by Chris Ryan
A surge of hot rage swept up inside Porter just then. Alexei Gabulov was right. If the bomb detonated anywhere close to a civilian population, it would cause mass casualties.
We’d lose. Street would die.
‘I don’t know who you are,’ Gabulov went on in heavily-accented English. ‘But I can make you an offer. A more generous one than my brother has made to you both.’
‘The fuck are you talking about?’
The Russian tipped his head at the bullion bag. ‘There’s a million in gold bars in that bag. Half of it is yours. Two hundred and fifty thousand each, if you take me across the border, to my friends in Minsk.’
‘I’ve got a better idea. I’ll make you an offer. Tell us how to deactivate this fucker, or we’ll beat the shit out of you.’
‘No fucking way.’
‘Tell us!’ Porter thundered.
That merely drew a demented laugh from Alexei Gabulov. ‘You think you can scare me, with your pathetic threats? I’m not afraid of you, or my brother. Those Chechen pigs are going to suffer for what they’ve done. I’d rather die than give up that code.’
He stared evenly at Porter. The president’s brother had the cold, calm look of a madman. There was no inner torment going on there. No hint of self-doubt or questioning of actions. Just complete conviction in the righteousness of his own twisted beliefs.
‘We don’t have time for this, mate,’ Bald muttered.
Porter held the MP-443 Yarygin against the Russian’s cheek for a beat. Then he lowered his gun.
‘What are we gonna do?’ he said, turning to Bald.
‘We can’t leave the nuke here. This nutter’s right. It’ll level the area. We’d be looking at hundreds of dead. Thousands, maybe.’
‘We could load it up in the wagon. Drive it somewhere.’
‘But where? There’s towns and villages in every direction.’
Bald had a point, Porter acknowledged bitterly. The heli was fucked. Without the rear rotor blades there was no way that thing could take off. Which meant they would have to transport the bomb by car. They were in the Moscow suburbs. A twenty-minute drive to the west or south would only take them as far as the next major towns. East of the village was the international airport at Domodedovo. North was the city centre.
‘Even if we did find somewhere out in the sticks,’ Bald went on, ‘we wouldn’t have enough time to dump the package and bug out. We’d get caught in the blast.’
Porter looked around the dacha in frustration. ‘There must be something we can do. There has to be.’
Bald didn’t reply. He wasn’t looking at Porter. He was gazing out across the lake, twenty metres to the north of the helipad. It looked huge. As big as the North Sea. Down by the lakefront, a wooden jetty extended out a short distance across the lake. At the far end of the jetty a sleek wooden motor boat was tethered by a line to a stout mooring post.
‘One of us is gonna have to drop the nuke in there,’ Bald said, pointing to the motor boat. ‘Take it out in that craft and dump it in the middle of the lake.’
‘Would that work?’
‘If it’s deep enough, aye.’
Porter stared out across the water. A lake that big could be deep enough. At its deepest point, it might contain the explosion. Or at least enough of it to reduce the bomb’s impact. The lake itself would become a radioactive soup, and the immediate surrounding area might sustain some heavy damage from the initial blast. Some of the houses nearby would get soaked in radiated water, inevitably. But significant loss of life would be avoided. It was the least-worst option.
A handful of deaths, instead of five thousand.
Porter said, ‘Whoever goes out on that boat won’t have much time to get themselves clear, once they’ve tossed the nuke overboard.’
Silence fell between the two operators. Like snow.
In the corner of his eye, Porter noticed Bald glancing down at the duffel bag beside the backpack bomb.
The timer continued to tick.
‘I’ll go,’ said Bald.
Porter stared at him in disbelief. ‘You can’t.’
‘Somebody has to.’
‘It’s a bloody suicide mission.’
‘It’s the only way of isolating the blast,’ Bald countered. ‘Either one of us dumps that bomb in the lake, or this area’s going up in smoke. It’ll make Chernobyl look like a fairy tale.’
‘I’m not leaving you here with a fucking nuke, Jock.’
‘There’s no choice, mate. You need to take this wanker to the RV.’ He gestured at Alexei Gabulov. ‘Hand him over before the Russians execute Street.’
Porter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He looked from the rucksack to the lake, then back again, frantically racking his brains. ‘There has to be some other way.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘At least let us give you a hand loading that thing. It’ll be quicker if there’s two of us.’
‘There’s no time, mate. You’ve got to get out of here now. Put some serious distance between yourself and the blast site. If this thing goes wrong, you want to be well clear of this place.’
Porter tried to think of something to say. Some argument or plan that would dissuade his mucker from what he was about to do. But he couldn’t think of anything. Bald was right. They had to dispose of the nuke. The lake was their best and only bet.
Twenty-five minutes.
At the back of his mind he thought, Bald’s the last person I’d expect to sacrifice himself for others. It’s just not his fucking style.
‘You sure about this?’ he asked quietly.
‘We don’t have a choice,’ Bald replied. ‘It’s the only way of stopping this thing. Now get moving.’
There were no handshakes or big speeches. Nothing that needed to be said between them. Just a brief nod of respect from one old Regiment man to another.
Then Porter turned away from his mucker. Bald kept an eye on Alexei Gabulov while Porter patted him down. He found what he was looking for in the side pocket of the Russian’s combats. The keys to the Kombat T-98 parked in the front drive. The SUV would be their best bet as a getaway vehicle. Marginally less conspicuous than the trashed wagon they’d just ploughed into the chopper.
Porter dug out the spare pair of plasticuffs he’d been carrying. The second of the two sets they’d been given, when they collected the G-Class from their contact at the airport. Less than nine hours ago, but it felt more like a month.
He bound Alexei Gabulov’s wrists together behind his back, making sure the plasticuffs were pulled tight. Then he grabbed the guy by the arm and set off at a brisk pace, heading for the carport at the front of the dacha. Away from the dead BGs and the wrecked Ansat heli, and the nuclear bomb stuffed inside the rucksack.
‘You’re making a fucking big mistake,’ Alexei Gabulov rasped. ‘You do this, you’re only going to help those Chechen dogs. Take my offer. Put yourself on the right side of history.’
Porter said nothing.
‘I have friends in Minsk. Patriots. They can get you whatever you want. Money. Women. Boys. You name it, it’s yours. Just get me across that border. You’ll be rewarded.’
Porter still said nothing.
He blanked out Gabulov as he glanced over his shoulder. He saw Bald sixty metres back, hefting up the backpack nuke. The guy had slipped his arms through the straps, shouldering it like an army Bergen. Bald stood on the spot for a moment, adjusting the clips and straps, checking to make sure it was securely fastened to his back.
Then he set off towards the jetty.
Porter watched him for a moment. Then he turned and carried on towards the dacha. Alexei Gabulov was still protesting, issuing threats. Making offers. Trying to cut a deal.
As they reached the Kombat parked up in front of the carport Porter tapped the unlock button on the key fob and popped the rear door open. Then he shoved the president’s brother towards the back seat. The guy resisted.
‘In the car,’ Porter growled.
‘Your brother. He wants a family reunion.’
A look of terror briefly registered on the captive’s face. Then his expression hardened, like cement. ‘You’re a fucking dead man. When my friends hear what happened to me, they’ll hunt you down. Your and your family. You’re all going to pay for this.’
‘We’ll see. Now get in and shut up.’
Porter bundled the Russian inside the back of the Kombat and slammed the door shut before the guy could reply. He paced around to the front of the SUV, stopped by the driver’s side door and cast one final look towards the back of the dacha. At Jock Bald, his old mate and the least likely martyr in Regiment history, carrying a nuclear bomb over to the jetty.
Porter slid behind the wheel.
Twisted the keys in the ignition.
Then he hit the gas.
Twenty-three minutes until the nuke detonated.
Ninety metres to the south, Bald scrambled towards the jetty.
He moved as fast as he could with thirty kilos of nuke strapped to his back. Which wasn’t that fast. His body had slowed down in the years since he’d left the Regiment. A combination of exhaustion, age and general wear and tear. Bald could feel his leg muscles burning under the strain of the nuke-filled backpack.
He hit the jetty in two more strides and hurried along the worn timber planking. The jetty extended for eight metres from the edge of the land across the gunmetal lake. At the far end, the wooden motor boat was sitting in the water alongside the mooring post. It was a fine old vessel, constructed from mahogany and leather. Eight metres long and two-and-a-half metres across the beam, with an outboard motor and a storage locker aft of the cockpit. A Russian flag dangled from a metal pole forward of the windscreen.
Bald reached the motor boat with twenty-two minutes on the clock.
He slid his arms out of the shoulder straps, set the rucksack down on the jetty and clambered into the cockpit. With his feet firmly planted on the decking, Bald reached back over to the jetty, grabbed the nuke by the straps and lowered it carefully into the boat, setting it down next to the storage locker. He unhooked the length of rope tied to the forward cleat, chucked the rope aside and turned his attention to the outboard motor.
The mechanical timer ticked away as Bald operated the shift lever, moving it to the neutral position. He pumped the bulb on the fuel primer line several times, clearing the air out of the length of black tubing. Advanced the hand grip on the throttle lever to the start position and pulled out the choke. He pulled on the starter handle, until he felt the rope give a little tug. Then he yanked hard on the rope. Like starting an old diesel lawnmower.
It took three attempts to get the motor running. Bald pushed in the choke and unhooked the rope from the aft cleat. The craft began to drift away from the jetty as Bald twisted the throttle and shifted it to the forward mark, pulling away bows-first. He stuck to a low speed until he was well clear of the jetty, getting a feel for the old motor boat.
As soon as he reached the open water, Bald pushed the tiller away from him, swinging the stern of the boat towards the port side, so that the bow was pointing out towards the middle of the lake. Then he accelerated, twisting the grip like a motorbike throttle. The boat picked up speed, her bow riding high, humping over the lake’s surface and leaving a foamy trail in its wake. Bald pushed the throttle harder. A few seconds later the vessel planed out, skimming along the surface as he accelerated towards the open water. Engine chainsawing, the bomb ticking.
Twenty minutes.
If Bald succeeded, thousands of people would wake up tomorrow, without ever realising how close they had come to death. He would be a hero, and no one would even know his name. He didn’t complain. This was the life he’d known in the Regiment. What he’d signed up for, all those years back. You don’t push yourself just to win a fucking medal. You don’t do it for the individual glory.
You do it to win.
Bald closed out all thoughts of death from his mind. He simply told himself, I didn’t come this far to lose. Not to Gabulov and his extremist mates.
It took him seven minutes to reach the middle of the lake, guiding himself by his night vision and the black mass of the surrounding land, and the faint illumination from the pre-dawn sky.
Thirteen minutes to go.
Bald shifted down to neutral as he approached the mid-point of the lake. He twisted the grip away from him, turning it to the stop position. Hit the kill switch. The engine sputtered out as the boat slowed to a halt on the still water. Once he was in position, Bald manoeuvred around to the aft storage compartment. The boat rocked from side to side as he dropped to his haunches, gripped the rucksack by the straps and carried it over to the gunwale on the port side. Then he shoved it overboard. The backpack hit the water with a loud splash. It bobbed for a moment on the surface, before the weight dragged it down towards the bottom of the lake.
The dark slimy water closed up around the top of the bomb, like a mouth. Then it was lost to sight.
There was no chance of the water damaging the firing unit, Bald knew. Those nukes were designed to be dropped with paratroopers out of the back of a cargo plane. They were waterproof and shockproof. Nothing would stop that bomb going off.
Bald swung back round to the outboard motor. Twelve minutes to go. He thought: Seven minutes back to the jetty. Five minutes to leg it out of the blast radius. No time. No fucking time at all. The odds against him surviving were a million to one.
Worse, even.
He had to try anyway.
Bald gripped the starter rope. Fired up the motor boat’s engine.
Then he got moving.
Porter was six miles away when he heard the blast.
He saw it unfold out of his side window as he drove north. A giant column of water surging high into the air, close to the horizon. The column expanded outwards, like a bubble about to burst. There was a low, deep rumble as a mushroom cloud bloomed upwards from the crown of the bubble, into the lightening sky. The rumble boomed across the land, quaking the road, triggering nearby car and building alarms. Then the water bubble burst, collapsing into a radioactive mist that drenched the surrounding landscape for miles in every direction.
Even as he looked, Porter knew there was simply no way Bald would have survived that explosion.
Jock’s dead, he thought. The realisation hit him like a punch to the throat. As he looked on at the dissipating bubble, he knew he’d underestimated Bald.
All these years, I thought the guy only ever gave a shit about himself. But I had him wrong.
Porter drove on with a hollow feeling in his stomach. He pulled over at a rest stop and called the number he’d been given on the burner. A voice he didn’t recognise told him to head to a place he didn’t know, seventy-one miles away from his location according to the Kombat’s built-in GPS. As he pulled out onto the motorway, dozens of police cars and ambulances and army trucks tore past in the other direction. Racing south towards the explosion. Their sirens wailing in the distance, like electric screams.
He reached the RV two hours later. Another dacha, to the west of Moscow. Porter was beginning to wonder how many places the Russian president owned. Hundreds, probably. He probably had more cash sitting in the bank than Apple.
Viktor Gabulov wasn’t there. Tarasov showed up in his place, along with several heavies and a convoy of Land Rovers with tinted mirrors. The president was back in the Kremlin, the Russian man-mountain explained. He had to be seen to be handling the nuke crisis personally. An important part of his strongman image. Hands-on leadership. His lackeys were busy figuring out how to spin the explosion to the world’s media. There was talk of blaming it on an earthquake. Or a comet. A crashed UFO. Conspiracy theorists were already hard at work on behalf of the government, peddling theories on Twitter and Facebook. The Russians weren’t about to admit to a stolen nuke going off in the vicinity of Moscow.
Porter didn’t care. He was done.
I just want to get the fuck out of here, and never come back.
The heavies dragged Alexei Gabulov kicking and screaming out the back of the Kombat. The hardliner turned out to be just as shit-scared as everyone else, when he was faced with the prospect of a slow, agonising death. The heavies gagged him, gave him a few sharp digs to the ribs, then shoved him into the back of one of the Land Rovers. Tarasov made a call. To someone back at Zhirkov’s mansion, Porter figured. Telling them to drop Street off at the British embassy.
Porter half-expected Tarasov to slot him. But the bullet never came. The guy just signalled to his heavies, and they climbed into the Land Rovers and pulled away.
There was no debrief at the British embassy. No slaps on the back or congratulations. Six wanted Porter out of the country immediately. There was talk of a big inquest when he got back. The rescue of Charles Street was something of a coup, but questions were being asked back in Whitehall about how much int Cooper had shared with his Russian counterparts. Intelligence officers were going through past ops with a fine-tooth comb, searching for potential leaks. Vauxhall was in damage-limitation mode. Nobody was punching the air in celebration.
They gave Porter painkillers and a new dressing for his wound. A new passport, and a ticket back to London. The airspace around Moscow was closed off, so they put him on a train from Leningradsky station to St Petersburg. From there he caught a BA flight back to London.
He slept through most of the flight. For the first time since he could remember, Porter didn’t crave a drink.
Eighteen hours after the bomb went off, Porter found himself sitting on the Tube at Heathrow airport.
Somebody had left a copy of the Evening Standard on the seat next to him. The first four pages were filled with news about the mysterious blast in a village outside Moscow. The first English-language report Porter had read since it had happened. The lake had absorbed most of the initial explosion, leaving a massive crater at the bottom. Much of the immediate area had been soaked in the radioactive mist created by the bomb. Clean-up crews were sent in. Zukotka and the surrounding villages were evacuated. The death toll stood at sixteen, but a government spokesperson said it could have been far higher.