Whatever it was Bashir ran into Blackburn never saw. The impact catapulted him on to the tarmac. As Bashir, dazed, struggled to engage reverse, Blackburn got back on his feet, wrenched open the door and grabbed the PLR leader with both hands. They fell in a heap beside the Land Cruiser, their faces inches apart.
The first he knew that Bashir had taken a bullet was the bubbling, bloody phlegm that oozed from his mouth and nostrils.
Campo was rushing towards them. ‘Good fucking job, man.’
Blackburn screamed back at him. ‘He’s hit, he’s hit. Adrenalin.’
Campo threw him a sachet which he tore open before banging the needle through Bashir’s tunic straight into his chest. He overheard Campo on the radio. ‘HVT in custody, wounded, preparing to move to extraction point.’
Fuck preparing to move, thought Blackburn. He’s dying. Al Bashir’s eyes swivelled up under his drooping lids. Blackburn pumped his chest, wiped the blood off his chin and performed mouth to mouth. Al Bashir jerked back into consciousness, panting wheezy bubbles of blood, but he managed a smile.
‘Should you be going to all this trouble? Or are you planning to bring me to justice?’
He coughed up the blood pooling in his mouth. Blackburn looked for the entry wound, found it in his neck. Blood was pulsing out of it. Blackburn jammed his thumb in it, yelling to Campo.
‘Tourniquet!’
‘Forget about me, soldier. It’s you who are done for. All of you.’
His eyes swivelled again. Blackburn pumped his chest, banging life back into him.
‘The suitcase devices – the nukes. Where?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘It’s not me you should be concerned about. I am history. The baton has passed . . .’
Campo was on his knees beside Blackburn, stripping the plastic off a tourniquet. ‘He’s bleeding out, stop him talking.’
‘Try all you want soldier, whatever happens to me you are done for, my friend.’
Blackburn put his face close. ‘The other one who you were with, taking the nukes.’
He nodded. ‘Very good, yes. He will destroy you.’
Campo tried to apply the dressing. ‘He’s fucking lost it. He’s talking shit.’
Blackburn hushed him. ‘A name. Give me his name.’
‘His name is death, my friend.’ He coughed up more blood. ‘Sol-man.’
‘Solman?’
Bashir’s voice was now no more than a gurgling whisper. He used a breath for each syllable. ‘Sol . . . o . . . mon.’
After that there were no more breaths.
38
Vladimir leapt up and brushed some quake dust off the couch. Kroll offered her a cigarette. She draped herself across the beige leather: although she looked drained Dima noticed that she had refreshed her make-up. He wondered what she was hoping to get out of all this, presumably not a fling with any of this lot. Women like her made sure they went up in the world, not down.
‘The snow was very good. He even had a private ski-lift. It’s a protected area, for wildlife.’ She snorted. ‘He got special dispensation, a favour from the government. I think it once belonged to the Shah.’
‘And you’ve met him.’
‘Several times. Gazul always told me to be very nice, very attentive. “Whatever he wants to talk about, listen – like this”.’ She did a faintly sinister wide-eyed stare. ‘“Without him we are nothing.” That was his belief. I don’t know why, that sort of thing they never discussed in front of me. I thought it might be drugs. He always had plenty. One of his wives died of an overdose, his girlfriend told me.’
Dima was looking at Amara with a stare that was almost as intense as hers had been.
‘The place: describe it please.’
‘It’s well hidden, up a track that only a 4x4 can go, but also there is a helipad.’
‘Where?’
‘In the grounds. It looks like a Swiss chalet, you know, like Alpine, but it’s made of concrete and is cut’ – she made a chopping motion – ‘into the mountain. Kaffarov calls it his Kelsten something.’
She shrugged. Dima rose excitedly to his feet.
‘His Kehlsteinhaus . . . the Eagle’s Nest!’
Everyone looked nonplussed.
‘So?’ said Vladimir.
‘Hitler’s secret retreat at the top of the Kehlstein mountain,’ said Kroll. ‘Built by Martin Bormann for his fiftieth birthday, cost: thirty million Reichsmarks. Only Hitler hardly ever stayed there.’
He and Dima looked at each other.
‘Because he was afraid of heights!’
Amara shrugged again. Some people had no sense of history.
‘Sorry,’ said Dima. ‘Go on.’
She shrugged.
‘How many guards will he have with him?’
‘I don’t know – some North Koreans, I think.’
‘The infamous Yin and Yang.’
‘They never speak. And some others who walked round waving their Uzis. Always guns, guns, guns, wherever you went.’ She shivered. ‘She said he always sleeps with one under his pillow.’
‘And?’
‘That’s it.’
‘We’re going to need a bit more than that,’ said Kroll.
‘Please think, Amara: how many floors? Where are the vehicles kept? Are there guards on the perimeter wall? How high is it?’
‘How would I know? I’m not a bloody tour guide. I just stayed there a few times.’
‘What’s she called, your friend?’
‘Kristen.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember now. She’s Austrian.’ Dima laughed. ‘An Alpine mistress to go with the chalet: he’s got the matching set!’
‘She doesn’t like to be called that.’
‘Whatever. Has she ever sent you anything? Directions? A map?’
‘Of course not. I always went with Gazul and he knows where it is. Knew.’
Dima wondered what she could make of her life now he was gone, but there was no time to think about that now.
‘Kristen is very sweet, always happy, never trouble. Gazul was always saying to me, “Why can’t you be like Kristen? Kristen is always smiling”.’
Dima frowned. Did she miss the guy or not?
‘Kristen is always smiling because she is always stoned all the time. Without her, those trips would have been bo-ring. We used to have a good laugh together. One time we – hang on, I’ll show you.’
She got up and opened the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk.
‘Here it is.’
She reached in and lifted out a white silk-covered photo album.
Vladimir, Zirak and Gregorin gathered round.
‘This may not be the best time for wedding snaps,’ said Zirak.
But it was something better than that: far better.
‘Oh my God . . .’ said Dima.
She opened it: the first page showed several shots of herself and an attractive blonde, leaning out of the window of a turret, waving. Then page after page of holiday photos, taken by her and Kristen, and by the look of it some of the guards, showing the entire layout of the Eagle’s Nest.
The miserable widow had come good after all. Dima put an arm round her and kissed her.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘But not the rest of you tramps.’
‘Look,’ said Zirak. ‘She’s even got Yin and Yang.’
The two Koreans gazed self-consciously at the camera, their Uzis clearly in view.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Kroll. ‘It really does look like the original. Hang on a sec . . .’
He put the scanner carefully to one side and rebooted the laptop:
Welcome to the Kehlsteinhaus . . . it said. Historical landmark, Museum and Restaurant.
The two buildings were identical. Kroll looked round at them all, smiled and clicked on Map.
39
A door led from the kitchen to the garage. Kroll ran his hand over the hood of the black Chevy SUV with tinted glass.
‘Everyone loves an American 4x4,’ said
Kroll. ‘If they have no taste. Maybe we could pass ourselves off as US Special Forces.’
‘It’s not exactly inconspicuous.’
‘Right now anything with wheels that isn’t an APC is conspicuous.’
‘I like it,’ said Vladimir. ‘It’s bigger than my old cell.’
Kroll opened a door.
‘It seats five easy.’
‘Six. Amara’s fleeing for her life with her loyal security detail: that’s us.’
‘Kaffarov’s going to buy that?’
‘He doesn’t have to. It’s just to help us get past the guards. She’ll call Kristen from the gate.’
‘How do we know she’s even there?’
Dima smiled.
‘Amara called her on Gazul’s satphone: she said to come right over.’
He looked at Gregorin and Zirak.
‘Anybody want to bail out?’
No one did. There was just one thought chipping away at the back of Dima’s mind: what did Amara want out of all this? And when the time came for her to ask for it, would he want to comply?
40
Camp Firefly, Outskirts of Tehran
A dirty orange sun was seeping through the smoke and dust over the east side of Tehran. Inside the tent, Blackburn faced his interrogators across a folding table. It was just gone 0700. He had been allowed three hours’ sleep before being roused for questioning.
Lieutenant Cody Andrews from the US Military Police Corps did the smiling. Captain Craig Dershowitz, Marine Intelligence, did the writing.
‘Sorry about getting you up so early.’ Andrews’ smile widened. ‘We’d just like to get this done while it’s all fresh in your mind.’
Or too tired to figure whether I’m digging myself a great big hole, thought Black. Outside, Cole was waiting, doing his best to listen in on the proceedings.
Black recalled the events in the bank, the contents of the vault, the maps of New York and Paris, the circled locations and the two men on the security monitor.
‘Bashir and one other, right?’
‘Like I said, Sir.’
Dershowitz maintained an expression of deep disdain.
‘And you believe that the second man was the guy in the videos.’
‘Solomon, yes, Sir.’
Dershowitz renounced his vow of silence.
‘Solomon who?’
‘Just Solomon. Bashir spelled it out as he was dying.’
Dershowitz waved a pen in the air.
‘A first name, a last name, a codename . . .?’
‘He didn’t say. He died.’
Dershowitz suddenly snorted. ‘Sure he wasn’t saying Salaam?’
Andrews put his head on one side as if he was trying to make up his mind which dessert to order.
‘Kinda strange name for a PLR, or an Iranian for that matter.’
‘Maybe if he’d lived another minute I’d have asked him that.’
‘Moving on to your motivation, Sergeant. You were pretty pissed about what happened to Harker.’
‘Is that surprising?’
‘And we understand you’ve been given some rough treatment by his buddies?’
Black shrugged. ‘It didn’t amount to anything, Sir.’
Dershowitz was evidently reading more into this than was good for him.
‘The bullet that killed him was from his own gun. What reason do you think he had for shooting himself?’
Black had the sensation of a man who was about to add two and two and get seven.
‘He had just fired it at me. I grabbed his arm through the windshield.’
‘When you were on the hood, holding on to the wiper.’
Andrews grinned, trying to lift the mood.
‘Superhero stuff, huh?’
The mood didn’t lift.
Dershowitz leaned forward.
‘Let’s see. You’re with Harker, and he gets executed. You’re in the bank, Bashir leaves. You’re on the guy’s hood under orders to take him alive and he shoots himself. I’m seeing a kind of pattern here, Black.’
‘What kind of pattern’s that?’
‘Like you’re not having a great war, Sergeant Blackburn. You want to go home or something?’
Black looked at them. He could feel his face burning, his fingernails grinding his palms. He was damned if he was going to let on how they were getting to him. Talk to yourself, his mother had said. When you feel bad or wronged, you’re your own best buddy. I’m trying Mom, he told himself. I just don’t think it’s working.
‘I grabbed his forearm above the wrist. At that moment the vehicle struck something which drove him forward on to the gun. It discharged. Ask Campo. Sir.’
‘You think Campo will back you up?’
‘He’ll tell you the truth.’
‘You’ve seen to that, huh?’
Black had had enough. He slammed his fist down on the table. Dershowitz’s laptop and coffee jumped an inch into the air.
‘Look, am I under arrest or what, because if not, Sir, I would like to get back to doing the job I’m here to do, Sir. I brought you the nuke, I’ve ID’d the executioner. I’ve brought you the results of my interrogation of Bashir as he was expiring. I got you a name!’
Andrews’ smile looked disarmingly real.
‘Good to see the fight hasn’t gone out of you, soldier,’ he said.
Cole was still waiting outside. He had a satphone to his ear, but Blackburn guessed he had been listening to every word.
‘How did it go?’
‘How do you think?’
Cole took a lungful of hot dusty air and blew it out through pursed lips.
‘I’ve been thinking.’
Great, thought Black: what now? In the last few days he had felt his respect for Cole, a soldier he had once deeply admired, crumble away.
‘I think we should press the reset button, huh?’
He ventured a smile. Cole didn’t do smiles, so this one looked as though he was at the dentist. He backed it up by gripping Black’s shoulder and following alongside as Blackburn walked back to his crew. After a few paces, Blackburn came to a halt. He looked around him at the buzz of the camp. One Osprey was preparing to land as another was taking off. Two AA guns were trained on the sky. Men, machines and weapons were moving in all directions: the US Marine Corps doing what it knew best. The Marine Corps that had been his guiding force all his life. He took a breath, straightened himself and gave his Lieutenant a brisk salute.
‘Whatever you say, Sir.’
What kind of an answer was that? he asked himself, as he walked on alone.
41
‘Weird shit, huh? As if we haven’t got enough on our minds, just fighting the freakin’ war.’
That was all Campo would say about it.
Black had tried to hang around outside the ‘interrogation tent’, as he now thought of it, to be there when Campo emerged. But Cole had called him to the briefing. As they crowded round the map table he caught sight of Campo arriving and moved over to his side. He looked shaken. His body language said Don’t talk to me.
‘Listen up, guys. Who likes to ski?’
Cole’s mood had changed, as if someone had given him a shot of something. In fact, he sounded completely different. Did he know something? Was it because of something Campo had told them? Blackburn told himself to calm down: all he’d had to do was tell the truth. But Andrews and Dershowitz had treated him as if he had something to hide. They’d made him feel like a criminal.
If Cole was expecting laughter he didn’t get it. But he carried on looking pleased with himself.
‘Thanks to our liberating the PLR’s nuclear device, intel have run a side-by-side comparison test with the signals it’s been giving off against a pair of pulses that have been picked up coming from here.’
He tapped a pencilled mark high on the southern face of the Alborz mountain range to the north of the city.
‘There’s nothing marked on our maps, but Bigbird is showing us this.’
He laid out a satellite shot of a large building surrounded by trees, tucked into a mountain slope.
‘Fuck’s that?’
Cole unrolled a copy of an old set of plans. It looked like a Swiss chalet, with overhanging gables and shutters on the windows. Quaint.
‘It looks like The Sound of Music,’ said Matkovic.
‘Yeah, the hills are alive – with somethin’!’
‘A loud tickin’!’
‘What we’re looking at here, gentlemen, is the favourite holiday home of the late Mohammad Rezâ Shâh Pahlavi, one time Shah of Iran. Since it was a gift from his admirers back home, some farsighted archivist in Langley had the presence of mind to file away a copy of the plans.’
Black’s attention was wandering. Another day, another crazy mission. He looked over at Campo, who didn’t look as if he was taking in a word of what Cole was saying either. What had they asked him in there? What had they said? Whatever it was it had spooked Campo, who briefly met his gaze – distant, wary. Holy fuck, Blackburn thought, is this me or them?
‘You got all that, Sergeant Black?’
His attention snapped back to the briefing.
‘Yessir.’
Cole looked at him for a beat.
‘Okay, gentlemen, get to it. Black, over here.’
Campo filed out with the rest of the platoon. Blackburn went over to Cole.
‘Want to know why I’m looking pleased? Because the Colonel’s looking pleased. He’s happy, I’m happy. He’s happy because the Pentagon’s happy that we found that nuke. We get the other two . . .’
His arms went up as if to catch a giant volley ball.
‘So let’s draw a line under everything and go to work. Roger?’
Black looked at him. What kind of mind fuck was this? When shit happens you make me the scapegoat, and when I deliver, you bask in the glory.
He jogged up to Campo, who was sucking on a cigarette and talking to Montez and Matkovic. He stopped and looked uncomfortable.
‘Cole says we did good, finding the nuke: the Pentagon wants to make us all generals.’
Campo left it a second before he responded. ‘Cool.’
Battlefield 3: The Russian Page 17