‘Will you be happy if you are them?’ she asked tartly.
‘No, I guess not,’ McClure said, but couldn’t help grinning as he did so. A voice inside his head was urging him to enjoy every last moment of this, because such a challenge would probably never present itself again. The sea in front of him might be empty, but it wouldn’t be for long.
He turned his eyes inland just as Finn materialized out of the shadows and walked across the cobbled square towards them. ‘I think I’ve found somewhere,’ he said, and explained what.
‘Let’s have a look,’ McClure said.
Ten minutes later they were all standing inside the ruins of a Russian Orthodox chapel. The interior had long since been gutted by either fire or some other natural disaster, but towers still stood at either end. The taller of the two was topped with a cluster of onion domes, one of which bore the additional weight of a stork’s nest; the shorter, which had been stripped of any such previous adornment, offered a wide space beneath its broken ceiling. The spiral staircase which had once connected this space to the ground had long ago rotted away, leaving no simple means of access.
‘Send the monkey up with a ladder?’ Finn asked, grinning at Noonan.
‘It looks good,’ McClure admitted, ‘but let’s hold on a minute. We’ve still got almost four hours of darkness. Are we sure Narghin is our best bet for the day? How many other islands are there?’
The question was directed mostly at Raisa. ‘There are more than thirty within a fifty-kilometre radius of Baku,’ she said, sounding like a tour guide. ‘Most are bigger than Narghin. Not many people know of this place,’ she added.
‘The Azeri army must know about it,’ Finn said.
‘Maybe, but I am not sure. Look around,’ she said. ‘It is a long time since men come here.’
‘What about the mainland?’ McClure asked.
‘It is possible. For fifty kilometres south of Baku there is a road and a railway and a pipeline by the shore, and behind them are farms and then hills. But it is open country – there are not many trees.’
‘And then we’d either have to ask the RAF to pick us up from the mainland – which won’t make us their flavour of the month – or make our way back here tomorrow night, which’ll mean two long trips across an open sea,’ Finn said.
McClure grunted. ‘Yeah. We’ll stay. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the Azeris won’t find out about the Sea King. If they think we’re already gone they won’t be trying so hard to find us.’ He looked up at their home for the next twenty-four hours. Once they were up there it was going to feel like a trap, but then that would be true of any secure hiding-place, and they could hardly spend the coming day sunning themselves on the beach.
15
In the hours that followed the raising of the alarm on Aliyev A Azad Vezirov was a man under siege, distracted from his efforts to organize an effective search party by the need to fend off a barrage of critical questions from his superiors on the mainland and the scarcely veiled scorn of his Iraqi guests.
‘We were told this place was escape-proof,’ Uday growled when news of Shadmanov’s departure reached him. ‘First Salam, now this man . . .’
‘This man did not escape – he was abducted,’ Vezirov interjected, somehow managing to keep his voice calm.
‘By whom?’
‘We don’t know yet. They were white Caucasians, but beyond that . . .’ Vezirov had to admit that he wanted to know. Whoever these people were they had been good. The two security men on the second level had both been killed by more than one bullet to the heart, and the helicopter had been taken out at a range of three hundred metres, in the dark, most probably by a simple grenade-launcher. And then the intruders had simply vanished, presumably in the direction of home, wherever that might be.
They were either Americans or Armenians, Vezirov thought. Either the enemies of Iraq or the enemies of Azerbaijan.
Uday was certain that Iraq’s number one enemy was responsible, but now that the intruders had made a clean escape from the rig he was beginning to fear that any chance of catching them had probably passed. As dawn approached both men were getting down to what they saw as the real business of the day, which was to protect themselves from the wrath of their political masters in Baku and Baghdad.
This effort proved premature. Soon after seven Vezirov’s phone rang with the news that a British helicopter had been shot down soon after one in the morning by Azeri irregulars near the small town of Fizuli, and it didn’t take the two men long to guess what its mission had been.
‘They will have to wait at least a day for another rescue attempt,’ Uday mused out loud. ‘Where is this place the helicopter was shot down?’
The Azeri showed him on the wall map.
‘So it must have flown from a Turkish airbase,’ Uday said. ‘And even if the British had permission – which I doubt – the Turkish government will not want anyone to know that they’ve been involved in military action against Azerbaijan, not after all the Pan-Turkic propaganda they’ve been putting out recently.’ He smiled at Vezirov.
‘So?’ the Azeri asked.
‘So an angry protest from your government – with perhaps the threat of taking the matter to the Security Council – should dissuade the Turks from sanctioning a second rescue attempt.’
Vezirov found himself reluctantly admiring the Iraqi’s political acumen. ‘There’s one problem you’re overlooking,’ he said. ‘These people have Shadmanov and they will be in radio contact with their own country. The secret is out.’
Uday was undismayed. ‘They may know what we’re doing here, but there’s a world of difference between knowing something and proving it. If there wasn’t, there would have been no need for them to send these men. And to get international approval for interference in the sovereign affairs of Azerbaijan they will need real live witnesses, not just the taped recollections of a few dead soldiers. Soldiers, moreover, whose mere presence on your territory constitutes a flagrant violation of international law.’ The Iraqi flashed his shark’s smile. ‘Deep in their hearts everyone will know what is really happening, but as long as we can provide a reasonable doubt they’ll find it much more convenient to look the other way. If we can wipe out the English soldiers and bring back the scientist then the project will be unaffected.’
He turned to the map. ‘And now that we know they’re still here, let’s start looking for them.’
Two hours later, with the sun lighting the façade of the Presidential Palace in Baku, Gyudar Aliyev shielded his eyes against the glare and gazed out to sea. Vezirov had made the call Uday had suggested, his superior had come straight to the President, and the latter was now agonizing about the options open to himself and his small country.
From the beginning he had felt ambivalent about the project underway on the rig which bore his name, but there had seemed to be several good reasons for pushing ahead with it – the payments from Baghdad, the present threat from Armenia and possible future threats from Russia and Iran – and few for calling a halt. The Azeri bomb wasn’t going to cost a kopek, and no one need know of its existence unless and until the threat of use was required.
There was nothing illegal about the project. Azerbaijan had not signed any non-proliferation treaties in its own right, and there was nothing to stop its government developing its own nuclear weapons if it so wished. There might be legal problems involved in sending such weapons to Iraq, but that was a problem for the future. For the moment those Iraqi citizens who were working on the project were simply selling their skills abroad, like all those ex-Soviet footballers who now earned their living in western Europe.
Such arguments aside, it would no doubt still be preferable if they could present the project in a non-military light. The Western oil companies were probably capable of turning a blind eye to anything, but there was no point in subjecting them to unnecessary embarrassment. No, Aliyev decided, it would be better to seize the high ground now, before the Western powers started to bleat. He to
ok one last look at the shining sea, and walked across to the phone on his desk. ‘Get the Turkish Ambassador in here,’ he told his secretary. ‘And then arrange a press conference.’
It was time the world found out about the terrorist attack on the Caspian Institute for Peaceful Nuclear Research.
After eating an uninspiring breakfast shortly after dawn, the party on Narghin had been left with nothing to do but wait, watch and listen for the widening search to reach their island. During the early hours of daylight they heard several planes and helicopters in the distance, but it was gone ten o’clock before an Mi-8 flew low across the island and hovered briefly about fifty metres above the ruined prison complex before continuing on its previous course, presumably none the wiser. The five people in the chapel eyrie breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Tamarlan Shadmanov had talked to Constantine on the radio for almost two hours, spelling out exactly what was happening on Aliyev A, which scientists were working there and what each was working on, and how far advanced their work was, both separately and as a whole. At the end of the conversation he had felt utterly exhausted, and knew it was not just the talk which had tired him, or the events of that night. He felt as if he was suddenly carrying the weight of his whole life on his back, the burden of all the lies he had told himself to justify the work he had done. He had never felt comfortable with it, but he had allowed himself to be seduced by the intellectual challenges, and, yes, by his wife’s need for the status and material privileges which went with it. And now that the Englishmen’s escape plan had gone so badly wrong, he couldn’t escape the feeling that in some crude way justice was being done. The fact that both his wife and his mistress seemed likely to share in whatever fate had in store for him offered an almost comical twist to an otherwise tragic theme.
Lying next to him, also unable to sleep, Farida had no notion that their situation had a funny side. They might still get to England, she thought, and that would be wonderful. If they didn’t, then she and her husband had to be damn sure they didn’t get caught in the crossfire, either metaphorically or literally. Provided that they were taken alive, there should be no great difficulty in convincing the authorities that the Englishmen had abducted them from the research station at gunpoint. After all, they had killed the two security guards with no compunction whatsoever. Who wouldn’t have been afraid to resist them?
A couple of metres away, Finn was watching the distant landing-stage through a small gap in the masonry. The problem with this job, he thought, was the lack of laughs. Rob Cafell might have been an occasional pain in the neck during their stowaway voyage on the pirated freighter but the two of them had shared a giggle or two. McClure was more together than Finn had feared he would be – in fact he was damned good at his job – but a dead sheep would have displayed more sense of humour. And since it was fucking obvious that the downing of the Sea King had left them all up the Caspian without much in the way of paddles they were going to be sorely in need of a few good laughs just to get by.
Close by, Noonan was sitting with his back to the wall, eyes closed but not asleep. An awful lot had happened in the previous twelve hours, and he was finding it hard to still the thoughts and feelings which were churning in his mind. There was a large knot of fear in there somewhere, but he had expected that, and knew, without knowing quite how he knew, that it was under control. What had surprised him was the insistent buzz of exhilaration which went with the fear. It seemed to heighten everything, from the awareness of his own breathing to the colours of the sunlit weeds which had taken root in the crumbling stonework of the chapel walls. It was like a drug really, one that both fascinated and repelled him. Looking across at McClure, who was cleaning his MP5 for at least the third time that morning, Noonan had the sudden feeling that he had discovered what made the other man tick.
McClure might have recognized Noonan’s feelings, but these days he became aware of the drug only when it was withdrawn. Here, at the heart of the action, he felt focused, collected, calm. A little worried, perhaps, but with good reason: Galloway’s promise of a second flight had been too personal – ‘as far as I’m concerned’ were the words he had used – as if he knew that the chances of his being overruled were better than even. And if there was no rescue flight then they really did have a challenge on their hands. When Raisa woke up – McClure smiled inwardly at the realization that she was the only one of the team calm enough to sleep – the two of them would have to go through the options again. Maybe on the second run-through they wouldn’t all seem so impossible.
Sir Thomas Clovelly and Dean J. Barclay, the British and US Ambassadors in Ankara, both had bored expressions on their faces as they waited in the anteroom for the required audience with the Turkish Prime Minister. Behind the masks, however, Clovelly was anxious and Barclay angry – not least with his British colleague. As far as the American was concerned, Turkey was too important to NATO for the British to fuck with. He would show solidarity with Clovelly because his State Department superiors had instructed him to do so, but not with any pleasure.
The door opened and a minion invited them in. Kemal Demiru was seated behind his huge desk, dressed as usual in a dark-blue suit, white shirt and maroon tie. He greeted his visitors courteously enough, but his eyes were not friendly.
‘I have just had a report from my people in Dogubayazit,’ he began, once the two ambassadors had seated themselves. ‘The base authorities there were of the belief that your helicopter’ – he looked straight at Clovelly – ‘was involved in a rescue mission. Some nonsense about a journalist with connections to your royal family who needed to be rescued from Nagorno-Karabakh.’ His lips curled with anger. ‘Now I wonder where that story came from.’
‘I have no idea, Prime Minister,’ Clovelly lied.
Demiru expressed his contempt by eyeballing the ceiling. ‘I am aware that Dogubayazit is a NATO base,’ he said, ‘but it is on Turkish soil, and you have used it to launch a military raid against a state which we consider an ally and a friend, without the diplomatic courtesy of a request, without the slightest trace of respect for Turkish sovereignty.’
‘We of course apologize for any perceived lack of respect,’ Barclay said. ‘But our decision to pursue this matter in secret was taken with the intention of sparing the Turkish government unnecessary embarrassment.’
‘It wasn’t simply that you knew we would refuse permission?’ Demiru asked sarcastically.
Clovelly had the grace to smile at that. ‘Her Majesty’s Government would also like to offer an apology for any misunderstanding,’ he said smoothly. ‘Having said that, I would like to stress that the action was taken under NATO auspices, and that it is in the interests of the Alliance – and all its members – that it be brought to a speedy and successful conclusion.’
Demiru looked at him. ‘You are not suggesting another attempt?’
‘These men are trapped . . .’
‘That is of no interest to me.’
‘I can understand your anger,’ Barclay tried, ‘but we are talking here about Iraq getting hold of a substantial nuclear arsenal. Surely the securing of such intelligence is as crucial to Turkey’s interests as it is to ours?’
‘Are you not in contact with these men?’ Demiru asked.
‘Yes, but . . .’ Clovelly began, before he realized his mistake.
‘Then they will have already passed on what intelligence they have gathered,’ Demiru said triumphantly.
‘We have no other way of reaching them,’ Barclay said.
‘You should have thought of that earlier,’ Demiru told him. ‘There will be no more flights from Turkish territory,’ he added. ‘Is that clear?’
It was.
The first search party arrived on Narghin soon after one. A motor launch disgorged a platoon of troops, who cautiously edged their way into the prison complex. After ten minutes of fruitless searching they began to relax, moving almost nonchalantly from building to building, without even bothering to maintain silenc
e.
Raisa listened to them chatting to each other in Azeri, mostly about the prison and who had built it. ‘It must have been the communists,’ one voice said, and she found herself smiling at the naïveté. She had seen the eighteen-year-old faces through Finn’s binoculars when they landed – they were just children really, and would have been just entering puberty when the Soviet Union disintegrated.
Another half an hour and they were gone, presumably en route to the next island.
Raisa sat staring at the stork’s nest atop the tarnished onion dome, thinking that not many of Narghin’s visitors would have stayed such a short time. The prison had been built by the original Russian invaders of the Caucasus more than a century and a half earlier, as a holding area for Persian prisoners of war. Since then there had been common criminals, political prisoners of the Czars, victims of Stalin. The last inhabitants had been gypsies, moved there during the Nazi push towards the Caucasus in 1942. They had been considered a potential fifth column by some paranoid moron in Moscow.
Raisa wondered how long she and the others would be staying. They might have found a safe hiding-place, but sooner or later they would have to leave its shelter for the dangers of the open sky or the open sea.
In London it was almost ten in the morning. The sun was shining, the early season tourists thick on the ground in Whitehall and Trafalgar Square, as Sir Christopher Hanson’s car carried him towards his meeting with the Prime Minister, but the delights of spring were not exactly uppermost in the MI6 chief’s mind.
The PM and Martin Clarke were already sipping coffee in the Cabinet Room when he arrived and took a third seat at the head of the huge table.
The PM wasted no time. ‘This is a disaster,’ he said coldly. ‘I have the Russian Ambassador demanding an audience, and about a dozen others lining up behind him. Azerbaijan of course, Turkmenistan, Iran, Kazkiz-something – I can’t even remember some of their names – every last one of them brimming over with righteous rage because their precious sovereignty has been infringed. The Turks have already given our ambassador in Ankara a tongue-lashing, and the Americans are furious.’
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