by John Gardner
Brooks nodded. ‘Yes. Can’t work out how they haven’t been missed. Emerald lured them into following her. I did the business. We did two the night before last and one last night. Should be a hue and cry, but they possibly get the odd idiot going over the wall here. Either that or their organisation’s porous.’
Bond did not recall the old expression, ‘porous’, for a moment, then smiled as it came back to him. Porous stood for ‘Porous piss’.
There were spare keys for the outer door, remodelled and fashioned from other keys which Brooks and his wife had filched. Enough for all of them. They went over the situation one more time. When the balloon went up, each person would be responsible for himself. ‘No hanging back, or heroics,’ Brooks said. ‘It’s better to get yourself down here than to lose out on a foolish rescue. We can do no more until something happens.’
They agreed to meet back at the room used earlier at three on the following morning if nothing occurred before then. Brooks obviously had a very clear picture of the building in which they were being held, so Bond did not try to intervene. As far as he was concerned, it was Michael Brooks’ operation now. All he had to do was try to get a signal out, if he could, and if anyone was listening.
They left in pairs, and once back in their room, Bond took his parka from the clothes closet and went into the bathroom. There he committed a message to tape from the notebook computer, then rewound the tape and put it into the transmitter. Half-an-hour later, he slipped from the room and went up the wooden staircase, working his way right to the top and out on to the roof.
The air was bitter and there seemed to be light snow drifting across the forest which spread out all around him. He calculated the direction, held the little transmitter away from his body and pressed the ‘send’ key. For the second time in four days a tiny fragment of signal leaped, invisibly, on to the airwaves. All he could do was pray that someone was listening.
Boris Stepakov left the dacha just after three in the morning with his bodyguards. He also took Stephanie Adoré and Major Rampart with him. They drove to the secret airfield where the crew of his Antonov An-72 had already filed a flightplan to the Spetsnaz training base just outside Kirovograd on the River Ingul in the Ukraine.
Because Spetsnaz are trained there, the base is one of the most securely guarded in the whole of Russia. The secrecy is so great that even those living in nearby towns and villages are unaware of its importance, for Spetsnaz are the very best troops in the world, easily ranking above the British SAS or the US Delta Force and Navy Seals.
Here, and at other secret bases, these special forces undergo what is possibly the most rigorous military training known anywhere. The men chosen to serve as Spetsnaz are often hand-picked even before they enter the Red Army. The recruiting officers go out and search for suitable material while young men are still in school or at universities, for these troops are brought to perfection not only in the most secret military arts, but also in the darker arcane callings which make them ideal for covert operations.
The GRU – the Red Army’s equivalent of KGB – have been known to make use of these men by infiltrating them into foreign countries to work under cover for long periods. They certainly take on a much more sinister role than their counterparts in SAS or Delta.
At Kirovograd – they call the base after the great industrial city even though it is situated some fifty miles from city limits – the Spetsnaz soldier risks his life every day. The training exercises are carried out with live ammunition, and sometimes with the added danger of deadly chemicals and real explosives. Because of this there is an allowed percentage of training deaths – just as there was among the British Commando training units during World War II.
They first learn the normal skills of soldiering, but with an accent on leadership and tactics, so that any member of the force can take over battlefield command from the highest staff officer should the occasion arise.
Following this stringent induction, the Spetsnaz soldier goes on to more specialised work. They study the customs and languages of possible target countries; survival techniques; the tradecraft of deep cover and disguise, so that they can pass themselves off as tourists, businessmen, members of trade or diplomatic missions, even as cultural groups or sports teams. For instance, a Spetsnaz officer was the winner of two Olympic silver medals in pistol shooting: in Melbourne and Rome. Because of his sporting activities, this man travelled freely throughout the world. He did not move alone, but always had two more officers in attendance, and is thought to have picked up valuable information from the West – just by being a crack shot.
Intermingled with these diverse crafts, future Spetsnaz men are taught sabotage of every feasible kind, and with every possible device: they also become proficient with all known weapons, in hand-to-hand combat and silent killing. Even while doing this distinctive training, they are constantly practising the normal skills of parachuting, skiing, mountain climbing and the basics of flying. Many active Spetsnaz troops could handle large civilian aircraft in an emergency, and most could fly a helicopter.
They are truly the cream, the best-paid and the most feared of Soviet forces. They have no special uniform, except that they are normally seen wearing the dress of the airborne and special assault forces, though, unlike the airborne, Spetsnaz do not wear the coveted ‘Guards Unit’ badges. There are times when they will wear only civilian clothes for months at a time.
Stepakov felt he had entered a distinctive environment as soon as he left his aircraft, dogged as ever by Nicki. Alex was left on the aircraft with the crew and the French couple. The men on this base were clear-eyed, moved with more confidence, carried themselves in a more doughty manner than even the Red Army’s other crack regiments. Trying to define this odd, uneasy sensation, Stepakov had long since realised that, when he was among Spetsnaz, he lived in the shadow of exceptional soldiers who could, if they chose, be ruthless killers.
General Gleb Yakovlevich Berzin – whom he had called a son-of-a-bitch – stood by the window of his austere office. He was tall with the figure of someone in peak physical condition. When he moved, the splendid muscle tone could be detected through his well-cut uniform. Like all Spetsnaz officers, Berzin took great pride in his appearance. As he turned to greet his visitor, the hard leathery face showed no sign of camaraderie. The eyes, like broken crystal, bore down upon Stepakov as though asking why a member of the KGB dared show his face, let alone his entire body, in this elect corner of the country.
‘Stepakov.’ He barked in acknowledgement that his brother officer was in the room.
‘Berzin,’ the KGB man nodded, turning the full power of his own unreadable clown’s face on the Spetsnaz man.
‘Moscow said this was important. It had better be. I haven’t time to waltz around with people from Centre.’
‘This is very important, comrade General.’ Stepakov did not raise his voice. ‘I bring you special orders, under seal, most secret, from the President himself. The President wishes these orders to be carried out with urgency.’ He thrust the heavy envelope into the general’s outstretched hand.
Berzin ripped open the orders and began to read. Halfway through he glanced up, looking at the KGB officer with what might have been construed as a new interest. Finally he folded the paper and gave a little laugh, like the yap of a dog.
‘The President really wants me to do this?’
‘If you read the orders carefully, you’ll see that he not only wants you to do it, he commands you. He also orders you to carry out this action with me as your joint commander.’
Berzin laughed. ‘You must be joking, General Stepakov. Why should I even take you along for the ride?’
‘Oh, I think you will.’ When Stepakov smiled, the already upturned corners of his mouth seemed to rise higher on his cheeks. This sometimes gave the bizarre impression that someone had taken an old cutthroat razor and slashed it across his mouth. ‘I bring another, even more secret, message.’
‘Oh?’
&n
bsp; ‘A verbal communication, comrade General. I was told you would answer me, and it comes with greetings. “And all I ask is a tall ship . . .” ’
For a fraction of a second, light appeared to flare behind the cracked crystal of Berzin’s eyes. It could have meant anything from fear to elation, for the man was virtually unreadable. He stood, statue still, studying Stepakov. Then, in a low voice muttered, ‘And a star to steer her by.’ He turned away to look out of the window again. Even though Berzin’s back was towards Stepakov, the KGB man sensed that he was looking far away, past the rows of hutments and wooded training areas, back to another life.
‘It’s been a very long time coming.’ He still spoke softly. ‘You must have dubious connections, my friend.’
‘I don’t know what that message means, comrade General. I only know that the man who told me to pass it on is also most anxious for you to do this thing. We are also to take two French officers with us. They wait in my personal aircraft.’
Berzin began to laugh. First a chuckle, then a full-blown cascade of mirth. He turned, and though he laughed, his face showed no humour or merriment. It was as though an animal was baying for no particular purpose, except to make a sound meant to convey drollness. ‘Who said that life is a comedy, Stepakov?’
‘I think . . .’
‘I don’t need an answer, you fool,’ Berzin snapped. ‘Of course I’ll do what is asked. In fact, I’m delighted to do it. Nothing would please me more. Come. Come and lunch with my officers. We will set things in motion immediately after we’ve eaten. We have a long way to go before this day is out.’
Nigsy Meadows had done as M instructed. Now he camped with another agent and a Lapp guide, high in the Arctic Circle where they monitored radio signals from Russian military units on the far side of the border. They were one of five groups spread out as secret listening posts from the Baltic to the far North.
In the Lapp’s tent they set up the sophisticated portable electronics which grabbed signals and telephone calls from the air. The other agent’s name was Wright, always known as ‘Pansy’, for his affectation of wearing that particular flower in his buttonhole when it was in season, which for Pansy Wright seemed to be the year round. He even had a bedraggled specimen inside his cold-weather clothing now.
Nigsy also had a portable Model 300, set, as the one in Moscow had been, to pick up Bond’s homing device. On top of this, he had lugged along another piece of portable electronics. A reduced unit which would duplicate squirt signals, such as the one they had grabbed from the air at the Moscow Embassy. Like the Model 300, this would only talk to Bond’s transmitter.
They took it in turns to monitor the equipment, and Nigsy was on duty, listening to radio telephone communications which seemed to be coming in to a location some twelve miles distant in the dense forest within the Russian border.
He heard the tiny crackle of static and his eyes just caught the flick of the needle as the telescoped transmission flashed in.
A minute later he was shaking Pansy Wright, bringing him out of a dream which featured a carpet of wild flowers and a young woman by the name of Marge.
‘This had better be good,’ Wright swore at him. ‘I’ve been after this wench for a long time and I nearly had her tonight.’
Nigsy did not know what he was talking about, but he did have the co-ordinates which would pinpoint Bond.
16
THE BLUES IN THE NIGHT
When Bond got back to their room, he found Nina in her towelling robe, still sound asleep on the bed where he had left her. She looked peaceful, lovely and detached. The robe had fallen open to reveal part of her left thigh and Bond automatically covered it. He had known since yesterday that this casual operational necessity which had thrown them together, had, for him, gone over the borderline, making them what the Americans might, in understatement, call kissing cousins.
Quietly he stretched out next to her, staring into the darkness, his mind a cauldron of confusion. Once every couple of years the Service invited him to speak to the new entrants at the kindergarten, as they called the training establishment some ten miles east of Watford. He always began with the old saw. ‘Field agents and airline pilots suffer from the same occupational hazard – nine-tenths boredom followed by one-tenth sheer terror.’
So far, this job had certainly fallen into the larger portion of that hazard, but he had followed every rule, obeyed the command given to him by M, namely, done nothing but keep his eyes and ears open. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, just wait,’ the old spy had told him. ‘Wait for the catalyst.’
He had allowed himself to be inserted with Pete Natkowitz into what Stepakov insisted was the heart of Chushi Pravosudia. He had played at being Guy, the recruited cameraman, and accepted Nina from Stepakov at face value. But he was no nearer to the absolute truth regarding the Scales of Justice. Had he been magically spirited this moment into his Chief’s presence, all he could have said was that the terrorist organisation appeared to be run by General Yevgeny Yuskovich, Commander-in-Chief Red Army Rocket Forces, and that Yuskovich was passing himself off for the sake of this charade of a trial as the army’s Judge Advocate General.
He supposed he could add that the innocent Joel Penderek had behaved like a docile, guilty man, but after that he was left with nothing, only the sound and fury of paradox and conflicting absurdity. Now Bond tried to put his feelings for Nina to one side, letting his mind zero in on logic and facts.
The facts were that a phoney trial was being acted for cameras in some godforsaken edifice, ten miles or so from the Finnish border, if Emerald Lacy was to be believed. Nina had been foisted on them and he had formed a sexual relationship with her. At the same time, Pete Natkowitz had fallen into similar intimacy with the girl Natasha, whom he said was a member of his own Service.
During the discussions – the ring of conspiracy – which had taken place that night, he had been struck by two things. First, Natasha had taken no part in the conversation and second, Michael and Emerald Brooks’ contribution had been worthless. Indeed, the pair of them had become dubious assets in Bond’s suspicious mind.
The kernel of information offered by Brooks could be summed up in the man’s own words – ‘. . . The whole thing about this war criminal Vorontsov is a blind, a sleight, a way to throw the Kremlin and the President off-balance. It’s only part of something greater, an evil which will have appalling consequences. We know some of it but not all. The gist is that hardline military people are about to launch a plot which will destroy America and probably Britain also. And I mean destroy.’ That was what he had said, and the pivot of the information was contained in eight words – ‘We know some of it but not all.’
Neither Brooks nor his wife had offered to share what little knowledge they were supposed to have. Instead, Bond and Natkowitz had been shown the inside of a box of mirrors, a story about the hotel having been built on the site of a monastery, a smoothly conducted tour around a secret hiding place. He had not really bought their tale of night-stalking through the building, of ‘finding’ the Boys’ Own hidden tunnel, a tale of luring three soldiers to their deaths in order to provide them with three P6 automatics. He had not even seen the bodies of these dead soldiers.
A thought snapped into his head. It was almost audible, like the tumblers on a security lock dropping into place. Silently, Bond slid from the bed. He had put his pistol, together with the spare magazines, on the floor wrapped in a towel and had advised Nina to do the same on her side of the bed. Quietly he picked up the bundle and crept into the bathroom.
First he examined the ammunition. The weight and feel were right. The magazines slid neatly into the pistol’s butt, so if anything was wrong it had to be in the gun itself. Quickly he disassembled the weapon and his fear was confirmed in a matter of seconds. The firing pin had been carefully filed away, so this particular P6 was of no value unless you wanted to use it as a bludgeon.
He reassembled the automatic, wrapped it in the towel and returned to
the bedroom, crossed the floor silently and exchanged his little towelled bundle for the one on Nina’s side of the bed.
In the bathroom once more, he checked the ammunition, then began to strip down the pistol. Nina’s weapon was lethal, the firing pin in place and the mechanism lightly oiled. So there you have it, he thought. Nina was armed, he was not, and he could but presume Natkowitz had been left in the same position. He went back to stretch out beside Nina, knowing, as he had discerned during the night, that all was far from well with Michael and Emerald.
How in heaven’s name could that be? he questioned. He had seen the files; he was one of the chosen few who were, as they said, ‘Sensation Cleared’. These two were legends in the secret community – the Huscarl, the Service’s two-handed axe sent to avenge those famous KGB penetration agents the Press called moles.
He frowned in the darkness, searching for any hint from the files he had examined, which might explain that the Huscarl had been tainted – tripled – because that was where logic took him. Once more, the picture of the elderly spies skulking round the building, operating like a pair of agents in some comic book, filled his mind. It was foolish, not just unlikely but damned near impossible to believe.
Never discount the impossible. He heard M’s chilly voice in his ear. Dry old spies, he thought. Dry, slack with their years. Obsessed by methods now obsolete. Could they possibly have been taken in? Could they themselves have become unwitting agents? Even that was not likely, for the proof lay beside Nina on the floor. One weapon spiked, ready for Bond’s own use or misuse. He realised that his thoughts spun in circles, and that he really did not want to accept Michael Brooks’ and Emerald Lacy’s guilt, for their condemnation would be Nina’s also, and his heart wanted Nina to be on the side of the angels. But she was not, and he had to accept that, unpalatable as it might be.
Then what of the silent Natasha? She was, she said, a member of Chushi Pravosudia, yet she gave them no answers and Pete had vouched for her. ‘She’s with me, if you understand,’ he had said, or something of that nature. Had she also been doubled? If so, nobody was safe. He recalled someone else saying the only true way to freedom is through paranoia. Was he now drowning in his own doubts and uncertainties?