Trees looming close now, a solid-looking barrier through the snow’s white swirl. Less than a minute, you’ll be—
Sutherland faltering: arms flailing for balance as he struggled to stay up…
Made it!
Ollie yelled, ‘Well done, Carl!’
Then they were in the trees. Sutherland breathless, sagging: for him it really had been an ordeal. They drew together around Isak, who wasn’t moving an inch to join anyone, only standing hunched under his load, donkey-like, coated in wet snow as they all were; and he couldn’t be left on his own… Ollie was moving that way when he saw, with disappointment amounting to shock, that this was only a belt of trees they’d come to, a strip of woodland lying like a runner of carpet up and down the mountainside and with more open snow beyond it. He could see light and whiteness through from that side, from only about thirty metres’ distance. Not only were they going to have to do it again, it could be that this was to be the pattern for some distance yet, belts of trees with open areas intervening.
Breaking the news to them, he tried to make light of it: ‘One more bit of open ground, unfortunately. Never mind…’ Feeling sympathy for Sutherland, who’d have been thinking he’d made it, got the worst over. But then from that other side, standing well back in cover, he saw the river — a mountain stream that was now a solid mass of ice down the middle of this narrow parting of the wood. Spring’s white torrents rushing… He could imagine it, as it would be when the great thaw came. But also it gave one some hope, explained the existence of this open strip, and one might assume the pattern might not be repeated.
‘Ollie, see that? It’s a tourist fjellstue.’
Fjellstue meaning ‘mountain hut’. It was below them, about three hundred metres down and close to the stream, a log cabin under a heavy roofing of snow. They’d built it on a flat piece of ground where the stream curved and then fell away into what at other times of the year would be a waterfall below that small plateau. You could see why the foresters had chosen that site for their tourist rest-house; in spring and summer it would be an idyllic spot.
Stenberg screamed, ‘Isak!’
Turning — too late — he caught the blur of movement as Isak flung himself out into the open. Crouching, launching himself out and downward. He’d dumped his two packs and thrust out poling between the trees, and he was away, gone, over steeply falling, uneven ground, closer to the wood than to the hut or the stream. A first reaction was to go after him, but caution held Ollie back. Then, turning to stop anyone else who might have been thinking of giving chase, he saw Gus fling out a pointing arm: ‘Hey…’
Not so loud, that shout: and just as well. Just as well one hadn’t tried to go chasing out there, too. A man had come out of the shack, or from the far side of it. A heavy figure, dark bulk indistinct through the driving snow but levelling a gun — a submachine gun — waist high, swinging with it to cover Isak’s downhill rush. Isak, swerving in a sheet of pluming white — to his left, away from the gunman and towards the trees, was hit by the first burst, his short arms flying loose like a shot bird’s wings, poles trailing, still more or less upright and travelling fast but out of control, the gun blaring again briefly as a squeeze on the trigger sent a short burst after the first longer one. Isak hit a tree, a ski flew off, was still in the air when the body crashed to rest against another tree lower down, the ski flopping soundlessly into soft snow halfway between Isak’s body and the man who’d killed him. From the time of Stenberg’s shout, to this sudden stillness — Carl Sutherland with his back to the scene, face against a tree-trunk, head on his forearms — the whole of the action had lasted about twelve seconds.
The gunman had been crouching, facing up the mountainside, the direction from which Isak had come rushing towards him out of the screen of falling snow. Watching from the trees’ cover Ollie saw him straighten, turn to stare at the body, maybe watching to see if it was going to move again. He’d cross over there to inspect it, presently. Reaction to that thought was immediate: the circumstances were so clear and so inviting that he didn’t have to think it out, he saw the whole thing in one clear picture, was already moving to implement his part in it. The gunman was looking uphill again, satisfying himself that the man he’d killed had been a loner, as he was. It was obvious that he was because if there’d been anyone else in the cabin they’d have come out by now, there’d have been reaction from any colleague in visual or audible range, too. Ollie muttered, ‘Wait here, keep quiet and out of sight.’ He’d backed into the trees, well in, dumping his bergen; now he unclipped the bindings of his skis, kicked free of them. He crouched over the bergen, pulled out the shotgun.
‘Ollie—’
He shook his head. ‘Remember what I told you.’ Then: ‘Gus, see what we need to take from Isak’s packs. Essentials only.’ He began slipping and sliding down through the wood, using his free arm to catch hold of trunks here and there to control a rapid downhill slither, slowing it a lot more about halfway down. Very slow and stealthy, then, stalking, and shedding the mitten from his right hand, his brain clear as ice-water. In that moment of hesitation when he’d thought of chasing after Isak he’d assessed the Lapp’s intentions as being simply to get away, seizing a chance to put distance between them when they’d been preoccupied, peering at the log cabin, and judging that they’d be disinclined to follow when it would have meant a long descent into the valley. Then he would have made his own way to — well, Karasjok, maybe, looking for his niece. But there’d been no one visible down there, until this character had appeared beside the hut, Isak clearly hadn’t been joining him. So, this was one man alone, here as a lookout or to maintain the cabin as a base that might be used by others at other times — might be the base for their present operations, the avalanche stunt, and they’d left one man to guard it while the rest were busy. One guy alone, and he’d be taking a close look at his victim’s body, was certain to, as soon as he felt sure no other skiers were about to come bombing down as that one had. The body was piled against a tree and bent in a way that suggested broken bones. There was a live, intact body within a dozen feet of it now: in the wood’s edge, the mixture of white and black, snow-camouflaged and motionless. If you hadn’t seen Isak fall you probably wouldn’t notice his remains now, or at any rate you wouldn’t have identified them as what they were; in its similar coating of snow it blended with the natural forest debris. Only churned snow around it, the track it had scored in the last few metres of its travel, would draw an eye to it. And there were no such signs here, a few metres deeper into the wood.
The shooter was coming. Drawn, predictably, to inspect his prey. He’d been difficult to locate from this position until now, with the cabin’s log wall behind him and through scraps of undergrowth and the snow still blanketing, but he was in the open now, glancing frequently uphill as he made his way across. He was wearing snowshoes, which accounted for the clumsy way he moved. Also a fur cap with earflaps, goggles pushed up on to the upper part of a balaclava, and a white snow-smock as outer garment — unnecessary, since any outer garment was mostly white, in the present state of things. Still grasping his gun — submachine gun — two-handed, alert for a second target. Right here, looking at you… The left side of Ollie’s face was pressed into snow at the base of a fir-tree, the AYA projecting on the right, most of the gun snow-covered, lined on the heap that was Isak’s body and slanted upward. He’d barely have to move it, when the moment came. He was counting, also, on Isak’s body being the focus of the man’s attention. Why should he look elsewhere in this wood; he’d have been here hours, maybe days, knew only too well what a fir-wood looked like, that the only movements would be branches bending to the weight of snow, releasing when it slid off… He’d stopped. Facing up the mountain again, the gun ready — like a man waiting for driven game. Then relaxing, turning this way again — at least, the lowering of the weapon’s slant suggested a degree of relaxation, lowering of the guard. Lifting his feet comically high to place the snowshoes flatly: on Isak�
��s tracks now, that close…
Stopped. Staring at the body. Maybe deciding which bit of the contorted heap was what.
Raising the gun slowly, and sighting…
A single shot into the head. The crack of it echoed up the mountain slopes and was lost in the depth of firs. Ollie hoping it wouldn’t start some rash movement from above, that they’d stay put and silent. The Russian — if that was what he was — was now slinging his gun, pushing the strap over his left shoulder. It made a difference, made any further loud sounds avoidable, and reaction to this change of circumstance was so instant as to be virtually a reflex. His right hand relaxed its grip on the AYA, shifted very cautiously to his belt, the sheathed knife. The Russian had both hands free now, having slung his weapon, and he was crouching to straighten Isak’s body, see what it was he’d shot. Ollie’s weight hit him before he could have known there was another human within a mile. Going down under the impact, his head simultaneously wrenched backward, he had about one second more of life before the carbon-steel blade stabbed into his throat, up to the knife’s hilt.
He was an Asiatic. Farther into the trees where he dragged him, removal of the fur cap and balaclava revealed lank black hair which gave a first impression that this was — had been — a Lapp, but the features told a different story. Mongolian, maybe. A fair proportion of Spetsnaz tanks were non-Russian Soviets, one had heard. A feeling of relief — not surprise, since this had been almost a certainty — because initially, before he’d started this move, the possibility of it being a Finn, some kind of special force man like the three who’d been murdered, had occurred, then been dismissed, but must have lingered… There’d be no papers, so there was no point looking for any. The gun was Swedish, an MKS 5.56-mm short-barrelled assault rifle with stock folded, and he found two spare clips for it, twenty rounds in each, in a pocket inside the zipped outer covering. The clip in the gun was still about half full. Another pocket contained a clip of 9-mm parabellum ammunition and some loose shells of the same type: so, treasure still to come… He had the body lying with its head downslope, so blood pumping from the severed jugular flowed clear. He’d got comparatively little of it on himself. Searching for a weapon that would take this 9-mm ammo, some kind of automatic pistol to take that short clip, he found a sheathknife an a German-made Silva-type compass. Then, strapped to the ribs inside other layers of clothing, a soft leather holster containing a SIG-Sauer parabellum automatic.
On his way back to rejoin the others he picked up the discarded mitten.
‘All right, you people?’
Calling ahead, in case his arrival scared them. Sophie staring at him: wide-eyed, speechless… Sutherland asked, ‘Was that your shot we heard?’ Ollie straightening, checking the MKS magazine to count exactly how many rounds were left. Stenberg muttered, ‘Told you, Carl, it was a rifle shot.’
‘Submachine gun, actually. This one. Mine, now. Carl, d’you want the shotgun?’
‘Well, no, I doubt I’d be—‘
‘Sorry about Isak.’
‘Yeah.’ Sutherland spread his hands, let them drop back against his sides, as if words failed him. Ollie passed the shotgun to Stenberg, flipping it open so the cartridges were visible. Sophie found her voice: ‘We thought he’d shot you. But you — you killed him… Ollie, for God’s sake — I mean, just like that, you—’
‘He was making sure of Isak… Gus, I’ll give you the rest of the cartridges. Have his knife too, if you want it.’
‘Ollie, tell me what — how you —’
He nodded to her. ‘I’ll tell you as we go. Anything you like, but I want to get over that bloody river. What’s out of Isak’s packs?’
But he had to tell them about it, and it made a difference. The way they looked at him, spoke to him — especially Sophie. It isolated him: as if he and they had separated into different species.
They crossed the frozen waterfall and entered the wood on the other side, stopping again when they were back in cover, at Sutherland’s request.
‘You can have this, Sophie. You might need it.’ The SIG-Sauer pistol. ‘I’ll show you how it works, if—’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘He killed Isak, Sophie.’ He held her upper arms so that she had to face him and hear this. ‘Shot Isak down without a moment’s hesitation. He was a Soviet, incidentally, Mongolian or something like it. It would almost surely have been his lot who murdered those Finns. What should I have done?’
‘I made no criticism.’
‘Oh yes, you did. You’re making one now, that tone of voice… Listen to me, Sophie. Those Finns — then Isak. Just bang, like knocking off a rabbit. Because he knew anything that moved here had to be his enemy — except his pals, he’d know them, but anything else that moved. It could as easily have been you, would’ve been if you’d been first out of the trees, next time it might be. Also, remembering what I said earlier, you could find yourself on your own, suddenly… Will you take this, please?’
‘All right. Show me how—’
‘Yes. Look…’
Sutherland came back to them. ‘Sorry to hold us up.’
This part of the fir-forest seemed to last for ever, after they got going again. But in fact it didn’t, it had only been his anxiety, whether to turn downhill here or farther along, that made each minute seem like ten. The trees ended finally about three kilometres from the river, where the mountainside ahead as well as on their tight rose too steeply for trees to grow on it. So now they had to turn downhill. He was glad to have his mind made up for him, and to make some progress northward at last. Whether or not they’d be in the cover of woods all the way now was a moot point, and the map didn‘t show it clearly. The scale wasn’t large enough, for instance where it showed a river, to indicate whether its valley was wooded or not, and in the present situation just a few metres of open ground could be crucial. The map showed trees everywhere except on the mountain heights, which obviously would be bare, and lower down you’d just have to take it as you found it.
He’d been thinking about strategic factors too, for instance the size of the back-up there must be to these front-runners. Spetsnazi would be making the recces, handling contacts like Isak and feeding back intelligence, but when the time came they’d be ahead of invading forces and doing their own things such as assassinations, sabotage of communications and so on. The forces to follow them in would be in training now — or even trained, ready for the whistle. And if so, if tomorrow the Spetsnazi reported that the operation’s security was looking shaky, wouldn’t they attack at once?
Isak had said the move was planned for after NATO forces withdrew. But Isak wouldn’t have been told everything; nor would he necessarily have been telling the whole truth when he’d blurted that out. A disadvantage in holding off until the end of March would be that with the thaw well advanced, all the ‘white torrents rushing’, they’d have to bridge rivers instead of driving straight over them, divert around huge areas of swamp instead of rushing straight across. You’d gain on the roundabouts, lose on the swings.
Conclusion: it could be a mistake to rely on having eight weeks in hand, and Grayling should be advised accordingly. They might attack next week, or the week after. After all, only 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines, comprising about four thousand of those twenty thousand NATO troops, had actually deployed in Norway yet.
Another thought then, on the river-bridging subject: fast-moving incursion forces would be hampered and slowed down if they had to bring all their bridging materials up with them. If the clandestine operation in progress now was to be followed by a lightning strike, as it would have to be, and as indicated by the words of that yoik, they’d surely want to find bridging materials already there, at crossing points. So, putting oneself in the Soviet planners’ boots, wouldn’t you have dumps set up where you needed them? With such an enormous area of wilderness, there’d be no problem finding forested areas in which to hide them, given time, and Spetsnaz infiltrators, and a few Isaks here and there…
He glanced at her, wondering if she’d caught him up just to ask that question. ‘Does it matter?’
‘I thought you were a — canoeist?’
‘Also a commando. Was… Look out where you’re going…’
Instead of looking at him. The ground was uneven as well as steep. Where the trees grew really densely it was easier to take skis off and carry them. She persisted: ‘I suppose you did it with your knife.’
‘Whereas you—’ gesturing towards her ski-poles ‘— would have skewered him.’
‘I wanted to say, really, I was not criticising, blaming—’
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