Lieutenant Bardin,’ Bykov began, ‘let me assure you we have no interest in
your reasons for engaging in conversation with these three men we’ve heard about. But we believe they were directly responsible for Georgi Lenkov’s death, and we want to trace
them as soon as possible. Now, I have a question for you. Colonel Oustenka told us they gave you a telephone number to contact them if you changed your mind about their offer. Do you still
have that number?’

Bardin nodded, still unwilling to speak, and reached into the pocket of his uniform jacket. He
pulled out a piece of folded paper and passed it to Bykov.

‘It’s a mobile number,’ the GRU officer said, studying the first few digits.
‘That means we can trace it and find out who the phone is registered to.’

Richter broke in. ‘That’ll give you a name and an address, probably both false,
but it won’t actually help us to find these men. I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we just ask Lieutenant Bardin here to call them and set up a meeting for
tonight?’

The three of them stared at the young lieutenant, who was already shaking his head.

‘Excellent idea,’ Oustenka boomed, ‘and I’m sure Lieutenant Bardin will
be only too pleased to help avenge the death of his comrade.’

Reluctantly, Bardin turned the head shake into a nod and looked even more unhappy than
before.

‘Don’t worry,’ Richter assured him. ‘You won’t be meeting them
just by yourself. We’ll organize a full police presence and I’ll be there too.’

‘You?’ Bykov and Oustenka blurted simultaneously, their surprise obvious.

‘Damn right,’ Richter said, turning to Bykov and switching back to English.
‘Ever since I arrived in Moscow I’ve done nothing but tag along behind you, Viktor, like a spare prick at a wedding.’

‘A what?’ Bykov demanded.

‘I’ll explain it later. No offence, but I’m bored rigid. It’s time I did
something to justify my presence over here.’

He looked across at Bardin, whose unhappiness seemed to have deepened still further at
Richter’s lapse into a language he didn’t understand.

‘Don’t worry, Pavel,’ Richter said, once again speaking Russian. ‘This
kind of thing – it’s what I do best.’

Pak Je-San sat stiffly upright on a hard wooden chair at the end of the long table, a
notebook lying open in front of him. He was nervous and trying not to show it: the hierarchy of the North Korean government thrived on fear, using it to keep the population in line, and Pak
sincerely believed they could actually smell any trace of it. For sure they – or more specifically Kim Yong-Su, sitting in an armchair at the head of the table – would pounce on
any sign of weakness from him.

‘And when do you expect the last of the interceptors to arrive?’

‘Quite soon, I hope,’ Pak replied. ‘Ryu Chang-Ho reported that his first
approach was turned down, but he has another possibility. If his offer is accepted this time, and the other officers can be bribed, the aircraft could be ready to leave the base within
forty-eight hours. So the last two fighters could arrive in Pyongyang within four or five days.’

There was a grunt from one of the other four men. ‘When you say his offer was
“turned down”, I assume Ryu ensured his target was not left in a position to reveal what had been discussed?’

Four pairs of eyes bored into Pak as he replied. ‘Yes, Ryu eliminated the target, as was
done with every other unsuccessful approach.’

‘Good,’ Kim murmured, looking down at his notes.

Pak had been reporting to him at first on a monthly, then on a weekly, basis ever since this
operation had started. And during every meeting he had hated looking into the man’s dead, black eyes, which seemed capable of stripping the very flesh from his bones. And at every such
meeting he had dreaded having to admit even the most trifling error or delay.

Now Kim Yong-Su was eyeing him directly again, his face expressionless. ‘Exactly how
many interceptors do you have now, Pak?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘If Ryu fails to obtain another two aircraft, will your twenty-four be enough to complete
the operation?’

Pak appeared to give the question serious consideration before answering, but there was no way
he was going to say anything other than ‘Yes’. Given a choice, he would have preferred a hundred MiG-25s, simply because there’s safety – and reliability – in
numbers.

At present, the aircraft maintainers at T’ae’tan were achieving about seventy-five
per cent serviceability, which meant three out of every four Foxbats being able to get airborne at any one time. That proportion, he’d been assured by a couple of the Russian mercenary
pilots, was pretty good for an aircraft as old as the MiG-25, especially as they didn’t possess a full inventory of spare parts. But it also meant that one out of every four of the
aircraft could
not
fly, so his squadron of nominally twenty-four planes was actually a force of only eighteen at best. But he
wasn’t going to tell Kim that. As it was, he just gazed straight down the table, not quite meeting Kim’s eyes, and said, ‘Yes.’

‘And the missiles, what of them?’

‘We have one hundred and fifteen at present, and another forty-eight currently en route
from Bulgaria to Iran. When they arrive here in a few days’ time, that will give us an arsenal of one hundred and sixty-three. A full warload for each MiG-25 is technically four
missiles, but some of the pilots have suggested that two might be preferable, simply to allow the aircraft higher speed, better agility at altitude and greater endurance. My inclination is to
arm each aircraft fully, but our decision will ultimately depend upon the tactical situation when we need to launch.’

Kim nodded slowly, but he wasn’t yet satisfied. ‘Pak, let us consider the
worst-case scenario,’ he said. ‘Assume that Ryu Chang-Ho fails in his mission, or that the arrival of the last two interceptors is so delayed that the aircraft will not reach us
in time to be deployed. Assume also that our enemies by some means discover that the ship travelling between Varna and Bandar Abbas is carrying the missiles and that they then intercept the
vessel and seize the cargo.’

Pak didn’t respond, just stared up the long table, waiting.

‘Now, with that scenario, with two of your interceptors unavailable, and with almost
thirty per cent of your arsenal of missiles seized, could your squadron of mercenaries still achieve the task we will be setting them?’

There was a long silence in the room, and Pak Je-San wasn’t the only man present who had
noted Kim Yong-Su’s repeated use of the word ‘your’. If this venture should end in failure, Kim was making it absolutely clear that the entire responsibility would fall on
Pak’s shoulders.

Again Pak considered his options, such as they were. If, on the one hand, he said his force
would be able to cope, Kim might simply advance the schedule. But alternatively, if he said they wouldn’t, then his own life might be forfeit. He swallowed twice, and opted for the
middle ground.

‘I believe the squadron would be able to achieve its tasking, but I would be very
reluctant to commit our forces until we’ve made every effort to obtain those additional aircraft and missiles. Once the operation begins, there will almost certainly be no chance of
organizing any resupply, and it would be unfortunate if the missiles were all ready to be flown in to T’ae’tan only to be stopped in transit by an air embargo.’

Pak thought for a moment he’d gone too far. Kim’s eyes stared at him unblinkingly,
and for a very long thirty seconds he did not respond. ‘You should not, Pak Je-San, concern yourself with the government’s overall strategy or operational timing. I am merely
seeking an assessment of the ability of the forces you already control to carry out our bidding. That answer
you
have now supplied.
We
will decide when the operation should begin.’

‘I understand that,’ Pak said hastily. It looked as if he’d survived, for the
moment, but he knew there was something else he had to say. Kim Yong-Su was a Party animal in the Communist sense and had, as far as Pak knew, absolutely no military experience or knowledge.
If the operation was to succeed, there were some essential measures that must be taken in advance.

‘If I may, there is also the matter of the tactical deployment of my’ – he
thought he might as well acknowledge that the squadron, and by
implication its success or failure, belonged to him – ‘assets prior to the start of the
operation.’

‘Explain.’

‘At present, for logistical reasons all the MiG-25s are based at T’ae’tan.
That is where we constructed the accommodation for the pilots and the maintenance staff, and where we have stored the spares and weapons. Before the operation begins, I intend to split the
force into four, leaving one quarter of the aircraft and weapons at T’ae’tan, and sending the remainder to Nuchonri, Kuupri and Wonsan.

‘That will give our enemies four different targets to engage, and also gives us greater
geographical flexibility in our response to threats. By dividing our MiG-25 force between these airfields, we will be better able to respond to attacks from any direction.’

Kim looked at him, then nodded. ‘That is sensible, Pak Je-San. I will ensure that you are
told the moment we decide to commence our operation.’

Pak inclined his head in thanks.

The Party leader continued staring at him in silence for a few seconds more, then looked at
the other men sitting at the table. ‘Any other matters?’ he asked softly, and was rewarded only by shaking heads.

Ten minutes later, Pak Je-San walked out of the building and, as always, sucked in a deep breath
the moment he stepped outside – like a drowning man coming up for air.

The Intelligence Director knocked on Simpson’s door, waited for his response and then
entered. Carrying a red file in his hand, he looked worried, but that was nothing new. The man normally looked worried, and not for the first time Simpson wondered why he hadn’t taken
up a less stressful career, like teaching. Though, he had to admit, getting thrown into a classroom full of the aggressive little bastards that were today’s schoolchildren was hardly
conducive to a quiet life.

‘What is it?’ Simpson almost snapped, as the ID sat down in front of his
desk.

‘An interesting though unconfirmed report from Vauxhall Cross. It’s classified
Secret and categorized as Grade Three intelligence that’s come from an asset in Sofia, and it relates to a possible theft of munitions that might impinge upon Richter’s current
tasking.’

Simpson counted to three, very slowly. He had considerable respect for the ID’s breadth of
knowledge, and his dedication to the service, and the fact that his suits and shirts were always clean and neatly pressed, his shoes polished, and that his tie always displayed a perfect
Windsor knot, but the man’s slow and pedantic delivery of information never ceased to irritate him.

‘I’m busy,’ he snapped, ‘so skip the caveats and just tell me what the
fuck the man said.’

As usual, the ID looked faintly shocked at Simpson’s language. ‘Well, as I said,
it’s not been confirmed yet, but it looks as if there was a major theft of missiles from Dobric in Bulgaria yesterday.’

‘Dobric? Never heard of it.’

‘It’s a disused airfield just over thirty miles north of the Black Sea port of
Varna. Though it’s been closed since the year 2000, the Bulgarians still have a lot of equipment stored there. Everything from torch batteries to mothballed aircraft, from what I can
gather. According to our source, yesterday some of the locals heard what sounded like small-arms fire coming from inside the base, and late yesterday afternoon a group of Bulgarian Air Force
personnel turned up to investigate, heavily armed. According to an eyewitness, they had to force the main gate to get inside, and he claimed to have seen body-bags later being taken out of
the base.’

‘And this has what, exactly, to do with Richter?’ Simpson was thinking the ID had
strayed somewhat from the point.

‘Dobric holds a large stock of Russian-manufactured AA-6 missiles, NATO reporting name
Acrid. They’re the ideal weapon for the MiG-25, and I understand that quite a few nations, including Russia, seem to have mislaid the odd Foxbat recently. The source’s witness
reported seeing three trucks leaving Dobric yesterday afternoon, loaded with long wooden crates, each about the right size to hold an Acrid. So perhaps someone, somewhere, is intending to
marry the aircraft to the missile.’

Simpson nodded and held out his hand for the file. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll make
sure Richter’s informed as soon as possible.’

The Bar Moskva stood on the Kama Boulevard, on the south side of the river, and the meeting
was set for seven. They’d spent a good deal of time after lunch discussing what options they had, but in the end it came down to Pavel Bardin dialling a mobile phone number and telling
the man who answered that he might, after all, be interested in moving to the Gulf. The call took place at just after five.

Once the rendezvous was set up, Richter and Bykov were able to make their own arrangements. In
Richter’s case, that didn’t take long. Bykov found him a shoulder holster from somewhere, and Oustenka then offered him a choice of either a Makarov PMM or a Yarygin PYa to carry
in it. Richter would have preferred something manufactured well to the west of Moscow, but nothing like that was on offer.

The Makarov is loosely based on the Walther PP and was the standard Soviet Army sidearm until
the end of the twentieth century. It fires a non-standard 9x18mm cartridge, and has a relatively small magazine capacity of twelve rounds. But the Yarygin replaced it in 2003, and that was
much more to Richter’s taste. It’s chambered for the familiar 9mm Luger/Parabellum, and the magazine holds seventeen rounds – in Richter’s opinion, the more bullets
the better,
always
.

The Bolshoye Savino Air Base, like almost all military establishments in every country,
possessed a pistol range, and Richter spent about forty minutes getting to know his borrowed weapon and firing a box of ammunition. At the end of it, he reckoned he stood a fighting chance of
hitting most things he was likely to want to aim at, as long as the target didn’t move too quickly and also stayed within about twenty-five yards of him.

Bykov went back into Perm and talked Superintendent Wanov into providing a hidden cordon around
the bar. The men were not to move into position until Bykov, who would be sitting in a car parked a short distance down the road, instructed them to. Till then the police officers
would wait in closed vans strategically located in adjacent streets, and all of them would be armed.

At six-twenty Paul Richter pushed open the door of the Bar Moskva and walked inside. He
ordered an orange juice and a glass of water, and took the drinks over to a high stool situated at one end of the bar. From that position, he could easily see the door, the tables close to
it, and anyone who happened to come in.

He’d been there for less than two minutes when his mobile rang. He looked at the number,
recognizing it as Simpson’s private line, but checked his watch to ensure that he had time in hand, and only then answered the call.

‘Richter,’ he announced briefly

‘Are you in a secure location?’ his superior demanded, without preamble.

‘More or less. I’m sitting by myself in a Russian bar. Why?’

‘Taken to drink at last, have you?’

‘Not yet, but I’m working on it. I’m also in a hurry here, so what do you
want?’

‘A possibly related matter.’ Simpson then outlined what FOE had learned about the
robbery in Dobric. ‘We don’t know for sure that these Acrids were taken by whatever group has been acquiring the Foxbats, but being the missile of choice for the MiG-25,
that’s at least likely. Where are you? What progress are you making?’

‘Not a lot so far, but I might have something concrete later this evening. I’m
currently about seven hundred miles east of Moscow, in Perm, waiting for a couple of bad guys to meet with a MiG pilot from the local air base. If anything comes of it, I’ll brief the
duty officer tonight. Anything else you need to know?’

‘No, that’s it. Just keep in touch.’

Five minutes after Richter had ended the call, Pavel Bardin walked through the door. He ordered
a vodka, and knocked it back in one as soon as the bartender had placed it in front of him. Then he ordered another, carried it across to a table beside the door, pulled out a newspaper and
began reading. Or, at least, appearing to read, for every time the door opened, he looked up to scan the faces of the new arrivals.

The Russian was, Richter realized, both amateurish and terrified,
which
wasn’t the best combination when about to encounter people who had killed at least once during the past week. But it was too late to do anything about that now, and what could he do
anyway, because Bardin was the only one who might recognize the three men who had almost certainly killed Georgi Lenkov.

Seven came and went, and the door opened regularly to admit new arrivals, or to allow customers
to leave. On each occasion, Bardin glanced at Richter across the bar and shook his head. The man was being about as subtle as a flying brick, and Richter knew the expected agents would twig
what was up the instant they stepped through the door. The idiot would have to be warned.

He stood up to do so, and had taken no more than a couple of steps towards Bardin’s
table when the street door suddenly opened again, and two men entered. The pilot looked up at them, then turned towards Richter and nodded. He might just as well have waved a banner over his
head carrying the words ‘This is a trap.’

The men stopped dead, then turned round, yanked open the door and hurried outside. Richter
muttered a curse and followed them.

He’d expected them to turn either left or right, making for wherever they’d left
their car. But instead they sprinted straight across the road, towards the river. Off to his left, Richter saw the brief flash of headlamps, the signal agreed with Bykov to indicate that
he’d radioed for the police cordon to be set up. But that now seemed rather academic, because Richter had realized there was a huge hole in their plan. If the bad guys had a boat
waiting for them on the river, the police cordon became irrelevant. They’d covered all the surrounding streets, but not the water.

So Richter ran. But he’d barely left the bar when one of the running men looked back,
then stopped and turned, tugging open his jacket. The moment Richter recognized the weapon, he dropped flat on the tarmac surface of the road. Because, in the uncertain light of the street
lamps, he’d seen the unmistakable outline of a Skorpion machine-pistol and, with only the Yarygin, he was hopelessly outgunned.

The man in front of him squeezed the trigger, sending a stream of nine-millimetre bullets
screaming over Richter’s head to smash into the wall and windows of the bar behind him. As glass shattered, he heard
shouts of alarm intermingled with cries of pain.
Sighting down the barrel of the Yarygin, he loosed off two snap shots, barely aiming, just wanting to discourage the barrage of fire.

Both his shots missed, but the two men began running again, then abruptly disappeared from view
as they reached the far edge of Kama Boulevard, and ran on down a flight of stone steps leading towards the river.

Richter jumped to his feet and chased after them, but slowed to a walk as he approached the
top of the steps. That was just as well, because the moment he raised his head over the low parapet bordering the pavement, the guy with the Skorpion opened up again, a hail of
copper-jacketed slugs knocking lethal chips of stone out of the wall as Richter dropped back down. A couple of the flying shards hit him in the face, opening up a long but shallow cut across
his forehead.

He raised his right hand over the top of the parapet and fired two shots in the general
direction of his quarry, then slid sideways until he was lying right beside the gap in the wall at the top of the steps. Behind him he could hear the sound of running footsteps. Glancing to
his left, he saw Bykov approaching, pistol in hand, and gestured for him to keep back.

Cautiously he peered around the solid stone, ready to draw back at once. But there seemed no
immediate danger as the two men had by now moved to the water’s edge, where a third figure was waiting in a boat with a hefty outboard motor attached to the stern. Even as Richter
watched, the boat swung away from the jetty and began accelerating fast towards the opposite bank of the river.

‘Shit,’ Richter muttered, realizing there almost certainly wasn’t enough time
to get the Perm police to arrange a reception committee on the other side. He stood up and hurtled down the steps, the Yarygin ready in his hand.

At the water’s edge he stopped, feet apart, and raised the pistol to take careful aim,
supporting his right hand with his left to steady the weapon. The boat was probably thirty yards away as he fired his first shot. It was bobbing and bouncing on the water as it gathered
speed, its three occupants crouching low.

The moment his shot rang out, one of the figures turned, and seconds
later
the Skorpion began to return fire. But a bouncing boat is too unstable a platform from which to shoot accurately, and although Richter flinched when a couple of rounds struck the jetty a few
feet away, he knew it would be a miracle if any of the bullets hit him.

His advantage was to be standing on solid ground, so he concentrated on making each shot count.
His second shot also missed, but the third scored a hit. One of the men gave a yell of pain and slumped forward, while the boat suddenly veered to the left. But it was Richter’s fourth
bullet that did the real damage.

It hit the outboard motor’s fuel tank, sending a spray of petrol right across the open
cockpit. The man armed with the Skorpion was still firing, and whether it was due to muzzle flash from the machine-pistol or a spark from one of Richter’s bullets ricocheting off
something metallic he’d never know, but with a sudden roar the vessel erupted in a ball of flame.

Richter lowered his pistol, the weapon instantly irrelevant, and just watched the
conflagration. The petrol-soaked clothing of the fugitives caught fire immediately. Illuminated by the burning fuel, their three indistinct figures gyrated in violent, panicky movements as
they frantically tried to beat out the spreading flames with their bare hands.

It was never going to work, and almost simultaneously they reached the same conclusion and leapt
overboard. The water doused the flames straight away, but the boat was still fully ablaze and only a madman would attempt to climb back on board. Richter guessed that the three men would try
to swim for the opposite bank of the river.

‘I had hoped to question them.’ Bykov was panting slightly as he stopped beside
Richter and looked out at the ball of flames where the powerboat was now drifting slowly on the current.

‘We might still be able to, if any of them manage to reach the shore.’

‘I’ve asked Wanov to send some of his men over to the other side, and to organize a
couple of boats to recover the wreck, but they’ll take a while to arrive and it’ll be dark soon. This is
his
town, and he
really should have arranged something to cover the river.’

‘We should have thought about it ourselves, Viktor. With hindsight it’s an obvious
escape route. You can’t blame Wanov – he did exactly what we asked him to.’

Bykov shrugged. ‘You’re right, but it’s too late now. Maybe we’ll find
some clue on whatever’s left of that boat. It has to be registered to somebody.’