‘But we have got the information we needed,’ Hanson quietly reminded him.
‘I know.’
‘What did they find out?’ Clarke asked. Unlike the other two he had not been briefed by Poole.
‘The Iraqis are assembling nuclear-armed missiles in the Caspian,’ Hanson told him. ‘And according to Shadmanov they’re not much more than a year away from deployment. Unless we do something within the next twelve months Saddam will have the power to irradiate anyone or anything within Scud range, which includes Israel, Tehran, Kuwait, all the Gulf oilfields.’
‘Oh boy.’
‘Exactly. I’d say we’ve given new meaning to the phrase "priceless intelligence".’
The PM looked slightly mollified.
‘And the team which collected it needs help,’ Hanson went on, hoping to press his advantage. ‘For all our sakes,’ he added, gilding the lily somewhat. ‘Seeing them paraded in chains through the streets of Baku is not likely to increase the government’s reputation for competence.’
‘I didn’t shoot the wretched helicopter down,’ the PM complained.
‘You sent it,’ Hanson said brutally.
The PM looked suitably distraught. ‘But what can we do?’ he asked hopelessly. ‘The Turks refuse point-blank to sanction another air rescue mission, and – you heard me – every nation which borders the Caspian is crying out for blood. They won’t be in any hurry to offer sanctuary.’
‘Not publicly, at least,’ Hanson agreed. ‘But none of these ex-Soviet states are in good economic shape. The promise of a development grant might work wonders.’
The PM sighed. ‘I doubt it. The leaders would have to care more about their people’s development than their own images as defenders of the national honour. And what if a deal leaked? They’d be pilloried, and I’d be answering questions in the House about the payment of ransom to get our men back. No, I don’t think so . . .’
‘So what . . . ?’
‘I don’t see what we can do,’ Clarke interjected on the PM’s behalf.
‘You’re just going to leave these men hanging?’ Hanson asked icily.
‘We don’t have many other options,’ the PM retorted, answering ice with heat. ‘The only place we can exercise any real leverage is Azerbaijan itself, and that’ll be courtesy of the oil companies . . .’ He paused for a second. ‘In fact, our best chance might well be for the SBS team to surrender itself to the authorities in Azerbaijan. If they did so, I think there’s every chance we could get them back in a reasonably short space of time.’
‘You might be right,’ Hanson said, ‘but what about the Karayeva woman, and the scientist. They’re both Azeris. They’ll probably face treason charges and a firing squad.’
The PM shrugged. ‘I don’t know what else to suggest. What else can we do?’ he added again, more plaintively this time.
The fact that he was probably right was the only thing that kept Hanson from both losing his temper and offering his resignation. There probably wasn’t anything they could do. Back in his own office he put through a call to Poole, expecting Neil Colhoun to like it even less than he did.
He wasn’t disappointed. ‘The government’s washing its hands of them?’ the SBS boss asked in cold disbelief.
‘They’ll do all they can to get the Azeris to send your lads home, and I’d say there’s a fair chance they’ll succeed. The Azeris really need deep-water drilling technology, and they can only get it from us or the Americans, and since Yank intelligence was in on this from the beginning they’ll presumably help put the pressure on. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this scenario involves washing our hands of Karayeva and Shadmanov. He’ll probably be too useful to shoot; she looks like the necessary scapegoat.’
‘Bastards,’ Colhoun murmured.
‘I have to admit that seems a fair assessment,’ Hanson agreed.
‘They won’t do it, of course,’ Colhoun said eventually.
‘Won’t what?’
‘Surrender to the locals. Not if they know they’re handing Raisa over to a firing squad.’
‘They’re on an island in the middle of an inland sea surrounded by hostile countries. What other options do they have?’
An hour or so later, as darkness fell across the Caspian, the same question was exercising the minds of the SBS team on Narghin. Galloway’s apologetic transmission was received with barely concealed satisfaction from McClure, but the reaction of the others was rather more ambivalent.
‘Another fine mess I’ve got myself into,’ Finn murmured on hearing the news. But look on the bright side, Stuart, he told himself. If you get out of this in one piece you’ll probably make sergeant, and be given more chances to die in countries that your mother never even heard of.
Next to him Noonan was feeling the same strange mix of emotions as before, fear and exhilaration dancing together in his stomach.
‘We won’t tell our passengers just yet,’ McClure was saying. ‘Not until we’ve decided what we’re going to do.’
‘Being given a "free hand" in this situation is fucking rich,’ Finn said. ‘It’s like telling people who are being laid off that you’re "letting them go", like you’re doing them some sort of favour.’
‘Probably,’ McClure said drily, ‘but at least they haven’t tied our hands, and we do have options.’ He looked around the other three faces. ‘First off, it’s been suggested by the politicos that we surrender to the Azeri authorities. They reckon there’s a good chance the three of us’ – he included Finn and Noonan in his look – ‘will probably get sent home without too much delay. Raisa probably won’t be so lucky. And as for Shadmanov . . .’
‘Fuck that for an idea,’ Finn said. ‘I’ll think about surrendering when someone rams a Kalashnikov barrel up my arse.’
‘As long as you’re not enjoying it,’ Noonan added.
‘That would be different,’ Finn agreed with a grin.
Raisa stared at the two of them with amazement.
‘Right,’ McClure went on. ‘No surrender. So we have to get home one way or another. We could try heading for one of the other countries around this sea, but it doesn’t look promising. For one thing, we don’t have enough fuel, and finding any to steal on the open sea could be a bit of a problem. For another – he allowed himself a rare smile – ‘we’ve become quite famous over the last twelve hours, and most of the governments around here have been queuing up to slag us off. Even if we could reach their shores none of them are likely to welcome us with open arms.’
‘Great,’ Finn murmured.
‘But there is one possibility,’ McClure said.
‘Armenia,’ Raisa murmured.
‘Yeah. Any enemy of Azerbaijan’s is a friend of theirs.’
‘Hmm,’ Finn said. ‘And since we’re the lads who discovered the Azeris are building a bomb, they might even make us national heroes. Only problem is, Armenia doesn’t have a Caspian coastline.’
‘A mere detail,’ Noonan muttered.
Finn grinned. ‘So how far are we from these new friends?’
McClure shone the torch beam on the crumpled map which lay between them. ‘If we take the shortest route to the mainland, landing here’ – he tapped the spot with his index finger – ‘we’ll be about two hundred and seventy-five kilometres, as the crow flies, from Armenia proper, but only about two hundred from Nagorno-Karabakh, which is under Armenian control.’ He looked up at the others, pausing to let the idea sink in.
‘So how do we do it?’ asked Finn. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a train with de luxe sleeping compartments – the Flying Armenian, maybe?’
Raisa smiled. ‘There is a train to Georgia.’ She traced the route with a finger. ‘And it comes close to Armenian border – maybe thirty kilometres. But since war begins there are many checks on passengers – more than ten between Baku and border. With six people – and three not speak Azeri – I do not think so.’
‘How about freight trains?’ Noonan asked.
�
��There are some,’ she admitted, ‘but I do not know when.’
‘And there’s no way of finding out,’ McClure said. ‘Raisa’s right. With our faces, and not speaking the lingo, we haven’t got a prayer in the open. We’ll have to use the roads, and maybe this river’ – he picked out the Kura with his finger – ‘to get within striking distance, and then hoof it over the mountains. Travelling only by night.’
‘Do we have enough fuel for a river journey?’ Finn asked. ‘Those new outboards may be a damn sight more fuel-efficient than the old ones, but this river seems to bend a hell of a lot. Eighty Ks on the map will probably be more like twice that.’
‘We’ll have to pick up more on the road, and then maybe steal some extra from boats on the river. We could be into these mountains before dawn – which would be nice – but there’s no reason we have to be. We’ve got food for another forty-eight hours, and as long as we’re not spotted we can use all that and a bit more. And we’re less likely to be spotted or blocked on the river.’
For several moments they all looked at the map in silence.
It sounded feasible, Finn thought. A trip across Azerbaijan with the best saved for last – the crossing of a war zone. Who said there were no adventures in the modern world? ‘I can’t think of a better idea,’ he said.
Noonan nodded his agreement.
Raisa smiled and shook her head. They were all quite crazy.
‘One more thing,’ McClure said, turning to her. ‘Galloway thinks we should give Shadmanov and his wife the option of sticking around before we try and drag them over the mountains. If we leave them here they could always claim they were kidnapped. Which might be a lot safer than coming with us. On the other hand, you can point out that the rig’s not likely to be one of the world’s safest places over the next few weeks.’
‘I’ll talk to them,’ Raisa agreed. She crawled on all fours to where the scientist and his wife were watching and waiting. The three SBS men watched their faces as Raisa gave them the bad news – anger on Farida’s, anxiety mixed with wry amusement on Shadmanov’s. Farida started to say something, but her husband seemed to shut her up with no more than a couple of words, and then said something to Raisa.
She nodded and crawled back to the others. ‘They come with us,’ she said.
‘The wife didn’t look too keen,’ Noonan observed.
‘She was told this was a luxury tour, and she doesn’t like the downgrading,’ Finn said. ‘I can’t say as I blame her.’
16
It was twenty-two minutes past seven when Noonan’s feet touched the floor of the gutted chapel. Once the others had followed, the party threaded its way through the silent ruins of the prison and down to the dock. The moonlight was now dimmed and diffused by the clouds Galloway had promised them.
McClure had informed his immediate superior of their plan and, as expected, had not received a particularly enthusiastic response. Still, during the course of the conversation the notion had seemed to grow on Galloway. The fact that he had no alternative to offer had probably helped.
That had been almost two hours ago, and by this time the Old Man in Poole should be pestering the politicians. McClure wanted the Armenians to know they were coming before they got there, just in case someone at the front was short-sighted or trigger-happy enough to take them for Azeris.
While Noonan and Finn reinflated the two Geminis, lowered them into the water and reattached the outboards, McClure and Raisa kept watch. There had been neither sight nor sound of a helicopter for over an hour now, and there was no movement visible on the surface of the sea, all of which boded well. With the lack of ambient light and the Caspian being the size it was, it would take an incredible piece of luck for anyone to spot them making their way to the mainland. The helicopter would have to be almost directly overhead, and well within range of the grenade-launchers.
In any case, McClure thought, the lack of aerial traffic suggested a different type of search. In the Azeris’ shoes he would have first reckoned possibilities, and then created an escape-proof outer cordon, before starting on a thorough search of the enclosed area. The big question was whether they would have included the mainland in their calculations. McClure didn’t think the enemy would initially expect an attempted escape overland, but they could make the same political deductions as he had. At the very least there would be the Azeri equivalent of an APB out, and probably a few roadblocks. But there was no way they could cover hundreds of kilometres of coastline.
The Geminis were ready. McClure, Raisa and Noonan got into one, Finn and the Shadmanovs into the other. The two motors burst into restrained purrs, sounding only slightly louder than the breeze tugging at the rippling waters and the trees behind the dock.
‘Let’s go,’ McClure told Noonan. Fifteen kilometres to the west the thin line of the mainland coast was just about visible.
As Narghin receded behind them, McClure again quizzed Raisa on the geography of what lay ahead.
‘I told you,’ she said equably. ‘I am on this road only three, maybe four times. There is beach, some hills of sand, the road, the railway, the pipeline. And then there is steppe. For hundred and fifty kilometres, maybe. Dry steppe, except near the rivers and irrigation channels. Then there is farms. Cotton and fruit trees.’
‘What about traffic? Will there be much at this time of the evening?’
She shrugged. ‘Some. Not a lot.’
The Geminis skimmed forward across the wind-ruffled surface. There were no signs of pursuit, either to the naked eye or McClure’s nightscope. A couple of moving lights far away to the east were probably helicopters, but both grew fainter as the minutes passed.
In the opposite direction two pinpricks of light were approaching each other along the narrow strip of black land which divided sea from sky. They crossed and pulled away from each other, one heading north towards Baku, the other south towards the River Kura.
The highway was far from crowded. Five minutes passed before another light appeared, and by this time they were close enough for McClure to pick out the shape of a small car through the nightscope.
At almost exactly eight o’clock the two Geminis made landfall. Both were pulled ashore and deflated, but only one was efficiently buried in the soft sand of the dunes which lay between the shore and the road. Then, as the others crouched in a dip nearby, Raisa walked out into the middle of the road with her trousers rolled up and her hair hanging loose.
The road ran straight as a die, and she could see a long way in each direction. A minute went by, and another. It was a pleasantly warm evening, like so many of those she had shared with Tamarlan. She wondered about herself, wondered why the news that there would be no helicopter rescue had hardly ruffled her, much less thrown her into the panic she might once have expected. This whole business, beginning with Shadmanov’s disappearance, and perhaps ending with their meeting again in such strange circumstances, had set her free of something. Inhibition perhaps. Or fear of being herself.
Through a gap in the dunes she could see the black mirror of the Caspian. An inland sea, locked in. They had been locked in together, she thought. She and her precious sea.
A distant light had appeared to the north, which was good. They wanted to go south, and it would be risky taking a hijacked vehicle back the way it had come.
It was another minute before she could make out that it was a lorry, and that was good too. Packing six people, a small armoury and a deflated Gemini into a Lada would be more than uncomfortable – it would be downright memorable.
She walked out into the centre of the road, feeling slightly ridiculous. What would the driver think when he saw her? Would he be wondering how she had got there? Thinking that her legs were too thin? That his favourite cousin was still single, and that here was the perfect chance to indulge himself in the grand Azeri pastime of wife-stealing?
The lorry was only fifty metres away now, and for a moment she thought it wasn’t going to stop, but as she hurriedly stepped aside there
was the squeal of worn brake shoes and the grinding of an ancient clutch. The five-tonner – one of the Togliattigrad’s earlier and cruder models – pulled up about twenty metres past her, and as she walked forward the face of a middle-aged Azeri leaned out of the window. ‘What are you doing out here?’ he asked disapprovingly.
‘I am lost,’ she said.
He spat out of the window. ‘What will you give . . . ?’ he started to ask, then jerked his head round, and she knew that one of the SBS men had opened the other door and shown him the muzzle of a gun. By the time she reached the front of the lorry he had climbed down to the road. His face looked more sullen than scared.
There was a loud rattling noise as the back door slid up, following by Noonan’s shout: ‘It’s almost empty.’
‘Get the gear loaded,’ McClure told Finn, his Browning still pointing at the driver’s stomach, his eyes gazing down the empty road. As Finn and Noonan went for the Gemini, he turned to Raisa. ‘Can Shadmanov drive this thing?’ he asked.
She asked the scientist if he could, and relayed the ‘yes’ to McClure.
‘Right. You and I will sit up front with him. Tell his wife she’ll be in the back with the other two.’ He turned his head to check the road in the other direction, found there was still no one coming, and went back to the problem of the driver. If they tied him up and left him in the dunes he might escape, might even be found. In either case he would then be able to give away the lorry’s number and type. If they took him with them, then they would have to knock him cold each time they stopped, whether for petrol or a roadblock. And in any case there was no way they could take him in the boat – getting the six of them in one Gemini was going to be a tight enough fit – so the same problem would arise again later. But by then they would know him better, and it would be harder to kill him, or at least harder for the others to accept the need for his death.
Marine I SBS Page 18