Monday
Piemonte, Italy
‘That was subtle,’ Richter said, sitting up in his seat and staring out of the rear window.
Behind the accelerating Peugeot, he could see uniformed figures running towards the blue and white official carabinieri cars.
‘No bloody option. You any good with a rifle?’
‘Not as good as you are. But I can drive.’
‘You might have to, then,’ Dekker said tightly. ‘Let’s put some distance between us and them. While I do that, get that rifle assembled, just in case we have to shoot our way out of this.’
Richter unsnapped the catches on the case Dekker had laid on the floor in front of the rear seats, and took out the weapons’ component parts. He’d never seen this particular model before, but he was familiar with rifles from his military career. Within a couple of minutes he’d assembled the rifle, attached the telescopic sight, and loaded a full magazine of subsonic 7.62-millimetre ammunition.
‘Mean piece of kit,’ he remarked.
‘Ideal tool for the job,’ Dekker said, ‘and that’s the point.’
Richter again looked through the rear window. They’d almost cleared the edge of Cesana Torinese and were starting the climb up the slope, but the road behind them appeared to be empty. ‘Where are they?’ he wondered. ‘And how many?’
‘Two cars,’ Dekker said, ‘and each at least two-up. They’re about five hundred yards behind us.’
‘We need to stop them now,’ Richter said. ‘I remember that the road’s pretty straight beyond Sestriere, so our best chance is on this twisty section.’
‘Are you going to kill them?’ Raya asked. She hadn’t spoken since Dekker had avoided the roadblock.
‘I bloody hope not. We just have to stop them, or at least slow them down for long enough to get away.’
‘That’ll do,’ Dekker said, pointing ahead. He slewed the car off the road and onto a patch of rough ground to the right, sliding the gear lever into neutral and pulling the Peugeot to a stop in a cloud of dust. He left the engine running and jumped out.
Richter was just as fast, pushing open the rear door and immediately handing Dekker the sniper rifle.
‘You drive,’ Dekker instructed, then dropped to the ground, beside the front of the car. He rested the AWS rifle on its bipod and, through the telescopic sight, stared back along the road, waiting for a target to appear. The road was more or less straight until a bend perhaps a hundred yards away. Any pursuing vehicles would have to drive around that corner, and doing so would bring them directly into his sights.
‘I can hear an engine,’ Richter said, climbing into the driver’s seat and strapping himself in. By changing places with Dekker, they’d be able to drive away as quickly as possible, and that would leave the SAS officer able to use the rifle while the vehicle was moving, though hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary.
Seconds later, the first carabinieri car raced around the corner and headed straight towards them, a second vehicle following close behind it.
Dekker peered through the telescopic sight, adjusted his aim slightly, and then squeezed the trigger of the rifle.
There was a crack – sounding to Richter no louder than the report of a .22 hunting rifle – as the subsonic round fired, and instantly the leading car slammed to a halt as its right-hand front tyre exploded with a bang that was clearly audible even from where they were watching.
Dekker worked the rifle’s bolt, chambering another round, and fired again almost immediately. The second car pursuing them also lurched sideways, as its left front tyre received similar treatment.
‘That’ll do,’ Dekker said, standing up. ‘Now let’s get the hell out of here before they call in the cavalry.’
The moment Dekker sat down in the passenger seat, Richter lifted his foot off the clutch and accelerated away, the car bouncing over the rough ground before he reached the tarmac and headed down the road towards Sestriere.
‘I think that’s called burning our boats,’ he said, keeping one eye on both rear-view mirrors.
From behind came the sudden crackle of submachine-gun fire, as one of the carabinieri opened fire at the speeding Peugeot, but none of the bullets reached them.
‘We’re pretty much out of range already,’ Dekker said. ‘Just keep going.’
Seconds later, as a second automatic weapon opened up behind them, Richter drove around a bend that placed the side of a hill between them and their pursuers. For the moment, they were safe.
Richter barely slowed down as they drove through Sestriere, whose streets were largely empty, and as soon as they’d cleared the edge of the village, he accelerated hard along the straighter and more level stretch of road that ran along the side of the mountain, towards Pragelato.
‘We must be clear of them by now,’ Raya said. ‘Can’t we slow down?’
‘No.’ Richter shook his head firmly. ‘It’s not the Italian police behind us that I’m worried about, but the roadblocks they might be setting up somewhere in front, if those carabinieri have radioed ahead.’
‘And they will have,’ Dekker added.
‘I’m just hoping most of their people will be concentrated fairly close to the Italian side of the border, so we might be keeping ahead of them.’ Richter glanced across at Dekker. ‘And I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do if you were wrong, and that wasn’t a hangar you saw. Or even if you were right, but there’s no aircraft there.’
Dekker shrugged. ‘I know what I saw,’ he said, ‘but I’ve no idea what’s inside that building.’
It took them over half an hour to reach Roure, checking out for carabinieri all the way, but without seeing a sign of any. Once they’d cleared the southern end of the village Dekker started peering over to his left.
‘How close was it, exactly?’ Richter asked, still driving as fast as he could.
‘I can’t remember. It was just something I noticed as I drove along this stretch of road.’
They passed through another village, named Perosa Argentina, and then another called Pinasca, and about a mile beyond it Dekker suddenly pointed.
‘There you go,’ he said.
On the opposite side of the road stood a wooden pole from which a windsock hung down limply, and beyond that a well-mowed area running along the centre of a field. To Richter, it looked about five or six hundred yards long, which suggested it was used by quite a small aircraft. And he hadn’t flown off a grass airfield since the days when he’d been at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, doing his flying grading in a Chipmunk at Roborough Airfield near Plymouth.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a look inside that barn over there. At least that’ll get us off the road.’
A narrow track ran down one side of the field, past the barn, presumably leading to other farm buildings or maybe even the farmhouse itself. Richter swung the car across the road and bounced along the track’s uneven and heavily rutted surface, which was more suitable for a four-by-four or a tractor than a saloon car. There was a turn-off behind the barn, and he pulled into it and stopped the Peugeot close to the building. It wasn’t completely hidden from view of the road, but wouldn’t easily be noticed.
The barn was partly brick, the masonry extending about halfway up the sides and rear of the building, with wooden panelling above that. There was a side door secured with a padlock, but the double front doors had no visible locks at all, so they were presumably secured by internal bolts. The padlock looked strong and new, but the wood that the hasp was screwed into was soft, and within five minutes Dekker’s pocket knife had loosened it enough to free the screws. He glanced round, pulled open the door, and the three of them stepped inside the building.
The only light penetrating the interior came from the now open side door, and the sudden contrast with the bright daylight outside made it difficult to see. But, through the gloom, Richter had no trouble identifying a light aircraft parked in the middle of the floor.
It was a single-engined, low-wing monoplane, basically white with a stripe running down the side of the fuselage, in three different shades of blue. The engine drove a three-bladed propeller, and it had a retractable tricycle undercarriage, a single door on the right-hand side, and four seats.
‘It looks almost new,’ Dekker observed. ‘Is it?’
‘Far from it.’ Richter laughed shortly. ‘That’s a Piper Arrow, and it’s probably at least twenty-five years old – maybe as much as forty. Don’t forget, aircraft don’t show their age the ways cars do. Piper have been making light aircraft that look pretty much the same as this for half a century, and most of them are still flying.’
‘So how do you know it’s that old?’ Raya asked.
‘One big clue. The Arrow changed from a conventional rudder and tailplane to a T-tail in the late seventies – in 1978 or 1979, I think – but this aircraft still has the original layout, which means it had to have been made before 1980. In fact, this model’s been around since about ’67, so it could be as old as that.
‘Bit of a flying antique, then. Is it safe?’
‘Yes. All aircraft have to be checked on a regular basis, and that includes stuff like compulsory engine overhauls, at specified intervals, so they’re much better maintained than cars or trucks.’
‘And they’d need to be,’ Dekker remarked, ‘because if your car engine blows up, you don’t fall ten thousand feet out of the sky and crash to the ground in a ball of flame.’
‘Not a fan of light aircraft, then, Colin?’
‘Not really, no. The more wings and engines and pilots the better, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘This was your idea,’ Richter reminded him, ‘not mine.’
‘Yeah, and I’m beginning to have second thoughts about it. Have you ever flown something like this before?’
‘Not for a few years,’ Richter said, ‘but yes, I have. Until a few weeks ago I was tooling around the sky in a Harrier, and I promise you this will be a hell of a lot easier to fly. And, right now, I don’t think we have much choice.’
He strode across to the aircraft’s door, pulled it open, climbed inside, and sat down in the left-hand seat.
‘No ignition switch?’ Dekker asked.
‘As a matter of fact there is, but the key’s still in it. The hangar’s supposed to provide the security, not what’s inside it. And not everyone can steal an aircraft. It’s not like nicking some Ford parked on the street.’
Richter checked the instruments, particularly the fuel gauge, then climbed out again.
‘What’re you doing?’ Dekker asked.
‘Basic airmanship,’ Richter replied. ‘External checks first, then pre-start checks, then all the rest of them.’
‘We don’t have time for that. We need to get out of here.’
‘Then we make time. I’d rather spend the rest of my days in an Italian prison than end up as a red smear on the side of some mountain because I forgot to remove all the control locks.’
But, even so, it didn’t take long, because it wasn’t a big aircraft and there wasn’t a lot to check. Within a couple of minutes, Richter was back in the pilot’s seat and busy checking the flying controls for full and free movement. He noted that the altimeter was showing an altitude of around 2,100 metres, which probably indicated the height above sea level of the grass strip outside. He didn’t touch the sub-scale to alter it, because he knew he would need some indication of his altitude in case they ran into cloud or bad weather.
‘OK,’ he said, after a few moments, ‘we’re ready. Raya, get in the back, please. Colin, those doors at the front of the building should slide sideways on runners. You open them up, while I start the engine.’
‘About time,’ Dekker muttered, then trotted over to the double doors. He pulled open the bolts securing them at top and bottom, then pushed sideways on the left-hand door. Just as it started to move, he stepped back into the hangar and pointed silently over towards the roadway outside.
Richter peered through the windscreen and the open door and cursed silently. Two carabinieri cars, their blue and white colour scheme making them quite unmistakable, had stopped near the entrance to the track that led down to the small hangar, and a handful of officers were standing beside them, some talking on mobile phones, others just gazing around. They weren’t actually focusing on the hangar, as far as he could tell, but that situation would change as soon as he started the Piper’s engine. It all depended on whether they would associate the departing aircraft with the fugitives they were looking for. And Richter guessed they probably would.
Dekker pushed open the other door. Both moved almost silently on well-oiled tracks, and his actions so far didn’t seem to have attracted the attention of the Italian police officers.
‘There are chocks around the main wheels, Colin,’ Richter called out. ‘Pull them clear, then get on board.’
The moment Dekker had closed the single door of the aircraft, Richter started the ignition sequence. The Lycoming engine turned over noisily, coughed twice and then caught, settling down to a reassuringly steady roar, the sound grossly magnified by the walls of the hangar.
The effect of the sudden noise was immediate. Half of the carabinieri jumped into one of the cars, switched on the lights and sirens, and turned it down the lane leading towards the hangar.
‘Cat and pigeons,’ Dekker muttered. ‘You want me to slow them down a bit?’
‘Not unless you have to,’ Richter said. ‘Belt in, both of you, and if you know any good gods, this would be an excellent time to pick one and start praying.’
He pushed the throttle forward gently, in order to start the Piper moving. As soon as the wing tips cleared the hangar doors, he increased the power setting and sent the little aircraft skidding across the grass towards the nearer end of the basic runway.
‘Aren’t you supposed to take off into wind?’ Dekker asked, gesturing towards the windsock, which was now moving lazily, but pointing in the general direction Richter was heading.
‘You just concentrate on the shooting and let me do the flying.’
The carabinieri vehicle had almost reached the hangar, and the turn-off beside it, when the Piper reached the near edge of the short-cropped grass. Dekker watched as the officers piled out of it. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their gestures were quite unmistakable.
‘I think they know we’re in this aircraft,’ he said urgently. ‘They’re going to start shooting any time now, so getting ourselves airborne is probably a good idea.’
‘I’m doing it,’ Richter snapped, engaging full flap and lining up the Piper along the grass strip ahead of them.
The carabiniere driver was now sounding his horn in a long, continuous blare of sound, easily audible even over the roar of the Piper’s Lycoming engine.
‘Now they’ve spotted the Peugeot,’ Dekker said, looking back through the side window of the aircraft.
The other car lurched to a halt beside the hangar and its doors swung open. Grey-clad officers spilled out, weapons in hand.
Palazzo Margherita, Via Vittorio Veneto, Rome, Italy
‘There’s just been an incident near the border,’ Clayton Richards said, putting down his desk phone and standing up.
‘Whereabouts? And what sort of incident?’ Westwood asked.
Richards strode over to the map. ‘Near Sestriere, just here.’ He pointed at a curving minor road that lay to the west of Turin. ‘Our contact in the carabinieri has reported that shots were fired at police vehicles, but we’ve no reports of casualties at the moment. It happened about fifty minutes ago, and apparently the carabinieri are now in pursuit of a vehicle with at least two people in it.’
‘That could be it,’ Westwood said, after a moment. ‘At least, it’s the first report of anything happening that sounds likely. I’ll scramble the U2 out of Aviano and see what that can detect. And I’ll also check with Langley and find out if any of the KH-12 birds were within range at the time this happened.’
Piemonte, Italy
The Piper was now accelerating quickly along the grass strip, with the throttle fully open. Richter was controlling the direction with the rudder pedals, and starting to ease back on the control yoke as the aircraft’s speed increased. The little aircraft banged and crashed around on the uneven surface, as the wheels hit humps and dips, and the cabin shook uncomfortably.
Behind them, there was a sudden rattle of submachine-gun fire as the Italian officers opened up. If the carabinieri had been armed with rifles, it would have been a different story, but the weapons they were carrying were intended for close-quarter fighting against soft targets – human beings, in fact – and the Piper was already nearly a hundred yards away from them before they started firing. A couple of stray rounds hit the roof of the cabin, drilling harmlessly through its thin aluminium skin. Out of the corner of his eye, Richter saw another round hit the port wing, near the tip.
But he was ignoring everything except getting the aircraft into the sky. The Piper was feeling lighter, that almost indefinable sensation felt through the controls as the aircraft approached sixty knots – which he guessed was about take-off speed. Moments later, he eased back gently on the yoke. The nose lifted, and the bouncing and juddering ceased, as the Piper lifted smoothly into the air, about a hundred yards from the far end of the grass strip.
Richter kept the throttle fully open and continued climbing as quickly as he could – which wasn’t that fast. He was used to a Harrier’s 50,000 feet-per-minute rate of climb, and the Piper felt more like it was going up at only fifty feet a minute.
‘Thank God for that,’ Raya murmured, both hands firmly clutching her seat belt.
‘Can we get to England in this thing?’ Dekker asked.
‘No,’ Richter said shortly, raising the undercarriage as the Piper picked up speed. ‘With full tanks it can cover about eight or nine hundred miles, but we’d never make anything like that distance. We’ve just shot our way out of Italy, and there’s absolutely no reason why the Italians shouldn’t ask the French to force us down somewhere. If we tried going all the way, we’d find a couple of Mirages or something on either side of us really soon. And if we didn’t land where and when they told us, they’d probably just shoot us down.’
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Simple. We’re out of reach of the Italians now, so we use this aircraft simply to hop over the border into France, pick our own landing spot, and then vanish.’
Richter checked the altimeter. They had climbed to an indicated altitude of just over 3,000 metres, and were probably already five or six miles from the grass strip, but still heading east, towards Turin. He continued the climb. Attached to the dashboard of the Piper was a plastic plate with radio frequencies, various speeds and other information written on it. In fact, the kind of stuff that a pilot flying in this area would need to have immediately available. At the bottom of the plate were two heights indicated in metres.
The first number was 2,160, which was probably the elevation of the grass landing strip, so the pilot would know what his altimeter should be telling him when he reached the touch-down point. The second was just over 5,000 metres, which Richter guessed was the safety altitude for this area, which would guarantee clearance above even the highest peaks in all weather conditions. That was the altitude he was going to aim for, as long as the Piper could reach it – and it was probably pretty close to the plane’s maximum ceiling.
But, first, it was time he altered course.
Palazzo Margherita, Via Vittorio Veneto, Rome, Italy
Clayton Richards looked up as somebody knocked at the door of his office, before stepping inside. It was a junior officer clutching a sheaf of photographs.
‘From Langley, sir,’ he said. ‘The latest downloads from the last Ikon satellite pass.’
‘Thanks,’ Richards growled, then cleared a space on his desk and spread out the pictures so that he and Westwood could look at them together.
The definition was high and the images were amazingly clear, but there was nothing the designers of the satellite cameras could do about the laws of physics, so there was a limit to what could be seen from even a state-of-the-art, high-speed platform travelling some two hundred miles above the ground.
Helpfully, one of the analysts at the NRO had annotated the photographs before sending them to CIA Headquarters, so the Franco-Italian border was clearly marked, as was Turin and several of the larger towns in the area. In response to Westwood’s specific request, they’d also indicated two apparently abandoned carabinieri cars on the road outside the town of Cesana Torinese. That was interesting, and served to confirm the report Richards had already received about an ‘incident’ near the border.
But what was even more interesting was another pair of Italian police cars to be seen just east of Pinasca. One was stationary on the road, but the other was clearly in motion, driving down a narrow track towards a building located in a field. And beyond that building was the unmistakable white shape of a small civilian aircraft.
‘That’s them,’ Westwood muttered. ‘Five gets you ten, whoever the Brits sent out to pick up Raya Kosov is a pilot, and he’s going to fly her out of Italy.’
‘That’s a hell of a leap of logic, sir,’ Richards said.
‘No, it makes sense,’ Westwood insisted. ‘The first incident occurred on the same road, near Cesana Torinese, so they had to be driving east. They spotted the hangar, took a chance there’d be an aircraft in it, and they’ve stolen it. Gotta admire that kind of thinking.’
‘But they can’t make it to England in that little thing, can they?’
‘No. That’s why I’ve got the Lear here. Get me a car and driver to take me to Fiumicino right now. Then contact the U2 through Aviano Operations, and tell the pilot to get airborne asap, and concentrate on the area around Pinasca. I need to know where that civil aircraft is heading. Tell him I’ll call Aviano from the Lear, once we’re in the air, so they can patch me straight through to the pilot.’
Above Piemonte, Italy
There were various maps and charts to be found in the aircraft cabin, but Richter didn’t think he’d need to use most of them. As long as they headed more or less west, and he managed to avoid flying into the top of a mountain, they’d eventually end up where they wanted to go. And Richter figured it was more important, at that moment, for him to keep looking out of the window rather than bury his head in an aviation chart. They’d been only about thirty miles from the Italian border when they took off, so within the hour, and with a modicum of luck, they should be on the ground again, but this time in France.
‘We’ll head north,’ he decided.
‘North?’ Dekker and Raya replied, almost simultaneously.
‘Only so as to try to mislead the Eyeties on the ground,’ Richter explained. ‘They can still see us, remember. If we simply reverse direction and head straight for Briançon, that’s where they’ll tell the French to start looking for us. And they’ll definitely be talking to the gendarmes any time now. If they think we’re heading north, trying to get to Switzerland, or even Germany or Austria, that will widen the search area, and right now that’s very important for us.’
‘Yeah, makes sense,’ Dekker said. ‘And I take back what I said before. You can fly an aircraft – even one you’ve not flown before.’
‘The Queen seemed to think so too. That’s why she paid me for years.’
Richter looked ahead, mentally planning his route. Directly in front, he could see a couple of small lakes and, beyond them, the urban sprawl of Turin. To his left, ranges of mountains extended in all directions and, perhaps ten miles away, the black ribbon of the A32 autostrada snaking along the base of the Val di Susa.
‘Right,’ he said, pressing the left rudder pedal and turning the yoke to the left, then starting the Piper in a left-hand bank. ‘We’ll start tracking north.’
He stabilized the aircraft on a northerly heading, then reached down and pulled out the navigation charts. He flipped through them until he found a topographical chart, and opened it up.
‘I’ll hold it for you,’ Dekker suggested, and took hold of one side of it.
‘Thanks.’
With the tip of his finger, Richter traced a route running north, and across the autostrada.
‘We’ll turn west about here,’ he said, ‘between Pointe de Charbonnel and L’Albaron. That’s actually on the French border. Then I want to head west over open country, not fly over towns where people might see us, or even over major roads, and that route seems to be about the best option.’
‘Not a bad choice.’ Dekker nodded. ‘We’ll have to fly over that minor road there, the D902, but after that there’s nothing much on the ground until we reach some of these small Alpine villages. And most of them seem to be located at the limits of dead-end roads, so I guess they’re mainly ski resorts. And that means they should be pretty much deserted at this time of year. Where will you land?’
‘Buggered if I know,’ Richter said. ‘We’ll need to get clear of these mountains first, then I’ll start looking. All I’ll need is a reasonably level piece of ground, about five hundred yards long, preferably grass, that’s not too far out in the sticks – because, once we abandon this aircraft, we’ll be walking.’
‘We’ll find a car,’ Dekker promised, ‘one way or the other.’
They’d just crossed the autostrada a couple of miles east of Borgone Susa, when Dekker pointed ahead.
‘What?’
‘A glint of something just over there. Something moving,’ Dekker replied.
Then Richter saw it too. A sudden oval shimmer of light, in view for just a bare second or two, then disappearing again. But, unlike Dekker, he knew exactly what it was, and it wasn’t good news.
‘That’s a helicopter rotor disc,’ he said. ‘I thought the Italians might have a chopper or two patrolling this area, searching for us, and it looks to me like that one’s following the line of the border fairly closely.’
‘But we’re OK up here, aren’t we?’ Dekker asked. ‘I mean, we’re well above it, and this plane must be faster than a chopper, surely?’
‘We are above it, yes, and most light, fixed-wing aircraft are quicker than most helicopters, yes. If that’s just a surveillance bird, it shouldn’t be a problem. But if it’s a gunship, and the crew manage to spot us, we’re in trouble.’
‘And the Italians have helicopter gunships, do they?’ Dekker asked.
Richter nodded grimly. ‘They even build one of their own: it’s called a Mangusta, and it’s a bit like an Apache with attitude. It’s got a twenty-millimetre cannon, and it can carry quite a bouquet of missiles – Stingers, TOWs, Mistrals and Hellfires. This Arrow could just about outdistance the chopper in a straight line, but we’d never be able to outrun its missiles.’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘That about sums it up.’
For the moment, Richter did nothing. It was just possible that the helicopter was a private aircraft that simply happened to be in the area, in which case it was no threat to them. Even if it was a military or police aircraft, running surveillance along the border, it wouldn’t be a problem, because the crew would be looking down, trying to identify anyone crossing into France by not using the roads. What he feared, though, was that news of their theft of the Piper Arrow had already been broadcast, and that the Italian military was now involved.
‘Give me that chart,’ he demanded. Dekker handed it over.
Richter studied it for a few moments, then passed it back. ‘We might be OK,’ he said. ‘The closest military base is near Caselle Torinese, just north of Turin. There’s no way a gunship could have got from there to here by now, even if it had been crewed up and ready to launch the moment we stole this aircraft. And if the Italians were looking for us on the ground, a gunship wouldn’t do them any good.’
‘So you reckon that’s maybe just a police chopper, something like that?’
‘Most likely, yes, but just keep your eyes on it.’
Richter had now coaxed the Piper up to an indicated altitude of just over 5,000 metres, which felt pretty near its maximum ceiling because the rate of climb had fallen dramatically, despite the Lycoming engine still being at almost full throttle. The helicopter looked as if it was about 1,500 metres below them, and was heading south. It still appeared to be following the Franco-Italian border, which in that area ran more or less north-east to south-west. As the Piper was flying north, Richter reckoned they should get behind the helicopter within a couple of minutes.
Ahead of the aircraft, a group of four peaks loomed up, in an almost square formation. The westerly pair were the ones Richter had decided to fly between – Pointe de Charbonnel and L’Albaron – and as the helicopter passed down their port side, about four miles away, he started easing the Piper into a gentle left-hand turn onto a northwesterly heading. Looking down, he saw two small towns almost directly below them. From the chart, they looked like Margone and Usseglio, both on the banks of the Stura di Viù river, which told him exactly where they now were. His new course would take them across the French border as quickly as possible, and also allow him to keep an eye on the helicopter, just in case its crew spotted them.
‘I think that peak is probably Croix-Rousse,’ Dekker said, looking at the chart and mangling the pronunciation. ‘And if it is, it’s actually on the border itself. So, once we get beyond that, we should start smelling the garlic.’
Below and behind them, the helicopter continued on its southbound track, apparently oblivious to their presence overhead.
In fairness to Richter, he had his hands full. He was piloting an aircraft he’d never flown before, and was still getting used to its instruments and controls. He was flying over unfamiliar and potentially hostile territory, without any kind of flight plan or even a clear idea of where he was going. And a lot of his attention was focused on the helicopter below them.
Which was why he didn’t see the Aeronautica Militare Aermacchi MB-339 until it roared past their right-hand wing tip.