Manhunt (43 page)

And, indeed, the office’s furnishings were extremely sparse. There were two desks, positioned back to back against the longer wall of the room, and a pair of swivel chairs. The desks were
bare apart from a desktop computer sitting on one of them, two telephones, a few sheets of blank paper and a handful of pencils.

‘So why would anyone phone here,’ Zharkov mused, ‘if there’s nobody to answer?’

Abramov looked closely at the two telephones, then bent forward to peer, under the desks, at the wall sockets.

‘They might not have been calling anyone actually in this office,’ he said, reaching forward under one of them.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean this looks like a call diverter,’ Abramov said, pulling a small oblong box out from the underside of one of the desks. One lead ran from the box to the line socket on the
wall, and the other to one of the two telephones. A third, very thin lead ran to a power socket, but it was wired directly into the back of it, so that the main socket could still be used for a
computer or any other piece of mains-powered equipment.

‘Clever,’ he said. ‘This box is well hidden and, because the room’s only used by temporary staff, probably none of them would ever wonder what it was, even if
they’d noticed it.’

Abramov pressed the power button on the desktop computer.

‘Can you find out what number the diverter’s set to call?’ Zharkov asked, seeming noticeably more subdued now that at least a part of Raya Kosov’s story appeared to have
substance.

‘I already have done,’ Abramov replied. ‘As soon as this computer’s working, I’ll look it up in the directory.’

Zharkov nodded absently, and sat down in the other seat while they waited for the desktop’s operating system and application software to load. After a couple of minutes, Abramov opened the
directory program that would allow him to trace the number he’d copied down from the tiny digital display on the call diverter. He entered the digits in the correct field and then pressed the
Enter key to obtain the details.

Then he sat back in the chair and looked across at Zharkov.

‘Well?’ the colonel demanded. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s you,’ Abramov said, his voice hushed. ‘According to this directory, the number the diverter calls is your Moscow apartment.’

Aime, Rhône-Alps, France

Then they were over the trees, the branches rushing beneath them so close that it looked to Dekker as if he could almost lean out of the window and touch them.

Richter eased the throttle back, dropping the speed still further, and lifted the nose slightly as the aircraft lost more height. By now they were committed to a landing. They dropped quickly
towards the field, heading for touchdown.

The two main wheels of the tricycle undercarriage thumped on the ground. The Piper bounced once, then settled on the grass surface, as Richter closed the throttle completely. The nose-wheel
dropped and the aircraft bounced and shuddered, seeming almost to lurch from wheel to wheel as its speed fell away.

He controlled the aircraft’s direction with the rudder pedals, keeping it straight. There was another group of trees over to the left, which he needed to keep well clear of. As the
aircraft slowed down, Richter opened the throttle again to keep it moving, aiming towards the far end of the field, which lay closer to the village of Aime, and which would mean they had a slightly
shorter distance to walk once they stopped.

Beyond the far end of the field was another line of trees, about fifty yards clear of the main copse. Richter steered the aircraft over to the right-hand end of it, swung in behind it and braked
to a halt. Then he switched off the engine and applied the parking brake. While the aircraft would still be easily visible from the air, stopping it in this spot meant that most people on the
ground would only be able to see it if they looked from a certain point on the railway line running just to the north of the field, or actually entered the field itself. Of course, he’d
landed so close to the housing estate that no doubt somebody from there would come wandering over fairly soon.

‘Pretty bumpy landing,’ Dekker observed, ‘but on this surface it’s not surprising. And you definitely know how to fly.’

‘I’ve had the same number of landings as take-offs,’ Richter declared, ‘and in the Royal Navy that counts as exceptional flying ability.’ He glanced behind him.
‘Are you OK there, Raya?’

The Russian girl nodded shakily, unclipped her seat belt and grabbed her bag, ready to get out.

Dekker pulled his rifle case from under the seat, opened the door and climbed down. As soon as he was on the ground, he checked all around, looking for any sign of trouble. But, as far as he
could tell, nobody had noticed them land – or at least there was nobody, in or near the field, watching them. Raya and Richter followed him out of the aircraft and stood beside him.

Then, with a roar that was deafening and a blast of air almost knocking them off their feet, a Eurocopter Panther gunship roared past above their heads, and then seemed almost to topple onto its
side as the pilot pulled it around in a brutally hard turn, the sound of the rotors beating the air like distant thunder.

‘One of the choppers is right over the target aircraft now, and turning hard.’ The U2 pilot sounded calm and controlled.

‘Thanks for the update,’ Westwood replied, ‘but there’s nothing we can do to help them now.’

The Lubyanka, Moscow

‘You’re obviously mistaken, Abramov.’ Zharkov’s voice was low and menacing. ‘You must have looked up the wrong number.’

Abramov glanced at him, then at the two Lubyanka security guards who’d accompanied them. He absolutely knew he’d got the correct telephone number from the call diverter and, unless
somebody had tampered with the directory, that telephone line terminated in Colonel Zharkov’s Moscow apartment. There were only two possible conclusions he could draw. Either there genuinely
was
a mistake in the directory, which seemed fairly unlikely, or Zharkov himself must have had something to do with the security breach that Raya Kosov claimed to have discovered.

Suddenly, the security colonel’s obvious reluctance to initiate an investigation made perfect sense. And Abramov knew there was now only one thing he could do, despite the risks.

‘I’m sorry, Colonel,’ he said, ‘but I have no option but to place you under close arrest until we can resolve this matter.’

‘You what?’ Zharkov couldn’t believe his ears. The worm, classically, had turned – and it had turned on him. ‘You will do no such thing. This is clearly a mistake.
A stupid mistake made by somebody, and they will pay for it when I find out who they are.’

Abramov nodded. ‘No doubt you’re correct, Colonel, but I have no choice. Guards, you will place this officer under arrest, immediately.’

The two security guards had been following the conversation between them with bemused expressions, but a direct order was a direct order, even when delivered by the more junior of the two SVR
officers involved.

One of them drew his weapon, covering Zharkov, while the other man stepped forward and removed the colonel’s personal weapon from his belt holster.

Zharkov didn’t react, but just stood perfectly still, which Abramov found more alarming than any blustering denial. ‘You’ll pay for this,’ the colonel hissed. ‘If
it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure of that.’

‘Take him away,’ the major ordered.

Rhône-Alps, France

‘Colin!’ Richter shouted, grabbing Raya by the arm and turning to run towards the nearby trees. ‘Try not to kill anyone!’

Dekker had already reacted and dived for cover. The gun case was now open beside him, and he was assembling the weapon with calm urgency.

The helicopter gunship swung around to face the Piper Arrow, then settled into a low hover over the open ground about a hundred yards away, as the pilot began lowering the retractable
undercarriage ready for landing.

As he and Raya ducked into cover under the trees Richter could see, even through the glare of sunlight reflected off the twin windscreens, two figures in the cockpit, but he knew that the
Eurocopter, in its AS 565 Panther configuration, could carry up to ten fully armed and equipped troops. If the French had found time to deploy that many personnel, he knew they were probably not
going to get away this time.

‘Stay down,’ Richter instructed.

As he watched, the 20-millimetre Giat cannon swivelled towards the abandoned Piper Arrow. Then the muzzle shifted slightly to one side, and the gunner fired a short burst at the trees a couple
of dozen yards away from where Richter and Raya had taken cover. The French airman was probably hoping such a demonstration of firepower would be enough to persuade the fugitives to give themselves
up.

But that wasn’t quite what happened.

Richter heard the flat crack of Dekker’s sniper rifle, and suddenly smoke started pouring out of the Panther’s starboard engine. Then there was a much louder bang, and the
helicopter’s engine seemed almost to explode, panels flying off it, and a sheet of flame erupted from the turbine inlet.

The helicopter lurched upwards, then swung sideways, the pilot fighting for control. Then the Panther crashed downwards to land so heavily that the right-hand main wheel collapsed under the
impact. As the aircraft lurched violently sideways, the edge of the rotor disc clipped the ground, and that was enough to bring the aircraft’s total destruction. In an instant, the four main
rotor blades splintered and cracked, sending debris flying all around. The fuselage toppled further onto its side, the noise of the remaining engine rising to a scream, and then it finally crashed
to the ground.

Dekker appeared suddenly beside Richter, as he stared across the field at the smoking wreckage. Two men wearing flying overalls and helmets were climbing shakily out of the ruined fuselage, but
they now clearly posed no threat to anyone.

‘That was either a pretty special bullet or a fucking good shot,’ Richter remarked.

Dekker grinned at him. ‘One round sent straight into the engine intake. No problem, at this range.’

‘Right, so now you’ve pissed off the French as well as the Italians. It’s time we got ourselves out of here. Let’s go and find a car.’

Dekker kept the rifle slung over his shoulder, as the three of them ran towards the group of houses they’d spotted before they landed. There was no point in trying to be discreet, since
the sound of the helicopter’s Giat cannon would have alerted everybody in the neighbourhood. As soon as they reached the houses, Richter started looking out for a car. Preferably a fast
one.

As they headed down the street, ignoring the curious glances of various residents who’d emerged from their houses to investigate the noise, a single man drove up in a newish four-door
Renault saloon, which Richter thought might be a Laguna.

‘That’ll do,’ he murmured, and strode across to the driver’s door, just as it opened.

The driver looked at him enquiringly, then backed away quickly as Richter produced his Browning pistol.

‘I’ll drive, Colin,’ he suggested, ‘just in case we need your rifle again.’

Within seconds, all three of them were seated in the car, and Richter had swung it round to head back the same way the dispossessed driver had come.

‘He’ll tell the gendarmes, of course,’ Dekker said.

‘I know – which is why we need to get a move on. There aren’t that many roads around here, so mounting roadblocks won’t be difficult. I know we need to head south-west
out of Aime, but where do we go after that? And how far is it to Chambéry?’

Dekker fished a map book of France out of the passenger door pocket, found the correct page and studied it for a few moments.

‘Keep going as far as Moûtiers, then turn right up to Albertville. There’s an autoroute there that we can follow all the way to Chambéry. It’s not far away, in a
straight line, but probably about ninety or a hundred clicks on the road because of all the valleys.’

‘Bugger, that’s further than I thought,’ Richter said. ‘And I think we’d better stay off the autoroutes, because they’re the easiest to block.’

The road through Aime was good and wide and mostly straight, at least to begin with. When they reached the vicinity of Villette, it narrowed and became more twisty, but it was still good enough
for Richter to keep their speed at well over one hundred kilometres an hour.

At Moûtiers, the N90 swung around to the south of the town and then headed north up the valley, but still they were able to travel quickly.

‘Keep your eyes open for trouble,’ Richter warned, as the Renault sped past La Bâthie. ‘The guy we borrowed this car from will have certainly sounded the alarm by now, so
we’ll need to watch out for roadblocks.’

‘Yeah,’ Dekker agreed, still studying the map. ‘In fact I’m wondering if we should try a small detour, just in case.’

‘Where?’

‘At Albertville, maybe. That’s quite a big place, so there’s bound to be a gendarmerie somewhere about, and blocking the main road would be obvious. I suggest once you get to
the interchange in the middle of the town, you get off the N90, and instead take a left on a minor road which should be signposted to Grignon. After you cross the river, the road continues pretty
straight all the way to a place called Le Mathiez, where you’ll need to turn right.’

‘Sounds like a plan, so let’s do that.’

The interchange was easily spotted, because it was the only one on that stretch, so Richter swung the car down the slip road and headed south. After the relatively wide and open roads
they’d been travelling on, the two-lane route to Grignon seemed instantly slower. But once they’d crossed the river, it at least became straight and almost empty of vehicles. And, just
after they’d crossed the bridge, Dekker noticed how the traffic was backing up on the N90, which they could see over to their right, on the other side of the river. Though that might be due
to an accident, he suspected a checkpoint on the road. Once they drove into the outskirts of Grignon, they lost sight of the alternative route.

‘That’s Le Mathiez over there,’ Dekker said soon, pointing left, ‘so watch out now for a junction to the right. It should be the D69, heading towards the autoroute, but
you can go under it, carry on across the river again, and then pick up the D1090.’