Chapter 34
Outflanked
Adam pushed the rudder pedal down harder. The Beriev tipped further, the pilot’s corpse flopping grotesquely over the armrest. The hillside swung away. Grey sky almost touched grey water in the distance ahead, separated only by a thin bar of land across the lagoon’s mouth.
He eased pressure on the rudder, lining up the plane with the open sky. The Hind pulled ahead, sweeping out across the water. He realised what Sevnik was doing. The Russian didn’t want to risk losing the RTG — maybe he even had some sliver of conscience that drew the line at poisoning the Motherland with five kilograms of strontium-90 — and rather than destroy the seaplane, he was trying to stop it from taking off.
The easiest way to do that would also be the simplest: block its path.
Adam opened the throttles, changing the elevator pitch to bring the nose back up. The Beriev bounced over the waves as it gained speed. It needed at least a kilometre of open water and to reach 120 knots to take off. The Hind could easily match its pace and move to obstruct it. A collision would be catastrophic for both aircraft, and Sevnik was surely banking that the American team was not on a suicide mission.
Tony entered the cockpit and braced himself against the dead pilot’s seat. ‘Can we make it?’
‘Yes — if we can get past the Hind!’ The gunship was now directly ahead, slowing to a hover and turning to face the oncoming seaplane.
‘Is he playing chicken?’ Tony said in disbelief.
‘If we hit him, we’ll lose the tail and probably the engines too. All he has to do is force me to cut power and splash down again, and I won’t have enough room left to get back up to takeoff speed.’
‘What are you going to do?’
Adam indicated the body. ‘He’s the one who’d know what to do. I’m just trying to stop this thing from nose-diving into the lake!’
He checked the airspeed indicator. Fifty knots and rising. The Beriev crested a wave with a loud whump, spray speckling the windshield. More pitch on the elevators! He adjusted the trim. The young Russian was at least a qualified pilot in conventional aircraft, even if his seaplane experience was far too slim for comfort. It was only then that Adam realised he didn’t even know the man’s name. Gennady, the persona told him, almost indignant. Always the middle brother, always overlooked…
Orange flashes from the Hind’s cannon. Waterspouts kicked up in the Beriev’s path. Sevnik was giving him a shot across the bows, trying to scare him into aborting the takeoff.
Eighty knots. The Be-200 skipped over each wave, producing a momentary roller-coaster sensation in his stomach before the keel sliced back into the water. Ninety knots. ‘Everybody hold on!’ he shouted over his shoulder.
More flames — this time from one of the gunship’s rocket pods. Two great white geysers erupted just ahead of the seaplane, the Beriev ploughing through the spray. Adam’s view through the windshield was obliterated, water gushing into the cockpit through the bullet hole. It took him — rather, Gennady — a moment to remember where the wiper controls were. He found the switch, the blades squealing across the rectangular panes.
The Hind was dead ahead, an ugly bug-eyed creature hanging above the lake.
He applied more rudder as the Beriev bounced up again, the seaplane curving to port. The gunship tilted to follow. The way was still blocked. One hundred knots.
Another burst of cannon fire—
This time, the Be-200 hit the line of waterspouts. There was a piercing bang somewhere below the cockpit’s right side. Adam felt the jolt of impact through the joystick. His eyes snapped to the display screens. The computers weren’t reporting any damage — but that did not mean the wound was harmless.
One-ten. He jammed the throttles to the detent and pulled back on the stick. The Beriev was still short of takeoff speed, but if it didn’t get airborne now it would never clear the gunship.
Another wave — and the seaplane’s nose pitched upwards. A hundred and fifteen knots. The hull cleared the surface completely…
It wasn’t enough.
He felt the roller-coaster sensation again as the plane reached the top of its arc. The Hind hovered gloatingly ahead, weapons pods curled down like mantis claws. If he didn’t cut power immediately, he would crash into it—
The flash of lunatic inspiration was not Gennady’s, but Adam’s own. He didn’t pull back the throttles. Instead he shoved the joystick forward, throwing the plane into a power dive. The Beriev pitched down sharply, water rushing up to meet it…
The seaplane hit the lake hard, another eruption of spray blinding its pilot — as he yanked the joystick back and slammed the elevators to their maximum pitch.
The Be-200 skipped off the surface like a thrown stone and climbed again—
Passing right under the gunship.
The tip of the seaplane’s tail scraped the Hind’s belly with a metallic shriek, but the damage it inflicted was nothing compared to the impact of the Beriev’s jet exhaust. With both engines at full power, it was blasting out over thirty thousand pounds of thrust — swatting the helicopter out of the sky.
The gunship was hurled into a corkscrewing spin, rolling as it fell. Its rotors slashed into the water — and the engines’ torque flung the fuselage around in the opposite direction, slamming it down like a hammer. The Hind disintegrated, wreckage tumbling in all directions before being swallowed by the icy void.
But the Beriev was not out of danger. The forced touchdown had slowed it, the airspeed indicator dropping. The bar of land across the lagoon’s mouth was coming up fast — and the seaplane was falling towards it.
Adam grappled with the controls, desperately trying to find extra lift. If he pulled the stick back to climb without increasing speed, it would result in a stall, smashing the Be-200 on the frozen ground. But the indicator needle was rising too slowly. The plane reached one hundred knots again, but it was not enough to stay airborne.
Despite every instinct of Gennady’s screaming for him to stop, he pushed the stick forward again. The altimeter spun down faster — but the plane picked up speed. One-ten, one-fifteen, but the Beriev was only fifty feet above sea level.
Rocks and snow filled his vision…
One hundred and twenty knots.
Adam felt the plane’s wings flex, as if it were coming alive. He pulled the stick back. The icy land dropped away—
A fearsome grinding noise echoed through the fuselage as the Beriev’s keel grazed the bar, kicking up a spray of snow and gravel — then the seaplane angled upwards, gaining height.
‘Slava bogu!’ cried Adam, whooping. ‘We made it!’
‘Jesus!’ gasped Tony, still clinging to the other seat. He looked back shakily into the main cabin. ‘Is everyone okay?’
Baxter and his men gave more or less positive responses, the team leader closing the hatch before checking Levin’s wound. Bianca flipped strands of spray-soaked hair off her face. ‘Oh yes, fine,’ she said with withering sarcasm. ‘So what’s the in-flight movie? Alive?’
Adam ignored her, turning the plane south-east. He found a pair of headphones on a hook and donned them, then switched on the radio and listened to the rapid chatter from Provideniya’s control tower. ‘This isn’t good,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ Tony asked.
‘Our plane got away from Provideniya — but the controllers have requested Russian military support to bring them back.’
The blond man was unimpressed. ‘The nearest airbase is, what, two hundred miles from here? There’s no way they’ll catch up before we reach US airspace.’