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CHAPTER 2 : CHECK-IN AND DEPARTURES
Joe and his colleagues review their plans and aims for the forthcoming meetings in Seoul and the field trip to Cambodia. They are laying out a memorandum of understanding which will confirm what exactly each firm and member of the team will be responsible for.
The meeting goes smoothly, surprisingly smoothly. It goes smoothly enough for Joe to have time to text Jenny to see if she is OK, after their interrupted call.
One of the team calls Joe out to the office vestibule, saying that their taxi to Heathrow is due. Joe checks his mobile. There is no reply from Jenny. Small talk flows as the team stand around in the lobby, each of them anxious to be on their way. Joe excuses himself and calls Jenny’s mobile. There is no reply. He leaves a voice mail.
The taxi arrives. The engineers clamber aboard and begin their journey to Heathrow. It’s late afternoon but traffic is flowing smoothly.
“You OK Joe?” Craig Evans, sitting alongside Joe, has noticed that he seems a bit abstracted.
“Yes, sorry Craig, I’ve been trying to call Jenny but I can’t get through.”
“She came to see you off?”
“She did. I think she told her Boss that she had work to do down here, though!”
“Bright girl! She’s going to go places!”
Joe laughs. Yes, Jenny will go places, he thinks, but it’s the actual places that he still worries about.
Neena has picked up the two members of the vehicle team and is threading her way carefully through the London traffic. The last thing she wants, is to trip a speed camera or jump a red light with her helpless passenger on board.
They reach a discrete garage, where Dr Hahn is waiting in a private ambulance. Neena drives in and the doors close. Once privacy has been established, Anna greets her with, “Hey Neena, all OK?”
Neena looks across at her and laughs out loud. “Yes, Anna I am very much OK and I am very glad to see how very thoroughly you have prepared for this mission!”
Neena’s teasing remark is made because Anna has shaved her own head. She has done it to help the hospital staff remember her and it will connect the shaven headed girl from the private hospital with the shaven headed girl who leaves the UK as a medical evacuee, if any more searching enquiries are made, but will anyone realise that it is not the same girl?
Now completely recovered from her “injury”, Anna takes up her profession as a nurse once more and helps Heidi, Dr Hahn’s practice nurse and the team to transfer Jenny into the “ambulance”. They sedate her again just as the injured “Vyera Kuznetsova” should be to make her ready for her trip to Farnborough Airport.
Heidi Eisen has been with Dr Hahn for many years. She knows that sometimes unorthodox things have to be done and she also knows how they are accomplished. She bends tenderly over Jenny. “You have been taken ill,” she says, “we are taking you to hospital.”
“Huh? Oh?” groans Jenny, still weak and disorientated.
Heidi picks up another preloaded auto-injector syringe and fires a second dose of ketamine into Jenny’s thigh. Jenny quickly subsides into sleep. Heidi, assisted by Anna takes a pair of paramedic shears and cuts Jenny’s clothing from her body and strips her. Jenny is redressed in the hospital smock Anna had worn and ECG leads are placed on Jenny’s chest. Anna puts up an intravenous infusion line connected to a syringe driver, to deliver just enough sedative to keep Jenny on the borders of consciousness but completely confused and quite helpless.
Jenny is catheterised and her urine drained; she is given an enema and her bowls cleansed. They put her in an adult diaper. An oro-gastric tube is passed into her stomach and the remains of her last meal are removed, to reduce any risk of vomiting. As a final precaution, she is given an intra-muscular injection of prochlorperazine, an anti-emetic. Just in case the sedation should provoke nausea.
Once the medical preparations are complete, they set to the crucial task of finalising Jenny’s appearance. Neena looks critically at Jenny and then the photograph in the passport they have for her. It is a new version of the Vyera Kuznetsova passport. This time, it contains Jenny’s image – well just about. Neena takes a pair of metal bolt cutters and cuts through Jenny’s septum ring twice, freeing a segment and sliding the ring from her nose. Then some other crucial details: Jenny’s engagement and wedding rings are removed and the skin of her fingers massaged so the imprints left by her jewellery can fade quickly.
Dr Hahn, Heidi, and Neena are now ready to resume their journey to the airport with Jenny - or Vyera Kuznetsova, as she will now become - whilst the Mercedes used for the abduction, is valeted with minute attention to detail and returned by the vehicle team to the hire company.
Before they leave, Neena helps Anna to return to her usual appearance. She takes a very carefully crafted blond wig and applies it to Anna’s shaven scalp using skin adhesive so that it will not be accidentally displaced. In particular, very great attention – painstaking attention - must be paid to the areas where the wig meets Anna’s skin. The disguise must be perfect so no suspicions are aroused on her journey back home. Presently, the transformation is complete and Anna’s appearance has been completely restored.
At 3pm, Igor, another member of the team, receives a text. It’s a three digit number. The digits tell him that the target has been lifted successfully, is in custody and he is cleared to execute his final part of the mission.
Igor spends the rest of the day mixing anonymously with the crowds shopping in Birmingham city centre before enjoying a leisurely meal and a movie. He has important work to do later that night.
Dr Hahn follows the M4 west. Joe’s taxi is heading the same way. As they pass junction 4, Joe’s minicab, heading for the Heathrow Exit, happens to pass in front of Dr Hahn’s vehicle as it makes its way to another airport. Joe has no idea, of course, how close he has been to his sedated, captive, wife.
Hahn snorts at the careless driving of the taxi as it swings off the motorway and on the slip road. Dr Hahn turns on to the M25 south, then on to the M3. There’s the usual press of traffic but, today, they pass through without incident.
After one hour and thirty minutes travel, they leave the motorway, turn down the A325, into Aerospace Boulevard and drive up to the airport
At London Heathrow Terminal 4, Joe McEwan elbows his way into a crowded terminal from the taxi drop off and joins the back of a long queue for check in. The other engineers have each chosen their own queues. It’s a bit of a joke between them; last one through to the departure lounge pays for the drinks. Joe pushes the trolley with his bags on slowly forward as the queue for check in moves steadily but not quickly forward. He looks across at his grinning colleagues in the other queues. He’s going to lose. A small child in the arms of the woman in front of him is howling. Joe hopes she’s in a different part of the plane.
Eventually he reaches the check in for Korean Airlines and hefts his bags from the trolley and drops them on the scales. Joe looks relieved as they weigh in just below the magic 20 kilos. The girl behind the counter takes his ticket and passport, beams with her standard, practiced, “designer” smile and goes through the whole “Did you pack this yourself?” routine. Joe, with a patience born of a hundred flights over the last few years, smiles and nods at the appropriate points; happy at the end of it all simply to have succeeded in gaining his boarding card although worried as ever, by his disappearing baggage. He joins the queue for security, snaking through the terminal, shuffling forward every few minutes but this time without the encumbrance of his suitcases.
The ambulance with Jenny, comfortable and hovering on the borders of sleep and wakefulness in the back, parks at the Executive Flight Centre.
Dr Hahn goes to report to the duty manager and the medical officer. Heidi Eisen will accompany the patient to Moscow before returning to London on a scheduled flight. The Russian Embassy people have been very understanding and helpful. In the circumstances, there has been no delay over a visa for Heidi. Two other members of Anatoly’s team are already in the terminal and are waiting airside of security and passport control.
The medical officer and Dr Hahn discuss Vyera. They review her X-rays and case record of the sleeping patient. Dr Hahn points out that he does not believe in half measures when analgesia and sedation are required. After all, the relief of pain and anxiety are surely one of the blessings of life today? Further technical matters are discussed. The MO and the charming Dr Hahn shake hands: they agree: the patient is fit to fly.
The vehicle is admitted onto the apron and drives carefully towards an immaculate blue, white and silver Bomardier Global Express in one corner of the airfield. Down the side of the Bombardier’s fuselage it proclaims: Anatoly Kustensky Enterprises on one side in English and on the other in Russian, in Cyrillic script. Security and UK Borders Agency staff are there to meet the party.
A Passport Control official comes over to check the travellers. He takes the red passport belonging to the woman casualty. To ease her pain during the journey from London she has been sedated and has now been carefully lifted on a stretcher and placed onto a trolley. He opens the cover, guarded on the outside by the double-headed Russian eagle. It states that she is Âåðà Àíàòîëüåâíà Êóçíåöîâà. The photograph shows a young lady, just like the girl on the trolley. But of course, it is the girl on the trolley. The official glances at Hahn. He indicates one of the other members of the party, now gathered by the aircraft steps. Valentine notices the doctor’s nod and comes over to meets the enquiring gaze of the official. Valentine says: “She is my niece. She fall from horse” Valentine takes in the quizzical gaze of the official as he compares the passport photograph with present appearance of âåðà Êóçíåöîâà.
The official is satisfied. He smiles encouragement and the formalities are complete. The security staff, the medical officer and the border control people have done all they can to speed Vyera and her helpers through the formalities and on to their aircraft.
Jenny is vaguely aware of things going on around her. She is barely conscious of the movement but senses the changes in light and the changes in temperature as she is moved. She hears people talking about someone called “Vyera”. None of the staff take the slightest interest in her. She feels there’s something not exactly correct about the way that she is being treated, that no one seems to want to ask her if everything is all right but it’s no more than a vague unease and, in any case, she doesn’t feel she can do anything about it.
Joe finally succeeds in passing security and passport control. Hopping on one leg as he tries to put one of his shoes back on, having retrieved them from the x-ray machine’s conveyer, he wonders how much longer it will be before they all have to submit to a full cavity body search before passengers are even allowed inside the terminal building.
Joe curses the fact that he’s flying economy. Not for him the quiet oasis of the business lounge. He has to put up with the hectic pushing and shoving and fight for one of the few seats that have been squeezed in reluctantly, as a small concession to the idea that not all passengers want to shop, all the time. Joe flops down on an uncomfortable plastic seat, tossing the leather shoulder pouch that he uses as a flight bag on to the seat beside him and checks to make sure that he’s picked up everything after the security search. He looks at his watch. It’s almost time to begin the trek down to the boarding pier. There isn’t really enough time for a coffee or a drink. His friends have already left the bar. Joe isn’t that disappointed. The coffee in the terminal is even worse than the coffee on the flight. And besides, it was his round.
He tries Jenny’s mobile again and again there is no reply. Perhaps she dropped it? He settles for an e-mail. There is just time to send it before their flight starts to board. He catches up with Craig just as he is about to disappear inside the aircraft.
Jenny is carefully carried onto the aircraft followed by the rest of the party. The Ambulance reverses clear and drives back through the secure perimeter. Neena pauses on the aircraft steps and momentarily looks up into the dark evening sky. The stars have begun to come out. She give a smile - well, almost a laugh - of triumph.
In Moscow, Anatoly receives a call from AKE Operations to tell him that the Bombardier captain has just reported that Romeo Alpha 9560 Delta is about to leave and all passengers and cargo are now aboard. He looks at his watch. A successful day – eventually! - and he will be just in time to enjoy a brandy with Sveta before bed.
In the Heathrow Control Tower, a duty ground controllers picks up with the Captain of Joe’s Boeing 747. “Korean two – zero – four, cleared to push. Taxi, two-seven right.”
A Continental DC-10 speeds up as it sees the 747 turning. “Two zero four, give way to the Continental on the taxi way.” Joe’s captain responds sulkily “Tower, give way to the Continental DC-10, two-zero-four. I hope there aren’t too many of these people. We’ve got a slot to hit.” A hiss of static substitutes for an expression of exasperation from the tower. “Everybody’s got a slot to hit, two-zero-four. We’ll do what we can.”
Joe, crammed in beside 300 others, sits feigning attention to a safety briefing that he could almost recite by heart, thumbing idly through the in-flight magazine and wondering whether he is going to try the movie or just settle down with a few drinks and the meal before trying to get some sleep. It’s half past nine in the evening, the flight won’t get in to Inchon until half past four tomorrow afternoon. Joe takes a while thinking if there’s any way that he can make the seat even remotely comfortable. There isn’t.
In the other tower, at the other airport, the controller hears a transmission from Jenny’s plane. “Ground, this is Bombardier Romeo Alpha niner-six-fiver- zero-delta at the gate with Charlie, requesting clearance, departure to the east. We’re a medevac flight so we’d appreciate any help you can give to get us off smoothly.”
Jenny has lapsed into unconsciousness on the Bombardier, unaware of the noise of the engines as the pilot throttles up to taxi. She doesn’t notice the dimmed lights of the cabin or Heidi sitting beside her.
The controller checks the ground radar and replies “Nine-six-five-zero-delta, cleared to taxi, two-four right.” The Bombardier’s captain looks out. The apron is clear, there’s nothing between him and the runway except the pools of purple light that mark the edges of the taxiways. “Two-four right, five-zero-delta.” The half dozen other people on Jenny’s flight peer out as their plane moves off. They settle back in their deep, soft, leather seats.
At Heathrow, Joe’ aircraft has spend half an hour shuffling forward in a queue of other aircraft. It’s half an hour since they pushed back from the terminal pier and they have travelled all of a mile. At last, they reach the runway. The chatter between the tower and the captain and the mantra of pre-flight checks between the captain and first officer give way to concentration as the speed of the aircraft builds and the lights at the edge of the runway blink past at an increasing rate. As the aircraft accelerates past 80 knots, the control surfaces become fully active, the nose rises and the wheels of the 747 lift away from the ground as the ‘plane finally takes to the air.
The Bombardier with Jenny on board has spent less than five minutes taxiing from the apron to runway 24. Another ninety seconds later, she is in the air, following Joe’s plane across eastern England and out over the North Sea.
On the Korean 747, the fasten seat belts sign flicks off as it reaches cruising altitude. Joe wonders again about one of the movies, when drink appears from a smiling Korean stewardess and Craig walks up the aisle past his seat. “Hey,” he says to Joe, “Don’t you owe the rest of us a drink too?”
Jenny stirs slightly. Her eyes flicker open for a moment giving her a blurred unfocussed vision of the nurse, her face in shadow from the cabin lights behind. As Jenny’s eyes close again Heidi leans forward to read Jenny’s pulse, blood pressure and oxygenation on the criticare monitor. She checks the saline drip is running freely, keeping Jenny properly hydrated and then adjusts the syringe driver as it feeds more of the sedative into her vein.
Joe decides on conversation. He heads back to talk to Craig and the other two of his colleagues on the flight. Craig is about half way back. Joe spots the other two right at the back of the plane. They must have boarded well before he got to the gate. He ambles down the aisle towards them, squeezing past the drinks trolley and giving his two friends a wave.
Jenny on the other hand isn’t moving around. She lies on her seat which has been fully reclined to act as her bed for the duration of the flight, helpless from sedation. Even if she were fully awake, beneath the blanket that covers her, there are straps to hold her secure. Of course they are there for her benefit – to keep her safe, as Heidi would explain to anyone who asked, throughout the journey.
As the aircraft climbs, Heidi notices how Jenny’s blood pressure begins to edge up as the pressure on her eardrums changes and as the flight levels off. She toys absent-mindedly with Jenny’s right nipple, squeezing and pinching at it, seeing whether Jenny reacts at all. Amongst the many puzzles of the next few days, Jenny never really comes to understand why her right breast is so bruised and sore.
But that’s the difference between Joe’s Korean Airlines flight 204 and Jenny’s Bombardier. Joe, even though his flight is uncomfortable, noisy and crowded, is going to practice his profession. Jenny, on the other hand – or Vyera as the authorities have come to know her – Vyera, while enjoying all the comforts of her executive jet, is being taken to be a slave.
Flying faster and higher, RA 9560D soon catches up with Korean 204.
The ripple in the thin cold air left by the Bombardier as it overtakes is imperceptible to the passengers in the Boeing – except perhaps to Joe, who feels a sudden pang of anxiety over an interrupted phone call and an unanswered text. And he wonders what Jenny his wife is doing and how she is right then…
A little after 1 am on Wednesday morning Igor drives towards Warwick. At 2 am he parks his hire car near Jenny and Joe’s home. The suburban streets are deserted and there is no one to see him moving through the shadows to enter the deserted house.
He has been here before. He came and went undetected. Well not quite, but the minor disruptions he caused were put down to merely forgetting where things had been put.
The usual domestic barriers to crime present little difficulty for him and this is, after all, his second visit. Once inside, he quickly finds what he wants.
A rucksac, shoes, clothes, jacket, Jenny’s passport, her diary and her laptop, her toothbrush and some makeup.
He leaves her jewellery.
He has almost finished - when he sees the computer. He is very keen to impress the Boss with his part in the operation. He knows that the data inside the machine has been regularly downloaded and sent back to AKE by Yevgeny’s surveillance programme. In a moment he has booted up the PC and opened the desktop. There is a password protection, but he knew the password, in any event. The desktop is neatly arranged and Jenny’s PhD research files are stacked in a directory all by themselves. There is also a calendar and address book. What would someone do, when leaving home for the last time? Cut all ties, surely? Remove all clues to where they were going. Igor wastes no more time. He puts a pen drive in the USB port which loads a programme to erase all the contents of the hard disc. He presses <enter> and it’s done. Irretrievably.
Downstairs, he peers cautiously out of the window. No one passes in the street. He opens the door a crack. Silence. He resets the burglar alarm and leaves as silently as he came. Unseen. Unsuspected.
It’s not until he is many miles down the M40 motorway heading for London that his conscience begins to trouble him. He was not instructed about the PC. Maybe he should have left it alone?
Surely, surely it was an opportune target? He did what someone would do, if they were running away ….. but then what about the target’s computer at the University? Should he have erased the hard disc there? That would be consistent. But wait a moment: first, he would have to know exactly which one it was and reach it undetected. So it had to be left alone. Maybe he had been too thorough? Then again, no operation ever came to grief by operatives being too thorough did it?
Igor, Joe and Jenny aren’t the only people leaving.
In the days that follow Jenny’s abduction, the other members of Anatoly’s hunting party slip discretely away from the UK. Some leave by Eurostar to Paris; some by ferry to Zeebrugge, and some by air to Helsinki and then by train to St Petersburg and so on.
Anna Tereshkova presents a slightly more subtle problem. She has arrived in the UK using a passport in the name of Vyera Kuznetsova, who has left for Moscow. The United Kingdom authorities have ambitions to record the arrival and departures of all foreign nationals and whilst the scheme is - apparently - not yet operational, it would be wise if Anna could leave discretely. After all, the use of a second “Vyera Kuztetsova” passport would be risky .
Anatoly has given the problem some careful thought.
Anna meets one of the secretaries from the AKE office in London at a branch of Starbucks and collects an envelope containing an Estonian passport together with cash.
She takes the train (first class, in view of her still uncomfortable lumbar spine) to Glasgow, connecting with another train to Stranraer and finally the Stena Line ferry to Belfast where she spends the night in the Belfast Hilton.
The following day, she takes the train to Dublin. Since the Good Friday Agreement, the British and Irish Governments have been at pains to remove unnecessary reminders that the island of Ireland is still divided between two nations. There are no frontier controls between British and Irish jurisdiction on the Belfast to Dublin train and citizens of Estonia, many of whom are of Russian origin, do not need a visa to enter the Republic of Ireland
So Anna Tereshkova slips away from the UK into Eire and flies home from Dublin airport first to Paris (to collect her very own Russian passport and to regain her real identity) and then on to Moscow, indistinguishable from many other international tourists and with nothing to indicate that she first came to the United Kingdom as “Vyera Kuznetsova”
Anna smiles broadly to the young passport official at Dublin Airport. “Did you enjoy your trip? Will we be seeing you again?” He replies
Anna continues her gentle flirtation, “Yes, very much and of course I would love to come back – if you will have me!”
“Any why should we not?” he says, smiling back. “Have a safe journey now.”
Anna waves him farewell and is gone.
© 2011 Phil Lane & Freddie Clegg
All characters fictitious.
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