The Kremlin Device

by Chris Ryan

  "The tide's gone out."

  "Tide be buggered!" I snapped.

  "We're a thousand bloody miles from the sea."

  "Only joking. We don't need our masks now, that's for sure. Hardly need the suits, even. We can walk straight through with our heads above water."

  "All the better," I told him.

  "But .. . hey, what's this?"

  On the right-hand wall ahead of us, just above the water line, the top of an arched recess was showing clearly the opening to a side-tunnel. It was bricked in, but some of the cement had washed out and I could see water welling in and out through the gaps.

  "That's where it's gone," I said.

  "Or where it came in from. Part of the system."

  "So what?"

  "So nothing. We carry on.

  And through the flood we went, moving slowly to create as little disturbance as possible. Once in the water the steel case, with air trapped round it inside the rubber bag, was almost floating, and towed along easily.

  Very soon we were out of the water and at the site itself. We laid the case down a few feet short of the end of the tunnel, to make sure no debris fell on it when we started digging.

  "There you are," I told Toad.

  "It's going in that recess. And there's the shaft for the SCR. You get cracking, and we'll be back."

  One of Toad's unnerving features was his silence, the fact that he spoke so little. You felt that his brain was turning over smoothly like a well-oiled mechanism, but you hadn't a clue what he was thinking. Now, as we left him, he stood there dry washing his hands without a word.

  "I wouldn't mind sealing the bugger down here," I said as we started out with our second load.

  "That'd stop him annoying me.

  By the time we returned, Toad had the lid off the case, and for the first time we got a glimpse of its contents: a terrifying maze of bright blue and white wires snaking round compartments of different shapes. He was wearing latex gloves and a pair of headphones, listening carefully as he touched a probe on one point after another. He had small socket spanners, Allen keys and battery-driven screwdrivers laid out on a mat beside him, occasionally picking one up to tighten or loosen a connection.

  But as soon as we delivered the SCR, he turned his attention to that, because he was anxious to have it up and working first.

  Rather him than me, I thought as Pavarotti and I peeled off our dry-suits and got stuck into the digging. Secretly, though, I felt a bit like a navvy labouring in the presence of a technician who understood things that would always be beyond me.

  We were already sweating when we started to dig, and soon we were positively pouring. The ground was neither clay nor rock but something in between a hard, shaly, grey-brown compound that sometimes broke away in lumps and sometimes split up into flakes with sharp edges. To save batteries we worked with minimum light, using only one torch at a time, whacking our short-handled picks into the face, levering out whatever the blades had got hold of, and shovelling loose spoil away with our hands. From past experience I already knew that Pay stank like a badger when he got hot Pavagrotti, he was sometimes called -and now, at close quarters and in the confines of the tunnel, he was overpowering. But I realised I was smelling probably as bad to him, and said nothing.

  Toad, as always, worked in silence, but after twenty minutes or so he stood up and said, "This one's ready."

  Out of its cover, the SCR reminded me of the head of a robot, with twin aluminium antennae, linked by a cross bar near the base and rigged on the top like a pair of miniature rugby goal posts. I knew that Toad wanted it installed as high up the ventilation shaft as we could get it, and we'd worked out a means of fixing it in position. From behind our block at Balashika we'd scavenged three pieces of angle-iron and had cut them into twenty-four-inch lengths so that they'd jam across the shaft at an angle beneath it, and lock in position when its weight came down on them.

  Standing with my head up the duct, I chopped at the brickwork above me with hammer and chisel to make three notches that would take the lower ends of the struts. Chips of brick kept flying into my eyes, but the grooves didn't need to be very deep, and after one trial with a length of angle-iron, to make sure it would seat itself properly, we were ready to lift the SCR into place.

  As a temporary support, we'd brought an aluminium pole made of short sections that slotted into one another. It was part of another satellite aerial system, and we'd worked out that we could stand it upright, with a circular pad on top, to take the receiver's weight between lifts.

  When Pavarotti and I raised the box to waist height, Toad slipped the first section of pole in vertically beneath it.

  "OK," he said, 'rest there."

  Another lift, to chest height, and he got another section in.

  The pole, longer now, started to wobble and flex as it took the weight.

  "Keep it steady," said Toad.

  A third section propped the receiver at head height. The final hoist, into the shaft, could only be done by one person, pushing up with both arms above his head. I delegated the job to Pavarotti, as he's taller and stronger than me.

  "I'll give you what lift I can on the pole," I told him, gripping it with both hands.

  "Ready?"

  "Right."

  "Three, two, one lift!"

  Up went the black box, scraping against the sides of the shaft.

  Toad snapped one more length on to the bottom of the stalk and said, "OK steady again." While I held the pole in the middle, Pay bent his knees, lowering the box on to the pad.

  "Angle-irons next," I said but when I went to slot them into position, I found we still hadn't got the box high enough. We needed another three or four inches to give us the necessary clearance. While Pay and I both grabbed the pole and lifted, Toad slipped his steel tool-box under the bottom and wedged it there. That gave us the space we needed; I got the struts into position, arranged some bubble-wrap padding on top of them, and called to the others to lower gently.

  All that had taken a lot of effort and concentration. When I checked my watch I was amazed at how much time had gone by.

  Our torch batteries were faltering and needed changing.

  "Got to keep moving," I said as we took a quick break for a drink of water. Our next task was to chip out a gully for the coax cables that would connect the SCR to the device another aggravating job at which only one person could work. Again we took it in turns, going all out for a few minutes, then resting. As soon as we had a channel clear Toad moved in to connect the cables, and we went back to our main excavation.

  I'd realised that our best plan was to form the spoil from our cavity into a ramp, so that we'd be able to slide the Apple components up it and into position. The trouble with this was, the ramp itself began to get in our way. Digging became progressively more awkward as we had to lean over our own heap to reach the back of the recess. By the time we had a hole of the right dimensions, we were both knackered.

  All this time, when he wasn't tinkering with the cables, Toad remained bent over his charges, tightening, adjusting, listening through his headphones. Then, as we paused, I noticed he was into his hand-washing routine again, a curious look on his face.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Just trying to imagine it all white in here."

  "White?"

  "When the device is detonated, everything in here will be vaporised in blinding white light."

  "Charming. I hope we're not here to see it."

  "You wouldn't see anything," he said.

  "You wouldn't feel anything. You'd be obliterated, just like that." He snapped his fingers and suddenly, as if he'd conjured up a genie, we became aware of a noise.

  "What the.. . ?" Pay was crouching beside me on our ramp of spoil. He raised a hand.

  "Listen!"

  At first we could feel it rather than hear it: a deep vibration more than a sound, a shudder so low that it seemed to come through our boots. But in seconds it built into an audible flutter, then
into a rumble, then into a roar which filled the tunnel and made it shake. The water behind us had long since settled back into stillness after our passage through it. Now I saw a ripple on the black surface, and I was convinced that the roof was about to cave in.

  I looked round at the concrete blocks behind us. We were trapped between the wall and the water in a section of tunnel about fifteen yards long.

  The pulsating roar built up still louder until it seemed to come from right over our heads. Particles of brick dust started to fall from the roof. I looked up at the brickwork right above us, fearful that I'd see water break through the joins, expecting to be swamped any minute. I made a grab for my mask and breathing kit.

  Into the din Pay yelled, "Fucking Metro!"

  "Bollocks!" I shouted.

  "No Metro line anywhere near. I checked it on the street plan."

  "Gotta be a boat, then."

  "A boat?"

  "On the river."

  "Some boat."

  We were bellowing at the tops of our voices. Toad stood there looking vacant, but I think he was just as scared as we were. Then I realised that the racket was diminishing, and I felt sure Pay was right: a boat had gone up or down the river, close over our heads.

  After that scare, it took Toad only a few more minutes to complete his preparations.

  "OK," he announced, 'we're ready to go.

  Anywhere else, the idea of taking orders from Toad would have made me see red, but here we were entirely in his hands and it didn't bug me at all to follow his instructions. With him directing and helping, we raised the base section of Apple the heavier of the two and eased it sideways on to the rough shelf we'd created. That was relatively simple. The harder part was to lift the top section, turn it over in mid-air, then manoeuvre it into position above its mate without letting the two touch or knock together until they were perfectly aligned. The second part weighed just on 150lbs, and even for two fit guys, holding that amount out at arm's length was no picnic.

  Toad had had the simple but brilliant notion of bringing three slender spars of wood, an inch thick, to act as temporary buffers, and he laid these across the top of the base unit so that we could lower the top on to them without letting it touch the metal beneath until we were ready. Then, while Pavarotti and I held up one end of the top component, he withdrew the bars one at a time and we lowered away the last inch. As we stood back, he quickly went to work inserting six stainless-steel bolts one at each corner, one half-way up each long side and carefully screwed them down with a ratchet-handled socket spanner.

  Then he plugged one of the two black co-ax cables into the lower half of the package and locked it in position, using an Allen key to turn the sunken nut.

  As he took hold of the second wire, I said, "Listen, Toad. Are you quite certain this fucking thing isn't going to go?"

  "Don't worry," he replied, not even looking up.

  "My instinct for self-preservation's as good as yours.

  In went the end of the wire. Again he tightened a nut down.

  "OK to cover up?" I asked.

  "Hold on. I need to check."

  Once more he put on his headphones, lifted a small flap at the bottom corner of the device and plugged in the lead from a control box slung across his stomach. For a minute or two Pay and I waited, running with sweat, itching with the grit that had worked its way down the necks of our shirts. My anxiety about possible premature detonation wouldn't die down. I could only hope to hell Toad knew what he was doing. Glancing sideways at Pavarotti, I could see him thinking the same.

  At last that sly, secret smile stole back on to Toad's face.

  "What's happening?"

  "I can hear it."

  "What?"

  "It's talking to us."

  "What is, for fuck's sake?"

  "The satellite."

  "Jesus! What's it saying?"

  "I don't know. I just recognise the signal they gave me.

  Listen."

  He pulled off the headphones and handed them to me. All I got was a distant chirruping and beeping that rose and fell.

  "How far up is the satellite?"

  "Twenty-two thousand five hundred miles."

  I handed the set back and said, "OK to cover up, then?"

  Toad nodded and began to pack up his tools.

  I'd decided in advance that we weren't going to ponce about mortaring over cracks in the brickwork. The chances of somebody else reaching the site were remote and anyway, new mortar wouldn't pass a close inspection. Now that Apple was live, I wanted to get the hell out of the tunnel as soon as possible.

  So we simply covered the casing with a loose mound of bricks and spoil, as though the heap had fallen from the roof, and pushed some lumps into the conduit that we'd cut for the connection, to hold the cables in the duct. Then we collected up our kit and prepared to withdraw.

  "Toad," I said, 'what happens if the water level comes right up and the thing gets flooded?"

  "It shouldn't make any difference. Now the units are sealed together they're waterproof There'd be problems if the level got as high as the SCR, but I don't reckon that's possible."

  There was one last precaution I'd decided was worthwhile.

  Back at the edge of the water, we used one of the empty rubber bags as a water carrier, filled it, and dragged it to the base of the blocking wall. There we tipped the lot out at once, retreating backwards before a little tide that pursued us down the tunnel.

  By doing that four times, we washed away every sign of disturbance and left the silt on the floor in a smooth, unbroken carpet.

  Then we waded away through the flood.

  We were back under the shaft by 0020. We'd missed the midnight rendezvous, but in only ten minutes Rick was due to make his next inspection. Our last batteries were all but spent.

  As we waited in pitch blackness, my mind wouldn't leave the twinned cases, buried under the mound across the river. I thought of the device as a time-bomb, ticking away towards detonation. I knew that wasn't how it worked, but the idea wouldn't fade. How could we be sure that some idiot in the Pentagon wouldn't set it off by mistake? We had only Toad's word to give us hope that accidents were impossible.

  We waited, sweat congealing, grit itching inside our shirts. I found myself thinking of the occasion, years before, when we'd buried an old aunt in the churchyard of my village, in the north of England, how the clods of earth had rained down on her coffin as the grave-diggers started to fill the hole above her.

  There was something uncomfortably similar about the way we'd heaped the spoil back on top of Apple's black and green casing.

  On the dot of 0030 we heard a creak of hinges above us, and a beam of light flickered down the shaft.

  "Anyone for the up?" Rick called softly.

  "Three," I told him.

  "Can't wait to get out. Everything OK on top?"

  "Fine."

  "Let's have a rope for the berg ens then the ladder."

  So we came back to ground level. The moment we were clear of the shaft and the cover was closed, Rick slipped the original padlocks into place and scattered hay over the top.

  "Where's our transport?" I whispered.

  "Dumio exactly. Somewhere close. We've been talking to them. Give 'em a call."

  I switched on my radio and said, "Green One to Black, do you read me?

  Over."

  "Black," came Whinger's voice immediately.

  "Standing by for pick-up.

  "Roger," I went.

  "We'll come out two and two, as planned. First pair one minute from now. Second thirty seconds later."

  By then all the nuns or whoever they were seemed to have gone to bed.

  Only a single light was burning at the back of the inner yard; everything else was dark. All the same, we stuck to our plan of coming out in separate pairs.

  "Away you go," I said, and Rick and Toad vanished towards the gate. I counted thirty, then set off with Pavarotti.

  Through the gate we tur
ned right and started walking along the pavement. The asphalt gleamed wet after recent rain, and across the river the Kremlin buildings were still floodlit. There was nobody walking on the embankment. The first pair had disappeared picked up already.

  About a hundred yards ahead of us I saw some object lying half on the pavement, half in the road. As we approached, I saw it was a man, or maybe a body, legs out in the carriage way head in the gutter. From the horrible angle of his feet I could tell that his legs had been run over, maybe several times. One hand was clutching the neck and shattered remains of a bottle, and round it a dark puddle had spread, more like blood than vodka.

  "The poor bastard's snuffed it," said Pavarotti as we passed. But no: at that moment the figure let out a gurgling groan and shifted slightly. On any other night, anywhere else in the world, I'd have pulled him to safety on the pavement. But here, so close to the scene of our infiltration, I didn't want to know.

  The contrast between the splendid buildings opposite and the sordid brutality of life in the gutter said everything about the way in which seventy-five years of Communism had brought a vast country to its knees.

  We walked on. A second later we heard an engine and saw lights coming up behind us. I tightened my right hand on the butt of my Sig, just in case;

  but then the lights flicked up and down in recognition. Whinger called, "I have you visual," the vehicle slowed, and a second later we were safe on board his Volga.

  "Good on yer, Whinge," I said as we pulled away.

  "No problems?"

  "The whole place is lifting with drunks but apart from them, nothing.

  How about you?"

  "We managed it, just about. The bastard's in place. Toad said he could hear the satellite talking to it, so we presume it's all set up. But I tell you even if it isn't, I'm not going back down that fucking tunnel in a million years."

  "You couldn't smell any worse if you did," Whinger observed.

  "Thanks. And by the way what made that fearsome racket?"

  "When?"

  "About an hour ago. It sounded as though an aircraft carrier went up the never.

  "Oh, that. It was just a barge with a load of sand on board."

  "Christ it scared the shit out of us. We thought the tunnel was coming in.