“We need to get out to Shakuvo now” I said, “and wait for Volk to meet Oleg.”
Pechkin cleared his throat, “I’m getting a research package on Oleg Danshov. He’s got a website advertising extreme wilderness tours, and I have his army record. There’s a photo being emailed to me now.”
Alisa smiled and slapped Pechkin on the back so hard he spat his cigarette out, “excellent, your escape from this place draws ever nearer.”
“Thank fuck for that, Colonel” he laughed.
We helped ourselves to rifles and ammunition from Pechkin’s warehouse and drove back out to the airfield. The Antonov still squatted on the concrete apron, the loadmaster checking the fuselage and talking to mechanics. Alisa went to speak with the pilot, who nodded and signalled to the ground crew to prepare for take-off.
“Call me with anything you get back about Danshov” said Alisa, shaking Pechkin’s hand.
“Of course, and put a good word in for me, eh, Colonel?” He shuffled back off to his SUV, lighting a cigarette.
Fifteen minutes later we were flying east, over Tatarstan. I gave the loadmaster a bottle of vodka and some Chinese cigars, liberated from Pechkin’s warehouse. He was delighted, and piped awful Russian pop music through my earphones while we smoked and poured vodka into our coffee. The cold went away quickly after that. Alisa joined us, coughing on the cigar smoke and smiling at the taste of the boozy, hot drink.
It took less than an hour before the pilot announced that we were on our final approach for Shakuvo, a cold war strategic bomber base. I looked through the window and saw the airfield, the two parallel runways like long grey scars in the snow. There were a few light aircraft and a rescue helicopter visible by the hangers.
“Can you see the reactor?” said Alisa, pointing at the horizon.
In the darkness I saw a faint glow of white light beyond a forest. As I focussed it morphed into a hazy line of buildings. Perched next to it was a teetering black plinth, many stories high. A crooked metal chimney protruded from the top like a periscope. A red light blinked lazily from the tip, steam and smoke pissing from unseen apertures in the structure
“That’s the concrete shroud around the reactor” said Alisa, “it was only completed five years ago.”
“And Shakuvo, the town itself, is where?”
She shuffled a map “it’s to the south of the reactor, on the other side of the forest. We’re just skimming the edge of the control zone now, I think.”
“We’ll be landing in ten minutes” said the loadmaster, “and this place gives me the creeps. It’s cursed.”
“Do you fly this route often?” I said.
“Only to take technicians out to the reactor occasionally” said the loadmaster, “most of the time we carry out routine flights for the intelligence people, down to Kazakhstan or across to Chechnya.”
We landed at the military airfield at dusk. White lights marked the tiny control tower, a red and white windsock fluttering from the roof.
“OK, the air force guys have arranged a vehicle, they’re going to get us off base,” said Alisa. “This is a special services squadron plane, they know not to ask questions.”
I looked at my watch. “I guess we’ve got less than twelve hours before Oleg meets with Volk and Van Basten to take them in.”
“Let’s arrange a reception,” nodded Alisa.
“Good luck,” said the loadmaster, looking at our bulky kit bags full of weapons and CBRN equipment.
“And to you too, tovarich,” I said, giving him a hug.
Alisa kissed his cheeks and gave him another bottle of vodka.
“I don’t think we’ll need this,” she said mock-sadly.
We climbed into a green-painted military 4 × 4, driven by the co-pilot, and bumped across the runway. At the gate a sentry leant out of his box and waved.
“Special services!” called the pilot, flashing a yellow laminated pass, “We’re coming through.”
“Yes sir,” said the sentry, saluting as we drove by.
“OK” said the air force officer in excellent English, “the vehicle is yours, good luck. If you want to reach the controlled zone, follow the orange road signs. We’re going to be here for twenty-four hours, if you aren’t back by then the next shuttle is the day after tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“It is a pleasure, sir” he said smoothly, hopping out of the driver’s seat. “Good luck.”
He turned on his heel and walked along the lonely perimeter road. I slid behind the steering wheel and motored south, along the pitted road, towards Shakuvo. The orange road signs all showed the radioactivity symbol, a black circle with three wedges radiating from it. A rusting sign read in Russian and English:
DANGER!
MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR
SHAKUVO RADIOLOGICAL CONTROL ZONE
15 KM
NO ENTRY WITHOUT PERMIT
“Let’s find somewhere to wait,” said Turov quietly, pulling out the slim yellow Dosimeter and switching it on.
“What’s the radiation level?” I said.
“About twice the normal ambient level of London” she shrugged, “nothing to worry about.”
“I feel much safer now” I said, lighting a cigar.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Three kilometres short of the control zone, at the crossroads Oleg had mentioned, we found a petrol station. A beefy-armed babushka had had opened a gift and snack shop, serving soup, pancakes and plastic models of the Shakuvo reactor building. The only customers were young interior ministry troops, wearing distinctive blue and grey camouflage uniforms and fur winter hats. They ignored us as they smoked, drank coffee and stuffed their faces.
We sat in our jeep and listened to the heater cough, the wash of our headlights illuminating the road. Alisa drummed her fingers on the dashboard, “do we take them here, or follow them?”
“If the server is in the complex, does that mean it’s connected to the internet?” I said.
“Good point” said Alisa, “Volk wants to get into the control zone, right? I can’t believe there’s a connection in there. The whole point would be that nobody could hack the server, that it’s completely sterile.”
“Sure, but if there is a connection, they can put the file online before we reach them. Then the operation is a failure.”
“Do you think you can follow an expert in this weather, into the site?”
I shook my head, “I doubt it, but there is another option.”
Alisa ran a hand through her hair, “go on.”
“Look at those meatheads,” I said, jerking a thumb at the OMON troops stood by the petrol station. “Maybe we can tip them off that somebody called Oleg is going to try to break into the control zone.”
“Yes, then we can get in before we put out the alert,” said Alisa, “by the time they make it into the site we’ll be ahead of them, if they get caught then it’s usually a fine or a bribe. It will delay them.”
“Get Pechkin to put in an anonymous call” I said, “name Oleg, but not Volk.”
Alisa’s eyes narrowed as she concentrated, “not a bad plan, but how do we get through the control zone?”
I opened the map in front of us. “Look at this area, it’s huge. There’s no way you can patrol all of it. We know that Oleg meets clients near this crossroads. We just need to figure out where he’ll go when he sees a reception committee of soldiers waiting to detain him. Then we hide up at the point nearest to Shakuvo from there.”
“It’s risky.”
“This job has been risky from day one,” I said.
We talked it through and agreed to break into the control zone at dusk, then contact Pechkin. The map showed the outskirts of Shakuvo eight kilometres from our location. We drove back up the road, turning off along a smaller track, rutted with the marks of heavy vehicles. At the end of the road was a concrete guard post. I guessed the fence was three metres high, topped with barbed wire and marked with yet more warning signs.
&nbs
p; We took the jeep off-track, driving parallel to the fence across the fields. It was quiet, the glow of lights from guard towers the only illumination. Finally we parked on a hard-standing where a broken down truck languished, the rear tyres missing.
“We wait here” said Alisa, “it must be minus fifteen out there.”
I rifled through my kit and found a bar of chocolate and a camping stove. We brewed coffee, the little heater in the jeep chugging gently. Turov called Pechkin and told him to make an anonymous tip-off to the authorities about Oleg, and about his rendezvous point near the petrol station.
Eventually we dozed, our yellow Dosimeters still clipped to our pockets.
It was 0500 when I was woken up by the sound of engines. I rubbed frost from inside the window and saw three white-painted troop carriers rumbling past us on the service road. Two trucks and a 4 × 4 followed.
“Well done Pechkin,” mumbled Turov sleepily from under a blanket.
“I don’t suppose the guard force here get much action” I said, “OK, let’s go.”
When the interior ministry troops had passed by I pulled a pair of bolt-croppers from the boot of the jeep and jogged to the perimeter fence. I carefully snipped the wire to create a panel big enough for us to drive through then let drop back down behind us, making the gap look less obvious.
Turov put her thumb up and nudged the air force GAZ jeep through the gap. I climbed back in and we drove slowly through a wood, reaching another gritted service road. A sign read:
CONTROLLED ZONE
Shakuvo (Town) 8 KM
Shakuvo (Reactor) 12 KM
Administrative Centre 3 KM
PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT TO BE WORN 2 KM FROM REACTOR
By order of the Interior Ministry
“People work here” said Turov as we headed for the town, “mainly scientific specialists and researchers.”
We drove past abandoned buildings and warehouses. Two men, wearing boiler suits and driving a small tractor, waved at the air force jeep as we drove by. Finally we reached the outskirts of Shakuvo, weak sunlight filtering through the clouds.
It was a ghost town. Grey-green vines and foliage snaked up the sides of buildings, rusting vehicles sitting where they’d been abandoned in 1991. A fox trotted past us and gave us a curious look as it padded away. There were trees everywhere, growing on the pavements and through the tops of buildings.
“The wildlife does OK then?” I said.
“Only because there are no humans” replied Alisa, “new-born cattle were horribly mutated, and you can’t eat the fish.”
I opened a bar of chocolate and took a bite, “so this is what the end of the world looks like?”
“Don’t you think it’s beautiful?” she said.
“No, I think it’s spooky.”
“It’s so quiet,” she replied.
We drove through town, the concrete sarcophagus of the reactor looming in the distance. As we drew closer I could see it was constructed with slabs of dark grey stone, held in place with steel joists and scaffolding. Weather-stained and rotting, it oozed dark fluids from pipes and vents. It looked alien and wrong.
My Dosimeter bleeped.
“6.9uSv/hr” said Turov, “that’s dangerous. Let’s suit up.”
We reversed back a hundred yards and the reading dropped. I realised that the contamination was completely localised. A gentle breeze blew from behind us, scattering a few flakes of snow.
We unloaded our CBRN equipment and I wriggled into the heavy grey over-suit. In the cold it was another welcome layer. Next were my over boots and last was the respirator hood. Alisa and I checked each other’s kit and taped the joins at our wrists and ankles. A small box sewn into the suit allowed me to switch the air supply on or off, depending on the level of radiation.
We drove to the town centre, where there was a monument to the emergency workers and reactor staff that perished in the accident. Carved from a slab of black marble, it showed a man in a hard hat helping a fireman get to his feet. Underneath were carved the names of all of the victims, in Russian and Tatar. Around the plinth were scattered bouquets of shrivelled flowers.
“Well, if he’s laying flowers this is it,” I said through my mask.
I got out of the jeep and shouldered my AK-74. The town hall, built in the brutalist soviet style, had two angular concrete towers at either end. “Let’s go up there,” I said, pointing at the towers. We parked at the back of the building and stepped through an open doorway.
Inside, the building was frozen in January 1991. Old books and papers littered the floor, mouldy furniture littering the rooms. I checked my Dosimeter. The radiation level had dropped to a safe level again, and I took off the uncomfortable respirator.
“This is doing nothing for my hair,” dead-panned Alisa as she slipped off the grey hooded mask.
We plodded up the stairs in our heavy over-boots. The staircase was covered in graffiti from explorers and adventure tourists. At the top was an office, picked clean by souvenir-hunters. It had a panoramic view of the town, the reactor behind us.
I pulled a pair of binoculars from my day-sack and leant by the broken window. From the office I could see the main routes into and out of town, a line of trees on the horizon marking the entry to the controlled zone some eight kilometres away. In the distance, to my right, I could see a white low-rise building with vehicles parked outside.
“That’s the OMON barracks,” said Alisa. The OMON were the interior ministry guards.
I found myself checking my Dosimeter every few seconds, but it remained constant. Then we waited for two hours, gazing over the ruined town and the black, fortress-like reactor building.
“Look” said Alisa, pointing towards the trees.
We stood back from the window as three men trudged into view, wearing green protective suits and respirators. They all wore packs, one of the men armed with a rifle.
“It’s them” whispered Alisa, shouldering her AK, “they’re heading towards us.”
At the monument one of the men stepped forward and put a wreath on the plinth, directly below us. I could hear voices on the wind, but couldn’t make out words. I checked the safety on my weapon and took aim at the man who’d placed the wreath.
“Wait” said Alisa, “see where they go.”
The men carried on slowly past us, towards the reactor building. Then they walked out of view, towards a gnarly, forested hill.
Putting on our respirator helmets, we headed back downstairs towards the plinth. I walked carefully towards it, rifle in my shoulder. The flowers were white lilies and Russian ivy, decorated with black ribbon. I nudged the piece of card tied to the wreath to look for the message.
It was there, in Russian:
You shouldn’t have followed me
“Alisa!” I shouted. My voice was muffled in the helmet, breath misting the visor.
She saw me and crouched in cover near a block of concrete stairs. Automatic fire stitched crazily across the walls, Alisa disappearing in a cloud of brick dust and debris. I fell to my belly and scrambled towards her, more incoming fire sweeping the square. I glanced up and saw white muzzle flashes from the trees.
More bullets splashed about us, birds skittering out of the trees in protest at the commotion.
I breathed out gently and aimed, lining up the muzzle flash in the optics of the AK. Squeezing the trigger I fired three single shots, then hauled myself to my feet and sprinted towards Alisa, dragging her into cover. The firing stopped.
Bullets had raked across her body, dark red entry wounds staining the protective suit on her thighs, abdomen and chest. The inside of her helmet was spattered red. She groaned, her gloved hands fluttering by her sides.
I ripped a field dressing from my pocket. She shook her head.
“What is it?” I gasped, patting myself down to see if we’d packed morphine.
“I can’t die in here” she sobbed, “take this helmet off, Cal. Please.”
“The radiation …”
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br /> Alisa tried to laugh, but could only let out a hacking cough, “cancer is the least of my worries. I want to die under the sky, not in here.”
My gloved fingers fumbled at the catches on the respirator helmet as I pulled it clear of her head. Her eyes glazed over, breathing shallow. Dark red blood bubbled from her mouth, spraying my visor as she exhaled.
“Cal …”
“It’s OK baby,” I said, holding her to me.
“Say my name, when you kill Volk,” she sighed.
Then she was gone.
I waited for a few minutes, dragged her body to the front of the plinth. I searched her for spare ammunition then, reloading my rifle, I started for the trees.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
I followed the fresh prints of heavy over-boots. Entering the trees I paused, spotting spent shell casings in the snow.
In front of me birds wheeled into the sky, squawking angrily.
Rifle in my hand, I lowered myself to the ground and waited. Through the optics on the AK I scanned the trees, spotting a low, flat-roofed building through the bare, spindly branches. It, like the rest of Shakuvo, was made of stained grey concrete. At the edge of the building line I saw movement.
Slowly, hugging the ground, I edged forward to the next tree. Thick brambles barred my way, obscuring the view. I found a gap in the thick, twisted vegetation and aimed through it. The building was a school, a faded painting of a boy and a girl holding hands decorating the wall. In the playground, crouching behind a concrete slab was a tall man in protective equipment. His rifle was aimed into the trees, slightly to the right of where I was hiding.
Inside the respirator it was stuffy, the visor steaming up. At least the protective suit kept me warm in the snow, on top of the layers of cold-weather clothing I was wearing. Alisa’s blood stained my gloves and clothes, hot tears stinging my eyes.
I wanted to tear off the mask and attack.
The only thing stopping me was my plans for Fyodor Volk. That, and the voice at the back of my head, the one the therapist had persuaded me to cultivate. It reminded me that I’d not taken my pills for days. I needed to breathe deeply and think.
The Ninth Circle Page 27