by James Phelan
Inside the barracks, the two remaining unscathed Chechens looked at the carnage around them. Two of their number had been slain as they went outside, two lay dead in corners, and another was writhing in pain, having been shot in the hip moments before.
They opened the windows on the western side of the barracks, at the back, and began climbing out.
Geiger was opposite Sefreid at the door to the barracks. He pulled the cap and pressed the button on the flash-bang grenade and tossed it through a smashed-out window.
“Fire in the hole!” he called over the radio.
A loud boom came out of the barracks, accompanied by the blinding light of burning magnesium. The SAS-developed flash-bang grenades would disorient and possibly incapacitate anyone left inside the house for several minutes.
Goldsmith looked back towards the barracks in time to see two figures climbing out the windows and running away.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” he yelled after the fleeing men. He fired his M16 at them—catching one in the arm—as they disappeared around a corner.
“Gibbs, you have two targets heading your way!” he called over the radio.
“Got ’em!” Gibbs responded and sighted the two men in the night-vision scope. One appeared to have dropped his weapon and was holding his arm; the other was charging away. She shot him in the head.
Seeing his fallen comrade and realising he must have been killed by a sniper, the second man stopped dead in his tracks, surrendering.
“Compound secure,” Sefreid called over the radio.
The Gulfstream had also been listening in, the pilots flying in slow circles above and tailoring their flight pattern as the situation on the ground neared completion. Now the flaps came up and the bright landing lights illuminated the runway as the aircraft came in to land.
26
ITALY
The conflict appeared to have died down, so Popov took his chance. He left the toilet and ran as fast as his bare feet would take him. His first thought was to escape on one of the motorbikes he had seen before, but he decided against it for two reasons: he did not know where they were kept, and he assumed that the attackers had to have come from the road as it was the only entry.
Then he remembered the lagoon and the small boat he had planned to take in the morning. Although it was still dark in the pre-sunrise, he ran in the direction he remembered the jetty to be.
“Please be there,” he whispered over and over as he ran.
Fox had a quick look in the barracks then headed back to the main house, where Ridge still stood guard over the tied-up prisoner.
“He tell you anything?” Fox asked as he neared them. He noticed Ridge still had his mean-looking knife out and that there was a long gash under the prisoner’s eye.
“He doesn’t speak much English,” Ridge pointed at the man menacingly with the knife “but he seems to be saying Gammaldi was taken to another place.”
“Where?” Fox asked. “When?”
“Yesterday. And he has no idea where. Apparently a secret hideout that only the base commander knew about.”
“Knew, past tense?” Fox asked, hoping it wasn’t the answer he was expecting.
“You nailed him in his room—”
Fox went outside before Ridge finished, his fists clenched into balls. When the Chechens heard of the attack on the compound and the deaths of so many of their men, they would surely execute Al.
The voices of the GSR team were chattering away in his earpiece but he ignored them, staring at the ground, his night-vision goggles atop his head now. In his peripheral vision he thought he saw something—like a figure running away. He looked up but couldn’t see anything, so looked back down at the ground—and there it was again, only more distant this time.
He slid the night-vision goggles over his eyes and saw the outline of a man running into the cover of the spindly trees near the guard box.
“Beasley! Someone just ran by your position!” he yelled as he bounded into pursuit.
“I haven’t seen anyone!” Beasley yelled, leaping from his position in the guard box and scanning the area around him.
“I’m backing you,” Geiger added as he joined the chase.
Fox ran past Beasley, who immediately followed, in the direction of the trees. At the thicket, they split up, Fox ploughing on dead ahead, Beasley running along the length of the tree line as it moved away from the compound.
Pushing his way through the scratchy branches, Fox stopped momentarily as he heard a noise— the sound of an outboard motor. Suddenly, it dawned on him: the man was trying to escape via the lagoon.
“He’s going to get away in a boat!” Fox yelled over the radio as he ran faster towards the water, branches scratching at his face.
Geiger, halfway to the thicket, heard Fox and did a quick about-turn. After a few seconds’ sprinting, he met up with the Gulfstream as it completed its landing at the edge of the runway. Over the radio, he instructed the pilots on what he needed to do.
Gibbs came across from the hangar and met up with Geiger at the aircraft’s still moving fuselage. “What are you doing?” she asked over the whining of the jet turbines.
“Just give me a hand!” Geiger said as he unclasped the latches on the first starboard storage compartment. He reached in and dragged out a long, wide black cylinder. “Help me carry it!” he said.
Together, they ran in the direction of Fox and the escapee, the cylinder straddled across their right shoulders.
Fox had cleared the tree thicket and could see the jetty less than five hundred metres ahead. He couldn’t see the boat but the outboard motor could be heard as it picked up revs.
Beasley came abreast of him at the water’s edge and they went onto the creaky old timber jetty in stride. It was short in length and at its end Fox sighted his weapon. The scope on the MP5 magnified only three times—relative to its effective range—and the small boat bumping over the waves of the lagoon made a near impossible target. He fired anyway, on fully automatic, and the silenced submachine gun soon emptied its magazine.
“Damn it!” Fox roared, and threw his gun onto the jetty with a metallic thwack. Beasley just looked on, the automatic shotgun in his hands useless at a target over a hundred metres away, let alone almost a kilometre. As Fox turned and began walking back along the jetty, Geiger and Gibbs rounded the bend of trees at a jog, the black cylinder over their shoulders.
“We get here in time?” Geiger asked as they set down the cylinder. He lifted the cover, pulling on a rope at one end. The sound was like a party popper that shoots small streamers into the air. The corner of Fox’s mouth twitched into a grin as the canister split in half lengthways and the black mass inside quickly inflated into a rubber zodiac, the two long halves of the container reinforcing the pontoon bottoms.
After putting the craft into the water, the four of them jumped in and Geiger assembled the electric motor. Stored in three parts for compactness, it came together with the ease of Lego blocks. The engine itself had very little horsepower or torque, but its top speed was reasonable at fifteen knots. The zodiac’s main use was for short, stealthy incursions to which the quiet hum of the electric motor was well suited.
Fox and his GSR team soon caught sight of their quarry, but kept as far from him as they could to see where he would lead them.
27
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE
Kopec had just come back from the bathroom where he’d washed his face in an attempt to keep under control the cold sweat dripping off his forehead. He looked at his watch—he still had around an hour to find the target before the deadline.
“Yee-hah!” a young analyst hooted suddenly.
“What is it?” Kopec rushed over to group two as they filled the largest screen in the room with an enlarged section of their search area.
“Huge signature—faint but huge!” said the analyst. Every head in the room had turned and was looking at the screen, which
showed a glowing area near the bank of a body of water.
“Can you get closer?” Kopec asked, moving nearer to study the projection. The heat signature was big—the biggest they had come across—but very faint.
“It should be coming through any second from a better angle,” said the analyst, conviction in his voice and on the faces of his search team.
Two hours earlier, another team had come across a large and bright signature that had brought the whole room to their feet in triumph. At closer magnification they’d found their discovery was in fact an old US nuclear-waste dumping ground, with the toxic waste seeping through the stacks of unmarked drums; information that the press and the UN would have a field day with.
The room was tense, waiting for the next feed of shots to come through. Kopec was the only one standing—in fact, he hadn’t sat down once this shift—and he used the opportunity to stretch the tension out of his back.
“Bingo!” yelled the analyst, sharing a high five with a colleague. He bashed away at the keyboard in front of him and the image zoomed in further until the heat signature filled the entire screen.
Kopec smiled, taking a few paces back to get the full effect, as though appreciating a painting by an old Master. There was no mistaking it. The heat resonance was nowhere near as strong as that from the nuclear material found before, but it stood out against the barren sands of Iran. A long stretched teardrop, at least fifty metres long and around ten metres across at its widest. Like a comet burning through the sky.
28
GROZNY
Ivanovich walked from his car to the waiting plane. He returned the salute of an elite soldier waiting beside the bottom stair of the aircraft and briskly climbed his way inside and out of the early morning cold.
Most would have found the opulence of the interior quite obscene, especially the hungry Chechens who survived on the meagre social security benefits their government handed out monthly. It was more reminiscent of a Renaissance king’s bedroom: rich burgundy felts lined the walls and ceiling with gold embroidery at measured intervals; the carpets were made from the fur of three Siberian black bears; and the windows sported mink curtains. There were only four seats in the cabin, covered in soft brown leather, which could recline into comfortable sleeping positions. A thin floor-to-ceiling curtain fashioned from a tapestry from the Tsar’s collection separated the rear section of the cabin, which was fitted out with a round double bed and ensuite. Apart from the flight crew, the jet was staffed by two scantily clad stewardesses, women who followed Ivanovich most places and fulfilled all his whims.
The jet took off and flew low until they were well out of Grozny, then climbed to cruising altitude. Ivanovich was reclining in one of the chairs, drinking a tumbler of vodka, one of his girls perched daintily on his lap, the other laid out on the bed.
“Sir, I cannot tell you how glad I am that you have finally heeded my advice on leaving the capital. Things are getting much too dangerous,” Ivanovich’s Chief of Intelligence said to his commander, mesmerised by the raven-haired woman on the bed.
“It was not your words that made me leave, Mishka,” Ivanovich replied, noticing the way his advisor was ogling the woman.
“But the Russians are sending an assassination team after you,” Mishka said, averting his gaze.
“Then let them try and find me!” Sergei Ivanovich said with a laugh. He motioned for the woman on his knee to join the other on the bed. Then he got up and slapped a large hand on Mishka’s shoulder and handed him his half-drunk glass of vodka.
“You need to learn how to relax a little, my friend,” he said and disappeared into the bedroom area. The second woman closed the tapestry behind them.
Mishka could no longer see the women but heard their giggles and moans during the remainder of the flight.
29
WASHINGTON
McCorkell awoke to the chiming of the telephone on his bedside table. The phone was linked to the bedside lamp, which lit his modest-sized bedroom with a golden glow.
“Hello?” he said groggily into the receiver, looking over to the clock and seeing the ungodly hour.
“Sir, I have Paul Kopec from the National Reconnaissance Office on the line for you.” The efficient and pleasant voice of one of the White House telephonists came over the line.
“Thanks, put him through.” McCorkell sat up and took a sip of water from the glass he always had by his bed.
“Mr McCorkell, sorry for calling at this hour,” Kopec apologised.
“Quite all right, Kopec, I assume you have good news,” McCorkell said, thinking of only one reason why the NRO would wake him today.
“Yes, sir,” Kopec said. His smile of pride was audible over the phone line. “We have found the location of the theterium, sir, not far from the Iraqi border with Iran, and around six hundred kilo-metres from the Azerbaijan–Iran border.”
“Thank you, Kopec. Pass on my congratulations to all involved and have the information and an analyst sent straight to the White House. And send the information on to Larter and the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon,” McCorkell said as he swung himself to sit on the edge of the bed and put his feet into a pair of neatly laid out slippers.
“On its way, sir.”
McCorkell hung up the phone and walked to the front door of his one-bedroom penthouse apartment, donning his robe as he did so. The Secret Service agent sitting on a chair outside the door was startled from reading his magazine, and stood up on seeing his principal.
“Have the car ready to go to the White House in fifteen minutes,” was all McCorkell said and closed the door.
McCorkell took the time to shave and shower and don a fresh suit, then grabbed a couple of pieces of fruit as he went out of the apartment. He carried his attaché case and passed a sports bag to the agent as they waited for the lift.
“Taking your run at work today?” the agent asked as the lift opened.
“I have a shit of a day if I miss my five kilo-metres,” replied McCorkell as they rode the lift down. He reminded himself to give his running partner a call when the sun rose, to make other arrangements.
30
GROZNY
Captain William Farrell of the British 22nd Special Air Service Regiment walked through Grozny’s recently coined State Square like a local.
He had arrived in the capital only two hours before, driving in an inconspicuous van he’d commandeered in Georgia, together with Sergeant Jenkins and four other SAS members, who’d now left for another mission to the north of the city.
Farrell and Jenkins did not look like soldiers— especially not members of the world’s elite Special Forces fraternity. Farrell was dressed in the kind of old clothes one saw everywhere on the streets of the former Soviet Union. His hair was dark and shaggy, and his beard was in need of tidying. Jenkins was dressed in a pair of old overalls, polyester jacket and work boots and carried a toolbox. His wide chiselled jaw, highlighting his Viking ancestry, sported a few days of stubble and the thick blond hair that touched his shoulders was held out of his face by a black hat of knitted wool.
The pair soon found their destination—a narrow café in an old building, recently redecorated in a Western European style. The interior was perfumed by the myriad of cheeses that were displayed in the window and the sausages and onions being cooked on a hotplate for early morning breakfasts.
Sergeant Jenkins ordered two of the morning’s specials whilst Farrell headed out the back to the toilet. He used the journey to take in the people sitting in the café. There were only a dozen, mostly people in cheap business attire. In one of the small booths along the side wall, two men sat with full plates of breakfast in front of them, untouched except for the steaming coffees. Both big burly men, one was dressed in casual Eastern European wear, the other in overalls and woollen hat. The latter had a beaten old toolbox by his feet. One of them Farrell recognised.
When Farrell returned from the toilets, Jenkins was
paying for the meals.
“Why is it always my shout?” asked Jenkins as he handed a heavily laden plate to his senior officer.
“Because you rob more people,” Farrell replied with a grin, and led the way to a table.
For the past fourteen months, Farrell and his SAS squad had been living between Russia and Georgia. It was a three-year tour of duty that had been an entrenched part of SAS tradition since the late sixties. Squads were sent the world over, taking with them only the clothes on their backs and a few hundred US dollars—it was then up to them to live and mingle with the locals in whatever community they chose. Unknown to each host country, the SAS teams would get first-hand experience of the culture, learn self-sufficiency in field operations, gather bits of information here and there, and occasionally be called on for a specific task, such as this mission.
Two of Farrell’s team had been recruited into the Russian Mafia; the others did some occasional legitimate work, usually on projects of interest back home, but they soon found that crime was the most satisfying way to live.
Farrell put his plate on the table and sat down in the booth, next to the man he knew. Jenkins took the seat opposite.
“Good morning, comrade,” Farrell said in Russian. To the tuned ear his accent was unmistakably Muscovite.
“Good morning, Comrade Farrell,” said the burly Russian as he laid his paper down. “You’ve been well?”
“I cannot complain,” Farrell replied to his old friend. Antinov was a major in Russia’s KRV, the country’s elite fighting and saboteur unit. The two had trained together a few times and liaised socially whenever Farrell was in Moscow.