The Ghost Pattern (4 page)

...8

...Wednesday, April 27, 12:14PM Local Time (UTC+3:00 hours)

...Russian Ministry of Defense

...Moscow, Russia

Myatlev ate seated at his massive desk. He took a couple of spoons of hot chicken soup, dressed with sour cream and feta cheese, and closed his eyes halfway in ecstasy. The soup had filled the room with its unmistakable aroma. Each spoonful took a little bit of his stomach pain away, and he mumbled his appreciation. This cook was good; he’d make sure he never leaves. He took another spoonful, savoring it, and a small bite from a slice of white bread toast with it.

Preceded by a quick tap on the door, Ivan walked in hurriedly.

He watched him walk in and frowned. Ivan needed to brush up on his skills. Myatlev hated to be interrupted from his meals, and his assistant knew better.

“Boss? Major Ignatiev wants to speak with you.”

Division Seven Major Ignatiev, one of the rising stars of the new KGB, was leading Myatlev’s operations in the Russian Far East.

He wiped his mouth and replied begrudgingly, “Put him through,” then picked up the phone as soon as it rang. “
Da.
”

“It’s Ignatiev, sir. Just letting you know we’re ready to receive them. I have everyone’s files, and the Challenger took off an hour ago.”

“Good,” Myatlev said. “Whatever you need, let me know. And keep that idiot, Bogdanov, in check.”

He hung up the phone, and let a cryptic smile flutter on his lips. He loved it when a plan came together, even if this particular one required him to use his own plane, and to push the envelope to unprecedented limits. Hopefully, President Abramovich would never find out.

...9

...Wednesday, April 27, 7:33PM Local Time (UTC+10:00 hours)

...Flight XA233—Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean

...North-Northwest of Japan

Lila entered the first-class lavatory and looked at her image in the mirror. Her dilated pupils and frozen lips expressed the terror she felt. What was going on? Where the hell were they going? She swallowed a sob. They’ll find out soon enough.
Oh, God…

She sprinkled a little water on a paper towel and patted her burning forehead with it, then wiped the back of her neck. Klapov was many things, a fuck-fest enthusiast and an incorrigible, selfish bastard, but he was not terrorist material. Or, at least, so she had thought he wasn’t. Some judge of character she was…Captain Gibson was dead, at the hands of a terrorist. Her opinion of Klapov, especially her ability to see who the man really was, had miserably failed. Again.

Klapov was a terrorist, by all evidence. And for terrorist attacks in midflight, there were procedures. If only she knew who the air marshal was on this flight. But no, the schmucks had to play it all undercover, refusing to identify themselves to the flight crews.

She needed to think fast and decide the amount of risk she was willing to take. She didn’t know where Klapov was taking them, how much flight time they still had left, or what his plan was. This was probably a hijacking, for money or political reasons, like freeing some other terrorist.

Then another thought froze the blood in her veins. There could be other terrorists on the plane, among the passengers, maybe even the flight attendants. No one hijacks a 747 by themselves. It never happens. The anti-hijacking training for civil aviation aircraft crews taught them to assume they don’t know who all the players are, and to behave normally. That was going to be hard.

But first, she had to follow procedure and communicate the hijacking to ground control. She opened the hidden panel behind the paper-towel dispenser and retrieved the emergency satellite phone. She dialed and waited, but nothing happened. The phone was dead. Of course…the copilot knew their procedures, and knew where everything was. All in-flight phones were controlled from the cockpit, so there wasn’t any point trying any of those.

Maybe she could borrow Darrell Maldonado’s sat phone? What if
he
was one of them? She couldn’t risk it.

She wiped the back of her head once more, then came out of the lavatory and looked at the passengers. They were starting to fidget. No one was reading or dozing anymore. They were all talking, pointing at the windows, looking at their phones, and trying to connect to the Internet. They were becoming restless, and that was putting their lives in danger.

The man in 9C raised his voice, showing his phone’s screen to the surrounding passengers.

“Hey, guys, listen, this plane is heading northwest. See?” He pointed at the compass showing on his phone. “We should be heading east, that’s where we’re supposed to be going. That’s where America is. East.”

Lila’s stomach churned.
Oh, my God! He needs to shut up
, she thought. There were more than four hundred people on this flight, and panic was the last thing they needed. Whether they knew it or not, they were all going wherever it was that Klapov was taking them. There was nothing they could do about it. Per procedure, she was mandated to preserve the passengers’ safety, even if that meant going along with whatever was happening to them.

She approached 9C immediately and placed her hand gently on his arm.

“Sir? Can you please take your seat? We are entering an area of high turbulence and we need you to be seated, with your seatbelt fastened.”

He gave her an all-knowing look, then replied caustically, “Yeah, right.” But he sat down nevertheless, and fastened his seatbelt begrudgingly.

Lila took the PA microphone in her hand, and took in a deep breath before making her announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are continuing our small detour to avoid an area of high turbulence and bad weather. Please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened. We have sufficient fuel, the delay will be minimal, and the captain will make every effort to recover any lost time. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened until the captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign.”

She moved toward the cabin, and someone grabbed her arm. It was 4B. It was one of her first-class passengers, but his name eluded her.

“Miss? Are we going back to Tokyo?”

“No, we’re avoiding a nasty storm, that’s all there is.”

She heard a familiar chime and turned back to go to the cockpit. The terrorist was calling for her. En route, she locked eyes with Darrell Maldonado, whose eyes fiercely bore into hers in an angry glare. She ignored him and entered the cockpit.

“Ah, you’ve finally made it,” Klapov greeted her with poison in his voice.

“What do you want?”

“Prep them for a rough landing, but don’t tell them we’re going to land.”

“And how exactly would you like me to do that?” Lila blurted.

“Don’t know, don’t care. Just prove your worth and don’t make me do your work for you,” he said, touching his gun again as a reminder.

She started to turn, hesitated a little, then asked, “What’s going to happen to us once we land?”

“Don’t really care, sweetheart. This is where I get my money and my ticked to retirement in a nice, sunny place on a remote beach somewhere.”

She knew it was pointless, but the anger rising in her throat suffocated her. “You despicable, rat-ass bastard! You make me sick!”

He smiled crookedly and said casually, as if they were chatting at some party, “Whatever, baby, I really don’t give a crap, you know?”

She managed to exit the cockpit and grabbed the PA handset, aware she looked pale. She was struggling to keep her voice from trembling.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has instructed me to prepare you for rough weather.”

The passengers reacted to her announcement and their voice levels picked up. Some passengers looked terrified, while others were staring out the windows in disbelief, not understanding how the perfectly blue sky could mean bad weather. A couple of women were sobbing quietly. She raised her voice to cover the commotion.

“Please stow all carryon items you might have taken from the overhead bins. At this time, stow all your personal computers and devices. Remove your glasses and high-heel shoes, and tighten your seatbelts, making sure they are snug around your hips. Please remain calm. This will be over soon, I promise.”

Yeah, some promise she was making. Based on what?

“This is total bullshit,” she heard Maldonado’s irritating voice. “There’s no damn storm over the Pacific, I just checked.” He was holding up his satellite phone demonstratively.

He was not a terrorist, she dared to assume, thinking a terrorist would not agitate things. That wouldn’t make sense. Praying she was right at least about
that
asshole, she took her chances and asked in a whispered voice, “Mr. Maldonado, could I possibly borrow your phone for just one minute? I really need to make a call; it’s urgent, and ours is broken.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Maldonado replied. “You’ve
got
to be kidding me. Why the hell would I do that? You wanna take my phone away, is that it? Jesus Christ, you people are incredible!”

Lila’s head hung, and a rebel tear of frustration formed at the corner of her eye. From the seat in front of Maldonado’s, the vaguely familiar Ms. Bernard looked at her encouragingly. In her eyes, Lila saw compassion, courage, and determination at the same time. Adeline Bernard understood what was going on.

...10

...Wednesday, April 27, 5:02AM EDT (UTC-4:00 hours)

...Blake Bernard’s Residence

...Manhattan, New York

Blake lay on his bed, watching her getting ready to join him between the satin sheets. His beautiful wife. His Adeline. She looked beautiful in the warm, dim light coming from their nightstand lamps; she was a vision. Long, sleek brown hair, bright, shimmering eyes, and a secretive smile, reserved only for him.

She came toward him in a flutter of silk and lace, and sat on the bed by his side. She reached out and touched his face, caressing it with frozen fingers. He took her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers gently, tenderly, warming them up.

“I love you, baby,” she whispered smiling, then faded away into the darkness that took over the room. He tried to hold on to her hand, but her fingers were slipping from his grasp.

Blake woke up screaming, covered in cold sweat. He jumped out of bed and his eyes fell on the alarm clock display: 5:02AM. He turned on the light and started pacing the room restlessly, trying to shake off the chills sending shivers down his spine and freezing the blood in his veins. The dream had seemed so real…

He threw on a T-shirt and went outside, on the penthouse terrace that overlooked Manhattan from 54 stories up, trying to slow his heart rate. The city looked its normal sleepless self, yet the bad feeling his dream had left wouldn’t disappear.

He took a few deep breaths, trying to shake away the memory of the nightmare, then resumed blaming himself. He should have insisted she take the personal jet; that’s what it was there for. Even if there was a conflict in their schedules, he should have been the one to fly commercial, not her. Or he should have insisted to charter her a plane. He was the president, CEO, and one of the major stakeholders of America’s second largest bank, goddamnit, and he should have done all these things and more.

Well, no point going over those things now…soon she was going to be home. A few more hours, and he’d board his jet to go meet her in San Francisco, and everything would be all right again. And next time, he’d know what to do, and he wouldn’t let her talk him out of it.

He took out his cell phone and typed a text message.

“Hey, baby, I know you're in midflight but I miss you. Call me when you get this.”

...11

...Wednesday, April 27, 8:21PM Local Time (UTC+10:00 hours)

...Flight XA233—Undisclosed Location

...Russia

The passengers had remained relatively calm until the Boeing started its descent. That’s when they started panicking. They were sobbing, crying, holding one another’s hands tightly, asking questions, all in a quagmire of sounds, erratic movements, and emotions out of control. Some were strangely paralyzed, unable to move or make a sound.

Adeline locked eyes with Lila and mouthed to her, “Talk to them.”

Lila was already strapped in her jump seat, but she reached out to the PA microphone and managed to articulate an announcement that was supposed to bring a little more calm to the 423 passengers on flight XA233.

“Ladies and gentlemen, to avoid the bad weather the captain has decided to land the aircraft, for your safety. This is a small airport, so please assume brace positions. Please place your feet and knees closely together, with your feet flat on the floor. Bend forward as far as possible, touching the seat in front of you if you can reach it. Keep your hands above your head, one over the other. Bring your elbows close to your body. Remove your high-heel shoes and any eyewear. The runway will be short, and the captain will be braking hard once he touches down. Please remain calm. Universal Air is committed to your safety and to take you to your final destination as soon as possible. Thank you.”

Adeline nodded a silent thank you, and Lila smiled weakly for a second. The passengers fell eerily quiet, most likely paralyzed with fear. A woman a few rows back was praying, prayer beads in her hands and eyes tightly shut. Someone’s voice was heard coming from the back cabin, “I’m gonna sue you assholes! If I live through this, I’m taking you to the cleaners!”

Adeline gestured Lila to come sit next to her, in the empty first-class seat. Lila hesitated; that wasn’t permitted by regulations. Then again, nothing happening on that flight was permitted by regulations, so she unbuckled fast, ran for the seat next to Adeline, and buckled up just when the jet started its final descent.

The aircraft dropped altitude abruptly, then finally touched down on a bumpy, decrepit concrete runway, almost too narrow for its wheels to fit. The Boeing’s brakes hit so hard they made a screaming noise, exacerbated by passengers screaming and wailing, covered by the roar of all four engines in full reverse thrust. The huge jet shook hard as it rode over the potholes and cracks in the concrete surface, making the passengers bounce around in their seats as if they were broken puppets.

The jet finally came to a screeching stop, through some miracle remaining intact after the rough landing. The passengers lifted their heads slowly, as if finding it hard to believe they survived, and started looking out the windows.

The plane started a very slow taxi on a narrow extension of the runway, its massive wing wheels rolling on the grassy grounds on the sides of the strip. After what seemed to take forever, the jet entered a decrepit hangar buried in the side of a hill. It was dark, poorly lit by some improvised projectors and whatever light made it through the doors. It was lined with rusted metallic panes that had originally been painted army green, now stained and falling apart.

Then someone’s yell froze the passengers’ blood in their veins. “Oh, my God, they’ve got guns!”

Lila grabbed Adeline’s hand and both of them looked out the window.

“Oh, God…” Adeline whispered, “where are we? Do you know?”

“We must be in Russia somewhere, there’s nothing else here other than Russia and Japan, and this doesn’t look anything like Japan,” Lila answered, shuddering.

First Officer Klapov exited the cockpit and unlocked the cabin door. Through the open door and through the starboard windows, the passengers watched in terror how armed men pushed mobile stairs toward the jet’s door.

A woman shrieked and said, pointing at Captain Gibson’s body, now visible through the open cockpit door, “Look, he’s dead!”

Then all hell broke loose.

Armed men climbed onboard the aircraft and took positions inside the cabins. Two remained by the cockpit, two more made their way toward the back of the plane, shoving hard anyone who stood in their path.

They looked military, but their uniforms were in bad shape and mismatched, as if they had put on whatever pieces of leftover uniforms they could find. Most of them were heavily tattooed and looked like ex-cons, escaped after many years of doing hard time. They were dirty, most of them unshaved, and, on whatever pieces of their bodies could be seen, covered in scars. They looked more like a hard-core paramilitary gang than a military unit.

Within seconds, the entire cabin commotion fell to a deafening silence, sprinkled here and there with muffled whimpers and quiet sobs.

One of the armed men picked up the PA microphone and spoke in heavily accented, rough English.

“Welcome to Russia,” he said, smiling wickedly and exposing two rows of dirty, decaying teeth. “This is how it will work. I say, you do. If you do what I say, you live. If not,” he added, shrugging his shoulders with indifference, “you die.”

Passengers and flight attendants watched what was happening with eyes wide open in terror, speechless.

“Now we get off the plane,” the man continued. “Move!”

The two men in the back of the cabin started pushing the reluctant passengers out of their seats. A man tried to grab his briefcase and was punched hard. The blow brought him to his knees in the aisle between the seats.

“No time for bag, leave it!” the man with the gun ordered. Then he prodded the kneeled passenger with the barrel of his gun, forcing him to get up and walk toward the exit.

One of the armed men at the front of the jet started his way toward the back, but stopped halfway, and started pushing and shoving passengers, forcing them to disembark. Scared and helpless, passengers clung to their seats, afraid to leave the relative safety of the aircraft and brace the terrifying unknown that awaited them at the aircraft door.

Lila and Adeline still held hands tightly, holding on to each other. Still holding hands, they were pushed out of the plane, and down the stairs, where more men with guns barked orders and pushed everyone toward the hangar door. Outside the hangar, several Army trucks stood by.

One of the Russians held a clipboard in his hand, and directed disembarking passengers toward the trucks.

Lila and Adeline waited in line behind passengers who had disembarked before them. The man with the clipboard asked everyone their name, then flipped though the papers attached to his clipboard, then pointed at one truck or another. He was sorting them, executing some form of triage. They had the flight manifest.

“Theo Adenauer,” the next passenger in line identified himself in a discernible German accent.

“Dr. Adenauer, yes?” the Russian asked.

“Yes,” the German confirmed, slightly surprised.

The Russian pointed him to the nearest truck, parked right next to the hangar door. The German complied.

The next few passengers were pointed toward other trucks, which were filling fast. Used to counting passengers, Lila fell into her work habit and determined that a truck could take roughly fifty passengers. They were the types of trucks most commonly seen in World War II for supply transport, a cargo hold was covered with a soft top made of military drab fabric on a wire frame. Fifty people would fit in there, standing room only, packed closely together like sardines. Even so, the Russians needed nine or ten trucks to haul all of them out of there.

“Alastair Faulkner,” said a proud man with a British accent.

“Dr. Faulkner?” the Russian confirmed.

“Yes,” the man replied, raising his eyebrows.

The Russian showed him the truck parked closest to the hangar door.

“Did you notice that?” Lila whispered, wondering what the hell that was all about.

“Uh-huh,” Adeline whispered back, “they’re sorting passengers; they’re putting all the doctors in that one truck.” She squeezed Lila’s hand.

An Asian family was next in line, a man carrying his toddler and holding on to the hand of his wife.

“Wu Shen Teng, Lin Teng, and Yun Tsai Teng,” the man said quietly, not daring to look the Russian in the eye.

“Dr. Teng from Taiwan?” the Russian asked, after flipping through his papers.

“Y–yes,” the man replied.

“You, go there,” the Russian said, pointing at the nearest truck. “The woman and child will go there,” he added, pointing at one of the other trucks.

“No,” Dr. Teng said, “I’m going with them, they are my family.”

The Russian remained quiet as he handed his clipboard to another man, then took his Kalashnikov off his shoulder. Lightning fast, he hit the Taiwanese man in the groin with the weapon’s butt stock. Dr. Teng, still holding his daughter, shrieked and fell to the ground, managing to turn and land on his side, his daughter on top of him, unharmed. His wife cried and grabbed the baby, then kneeled next to her husband, saying something fast in Chinese in a pleading tone of voice.

“You, go to that truck, they go in the other one,” the Russian repeated. “OK
?
”

Another Russian grabbed Mrs. Teng and her baby and pushed them toward a truck, while Dr. Teng managed to stand up and walk on his own, bent forward, crouched in pain.

The next few passengers boarded their trucks in silence, and none of them was selected for the closest truck.

Lila and Adeline were next.

“Lila Wallace,” she said, anticipating she’d be sent to the trucks to their right.

“You go there,” the Russian said after checking his papers, pointing at the doctors’ truck. “Someone needs to feed them and wipe their asses, and it will not be me.”

Adeline was sent to the other trucks, with the rest of the passengers. They parted ways reluctantly, with a final hand squeeze and quiet, whispered words of encouragement.

Then an American accent was heard, coming from a middle-aged woman who held her head up high. “Jane Crawford.”

Same routine…the Russian checked his papers and confirmed. “Dr. Crawford?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, I know, that truck,” she said. “But tell me, please, what’s the deal with the separate trucks? Where are you taking us?”

“To the lab, where you have work to do,” the Russian replied.

“And them?” Dr. Crawford asked, pointing at the rest of the trucks.

“Them? They are your lab rats. We will cage and feed them until you are ready to run your tests.”