Marine I SBS

by David Monnery

  For a moment the only sound in the vast hall was the fading bounce of a ball on concrete.

  On the makeshift pitch below the players had stopped, their faces turned upwards, some with a questioning look, others with the horror of knowledge. Behind the two SBS men the Shadmanovs seemed struck dumb by surprise, and Raisa’s eyes, always large, now seemed intent on colonizing the rest of her face.

  Cursing under his breath, McClure urged them all forward. ‘The balloon’s gone up,’ he told Noonan tersely. ‘Get down to the water.’

  Their brisk walk had turned into a jog. Even more speed might have been advisable, but McClure had no idea how fit the Shadmanovs were, and he didn’t think it was worth risking a coronary or a fall for a few extra seconds.

  They reached the last doors. He leaned out, half expecting to hear running feet on the catwalks above, but there was only silence, and no one in sight. Any minute now, he thought, as they started across the bridge, and right on cue an alarm bell started ringing somewhere on the rig behind them. Almost instantly a klaxon joined in, as if eager not to miss a rare opportunity to show its worth.

  Having readied the caving ladder Noonan was waiting by the rail, half convinced that he could still smell the vanished couple’s passion in the air. The two Geminis were only just visible in the water twenty metres below.

  ‘You first,’ McClure told him. ‘Then you,’ he told Finn.

  Bell and klaxon continued with their harmonizing, but there was still no indication that the intruders’ whereabouts had been pinpointed by human agency.

  The Shadmanovs, still pale from the shock of the catwalk encounter, were not eyeing the ladder with much enthusiasm. ‘Can they manage it?’ McClure asked Raisa. If not, they would have to be dropped into the sea and then recovered.

  Perhaps they realized as much, or perhaps being asked simply stung their pride. Tamarlan went first, going down with a nimbleness which surprised McClure until he remembered that the man was an inveterate hiker. His wife needed help getting across the rail, but once on the ladder itself managed to descend at a surprisingly good pace. Even so, McClure was pleased the two of them wouldn’t be required to do much more than keep a seat warm for the rest of the trip.

  Raisa went down rather faster, using the natural agility which she had honed through hours of practice in the Akrotiri gym, and joined Farida and Finn in one Gemini. McClure took one last look at the empty bridge and followed, joining Noonan and the scientist in the other.

  There was still no sign of pursuit, no sound of rotors warming on the helipad. The sky, though moonless, was much too clear for comfort, with the Milky Way stretching like a pale fluorescent band across the sky. The klaxon and bell would drown out the sound of the outboard motors, but was it possible they could get away without being seen?

  ‘Straight out,’ McClure decided. ‘Keeping B rig between us and them.’

  The two silenced outboards purred into action, and Noonan curved the first Gemini away from its mooring at the base of the rig and out into open water. Finn followed with the second, some twenty metres adrift. They were about half a kilometre away when first the klaxon and the bell cut out in quick succession. At the same moment the top of A rig came into view above B, the sound of whirring rotors reached across the water, and the Mi-8 lifted off the distant helipad.

  Four hundred kilometres to the west the RAF Sea King had crossed the official border between the warring states of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and was now contour-hopping at an average height of two hundred metres above the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

  ‘It looks quiet,’ Eddi Barton’s co-pilot, Geoff Johnston, observed, staring down at the dark hills and valleys flashing by beneath them.

  ‘Quiet as a fucking grave,’ Barton agreed.

  The co-pilot grunted, and reached for the almost empty bag of authentic Turkish Delight which was on the floor between his feet. ‘There hasn’t been any fighting for a few months, has there?’

  ‘Not that anyone bothered to report. And stop hogging the Turkish Delight.’

  ‘Dead right,’ the navigator agreed, abandoning his seat for a moment to grab the bag out of the co-pilot’s hand.

  ‘They’ve probably just run out of ammo,’ Barton said cynically. ‘Or volunteers. There’s . . .’

  He was cut short by Kevin Heywood, who had just spotted activity on the MEL search radar screen, and exclaimed, ‘Jesus, they’re missiles!’

  Barton swung the Sea King violently down and to the right as Johnston half shouted into his mike, ‘Home base. We are under fire. Attempting . . .’

  It was almost the last thing he ever said. One of the two shoulder-launched SAM-7s lanced into the Sea King’s tail section, spinning it out of control and down towards the dark ground.

  ‘Oh shit,’ the co-pilot murmured, and then there was silence.

  In the lead Gemini McClure was watching the Azeri helicopter draw a second, wider, search circle around the rig. They were almost two kilometres away now, and it was probably time to start drawing the wide circle needed to get them on course for Narghin Island, but the SBS man hesitated. Another kilometre might make all the difference.

  It did. The Mi-8 pilot might have seen them or simply made a lucky guess, but whatever the reason he abruptly swung out of his circling pattern and on to a pursuit course.

  ‘Cut the engine,’ McClure rapped out, and as Noonan obliged he reached for the M16 with its mounted M203 grenade-launcher, his head full of mental arithmetic. The helicopter was about a kilometre away now, and closing at the rate of about fifty metres per second. Which meant that in about ten seconds it would be inside the M203’s maximum effective range of three hundred and fifty metres.

  McClure breech-loaded the grenade and raised the combined weapon to his shoulder, counting on the dark sea behind him not to offer the pilot a warning silhouette. In the other Gemini Finn had also loaded up, which doubled their chances of a hit. For what seemed an eternity – but was about six seconds – they sat waiting and watching as the dark shape of the Mi-8 grew larger against the starry sky, trying to judge the range.

  Three-fifty, three-twenty-five, three hundred. ‘Keep coming,’ McClure murmured. Two-seventy-five, two-fifty. It was slowing down, beginning to turn away, offering the chance of a broadside. ‘Now,’ McClure snapped, and the two Hilton HG40 grenades left the launcher at seventy-five metres per second.

  One second, two seconds, three seconds, four . . .

  One of the two grenades exploded just behind the helicopter’s cockpit, only to be outdone a split second later by the detonation of the adjacent fuel tank. As the fireball reached for the stars the disembowelled remains fell to the sea, leaving only scattered puddles of burning oil to briefly flare, splutter and go out.

  ‘Let’s go!’ McClure shouted at Noonan. ‘Narghin,’ he added, indicating with his arm that it was now time to correct their course. The younger man revved the engine and they were on the move again, drawing a wide circle towards the south and east. The rig was now no more than a distant silhouette; both sea and sky seemed empty of pursuit.

  McClure did more mental arithmetic. The nearest naval base was just outside Baku, some thirty kilometres distant, the nearest airbase farther still, on the peninsula behind the city. Even if they could get a helicopter in the air within fifteen minutes – which would be pushing it – they would still be ten minutes’ flying time away, and in twenty-five minutes they would be well over halfway to Narghin. And nothing he had seen on the Aliyev rig led McClure to believe that those in charge of security would be able to act quickly and efficiently in a crisis. It was beginning to look as if they were home and dry.

  In the radio room at Dogubayazit airbase Galloway sat for several seconds with both hands cupping his mouth and nose, trying to digest the news of the Sea King’s destruction.

  ‘What’s up?’ one of the card-playing Americans asked.

  ‘The helicopter’s been shot down,’ he told them.

  ‘Jesus Christ! Who
the fuck by?’

  Galloway shook his head. ‘God only knows. I can’t believe a plane . . . but our best information was that there were no SAMs on the ground. There hasn’t been a helicopter shot down over the enclave since 1989.’

  The Americans looked at him sympathetically, cards in hands. There was nothing they could do or say, and they knew it. All of them were thinking about the four Brits, with whom they’d been sharing a joke not three hours before.

  Galloway rapped himself on the forehead with the knuckles of his left hand, as if he was trying to wake himself up. What was he going to tell the team in the Caspian? That they would have to hang on until another Sea King could be sent? What else could he tell them?

  They were supposed to report in on arrival at Narghin, but the sooner they knew their transport had been delayed the more options they would have. He reached for the MIL/UST-1 unit, hoping that McClure would be in position to receive.

  He was. ‘Where are you?’ was Galloway’s first question.

  ‘About fifteen Ks from Narghin,’ was the answer.

  ‘We have a problem,’ Galloway went on, mentally adding ‘Houston’ to the sentence. It had been something of an understatement the first time round, but at least the Apollo had got back safely. ‘Your ride home has been shot down, so you won’t be collected tonight.’

  ‘Can you repeat that?’ McClure asked.

  Galloway did so, adding that the attack had taken place over Nagorno-Karabakh.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ was McClure’s comment.

  ‘What’s your current situation?’ Galloway asked. ‘Is anyone aware that you’re out there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ McClure said, ‘we had to take out a helicopter ourselves.’

  Galloway’s heart sank.

  ‘We’re in the clear for the moment,’ McClure went on, ‘but I reckon in an hour or so they’ll be all over the place.’

  ‘Narghin should be as good a place to lie low as anywhere. I’ll talk to you again in an hour.’

  ‘OK, boss,’ McClure said, a slight smile playing on his lips.

  Noonan had worked in close proximity to the man for about three months now, and had a bad feeling about that smile. ‘Trouble, boss?’ he shouted above the purr of the outboard.

  McClure’s smile broadened. ‘Yeah,’ he said, nodding his head meaningfully in Shadmanov’s direction, ‘but let’s keep it to ourselves till we reach Narghin, OK?’

  Noonan acquiesced, his mind racing through possibilities. It had to be the Sea King, but he didn’t see how . . . Unless . . .

  A shiver of fear seemed to race up his spine, and his mouth was suddenly dry.

  A few metres away in the Gemini’s prow, McClure was wondering how the scientist and his wife were going to like the news that their rescue had sprung a large and dangerous leak.

  Galloway’s next satellite transmission was to Poole. Colhoun, summoned by the duty officer, listened in angry disbelief as his subordinate recounted the disaster which had befallen the Sea King and its crew, and the consequent marooning of the hunted SBS team for at least another twenty-four hours.

  They agreed to talk again in an hour, once the team had reached Narghin. By then either or both of them might have something more constructive to suggest than simply hiding out and holding on, though neither was optimistic.

  A twenty-four-hour wait would be bad enough in itself, Colhoun thought as he took the short walk back to his office, but things could easily take another turn for the worse. A lot depended on who had shot the Sea King down, and how eager they were to publicize their success. If the Turkish authorities got wind of how and where the Sea King had met its fate then there was every likelihood that they would forbid the use of the Dogubayazit base for a second attempt. And there were no other bases which could be used, so any hope of a military retrieval would disappear, leaving only the diplomatic option of bargaining the team’s way out through one of the adjoining countries. That might be possible, always assuming the team wasn’t first apprehended by the Azeri authorities, but Colhoun doubted whether any such deal could be extended to cover the Shadmanovs and Raisa.

  And he wouldn’t abandon her without a fight, Colhoun realized, pouring himself a generous glass of malt. She might have come to them for help, but she had been more than willing to put herself at risk in return, and he had come to both like and respect the woman.

  The malt was the first good news he’d had that evening, smooth as a Tory’s tongue and with rather more in the way of integrity. The second sip was sliding gently down his throat when it occurred to Colhoun that the point of the exercise was to talk to Shadmanov, and that if things took another turn for the worse the man might not be available for conversation on an indefinite basis.

  David Constantine was watching TV when the phone rang – an American police drama which he couldn’t quite find the energy to turn off. He thought about not answering, but as usual his sense of curiosity kicked in somewhere around the sixth ring. There was always the chance – admittedly a remote one – that one of his children had remembered him.

  ‘Constantine? This is Neil Colhoun from Poole. I thought I’d skip the usual channels and ask you to come down here right away . . .’

  ‘Has something gone wrong?’ Constantine asked anxiously.

  ‘Yes is the simple answer. They’ve got Shadmanov but the extraction helicopter has been shot down over Armenia. And since there’s a better than even chance that the team will be caught before we can send another one in we need to ask Shadmanov what he knows by radio. And it seems to me you’d be the best person to put the questions.’

  ‘Of course,’ Constantine agreed, ‘so what . . . ?’

  ‘Just get ready,’ Colhoun told him. ‘I’ll get a helicopter from Lakenheath to pick you up and bring you down. There must be somewhere they could land nearby?’

  ‘The village green, I suppose,’ Constantine said, a pleasant sense of expectation warring with his concern for Raisa. She really deserved better than this . . .

  ‘Right, well, I’ll get them to ring you for precise directions and timing.’

  ‘Fine,’ Constantine said, making a mental note to ask that the pilot not land in the cricket square. He didn’t want to spend the next year apologizing to everyone else in the village.

  RAF Lakenheath phoned ten minutes later, and an hour after that a Lynx was noisily setting down on the edge of the village green. So much for an anonymous retirement, Constantine thought as he ducked beneath the whirring rotors and climbed aboard. It seemed that half the village had tumbled out of the pub to watch the excitement.

  It was almost a quarter to two when Noonan manoeuvred the leading Gemini alongside what remained of the landing dock. Narghin was slightly less than a kilometre in width, and about half as much again in length. According to Raisa’s second-hand information, the island was little more than a bare, rocky outcrop, with a few stunted trees, patches of dry grass and the sprawling ruins of its former raison d’être. Almost fifty years had passed since its last use as a prison, but it was still restricted territory.

  Some of the ruins were visible as they came in to dock, a line of irregular black silhouettes stretching into the distance. Just above them, the Pole Star hung in a depressingly clear sky.

  Once they had pulled the two Geminis up on to the dock McClure told the rest of the team about the disaster which had befallen the Sea King.

  ‘Are they all dead?’ Finn asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Probably.’

  ‘So what can we do now?’ Raisa asked. She felt curiously detached, as if she had just been presented with an interesting problem.

  ‘We hope they can send in another helicopter tomorrow night,’ McClure said. ‘In the meantime we need somewhere to hide during the day. While Paul gets the Geminis deflated and all the equipment ready for transport Finn will find us the perfect spot. Raisa, you’ll have to look after our guests. Explain to them what’s happened, and try to keep them calm. I’m going to talk to Galloway again.’
>
  He picked up the satcom unit and walked on to the island proper. The ruined façades of two-storey buildings lined three sides of a large open space paved with cobblestones, and McClure set up the antenna in its centre, imagining the shackled prisoners who had paraded there in years long gone by.

  Galloway had no fresh news. They still didn’t know who had shot down the Sea King, or whether whoever it was would be seeking publicity for their kill. ‘But as far as I’m concerned,’ Galloway told McClure, ‘we’ll be trying again tomorrow night. How do you reckon your chances of remaining undiscovered for twenty-four hours?’

  ‘Hard to say. The place looks full of potential hidey-holes, but I guess it depends on how thorough a search the locals can put together. We never did get those Azeri force estimates from the MoD.’

  ‘No,’ Galloway agreed. Now that the unspeakable had happened, the paucity of the information they had managed to gather about the area was rapidly becoming critical. The team knew what Raisa knew, and in those areas of which she was ignorant – which included just about everything to do with the police or military – they were all swimming in the dark. Still, it could have been a lot worse: they could have been there without her.

  But the team’s safety was not Galloway’s only concern. Now that capture was a real possibility he needed to ask McClure what they had discovered during their last hours on the rig.

  ‘We found Shadmanov,’ McClure said, but even as the words left his lips he realized that, as far as he knew, Raisa hadn’t actually asked the scientist what work he had been doing there. He had just assumed from Shadmanov’s presence, and from his willingness to leave, that their suspicions had been validated.

  Galloway had obviously assumed the same thing. ‘Constantine is being flown down from Cambridge to Poole,’ he said. ‘When he gets there we’ll hook him up with Shadmanov and Raisa, OK?

  ‘Yeah.’ After breaking the connection McClure walked back to the landing dock and called Raisa over to tell her as much, noting as he did so the depressed look on Shadmanov’s face, and the mixture of anger and fear on his wife’s. ‘They’re not happy, I suppose?’ he muttered.