We were carrying small arms and other kit that might not be too favourable should we get stopped at a border crossing. We had stripped back all our kit to the very bare necessities. Thankfully, the borders before Russia were of no concern, as at the very worst we could re-route any awkward border officers to a prearranged contact in each country who would tackle any local issues before we went into Russia, but the whole intent, the whole point, was to pass unnoticed. It was all unnecessary concern; we passed into Finland barely saying hello to the border officers at the crossing and were accompanied by logging trucks and heavy lift transporters going about their daily business. Tiredness sets in as it does on all long car journeys, a fatigue that sees you prodding your driver as he does the nodding dog. It’s a fight against boredom and monotony, the endless gentle vibration of the car over the snow-covered tarmac, accompanied by a straight and uneventful road, a lapse of concentration then a swerve as you wake up, endlessly winding down the windows and closing them up again.
Keith took the wheel from Olhava to Suomussalmi, a further three hours or so. Arriving into Suomussalmi, Finland we needed to take a break, get cleaned up, and Keith needed to contact the Iranian traffickers. We just couldn’t use our papers for the Russian crossing, we needed only to be traceable back to a non-entity, a ghost or at best the Iranians, because to kidnap a Russian and make him disappear completely needed us to disappear equally as well. For any trail to lead to us or the UK would be a disaster; it all needed to lead to a complete dead end or someone quite different, and that was the intention. If the Russian intelligence services picked up on Anatoly leaving the Iron Curtain it should be because he was taken by Iranians, as this would help the West’s cause in Syria, Iraq and the wider Middle Eastern political quagmire for peace. Iran kidnapping a Russian scientist would silently shift the balance in the alliances being played out in Syria. Well, that was how Keith and I had analysed the way things were being played out. However, if all went to plan then Anatoly should cease to exist before we made the return trip and the trail for that accident sent in a different direction. All yet to be played for.
Suomussalmi is a small town, pleasant enough, on the edge of Lake Niskanselka and the River Jalonuoma, only 45 minutes away from the border. All very picturesque. The drive had taken us through endless forests and beautiful landscapes which made the whole mission thing feel sort of unreal or false. It’s these kinds of nonsensical parts of my work that made me feel dangerously at ease with what we were actually undertaking. The fact we were about to, in essence, kidnap a lead scientist and nuclear engineer from the Soviet Union and take him to the UK wasn’t even really in my mind. At the time it actually only felt like I was taking Keith to meet my old friend Anatoly in Russia on some sort of fucked-up holiday. Perhaps this was my way of rationalising the entire event, keeping it compartmentalised into an easy to do, perfectly legal trip or something – a coping mechanism, not allowing my thoughts to turn it all into mission impossible or something equally as ridiculous. We entered town and found we had a good choice of food outlets, even a couple of burger joints, and pubs that we barely resisted. We needed to find a motel, make some calls and set up the border crossing. We did a couple of circuits and caught sight of a few notices of local inns and hotels.
We found a small motel next to the Jalonuoma River. Nice spot to rest up, the hotel was clean, quiet and hidden away. It had a spa and a good menu. We checked in for the night and paid upfront, saying we were businessmen from a company called Wooltech, which was our cover story, and would be leaving early in the morning. Keith was on the phone making contact with his people in Turkey who were to pass on our contact number to those in Raate by whatever comms circuit those guys employed. It was a sit and wait situation, which I wasn’t happy with. We needed to pick up Anatoly on a specific day, and the fucking clock wouldn’t wait for some fuckwit to give us a forged or otherwise acquired permit to get over the border. Keith was well aware of my impatience and the fact I had a deadline but remained confident in his fellow smugglers. Option two was looking more likely to come into play after a few hours of pacing the room.
I ended up leaving Keith by the phone. I fucked off for a swim and a steam in the spa. Fucking amazing what you do when the pressure comes on. Drop the lot and go chill out. I took an hour in the spa and got a hot meal, bringing a plate back to the room for Keith who was asleep in the chair, sidearm in his lap. I made a brew then crashed on the bed and set the alarm for 3am; if we hadn’t heard back by then it wasn’t happening and we couldn’t wait, we would need to make other arrangements. Out like a light. Next, I’m woken up by Keith snoring his fucking head off. The phone rang precisely at the same moment I threw a cushion at him, and Keith was engaged immediately in conversation by the voice on the other end. I could pick up some details, return trip, passage to Russia, onward passage back to Turkey. One passenger out and onward passage to Turkey, three returns. Lots of timings and places covered, which Keith was busy writing down, then the receiver was slammed down. Keith stood up then turned to me and said, “We are on, mate!” No time to explain, we were up and off in the car.
Keith was driving and we had a deadline to meet the Iranians 10 miles or so before the crossing, at an outcrop in the forest outside Raate. It was all suddenly a mindfuck. We were less than 35 minutes away from the meeting point, no fucking around now, I’ve got my seat belt off and I’m rummaging in the bags for a weapon. I’m armed now and I pass Keith his Glock; he smiles, takes it but doesn’t say anything.
“How fucking safe is it, Keith? Can we trust them?”
Keith just laughs and pushes on. I stay silent for the rest of the drive; it’s his show now, to be fair, and it beats swimming across a fucking lake! The road is icy, a few swerves and manoeuvres by Keith, but he’s in control, awake and alert. Lights are on full beam, making the snow feel thicker than it actually is. Wasn’t expecting this kind of meet, but here we are, driving to meet some Iranian people smugglers in order to get a border pass and new ID. Only 20 mins later we are taking a right turn down a track to Honkajarventie, or something like that, and then into a cut-out in the forest. Track is bumpy as hell and the old car’s back springs are creaking away like an old stagecoach. Wheels spin in some dirt where a truck has been, stuck now, feel the undercarriage scrape the earth below, some revving of the engine, reverse, forward, reverse, and finally forward, then we see it. There’s a truck waiting. It’s the kind of setting you see in a WW2 movie where the back of the truck canopy is lifted and you all get mown down by a machine gun, or you simply get out of your car and are taken to pre-dug graves, shot and buried. My safety is off and I’m ready for a fucking firefight with whoever the fuck this lot are, not to mention that we are only about 10km from the border. Patrols would be out.
No fucking caution or fuck all, Keith is out the car and straight up to the cab of the truck and bangs on the cab door; two guys jump out and they each embrace Keith in turn. Keith calls me over in Farsi and I respond and go meet the party. Four guys, all Middle Eastern, Iranian, twitchy as fuck really but pleased to see Keith. Seems like this was all like a family reunion or something. Lots of excitement on their side as money and papers are exchanged and we are guided round the back of the truck to greet our ‘guide’ over the border. The deal was we would get return border papers for three if we would help get this guy back to either Turkey or Kazakhstan. Keith is smiling now and checks that all the documents match for our crossing into Russia and the return. Keith looks up after about 10 mins and says he’s happy. No problems, the papers are well established and already approved for this morning’s crossing. The conversation then turns to the issues regarding getting our guide back to Iran through Russia direct or via Turkey. Keith is calm and collected as he begins to explain the camel train organised to get him back.
It’s all smiles and the guys sling their AK47s and offer a drink and a smoke. I take the smoke and we stand there in the freezing cold as Keith catches up with old friends and people back in Tehran.
They all looked like they have been sleeping rough, unshaven, scraggy hair, grubby and in tatty clothing, but are more than happy to boast how lucrative business has been. From what I gathered they had managed to get over 250 people successfully over the border in the last 12 months. Small firms like car washes, barber shops, taxi companies, etc., etc., set up in Norway, Finland, Germany, mainly Germany, and the UK by immigrants made the process easier and almost legit by the way they were speaking. It was just bizarre to hear them talking as though it was all perfectly within their rights to get whoever wanted passage from the Middle East into these countries. The price ranged from around €500 to €3,000 depending on the value of the passengers. Wankers, the lot of them.
I was spending most of my time and effort looking out into the forest, more concerned about border patrols than all the niceties being talked about at the truck. One of the Iranian guys eventually came over to me and said, “Don’t worry, boss, our guys are following the border patrols and they’re 20km west of us.” They were organised, you had to give them that. I could relax a little.
Back at the hotel I rearranged the car and made space for our ‘guide’. So here we were with a fucking 16-hour journey ahead of us, a dodgy Iranian border guide into Russia and a bootload of kit. We got up about 5.30am, handed in the keys and set off for the border opening at 6am. Keith seemed okay with our guide, now calling himself Taylan, and was looking well pleased with himself hitching a ride he believed we would take him all the way to Turkey. Keith and I decided to call him Taylor just to fucking wind him up.
We hit the border with Russia and there’s already a queue. It’s better this way, it slows things down, there’s time to breathe and take in what may be against us. Besides, the guards just want to clear the early morning backlog and get back into the warm. We approach the checkpoint real casually.
The checkpoint is completely floodlit, with some of the lights deliberately aimed at blinding the driver. Wires lead out of the compound power source to the forest where signalling fences are no doubt set up. Keith drives up to the gates and is waved on to a stand by a small portaloo-looking cabin passing through a chicane of barriers before coming to a standstill. As soon as the car is stationary it is encircled by armed guards instantaneously. The guards are dressed in those camouflage tunics, some with oversize hats and others with the black ushanka hats with amazing hammer and sickle cap badges, all with semi-automatic weapons. They’re not really guards but NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) border troops linked to the KGB in some instances. Mirrors are run under the car and it all seems very routine.
The Iranians were well aware of all Soviet security measures and had endless intercepted documents to better enable their smuggling operations. The security methods employed mirrored the same as on the Iranian-Russian border. Sometimes they wouldn’t cross where they ought to and had other passing places along the fence lines.
The barrier is down and Keith winds down the window to greet the approaching guard. I get a tap on the window. I wind it down, fucking freezing as air engulfs the car’s entire interior cabin. I say good morning in Russian to the guard on my side, who is very young. He peers in and ignores me. White skin like office A4 copier paper and red as fuck eyes shivering under his tunic. No need to open the boot as he can see into the back of the estate. He gets around to the rear driver’s side and sees our friend Taylor sitting there with a big stupid grin on his boat race. That’s it, I nearly shit my fucking pants as Taylor and the fucking guard start talking, something about a promise to bring him back some chocolate or some shit. Then Taylor is out the car and in the back rummaging through the bags and produces a package he hands to the guard. Seems like our friend Taylor does this fucking crossing every week; not for much longer, I’m thinking to myself.
For fuck’s sake, the senior guard sees all the fucking around and is now laughing with Taylor but at the same time encouraging him to get back in the car. I can see that this has caught the attention of the guards in the main building across the other side of the checkpoint. The tension is there, I’m fucking pissed, but at the same time it all makes the encounter more normal if that is at all possible. The senior guard hands the papers to the guy in the cabin who stamps them, hands them back and the barrier is raised. Keith gently drives away, and then I see them in the wing mirror opening the chocolate and heading back to the main building. We pass around a corner in the road and all just fucking piss ourselves laughing.
“Fucking wanker, Taylor, you’re a fucking wanker.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, I know all the guards.”
Taylor has no idea what a wanker is but hands me a cigarette, laughing all the same. Keith floors the accelerator. Now the drive to Yaroslavl, 1,300 fucking kilometres, or 800 miles in old money.
Now, it sounds fucking crazy but many guys in the military think nothing of driving from say a Royal Marines base in Plymouth to Aberdeen, some 600 miles, just for the weekend, having less than 48 hours at home then turning around and heading back to camp. It’s called being a weekend warrior. I’d often see cars on the A38 late Sunday night/early hours Monday morning heading back to Plymouth doing 100mph, with Guz or bust, written in the back window accompanied by a flag, beret or hat – this back then sometimes signalled to the police we were servicemen and they would leave us alone. It worked on a few occasions to our advantage; we had a jam sandwich up the back end for about 10 minutes, then he flashed us and dropped away. However, we were stopped once and the copper just pulled us over to say, “Keep it below a ton, boys!” Usually the cars had four guys occupying them, matelots or marines, three asleep and the fourth barely awake at the wheel. The idea being they/we would split the fuel cost four ways or have a driver roster for the time they are based in the UK. It was a pain to be the driver because you had to go around dropping people off at their homes on the Friday and then do the rounds to collect them all again on the Sunday night which could add a good few hours on to the journey. The real fucker was when one of your team decided to go down the pub Sunday night before the drive back, have a few sherbets, and need a piss stop every fucking hour. Whenever I did the driving in the early days, I would have a cut-off Fanta bottle in the back for them to piss in; I never stopped for anyone. Not just because it was annoying, but it was N1 protocol.
This drive was just that, a very long way to Yaroslavl, passing through Kaleval’skiy National Park, then through Kostomuksha, a small town, before coming to the milestone junction with Route E105 South. We stopped to fill up with petrol at ‘РОСНЕФТЬ АЗС №14832’, stretched our legs briefly and allowed Taylor to take a piss! Then we pushed on past Lake Onega and on to Vologda, which is like a miniature Moscow. It’s known for the Vologda Kremlin and the 16th-century St Sophia Cathedral which is similar in looks to the churches in Red Square. This town signalled that we were getting relatively close. I was genuinely getting excited, I had that funny sick feeling, nerves I think, but only because I was so keen to see Anatoly again. It had been some time since we were able to enjoy any time together, and my mind wandered back to Moscow as I looked out the window and daydreamed of all those wonderful months we had spent together free from all the world’s troubles and demands, a bubble in the world of hard truths and reality. Our relationship would be different now.
We were ahead of schedule and had plenty of time to get our shit together. It was dark about 10pm. I drove the last stretch as far as Lyubim and later pulled up to a row of old houses just before the cottage. I asked Keith to stay with the car, checked our comms worked and said I would come back for him, and to keep Taylor out of fucking sight until I knew all was clear. I got out the car and the road was slippery, puddles of rainwater frozen, cracking under my feet as I made my way over the road in the beam of the headlights, looking for something familiar. The skulls of beasts sat in a row on the rail outside one of the huts, illuminated by a lantern, unmistakable evidence of a hunter; this was Vadim’s house I was sure. I signalled to Keith to kill the lights
as I started walking up the road to the house.
About 10 minutes later I could see the house, the lights were on and lanterns placed strategically down the road. There was no smoke from the chimney into the night sky which felt unusual; there was more than one person in the house, no fire. I called for Keith to hide the car and approach from the west side to the log stacks.
I’ve got NV (night vision) on and can see pretty clearly. Keith comes out of the trees and joins me. We wait as silent as the dead. We sit and watch for about 10 minutes. Keith stays put as I go round the back to the kitchen door entrance. I can see inside now. Fuck, there’s Cheesy!
I call Keith on the comms: “All clear. Bring up the car.” I bang on the door, see Cheesy pull out his sidearm, but simultaneously he sees my stupid face looking at him through the window with my torch illuminating my grid in some kind of childish gesture – totally unprofessional. Cheesy lets me in and we just laugh at each other for a moment, then we embrace and ask stupid questions like “What you doing here?” and “Could have fucking shot ya, mate.” Just bullshit. He slaps me about a bit and takes me into the main room.
“There he is,” Cheesy proclaims, stepping aside to let me greet my friend. Anatoly just stands there wrapped in a blanket, crying, his white face and thick blond hair poking out the top of the blanket like an albino Eskimo or something. His breath is atomising from his mouth and nostrils into the cold room. He is smiling and laughing at the same time. A bear hug from my dear friend. So fucking emotional. We embrace, my friend and I, finally reunited once more. I hold on to him tightly as he tries to pull himself back together, neither of us really able to speak coherently. Anatoly, fuck, I’m with my friend. I couldn’t believe I was with him again. He’s looking well, he’s put on a little weight, hair is longer than he usually has it from memory but as handsome as ever. He beckons me to the sofa and we sit together holding hands as he explains how fucking petrified he is, how everyone knows he’s here on a holiday and has to be back at the research facility in three days. He’s visibly shaking and a little irrational. The reality has set in that this is his defection.
The Steering Group Page 40