This week's installment is inspired by Mark Felton Productions, and the story of the spy plane Kee Bird.
For those who don't want the full story, the short version of Kee Bird goes thusly: in 1947 a B-29 Superfortress spy plane flying a photoreconnaissance operation over the Arctic came down in the snow-packed tundra close to Thule, Greenland. The crew survived and were rescued along with all their camera equipment and film. The plane was left where it lay until 1994, when a privately funded rescue attempt almost succeeded in repairing the aircraft and flying it to Thule for a complete restoration. Unfortunately the fuel line ruptured, a fire broke out and the fuselage burnt beyond salvage. What little is left of Kee Bird still sits out there, all but a memory.
The Arctic has been a popular destination for surveillance aircraft since the early days of the Cold War. Even today aerial espionage is an ongoing pursuit as the Russian border is close to Alaska, and then there's the invaluable natural resources to be had. Oil is everyone's concern. That's one of the reasons why the Arctic is littered with old spy craft, and both sides have lost planes and people (warning: footage, Tu-22 plane crash 2019). Russian pilots lack the survival gear American crews enjoy; Kee Bird's people could survive for two weeks in 1947 with the food and clothing they carried on board, but Russian flight crew carry only life jackets. If rescue's following on swift wings, fine, but two weeks is two weeks. Even Russians find it difficult to survive on a diet of snow.
A Tu-22, operational from 1962 in various incarnations, carries a crew of 3: pilot, gunner, and technical officer. She has two turbojet engines and is roughly 41 meters long. Her max range is just shy of 5,000 km. The Americans call her Blinder, while to the Russians she is Awl, after the pointed leatherworking tool.
With all that in mind:
Comrades
American tech billionaire turned aviation enthusiast Peter Bell is looking for experts to help him rescue a Cold War era Soviet spy plane. According to his research, the Tu-22 went down in the Arctic tundra in 1968 while on a spy mission, and its location wasn't known to either side until 1974. Thought to be sunk in a frozen lake, recent satellite footage shows she's actually above ground and in remarkable condition given the circumstances. Bell thinks she can be repaired and flown out, at least as far as the nearest friendly airstrip where she can be properly seen to. Bell doesn't think she has any secrets to spill; he believes Soviet special forces stripped her of her surveillance equipment and film back in the 1970s. That doesn't explain why the Russians didn't destroy the airplane, to ensure it didn't fall into American hands. Bell waves off this objection as mere quibbling. He wants this bird; it's the ultimate prize, the crowning jewel of his collection.
Either the characters are experts hired by Bell, or they're special agents (Ordo Veritatis, Edom, your esoteric agency of choice) inserted into Bell's team for reasons best known to the higher-ups. The sponsor agency is convinced there's [McGuffin] in that old plane, and wants the agents to secure it before Bell stumbles onto it.
Whether there is or isn't, it soon becomes clear that the sponsor agency isn't the only one sniffing around. A smooth, bland, Harvard-and-Sorbonne academic and a former military Swede both show interest, but while the characters may rightly suspect both of them of being spies it's difficult to tell which agencies they represent. Is the freewheeling Swede a Russian agent, or a CIA front man? Is the academic getting instructions from Moscow, or the Farm? They each have money to burn, and can call on some serious hitters should the need arise.
Then the characters go to the crash site, far out in the frozen wasteland. Except crash is perhaps the wrong word; this Tu-22 is in such good condition it might have landed at an airstrip. There's nothing to show what happened to the crew. There isn't any surveillance equipment, but what comes as a surprise is there's no indication there ever was any surveillance equipment. This is some kind of modified cargo flight, and the container has Soviet biohazard markings. Why didn't the Soviets try to recover it, or at least destroy it? Why did the Americans just leave it out here, when they've known where it is since the 1970s?
- Bell's Betrayal: This isn't about a Cold War era spy plane. This is about Bell. The whole point is to lure him out to the wastelands so, back home, his business interests can be strip-mined for cash and data. His closest associates/spouse/deadbeat brother has sold out to [Esoterrorists/the Conspiracy/someone equally sinister] and this situation is a set-up, a fake designed to leave him stranded in the back of beyond. The so-called spy plane was dumped here a year ago, and there are clues aboard the Tu-22 that prove it. Maybe those biohazard markings are non-standard, or the parts date to the 2010s not the 1960s. However the sinister agency isn't satisfied with an Arctic boondoggle. The Swede/Academic paid off one or more of the team to sabotage the effort, destroying communications equipment, survival gear, and using special mind-control drugs to bend Bell to their will. The characters need to realize this and get the heck out before the traitor leaves them to rot in the Arctic wastes.
- Doublefake. This has nothing to do with the Arctic. The characters aren't even in the Arctic; this is a clever simulation, a psychological interrogation. They've been captured by [Esoterrorists/the Conspiracy/sinister forces] but the information in their heads is just too valuable to risk physically damaging them to get it. So their interrogators designed the ultimate mind-game: let the characters think they're in the Arctic, while the drugs/psi-leeches/magicians get to work stripping them clean. Think of this as Thrilling Interrogation, Night's Black Agents style. The closer the interrogators get to their goal, the more the characters sink into the simulation. However if the characters resist then the simulation breaks down: Bell forgets his lines, the plane starts to look like a cardboard prop, and why isn't it really cold up here? Isn't this supposed to be the Arctic?
- The Thing. The Russians don't know what was aboard this Tu-22; all records relating to the crash were destroyed and anyone connected with the mission executed back in Brezhnev's day. Putin would really like to know, which is why he dispatched the Academic/Swede. The Americans think they know, but were never able to confirm their hypothesis and all records relating to its salvage attempt went missing about the same time Richard Helms destroyed the MKUltra records. In spook circles this old Tu-22 is a folktale nobody takes seriously any more, but now Bell's stirred up some bad memories. The powers that be want to be reassured. The McGuffin's lost for good, yes? The cargo destroyed? Things get stranger when the characters find a survivor: Technical Officer Adrik Lebedev, who has absolutely no business being alive forty-odd years after the crash landing yet is apparently asleep at the controls. He's as surprised as anyone to find himself alive; the last thing he remembers is the pilot, Vadim Orlov, saying they were going through heavy turbulence. He won't talk to Westerners; he's a good soldier. But who is he, really? What is he?
Enjoy!
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