“I don’t like it. It’s a civilian craft.”
“Just make sure it happens over our territory so we can sanitize the crash site.”
Nariskii turned to her communications officer. “Get me Gudiashvili immediately!”
Moments later, the com officer handed her a two-way radio. She hated unsecured communications, but was pleased with herself she had the foresight to give all of the Moscow flights of the day a special designation and assign codes to various contingency plans. “I understand there is a problem with the plumbing. Do your best to take care of it until help arrives. I need forty-five minutes to an hour. Afterward, I’m taking everyone out to eat.”
“Understood. Problems with the plumbing and we’re going out to eat.”
Nariskii put down the radio and turned it off. “Belenko, get the car. We’re leaving in ten minutes. Have the insertion team ready to meet me and get me onto that plane.”
Nariskii hoisted a weathered leather suitcase onto the bed. She prayed she had tossed everything she needed into the case when she packed last night. She opened it and inventoried the contents: a jumble of wires, batteries, tools, an alarm clock and a slab of Semtex. The soldering iron would need a few minutes to heat up, so she grabbed it first and searched for an outlet where she could plug it in. The cord of the lamp on the nightstand disappeared behind the bed. Following its trail, she shoved the mattress away from the wall and then reached behind the bed until she found the plug. She tugged, yanking it from the wall. Then she plugged in the soldering iron and set it on the nightstand.
She arranged a battery, an electric blasting cap and wire on the bed and sketched out a diagram in her mind, opting for a basic time-bomb design, simple but reliable. She waved her hand over the soldering iron and felt the heat rising. Time to get to work.
Careful to make sure she had a solid contact between the back of the clock and the copper wire, she soldered one end of the wire to the clock and the other end to the battery. Now she needed a screw. She ran her hand through the suitcase, but found nothing. “Get me a short screw! But with no paint on it. Try taking one off the toilet paper holder.”
She removed a drill from the suitcase and tossed it to her com officer. “Plug this in somewhere-just don’t mess with my soldering iron.”
“I thought you wanted the screw.”
“What! You don’t have the screw yet? Plug this in and find me a screw now!”
She picked up her shiny metal travel alarm. As long as she kept it wound, it had served her well. Saving her government was a good cause for its donation, but she’d miss its little face waking her everywhere from Havana to Vladivostok. And she wished she had a more professional device, like her favorite MST-13 timer. MEBO’s Swiss timers were almost as accurate as an atomic clock and the precise day and hour could be programmed into them, but she hadn’t seen equipment like that in ages. She knew she should count her blessings that support services at the Bonn residency actually had a slab of Semtex and a blasting cap left over from an aborted mission years ago. No one could even remember what the operation had been, only that there was surplus Semtex. The lack of collective memory surprised her, since Bonn saw real action so rarely. Black operations for the Bonn residency usually meant sending a whore to seduce a foreign dignitary and doing the photographic work. West Germany was the Stasi’s turf, and they ran it well. And it was the Berlin KGB residency that ran the Stasi, so Bonn was a backwater and Nariskii was stuck using screws from toilet paper holders and her own travel alarm to save the Politburo.
“Where’s my screw? I need it now!” She selected a fine bit and drilled a starter hole in the clear plastic face of the clock.
The officer handed her two screws.
“I asked for one. Do you have a flashbulb or a bulb like from a penlight? I want to test this circuit.”
“I have, but I fear there is no time. It is better if you do it right and do not test.”
Nariskii glanced at her watch. Eleven forty-two. It was too late for testing. She had to do it right the first time. Her hand shook from stress as she threaded the screw through the plastic face above the Roman numeral twelve. The screw reached just far enough to make contact with the metal hands. “Hold this.” She picked up the blasting cap, spread its wires apart and soldered one wire to the battery. “It’s hot now. Whatever you do, don’t let the loose lead touch the clock or the battery. And turn that damn radio off before you blow us up!” Nariskii popped the plastic face from her alarm and snapped off the minute hand. “Sorry, old friend.” She took a knife and scraped off the luminescence from the side of the hour hand to ensure a good contact. “Help me here. It’s a three-hour flight to Moscow and we want to make sure it’s over our territory. I’m guessing two hours after takeoff would be safe. Problem is calculating how long it takes us to plant it and for them to get in the air.”
“Last time I flew out of Frankfurt, we taxied thirty, forty-five minutes before takeoff.”
“If I only had a barometer, we could start the timer when the cabin pressurized.”
“Hurry. Gudiashvili is good, but he cannot delay it forever.”
“How quickly did he say they’d get me onto the ramp?” Nariskii put her finger on the hour hand and pressed lightly.
“Ten to fifteen minutes.”
“He always underestimates. Half-hour to the plane, another fifteen minutes to plant it and for them to close the door. A lot of charters leave midday on a weekend, so I’ll add forty-five for taxi, then two hours into the flight. And I always add an extra ten minutes for the bombmaker. I’ll set it for three hours and forty-five minutes from now. It’s eleven forty-five, so it should go off at five-thirty, Moscow time.” She moved the hand to a quarter past the numeral eight. Her hands trembled as she took the lead from the blasting cap, vigilant not to allow it to touch the metal casing of the clock. She paused for a second to study the wiring before she dared complete what she hoped was a broken circuit-broken until it closed at five-thirty Moscow time. Nariskii soldered the lead to the screw.
The com officer held the bomb while Nariskii set aside the soldering iron and jerked the cord from the wall. She picked up the brick of Semtex and weighed it in her hand. Four hundred grams, she guessed-a little more than their Libyan friends had used on Pan Am 103. It would suffice. She shoved a pencil deep inside the orange, claylike substance, pushed the blasting cap into the hole and then bundled the parts together with electrical tape. Not her finest work, but probably her most important. She wrapped it in a hand towel to ensure it wouldn’t make contact with the metal container in which she was going to stow it.
“Let’s go. We’ve got a plane to catch.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
FRANKFURT AM MAIN AIRPORT
The passengers were boarding the Clipper Pocahontas for Pan American World Airways flight 1072 from Frankfurt to Moscow when Faith scurried down the jetway. Airline identification tags flapped against her chest. Her blue jacket was a size too small and the gold buttons were poised to pop off if she breathed too deeply. She was pleased to have found a new crew tag for her bag. The paper things wore out so fast, even from her infrequent usage, that she didn’t understand why they didn’t switch to something laminated. She wheeled her carry-on bag across the foot of a businessman. “Sorry. My first Moscow run and I’m late. I’m so nervous. I’ve never been behind the Iron Curtain before.”
“Please.” The man stepped aside and motioned for her to pass. He leaned over to his colleague and spoke in German. “Lufthansa’s first class was booked. At least it’s not Aeroflot.”
The thirty-something purser stood in the doorway, glaring at Faith as he watched her scattered approach. If he booted her off the plane, it would spoil the run, and she didn’t want to think about what the Stasi would do to her if she didn’t deliver. She greeted the purser and shoved the wadded papers into his hand. “I’m so sorry I missed the preflight. I’ll never do it again.” She unclipped the identification badge from her jacket and shoved it into her small black purse.