by Chris Ryan
In the last few seconds I heard the rush of air spilling from the canopies: then suddenly men in pairs were touching down all round me.
Brilliant! I thought but at that instant, away to my left, a dog began to bark hysterically. The noise was coming from inside the trees, just beyond the old hay cart. Ijabbed my press el switch twice and listened for Sasha to come up on the air.
Nothing.
I jabbed again. The dog was still barking. One of the incoming figures had disengaged from its partner and was coming towards me. I recognised Pat from his rolling walk.
"Get in! Get in!" I hissed.
"That bloody dog."
Even as I was talking the barking ceased.
The lads didn't need telling. Pat had briefed them already, and in any case their instincts and training made them head straight for the dark edge of the pines, dragging their chutes behind them.
In the shadows, Pat had a quick head count.
"We're OK," he said.
"We're on. What's the crack?"
"Not sure. See that old wagon on the edge of the field? I left Sasha there. That's our forming-up area. It sounded as though he had a contact. Wait one."
Two more jabs on the press el Still no answer. All round me there was a general scrabbling and scrunching as people rolled up their chutes, and a rattle of working parts as they readied their weapons.
"Whatever's happened, we've got to go that way," I told Pat.
"OK," he said quickly.
"Us two'll move up and check it out." In the lead, I advanced with my 203 at the ready, every sense on full alert, with Pat ten metres behind me. Our boots, cushioned by the snow, were making no sound, but I knew we'd show up as black silhouettes every time we passed an open area.
At the corner of the field I stopped to scan with the kite-sight.
Nothing moved, and I'd just started again when my earpiece hissed twice.
"Sasha?"
"Where are you?"
"Same place."
"What happened?"
"One man came after."
"Where's he gone?"
"I keen him."
"What about the dog?"
"I keen dog also."
"OK. We're closing on you now.
"Prinyato."
"The guys can come up," I told Pat.
"There's a cache here for the chutes.
While the rest of the lads came up I moved on, and was right beside Sasha before I saw him, standing against the trunk of a big pine. The snow on the track beside him was spattered with black-looking stains, which I realised must be blood.
"You OK?"
"Sure."
"What happened?"
"I am waiting here. The man comes past. I shoot him with knife gun.
"Where's the body?"
"Here." Sasha pointed behind him at a dark heap beside the tree.
"And the dog?"
"Same place. Knife also."
"Was it that German Shepherd that came along the perimeter wire last night?"
"I think."
I turned to Pat and said, "No point in trying to hide the bodies.
We need to get in and out fast before anyone comes looking. But there's a well here we can dump the chutes in."
"OK," said Pat.
"Let's go."
We bundled the chutes down the old water tank, threw snow over the cover and hustled on.
I went as fast as I dared, trying to combine speed of advance with maximum alertness. The snow helped by deadening our footsteps, but all the way I was thinking that the surface of the field behind us must look as though a football match had taken place.
We came to the wire at the point where Sasha and I had lain to observe the baffler.
"This is it," I told Pat.
"Once we're over, we'll be on target in less than a minute."
"We need to tell base we're on our objective," he whispered.
"They'll get the Chinooks airborne right away."
"OK."
I waited as he quickly set up his Satcom and reported his position.
How long would it have taken for the sentry to make a normal circuit of the fence? How soon would his failure to return be noticed? We had a few minutes yet.
With the set back in Pat's bergen, we went up to climb the wire. Over the fence and hidden in the trees again, we held a quick 0-group.
"Now that the device has gone," Pat began, 'that's knocked out one of our objectives. The summerhouse is no longer relevant. Forget that.
"I've designated three parties. Party A to block the road, Party B to assault the villa, Party C to watch the helipad and prevent any take-off "Our objective is to rescue the hostages. But no one else gets out of that building alive. OK?"
He got a few grunts for answer, and went on, "I've briefed the parties already, Geordie. But for your benefit, Party C consists of two men these two." He pointed, but in the dark I couldn't recognise faces.
"Party A, the road, is these three. Two gym pis and a sixty-six. That leaves fifteen, counting Sasha. I want to leave two back somewhere to act as sniper-observers. That makes thirteen for the house assault..
Pat had got everything well worked out. I knew he'd laid out plans of the villa, using mine tape, on the floor of the hangar in Kars, and that the team had walked through each phase of the assault. His plan was to keep away from the front of the house altogether, so that we didn't trigger the alarm systems. A basement group would approach from the side and tape a demolition charge to the cellar door. The rear party would do the same to three ground-floor windows at the back.
Split-second timing was essential: the assault had to crack off from both sides simultaneously, and in that first instant one of the snipers would put a 203 grenade through the front door to increase the confusion.
As our ERV, Pat designated the helipad.
We moved out in single file, again at tactical spacing, in an anti-clockwise circle round the target. First stop was the helipad, where we dropped off Party C in good positions among rock bluffs that commanded the pad only thirty metres below them.
Next we worked down until we could see the back of the house.
Lights were on in most of the windows, but curtains or blinds had been drawn. Some fifty metres above the building we left the main assault group (which included Pat) crouching in the trees.
Round at the side I dropped off the basement group, to wait while I took Party A down to the point I had earmarked on the road. Then I hustled back up, glancing at my watch. The time was just before 8:30.
On the covert radio link I reported to Pat: "All groups in position."
"Roger," he went.
"The assault will go down in figures three minutes. Move on to target at one minute before zero.
By now the moon was well up, its light filtering through the fir branches. Beside me was Paul Anderson, an EMOE specialist, who was going to blow the door. As we crouched there, waiting, I realised that our breath was steaming in the air.
For the past couple of hours I'd been so absorbed that I hadn't noticed the cold.
"Two minutes," came Pat's voice.
I was hoping to hell the raid would give us some clue about where the bomb had been taken. Maybe we'd find messages, papers, tapes..
Suddenly Jim Taylor, leader of Party A, came on the air.
"Stand by," he said.
"There's a vehicle coming up the road at high revs. What do we do? Hit it?"
"Roger," Pat answered instantly.
"Take it out. Other groups, close on target now!"
We burst out of the trees and ran towards the basement door.
In seconds Paul had taped a line of det cord straight down the middle. We stood back, flattening ourselves against the wall.
"Thirty seconds," came Pat's voice. But before he could carry on the countdown the howl of an electronic alarm broke out from the front of the villa and wound up to a scream. At almost the same instant a brilliant flash split the night, and the thump of a 66 rocket
exploding thundered up the mountainside, followed by the rattle of machine guns as Party A engaged the car.
"Go! Go! Go!" Pat screamed.
I turned my head away as Paul closed his clacker.
BOOM!
The door split in half and we pushed through the gap. As I went in I heard more rounds going down in the road-block.
The space inside was full of smoke or dust. Clouds of the stuff caught our torch beams and made it hard to see what there was in the room. Answer nothing. Bare concrete block walls, bare cement floor, the room empty.
Another door at the back, steel, locked. It took Paul only seconds to make up another charge. Again we stood to one side.
BANG! In the confined space, the shock buffeted us.
The second door swung open. Dust problems again. But this time through the haze I saw tubular steel storage shelves along one wall. On the floor at the foot of them was a long, dark heap.
As my torch beam came on to it, part of the heap moved.
"Pay!" I yelled.
"Keep still! You're OK."
In a flash I was kneeling in front of him. He and Toad were lying on their sides, head to head, their hands, behind backs, cuffed to the feet of the metal shelving. At first glance I thought Toad was dead his eyes were shut and his face was white as chalk. When I put a hand on his cheek he felt as cold as a corpse.
But at the touch his eyelids flickered.
One of the lads had bolt-cutters in his belt kit.
"Give us a light while I cut these fucking chains!" I shouted. I needn't have yelled, because a torch came on right beside me but my adrenalin was up and running.
"OK," Paul said calmly, holding the light.
Leaning over, I saw that Toad's hands were covered with filthy bandages, and that blood had seeped out of them and on to the floor. A couple of crunching snips cut though the chain and released him. Another severed the link between his cuffs. As his hands came free he gave a groan and tried to straighten his arms, but otherwise made no movement.
Pay wasn't in quite such a bad way. He, too, felt cold as death, and his face was a mess, but when I released his hands he brought his arms to the front of his body and curled up like a child.
I hit my press el switch and called, "Pat?"
There was a moment's pause. Then, as he answered, his voice was almost drowned by a burst of small-arms fire.
"We've found the hostages," I went.
"In the basement. We're going to evacuate them into the trees."
"Roger," he answered.
"Carry on, and call in the choppers.
We're clearing the upper floors.
"Hypothermia," Paul was saying.
"Both of them are in a bad way.
Mentally, I was torn in two. One half of me wanted to stay with my injured mates and see them to safety. The other was burning to get up into the villa in search of Shark and grill him about where he'd sent the bomb.
I glanced round. Apart from me, there were five guys in the group: four to carry each casualty and one to cover them.
"Get them out under the trees to start with," I said.
"I'm going upstairs. See you in a minute."
In the far corner of the store-room was a wooden door. A burst from the 203 shot hell out of the lock, and I ran up a bare concrete staircase; knowing that I should wait for back-up but driven on by pure aggression.
Another locked door, another burst.
I erupted into a large and brilliantly lit open area the recreation floor, with a sauna room, exercise machines and a fair-sized pool, a small swimming pool or a king-size jacuzzi.
There was pale wood everywhere, on the floor, the walls and the doors of the sauna and the cubicles. The change in temperature was phenomenal: in one step I'd gone from zero to tropical.
Somebody had been in the pool until a few seconds before.
The water was still moving, and a trail of wet foot marks led to one of the cubicles. The door was closed, but beneath it I could see a pair of feet.
Rounds were still going down on the upper floors. Then a heavy explosion crashed off "Come out!" I yelled.
"Get out of there!"
I stood off a few feet with my weapon levelled.
"Come out or I shoot."
The door opened. Out came a man in a white to welling bath robe. From his long, narrow face I knew instantly that this was Akula. His black hair was slicked down with water and his eyes were wide open with fright or surprise. His movements were quite slow and perfectly controlled.
He said something in Russian, or possibly in Chechnyan. I didn't understand it and barked back, "Speak English, you bastard. I know you can.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"Never mind that. I want to know where you've sent the bomb."
"The bomb? What bomb? I don't understand."
His right hand was moving up towards a pocket at waist height on the front of his robe.
"Keep still!" I shouted.
"Hands up."
He raised them reluctantly.
I went forward and jabbed the muzzle of the 203 into his breastbone so hard that he crashed down on his arse.
"Get your hands above your head!" I shouted.
He lay on his back, arms up, while I felt in the pockets of his robe. My fingers closed on a small pistol. I brought it out, glanced briefly at it, and saw that it was covered in gold engraving. I slipped it in my pocket and repeated my question, standing over him with the 203 pointing down at his chest.
"Listen," I said.
"I know who you are. You are Akula, the Shark. What have you done with the device?"
"I tell you, I have no device."
"Don't fucking lie to me!" I shouted.
"Or I'll blow your bloody head off' That seemed to change his mind.
"You are too late," he said.
"The device is not here."
"I know. I'm asking where you've sent it."
"You are American, yes?" There was a hint of mockery in his voice, of condescension.
"It doesn't matter what I am.
"Well you should send message to British Government."
"Yes?"
"Tell them, release the Chechen men they have arrested."
"What Chechen men?"
"Twelve persons.
"What have they done?"
"Nothing. But the police arrested them. Unless they are free, London will be sorry.
"What are you saying?"
"Only that. London will regret."
"You mean you've sent the bomb to London?"
I was so hyped up by the thought that Orange was going to be used against us that, without any conscious decision, I fired a burst into the floor beside the Shark's right leg, then another that hit him in the thigh. As the rounds struck, he gave a convulsive jerk, then began to writhe around on his side, blood flowing out fast over the birch floor.
All at once there was a commotion at the far end of the room.
A door flew open. As I looked in that direction, Akula tried to take advantage of the diversion and began dragging himself away along the edge of the pool. In a split-second I took in the fact that the newcomer was Sasha, who dashed in with his Gepard levelled. Before I could move or speak he'd opened up with three short bursts. The first missed, but the second caught the Shark full in the flank. As he rocked on his hands and knees, the third raked him again and toppled him sideways into the pool.
Behind me, from the changing cubicle he'd been in, came a sudden noise and movement and the door flew open. Out burst a young blonde woman, stark naked, holding a pistol in her right hand.
Before she could pull the trigger, Sasha cut her down with a burst into her back from point-blank range.
He was on a total high, uncontrollably violent, half mad. He fired two more bursts into the ceiling, splintering the planks, and rushed up to me with a triumphant roar of "ZHEORDIE! WE KEELL THEM ALL!"
With a couple of bounds he reached the edge of the pool. The man's body was
half-floating, face-down in the water, feet on the bottom. Blood had flooded out all round it, staining the water, dark red close in, paler farther out.
"Akula in the water!" Sasha shouted.
"Breelliant! We make him kneel! We make him swim!" Again he let drive a burst into the body, causing it to bob violently up and down.
Men came pounding into the room. Our guys. One, two, three.
"Out!" yelled one of them.
"The place is on fire. Gotta go downwards."
"Here!" I pointed towards the door.
All five of us flew down the concrete stairs and through the wooden door. The inner store-room was empty. The hostages had gone.
Outside, the impact of frosty air cooled all of us down. I realised I'd been on just as vicious a high as Sasha.
As we drew away from the building and up the hill, we could see flames raging inside the ground-floor windows. Then a great tongue of fire burst out of the roof. Out of breath, I got down — on one knee, jabbed my press el and called, "Pat?"
"Yes?"
"Geordie here. I'm east of the building. Where are you?"
"Straight above the villa. The Chinooks are coming in."
"Great. Is there a medic on board?"
"Should be. I asked for one."
"The hostages are in a bad way.
"OK. RV on the helipad, soonest."
"Roger."
We started through the trees, but we'd only gone a few yards when another explosion burst out above us. I heard later that the guys in Party C saw somebody sneak up into the cockpit of the Alouette, so they put a 66 rocket into its fuel tank.
The fireball lit up the trees all around. By the time we reached the scene the chopper was blazing from end to end. There was no chance of shifting the wreck quickly.
Over the radio I heard Pat call the Chinook captain and redirect him to the LZ in the forest.
By now some of our guys had wrapped Pay and Toad in space blankets and sleeping bags and lashed them into nylon stretchers. There followed a desperate struggle, as relays of us carried them along the rough mountainside, bundled them over the wire and lugged them away through the forest.
Towards the end we could hear the Chinooks circling. Then rounds began to go down behind us and bullets came cracking through the trees.
By the time we reached the edge of the field we were sweating like pigs. One man, in the lead, ran out and shone a torch to bring the first Chinook in. At the same moment I heard Pat calling the second to put down an air strike