‘How bad is it?’
‘I’ll live,’ Sonny said, urging him forward.
Gray checked the room the Russian had stepped out of and found it clear, then followed the long snout of his silenced pistol towards another door at the far end of the corridor. He pushed himself against the wall and nudged the door open with his toe, a move that saved his life as a burst of automatic fire shredded the air a few inches in front of his face.
Gray tugged the last fragmentation grenade from his webbing and tossed it through the gap, letting the door swing shut. As soon as he heard the explosion, he pushed the door aside and found himself in a stairwell. Below, his goggles picked out a shredded body that lay in the landing between floors. Gray stepped over it and continued down to the basement, where frantic voices bounced off the stone walls.
Gray got to his knees and stuck his head around the corner. He saw two green-tinted figures, one holding a rifle aimed towards the stairs while the other frantically fumbled in the darkness with a set of keys. He was about to take them out when he thought better of it.
Footsteps behind him signalled the arrival of the Smart and Howard; he held up a hand for them to wait, his eyes still on the Russians. It took an agonising eternity for the man to get the cell door open, giving Gray his cue. The armed man dropped first, quickly followed by the other.
Gray hurried down the hall and stepped over the bodies.
‘Thanks,’ he said to the second corpse, who’d saved him the job of finding the right key. He stuck his head inside the cell and saw an empty bed, nothing more.
‘Andrew?’ Gray shouted as he stepped back into the corridor. The possibility that Harvey wasn’t actually being held in the jail created a knot in his stomach. All this way for nothing, and time was running out to find him.
‘Tom?’
The feeble cry came from inside the cell. This time Gray walked in and dropped to his knee. He saw Harvey curled up under the metal bed. The relief was immense, but short-lived.
Harvey looked to be in a bad way. Both eyes were swollen shut; lacerations, contusions and congealed blood covering the rest of his body told a tale of numerous beatings.
‘Can you walk?’ Gray asked, trying gently to pull Harvey to his feet. The movement brought a howl of agony, and Harvey grabbed his chest.
Broken ribs. Not good news with so much ground to cover on the way home.
Once upright, Harvey’s first few steps were tentative; Gray could see he was in a great deal of pain.
‘Sorry, Andrew, but we’ve got to get a move on.’ Gray called Smart over and told Harvey to put an arm around each of their shoulders. ‘This might hurt a little.’
They took hold of Harvey’s trousers at the waist and lifted him a couple of inches off the floor, then told Howard to take point as they made for the exit. They encountered no resistance on the way out, but it was only a matter of time before the place was teeming with pissed-off Russians.
‘Howard,’ Gray barked, ‘get that Land Rover started! Sonny, disable the Toyota.’
Sonny pumped two rounds into the front tyres of the Hilux and one in the rear for good luck, then joined the others as they crammed into the only serviceable vehicle remaining. Harvey was helped into the back seat, and when Sonny clambered aboard, Howard gunned the engine and steered around the truck, bouncing over bodies as he did so.
‘Turn right at the end of the street, then take the second left,’ Gray told him from the passenger seat.
At the intersection, Howard spun the wheel and narrowly avoided smashing into the front of a moving armoured personnel carrier.
‘I thought those things were all pulled back across the border,’ Smart said, as he looked back and saw the BTR-60 performing a clumsy U-turn.
‘Let’s hope that was the only dodgy intel,’ Gray said. ‘Step on it.’
Gray’s prayer went unanswered as they took a left at high speed and found themselves facing off with a BMP-3 armoured fighting vehicle, its 100 mm gun pointing straight at them. It was fifty yards away and closing, and their Land Rover had nowhere to go.
‘Back up!’ Gray screamed, but Howard was already on it, throwing the vehicle into reverse and steering one-handed as he looked backwards. The moment he hit the main road he executed a J-turn, spinning the steering wheel while pulling the handbrake. Harvey groaned from the back seat as the vehicle spun ninety degrees and Howard slammed it into first, tyres squealing as they gained traction.
The APC was now on their tail, but at least it lacked the firepower of the BMP-3. Gray hoped that they could keep it between them and the mobile cannon, denying the heavy armour a clear shot. He’d seen one in action during war games a few years earlier: unlike conventional tanks that required reloading, this beast had a rapid-fire system much like an automatic rifle. If they got stuck in its sights, they’d be dead before they knew it.
Howard jinked the vehicle as gunfire erupted from the APC, chewing up the road a foot to their right. Gray tried to ignore it as he studied the GPS, looking for a way out of the rapidly deteriorating situation.
‘Take the next right,’ he said, and clung on as Howard followed his instructions, almost spinning out as he took the turn doing fifty. Rounds ripped into the wall a foot behind them as they disappeared into the narrow street, and a ricochet smashed into the windscreen, missing Gray by inches.
‘Doc, we’ll be on you in two minutes. Get ready to move.’
Gray got an affirmative in his earpiece, then contacted McGregor.
‘We’re coming in hot, Mac. Bring the bird in now.’
‘Better move it,’ Smart urged Howard from the back seat.
Gray swivelled to see the BMP-3 turning into the street behind them. Seconds later, the first of the large projectiles blew a hole in the wall behind them, showering their vehicle with rubble.
Howard had his foot hard down on the accelerator, snaking the Land Rover back and forth to make themselves a more difficult target. Another round flew past inches from the driver’s door, creating a fountain of rubble as it struck a building twenty yards ahead of them. Howard slammed on the brakes as he reached the scene, and the truck pranced like a demonic stallion as they hit the debris in the road. It came back down on two wheels, and only Howard’s expertise saved it from crashing onto its side. He nursed the Land Rover back onto all fours, and then gunned it again. The road ahead bent to the left, and Howard tested the car’s handling to the limit, taking the bend just as the BMP-3 fired again.
Erwin McGregor sat in the cockpit of the Bell Ranger, checking his instruments for the tenth time. The rotors above him were stationary, but the engine was idling, ready for a quick take off.
Fuel was his only concern, the gauge looking a little on the low side. They certainly had enough to get out of the country and most of the way home, but whether they managed to get back to base was another thing. There would also be the added weight of the rescued hostage to take into account, but they’d already burnt up more than half of their Jet A-1, which just about compensated and kept them below the maximum flying weight.
‘We’re coming in hot, Mac. Bring the bird in now.’
When the words came over the headset, McGregor spooled up the rotors.
‘Roger that. Be there in three minutes.’
As soon as the blades were up to speed, he pulled up on the collective until the aircraft left the ground, then used the pedals to ease the nose around. That was when the juddering started. It sounded like a kid banging on a biscuit tin with a wooden spoon, but McGregor instinctively knew that it was incoming gunfire.
Warning lights came on and alarms began shrieking as the oil pressure dropped and the controls became sluggish. The Perspex screen spider-webbed in a dozen places as round after round hit the cockpit, and freezing air blew in as a bullet finally found a way through. Another soon followed, hitting McGregor on the right wrist. The pain made him release the cyclic for a split second, and when he tried to grab hold of it again, he found his fingers unresponsive.<
br />
He knew it was futile to try to fly one-handed, and even if he managed to control it long enough to get out of the area, the damage done to the hydraulics meant it would be a short flight.
And a fatal one.
Out of options, he lowered the collective and bumped back down to the ground, killing the engine with his good hand. Outside he could see several figures advancing towards him, rifles raised and ready to give him the bad news.
McGregor raised his hands and remained in his seat, already working on his cover story. He was on a flight when he lost electrical power and got disorientated, so he landed to try and fix the issue. He wasn’t armed, so it was a believable explanation.
‘Tom,’ he whispered into his throat microphone. ‘I’m not going to make it. I’m surrounded by a dozen X-rays; the bird’s shot to bits and I’m hit. You’re on your own, son.’
He removed the comms unit and dropped it under the seat, silently wishing them luck.
He knew he’d be needing a big dose himself.
A concrete block the size of a shoebox flew past Gray’s head as the next 100 mm round from the BMP-3 slammed into the wall a split second after they’d taken the bend.
Gray knew they had about fifteen seconds before the gun would reach the same point and have them in its sights once more, so he instructed Howard to take a right turn followed by a quick left.
The driver carried out the manoeuvre deftly, and two blocks later they were approaching the street where Doc and the Sentinels waited.
They weren’t the only ones.
Another APC was disgorging troops as they approached their turn-off, and four were already taking cover in the very place Howard was heading, using the corner of the building as cover while they laid down fire at the oncoming vehicle.
‘Doc, help us out!’
Gray shouted the order as he raised his own rifle and began peppering the entrance to the street with 7.62mm rounds. Smart and Sonny were also engaging targets, while Howard maintained his breakneck speed, aiming for Doc’s side street.
One of the Russians firing from the corner suddenly dropped his weapon and keeled over, quickly followed by another. Gray saw the panicked look on their faces as bullets came at them from nowhere. One of them turned to fire back in to the darkness, and Gray took advantage, hitting the man in the thigh. The last of the men in the side street succumbed to a burst from a Sentinel, falling into the street.
‘Doc, we’re coming in, and we’re on wheels. Once we get past the last Sentinel, set them to auto.’
‘Roger.’
The wounded Russian lay in the road, but Howard didn’t have time to avoid him. He ran over the stricken figure as rounds from their flank struck the frame of the Land Rover.
In the distance, Gray could see Doc’s outline standing near the other end of the street. More rounds came their way as Russian troops surged into the street, bullets slamming into the back of the vehicle as Smart and Sonny returned fire.
The vehicle slowed to fifteen miles an hour and Gray helped Doc clamber aboard.
‘Go, go, go!’
Howard didn’t need telling twice. He floored it, heading for the fence that had marked the beginning of their journey. ‘Hold on!’ he warned, aiming for a point between two fence posts. The impact reduced their speed by half, but once the chain link gave, they were hurtling out into darkness.
‘Kill the lights,’ Gray said, powering his night-vision goggles back on. Howard did the same and turned the headlights off, using the green-tinged view to navigate the landscape and avoid wrecking their transport.
‘Well, that was some hairy shit,’ Sonny remarked.
Even Gray managed a smile at the understatement. ‘How are we doing, Andrew?’
An exhalation and moan provided the answer.
‘Looks like we’re leaking,’ Howard said, indicating towards the fuel gauge, which showed half a tank. ‘It was nearly full five minutes ago.’
‘That should be enough to get us to the rendezvous point,’ Gray said, but his expression changed as McGregor’s low voice came over the airwaves. He looked round at Sonny and Smart, who were hearing the same message.
‘What is it?’ Harvey asked from his prone position in the back.
Sonny was the one to deliver the bad news.
‘We just lost our ride home.’
Chapter 22
26 January 2016
Ivan Zhabin woke from his nap feeling surprisingly refreshed, not something he normally experienced during long flights. He caught the flight attendant’s attention and requested a bottle of water, then took it to the toilet to brush his teeth.
When he returned to his seat, he refused breakfast and fastened himself in, ready for the descent into London Heathrow. The plane shook as it breached the low cloud layer and landed heavily in the early morning darkness.
Zhabin made his way through immigration with no problems – his German passport facilitating speedy service – and with no checked luggage he made his way to the exit.
At the arrivals gate he saw a bald, middle-aged man holding up a sign with Alec Stutz printed on it. Zhabin walked over and introduced himself.
‘Dimitri,’ the man replied, leading Zhabin out into the freezing morning.
In the short-term car park, Dimitri used a fob to open a VW saloon and climbed into the passenger seat, letting Zhabin take the wheel. ‘Here’s everything you asked for,’ Dimitri said, handing over a padded enveloped from the glovebox.
Zhabin opened it and checked the contents. A Walter PPK with silencer and two clips of ammunition, a mobile phone and charger, the address where the rifle could be found, and a file containing details of the target.
Zhabin looked at the photograph and immediately recognised the man he was tasked with killing. Up to this point, he’d known only that the hit would centre on Whitehall. The information in his hand gave the target’s itinerary and route, leaving Zhabin to decide the where. The when was 29 January, three days away, giving him plenty of time to pick a place from which to take the shot.
‘If you need anything else, call me on that phone only. I will then pass your request on to the client.’ He handed over a ticket for the car park. ‘It’s already paid.’
Dimitri exited the car and walked into the sea of vehicles.
Zhabin entered the postcode of the farm into the satnav, then drove out and followed its directions until he came to the M25. Even at dark o’clock in the morning, traffic was already building, though the junction for the M40 came soon enough. He pushed the car to sixty-eight and engaged cruise control.
An hour and a half later, he pulled onto the dirt track leading to the farm. The place was already a hive of activity, with cows being led back to a field after their morning milking. As he got out of the car, the smell of manure was overwhelming.
‘Can I help you?’
The man asking the question was wearing thick, waterproof dungarees and looked senior enough to be the man in charge.
‘Dan Fletcher?’ Zhabin asked, reciting the name that accompanied the farm’s address.
‘That’s right.’
Zhabin extended a hand and smiled. ‘I’m Yuri,’ he lied. ‘You have something for me. A rifle.’
Fletcher shook his hand tentatively and nodded towards the house. Zhabin followed, taking in the surroundings. Only one other farm worker was in sight, but he would confirm the actual numbers later. First, he needed to make sure the weapon he’d been supplied with was good enough to carry out the mission.
Fletcher led him down the side of the building and into a Dutch barn, where straw and hay were piled almost to the roof. Zhabin watched as the farmer deftly removed three bales of straw and stuck his hand into a gap between two others.
‘There you are,’ Fletcher said, handing over the heavy leather case.
Zhabin rested it on a bale and flicked open the catches. The weapon inside looked almost brand new, which was good to see. He recognised the make, one he’d used in the past. Before he us
ed it against Milenko, though, he’d need to make sure it was adjusted to his liking.
‘I need to test it out,’ he said to Fletcher.
The farmer looked pensive, clearly not liking the idea of such a monstrous weapon being used on his property.
Zhabin had already checked the surrounding area on his phone’s map application, and knew the chances of the reports being heard by neighbours was low, but then he wasn’t planning to hang around after sighting-in the rifle.
‘It won’t attract attention,’ he assured Fletcher. ‘Even if anyone hears it, they will think it is a shotgun. Very common here, no?’
The farmer, still reluctant, eventually gestured with his head for Zhabin to follow, and led him around the back of the barn.
‘There’s nothing for about three miles,’ Fletcher said, pointing to a small copse way off in the distance. ‘If you can aim towards those trees, you’ll avoid my livestock.’
Zhabin could see sheep in fields to the right and left of where Fletcher had pointed, but they were too close to pose an obstacle. The trees, however, looked to be about eighteen hundred yards away, the perfect distance to test the rifle’s capabilities.
He began putting the rifle together, then looked up at Fletcher. ‘So you run this place yourself?’
‘No, my boys help me out.’
‘Ah. Good to see a family sticking together. I have three children,’ Zhabin lied. ‘How about you?’
‘Just the two boys.’
‘Only three of you? I would have thought it would take many people to work a farm.’
‘Ideally we’d like another hand.’ Fletcher shrugged. ‘But we just can’t afford it.’
Zhabin continued to assemble the weapon, and looked around for a suitable target. He spotted something ideal for his purposes.
‘Could you ask your sons to give me a hand with that big log?’ he asked Fletcher, gesturing towards a large woodpile. The log looked to be at least six feet long and would weigh a considerable amount. ‘It is the perfect size, but we will need to carry it a long distance.’
‘Only one of my boys is here,’ Fletcher said. ‘The other stayed with friends last night.’
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