Operation Overflight (12 page)

It was odd. Under other circumstances it would have seemed amusing. A country as large as the Soviet Union, so vast, with huge sections almost totally uninhabited, and I had to pick a populated area in which to go down.

Remembering a map in my pocket, which showed alternate routes back to Pakistan and Turkey, I took off my gloves, took it out, carefully ripped it into little pieces and scattered them. One piece of incriminating evidence was gone.

I also remembered the silver dollar and took it out. Looking at
it at this point, I realized the coin cover wasn't such a good idea after all. What better souvenir of the capture of a capitalist American pilot than a bright new U.S. dollar? It was one of the first things they would take. Unscrewing the loop at the end, I slipped out the poison pin and dropped it into my pocket, where there was a chance it would to unnoticed, then tossed away the coin.

I recall thinking: That's probably the first dollar I've ever deliberately thrown away.

I also recall wondering what some Russian farmer would think when he came upon this years from now—an American dollar in the middle of a Siberian field!

My mind seemed to be perfectly sharp and clear, though incapable of dwelling on a single thought for any length of time. It kept jumping from one thing to another.

Occasionally I would start to swing, but mostly I fell straight, without oscillation, without any real sense of falling.

I thought again of the pin, wondering whether I should use it. Recalling the crash of the C-118 and how the local populace had almost lynched one of the crew, for a moment I seriously considered it. Yet I was still hopeful of escape.

The forest was to my right. I tried to maneuver the shroud lines in order to float down into the trees, thinking that if I could reach them I might at least have a chance of getting away. But the winds were variable. I'd drift toward the woods, then back toward the lake. That worried me, since I knew that tangled in the chute, with all the equipment I was carrying, swimming would be impossible.

Only a few hundred feet remained. I spotted a small car moving along a dirt road. It seemed to be following my course. I watched as it stopped near the village and two men got out.

I also saw, almost directly under me, a plowed field, a tractor, and two men. One was on the tractor, the other standing alongside piling brush.

By now I was too far away to reach the trees. I had also missed the lake. But now a new worry emerged: power lines.

Suddenly the earth rushed up to meet me. I missed the lines by about twenty-five feet, coming down about an equal distance from the tractor, hitting hard, the weight of my seat pack causing me to fall, slamming my head against the ground.

While one of the men collapsed the chute, the other helped me to my feet. Soon joined by the pair from the automobile, they
assisted in removing the parachute harness and helmet. My head ached and my ears rang from the sudden descent.

The village was less than one hundred yards away. There must have been a school there, for suddenly there were twenty or thirty children running toward us, followed by almost as many adults.

Escape at this point looked impossible. I still had the gun, but the knife was attached to the parachute harness they had removed.

Everyone was questioning me at the same time. Because I couldn't speak Russian, I could neither understand them nor reply. They seemed solicitous, but also curious. When I didn't answer—I didn't even know the words for “Thank you”—I could see that they were puzzled.

One of the men held up two fingers, pointed at me, then at the sky. Looking up, I could see, some distance away and very high, a lone red and white parachute. There had been no second chute on my plane. Unable to see whether there was a man below the chute, I guessed this to be in some way connected with the explosion. Had they used a rocket, it was possible this was the way they recovered the missile's first stage. I shook my head no, indicating I was alone.

With my continued silence I could see the puzzlement changing to suspicion. A man on either side, I was helped to the car. One, spotting the pistol on the outside of my suit, reached over and took it. I didn't try to stop him. By now the crowd numbered more than fifty.

It was a small compact car. Loading my parachute and seat pack in the trunk, they motioned for me to slide into the front seat beside the driver. The man with the pistol slid in on my right. Three or four other men crowded into the back.

Driving through the village, I made motions indicating I was thirsty. It had been six or seven hours since I had had anything to drink, eat, or smoke. Also, sure they were taking me to the police, I wanted to delay confrontation as long as possible.

It occurred to me that had I been able to speak Russian, I could have pretended to be a Soviet pilot and commandeered their automobile. I probably wouldn't have gotten far—knowing a plane had crashed and its pilot had bailed out, there would be search parties, roadblocks—but certainly it would have been better than my present situation.

Stopping in front of a house, one of the men went in and returned with a glass of water. Gratefully I drank it, but my mouth remained dry. I suspected I was in a state of mild shock. I was terrifically
tense, extremely tired. Pilots are unusually conscious of their hearts. Mine was racing, at well over ninety beats per minute.

I could only estimate this. Because of the difficulty of slipping the band over the pressure suit, I didn't wear a watch when I flew. I could only guess at the time. I had been four hours into the flight when the explosion occurred. Nearly a half-hour had passed since then.

Too early for them to miss me at Bodö.

One of the men offered me a cigarette. I accepted, noticing the picture of a familiar dog on the package. “Laika,” he said. I nodded, indicating understanding. The brand had been named for the Russians' Sputnik II passenger. A filter cigarette, it tasted very much like its American counterparts.

There was a package of Kents in my flight-suit pocket. I left them there.

The man who had seized my pistol now had it out of the holster and was examining it. I saw what he saw at exactly the same instant: on the barrel the initials USA. I hoped he didn't understand their meaning. But with one finger he traced the letters in the dust on the dashboard, asking in Russian what could only have been: Are you an American?

Inside the trunk was my seat pack. In it, among other easily identifiable items, was the American-flag poster, with “I am an American …” printed on it in fourteen languages, including Russian. It seemed useless to deny it. I nodded and the conversation around me suddenly grew very animated. Fortunately it didn't seem hostile. Rather they appeared to be congratulating themselves on having made such a prize catch.

The road was muddy, either from spring thaw or recent rains, and we bounced and slid over the ruts. It was important that I think clearly, decide what my course from this point should be.

The problem: I was completely unprepared. I presumed that once it was known I was missing a cover story would be issued. Unfortunately, no one had ever bothered to inform us pilots what it would be.

I decided that when questioned I would say I had been piloting a weather plane, en route from Pakistan to Turkey, when my compass had gone out, and that apparently I had accidentally flown in the wrong direction. I doubted that they would believe me; I was over thirteen hundred miles inside Russia; but it was all I had to work with.

We were totally unprepared for the crash possibility. I could not
speak Russian, had no one to contact. In the four years I had worked for the agency, only once had I received instructions on what to do in the event of capture. And that, brought out by my own questioning, had been the single remark of the intelligence officer: “
You may as well tell them everything, because they're going to get it out of you anyway”

I was damned if I was going to do that. Although not sure how, or if, I could manage it, there were some things I was determined to keep from them at any cost.

After driving for about thirty minutes we came to another village, larger than the first, with paved streets. Later I learned that I had landed on a large state farm. The second village was its headquarters; the building to which I was taken was the Rural Soviet. Pulling in front of the building, one of the men went in and brought out a man in uniform, whom I assumed to be a policeman. Making me stand alongside the automobile, he made a cursory search, finding and keeping my cigarettes and lighter, but missing the poison pin.

Taking me to one of the offices in the building, they indicated I was to undress. This time the search was more thorough, even the seams of my clothing examined.

On completion, they kept the pressure suit but gave me back the outer flight suit. While putting it back on, I casually ran my hand down the outside of the pocket. And felt it. Again they had overlooked the pin.

Several of the men in the office wore military uniforms. As one took down the statements of the men who had apprehended me, another tried to question me in German. I shook my head. Apparently no one spoke English.

A doctor arrived, to my surprise a woman, about thirty. She checked my heartbeat and pulse; noticing some scratches on my right leg, she painted them with antiseptic. When I indicated I had a headache, she gave me two small pills that looked and tasted like aspirin.

Perhaps I imagined it. Perhaps I was so desperate for some hopeful sign that I created it in my mind. But I was sure the look she gave me was sympathetic, as if she understood my predicament and wished she could help me.

Individually and in small groups people began arriving bearing pieces of equipment or wreckage from the plane. I could see English lettering—manufacturers' names, maintenance instructions, serial numbers—on some of them.

I cringed inside. One man was carrying a reel of seventy-millimeter film.

What little credibility my cover story possessed disappeared at that moment.

As the people came in, some took out small cards and proudly showed them to the officers. There was much examining and comparing. It was only a guess, but I thought they must be Communistparty membership cards, the lowest numbers perhaps indicating their owners having been party members longer than the others.

During all of this I seemed to be largely forgotten.

But I knew that was wishful thinking. There was also much telephoning. I didn't have to speak the language to surmise the subject.

After we had been there about two hours, I was escorted out of the building and placed in a military vehicle similar to, but a little larger than, the U.S. jeep. In the front seat were a military driver and civilian. I was in the middle of the back seat, between an officer and an enlisted man. Across the lap of the latter was an automatic weapon with a huge clip. It could have been a carbine but looked more like a submachine gun. He kept his finger in the trigger guard. A second car followed. Once on the road, a third car joined the procession.

Had my flight proceeded uninterrupted, I would have been about two hours from Norway.

Our destination was Sverdlovsk. From the flags, banners, and crowds on the street, it was obvious something was being celebrated. Not until then did I recall the date and remember that May 1 was a Communist holiday.

The building in front of which we stopped—three story, with a severe stone façade—was unmistakably a government building, and would have been recognizable as such in either the United States or Russia. I was taken to a busy office on the second floor. There was no mistaking it, either. Although there were no bars on the windows, and some of the men wore military uniforms, and the others wore civilian clothes, they were far more authoritative and sure of themselves than any of the people previously encountered. They were police of some kind, presumably KGB. At this time I knew nothing about the KGB, other than its initials and that it was some form of Russian secret police. Later I would learn a
great deal more than I wished to know. Its full name is Komitat Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, or Committee for State Security; it is the current descendant of the Cheka, NKVD, and MVD.

These men were professionals. There was another search. And this time they didn't overlook the pin.

The man who found it, however, one of the civilians to whom the others seemed to defer, didn't seem greatly interested. Examining it cursorily, he slipped it into his briefcase.

I was determined to keep that briefcase within sight.

My ears were still ringing. I stuck my finger in one and shook my head, trying to stop the buzzing.

One of the men reached over and slapped my hand down.

It seemed uncalled for and made me mad, although I tried not to react.

A few minutes later I tried to clear my ears again, and again he knocked down my hand. Then I realized they were probably worried that I had a poison capsule in my ear and was trying to get at it.

From their careful examination of both my person and my clothing it was obvious they expected to find some sort of poison on me.

“Are you an American?” one man asked.

Hearing English for the first time startled me. I admitted I was.

Apparently he was the only one who spoke the language, as he acted as translator whenever any of the others asked questions.

His English was very poor.

As convincingly as possible, I explained how I had lost my bearings and had flown over the border by mistake.

It was obvious they didn't believe a word of it.

I hadn't really expected that they would. Evidence indicated otherwise. As they brought in items from the wreckage, I had spotted my maps, which I'd hoped had been destroyed in the crash of the plane. Most hadn't. There were even maps I hadn't known were aboard, duplicates someone back at Peshawar had thoughtfully stuck in my pack or on the plane. My route, from Pakistan to Norway, was clearly marked on the set I had been using for navigation. And, from what I could see of them, these seemed to be intact.