‘But we don’t need —’
‘I know we don’t… You think the highway will not be watched?’
‘Depends how many guys they have available. But they can’t watch every mile of it, can’t flood the whole of Finnmark with bloody Soviets — not yet, they can’t… Besides, once you’re on board some vehicle that’s going north you’re home and dry.’
‘But you are not.’
‘My darling, I told you, don’t worry about me…’
He’d explained: much as he loved to have her company, wouldn’t want anything but to have her with him in any normal circumstances, once he had only himself to look after in that wilderness he’d be like a fox, she truly did not have to worry.
The ‘winter road’ started right down at Enontekiö too, but it took a course quite separate from the highway’s. He guessed it would have been an old Lapp migration route. Except that in April and October the herds would have been driven around the lakes, unless they’d swum or waded over. But, for centuries, freight would have been hauled over the snow-road in sledges drawn by reindeer, and at migration times it would have been quite a spectacle — herds, and the men on skis, entire households on sledges and pack-reindeer…
He and Sophie crossed the vinterveg well south of the bigger lakes. They’d seen deer grazing, and tracks left by motorscooters, but no Lapps. They’d all be snoring their little heads off, he guessed, since with snow-scooters they could virtually commute to the job.
Maybe ten kilometres to go. He had the map photographed in his memory. Between the south shore of a large lake and the north end of a small one: across open ground and into forest for a while, then in the open again with a river to cross and, on the far side of it, a really big expanse of moonlit, dangerously open vidda, after which they’d have woods again right up to the highway. The map showed that the wooded area had a river bisecting it, linking two lakes.
It would be a relief to get that far, back into cover after the long exposure on open snowfields. It wouldn’t be dense cover — judging by indications on the map — mostly sparse, probably birch, thin stuff that was shadowy enough to hide in if you made the best use of it. But the moon was a menace. High clouds were so thin that even when they covered it the scene was bright. Snow reflected any light there was, magnified it, and ski-tracks could show up from miles away, particularly from the air or from higher ground, the harsh light creating shadow inside the depressions so that they looked black as railway lines across the brilliant whiteness.
They were nearly over the last, biggest open stretch when shots cracked out, wrecking premature hopes. The shots had come from high ground on the left — the south — two shots with about a three-second pause between them. By the time he heard the second one he was already flat in the snow, pulling Sophie down beside him.
There was no cover really close. The best bet was some woodland a few hundred metres off to the north of what had been their line of advance. He’d unfolded the butt stock of his gun and pushed the sights up to their maximum setting — four hundred metres — and the selector to semi-automatic: spotting the ambusher as he settled, squirming into a firing position, elbows in the snow, wishing to God he’d had a chance to zero this thing in… He had him in his sights, squeezed off a single shot. About maximum range, he guessed. But like an echo then, another shot from out there somewhere — the south again but not the same, farther away. A signal?
He muttered, ‘Like fleas on a dog’s back.’ Slight exaggeration. But guessing they’d been heading to get between him and the highway, and this one had opened fire early because he’d seen he wasn’t going to make it, and now his buddy was telling him, Hang on, I’m on my way…
‘Sophie.’ Pointing north of east. ‘Into that wood. It’s a downslope, you should make it fast enough. River inside the wood — over it, pick a route to the highway through trees all the way. One and a half, two k’s at most.’
‘Go now?’
‘That’s my girl. While he’s got his head down. If he puts it up and shoots at you, dodge. When you get there, stop anything that’s going north. Don’t wait in the road though, stay hidden until you hear one coming. OK?’
The slopes were empty now, his eye wandering over them constantly and the gun ready. That sod was most likely just over the rise, hull-down, waiting for his chum. Or he might be trying to filter round to the front: but if so, he’d have to come into sight again any moment now, over the fold in the snowfield that would be hiding him now… ‘Sophie, darling — go!’
Flat, ready, watching for them to show, scared rigid that one or both might choose the next few seconds to poke his head up. If one did, you’d have to be damn sure you killed him because otherwise he’d see Sophie departing, and if he could get over the brow of that low hill eastward and fast enough he’d stand a chance of heading her off. One’s own job meanwhile was to stay put and play Aunt Sally, hoping they’d think there were still two targets here. The hole she’d made when she’d flopped down might help, shadowed dark in moonlight… But then, at the right moment, take off southwestward. There was a wood of sorts down there, surrounding the north end of yet another lake. Induce them to follow into that scrub while she was making it to the road?
A shot cracked over from his front. Same guy back on the job. Another from the left — forty-five degrees left. He saw the flash of that one, heard the blip of a small-calibre bullet passing close. So the range was OK: whether that was good news, or bad… Man on the right getting up. Bending low, poling a few times, slanting down to the right — slaloming, zigzagging down, obviously to put himself between here and the road. Rapid fire from the left, short bursts in automatic, an attempt to pin one down here while the other shifted his ground. They obviously thought they had it made. The moving target was the one to hit, get that bastard… She was away now, well out of sight and he didn’t think they could have seen her go. In semi-auto now, single shot, sights still up at the four-hundred—metre setting, which had to be near enough right for this. The target was slaloming to make himself hard to get: so catch him on a turn, in one of the moments when he’d effectively be static. Like—
Now…
Crack!
Arse over tit, sprawling, skis arcing like a windmill’s sails. No time for cheers, though. Ollie twisted to his left, shifted into automatic, knowing he’d have only half a dozen shots left in the magazine, the first of which had been used to kill Isak. These magazines being twenty-round, not the more usual thirty. Enough, he found, for two very short bursts, aimed a little high, discouragement more than much hope of hitting, knowing the guy was there but not at this moment having him in sight.
Then he was up and moving — flat out, southwestward…
She’ll be OK. She’ll make it now.
Not that it was a hundred per cent guaranteed yet — with one of them still alive. Could be others too. Also traffic on the road might be sparse, this time of night, not every driver prepared to stop for a lone skier thumbing… A new idea hit him and he didn’t hesitate, slanted to his left immediately — because although he had two spare twenty-round clips for this Swedish firearm it wasn’t such a lot considering (a) he hadn’t finished here yet, (b) he’d be some time in Finland after this, maybe with heavy opposition. And the man he’d felled had a gun, some kind of automatic weapon, possibly even this kind — logically you might expect them to be similarly equipped. He was on the level now and running: then uphill, driving himself up the hard-crusted slope to reach the sprawled body higher up. His mate would be up and coming on now, of course… Skis thumping into the crust, body lunging, arms and legs working like pistons, lungs pumping, breath loud in his own ears like it could be sometimes under water. She’d be at least halfway to the road by now. Halfway or better. Good luck, God’s speed, my darling… A crackle of shots from behind — remote, his own man-made noise enclosing him, moonlight stronger as he came up into it again, finding the body, skis and poles widely scattered, snow churned deeply. He’d had his knife ready but the m
an was dead, face-down in snow dark with seepage from a head wound. Dragging him over on his side… It was another MKS, with its strap around the Russian’s neck tight enough to strangle. He used the knife — quicker than finding zips or other fastenings—slashing the coat open to get at inner pockets, finding among other items three full magazines. By their weight they felt full, anyway. He loaded one immediately, discarding the empty, then re-slung his own weapon, sheathing the knife and snatching up the dead man’s gun, dropping flat in the snow with the body as a rest and slight protection, facing back to discourage the other one again.
Better still, to kill him. The fewer left on their feet, the better. But for the moment—
There…
He was following Ollie’s tracks, maybe at this moment still just outside effective range … Glancing right, he muttered aloud, Oh, shit… Another of them — higher up, black against moonlit snowscape, traversing down this way. More or less this way — actually moving left to right… He switched to semi-auto for single shots — however many there‘d be in this magazine. Working at getting his breathing into control, meanwhile. Should be a few rounds left, although it was hard to remember how many had been fired at him at the start of this action. Raising himself a little, elbows cushioned on a dead man’s ribs: then steady squeezing, rhythmic firing of single aimed shots: four — five — six — click… The target had dropped out of sight. Either hit — by fluke, at that range — or taken cover. He flung that gun away, lobbing it spinning end-over-end to fall into deep snow, and shifted around, crouching while he got his skis lined up, his gun slung on his back, poles in hand — pushing off southwestward with a downslope but poling too, doubled in the hope they wouldn’t see him leaving. He wanted them to follow, but not too soon — better if they weren’t certain he’d gone until they found his tracks, so he’d have time to prepare for them. As long as they trailed him, not Sophie… Thinking of her, that she should certainly be at the roadside by now, he heard the truck, some heavy vehicle grinding up from the south. By the sound of it, the highway couldn’t be more than a kilometre away, closer than he’d imagined. Even less than a kilometre, maybe. This was the first motor he’d heard: one solitary northbound lifesaver — please… Then, like an instant, miraculous answer to that plea, he heard it braking, slowing…
*
She could hardly believe her luck. At the same time, she hated it: having no option but to take advantage of it, leave… Hydraulic brakes dragging the big truck to a stop, its enormous multiple tyres gouging inches deep into the hard-beaten dirt-stained snow that layered the road. She’d removed her skis at the roadside, left them there and retreated into the trees’ shadow, climbing over the single strand of a flimsy deer-fence to get there. Then she’d barely had time to whisper a prayer — not for herself, not for this — when she’d heard the distant rumble… Over the wire again, running out into the road: she saw the lights as a blur at first, then rising and clarifying as the heavy vehicle ground up the incline, coloured pinpricks of light above its cab and lower down the headlights blazing yellow, funnelling along the khaki-coloured, snow-ridged surface of Route 93. She was waving but simultaneously backing out of the road, not really expecting this first one to stop, and in any case preoccupied with other thoughts.
It was what he’d told her might happen, and prepared her for. More or less. She hadn’t imagined it being quite like this, though. There’d been some flurries of rifle shots and automatic fire, but since then nothing — only her own hard puffing breath and pounding heart.
The driver wound down the window on the left side of the cab and poked his head out into the cold: ‘OK, chum, hop in, quick!’ He’d spoken in Norwegian, but he was a Finn. Sophie called, hurrying, ‘Justing getting my skis…’
He’d know she was a woman now, not a ‘chum’. He leant over, opened the other door, grabbed the skis one-handed and she climbed in carrying her poles, There was room for the skis at the back of the seat, crosswise. She pulled the door shut, and he wound up the window: it felt like getting into a Turkish bath.
‘Late out, aren’t you?’
Typical young Finnish male. Thickset, with fair hair showing under a fur-lined cap on his bullet head. Frank, open expression, friendly smile. She nodded. ‘Ski-trekking. Thanks for stopping.’
‘Going to Kautokeino?’ He was getting the truck moving. She confirmed. ‘Kautokeino — yes… I’d be grateful if you’d drop me near the Lensmanskontor.’ It meant literally ‘sheriff’s office’, but effectively ‘police station’. ‘Do you know where it is?’
‘Must be where the flagpole is.’ He nodded. ‘Before the Esso station, but on the right.’
‘Right.’
‘Are you in some kind of trouble?’
‘Not now.’ She forced a smile. ‘Thanks to you.’
‘Not so good for a young lady to be out alone.’ He glanced at her again. ‘Lonely out here, and there’ve been some funny rumours going around lately, eh?’
She said, ‘I love the vidda, and I am a good skier.’
Please God, let him come out of it all right.
‘Want some coffee?’
‘Coffee?’
She’d more or less gasped the word. It had such huge appeal.
As if one had forgotten that such a thing existed… And the contrast — to be sitting here in warm comfort, having left him back there…
His shots or theirs, those last ones?
As far as this end of it was concerned, he’d won, he’d triumphed, she was — quoting his own words — ‘home and dry’. The word would now be passed out, disaster averted. He’d achieved this, and in the process he’d saved her life. So please, God…
‘Right there. Thermos on the ledge there. Use the cap, I have my own mug here. In fact you might pour me some, while you’re at it.’
‘Sure.’ She took the mug from him. Hearing Ollie’s voice assuring her On my own it’ll be easy, I’ll be like a fox…
‘Hungry?’ Pointing again: ‘You‘ll find some sandwiches in that box. I’ve had all I can eat, my wife always makes too many and then they go stale. Do me a favour, help yourself.’
Rumbling northward, at a steady seventy kph. The last shots would be the ones that counted. How long before you’d know who’d fired them? Coffee indescribably marvellous: incredible… Headlights boring a tunnel, yellowish glow through watered milk. The driver was telling her they’d had a lot of snow down where he came from, days and days of it. Quite a sharp change tonight, wasn’t it, this moon, the clouds breaking up so quickly? With luck tomorrow would be a fine day. Cold, but fine. The weather made a lot of difference, in his line of work. You took it as it came, naturally, and if you had your head screwed on right you always expected the worst, but all the same, a sunny day now and then…
‘Hey, hey…’
Braking.
Sophie’s eyes opened: her thoughts had been back there with Ollie. There was someone in the road ahead, right in the middle with his arms spread, signalling to the driver to stop. Not moving, confident he would stop. Bulky in heavy gear: no Sami, though, not throwing that length of shadow. The Finn muttered as his tyres gripped and the truck ground and slithered to a halt, ‘He’ll have come up by the vinterveg. Here’s where it joins, see.’ The winter road — she could see the line of it southeastward. The driver said, ‘Never mind, there’s room for one more, can’t leave a man to freeze.’ The door on Sophie’s side was wrenched open, and the man in the roadway stared up at her. Big man, stubbled face, dark eyes aslant over prominent cheekbones, cap with fur-lined earflaps dangling… The driver called, ‘Climb in, don’t let all my warm air out!’
Ignoring that request: still holding the door, staring up at her. He asked the driver in heavily-accented Norwegian, ‘Where did you pick her up?’
‘Not far back. Why? Are you—?’
‘She tell you what she’s doing here?’
Not a Finn. No kind of Scandinavian either. The gun in his hand, as she saw it now for the first time, did
n’t surprise her, only sickened her. Her own stupidity… Something like this had occurred to her when she’d opened her eyes and seen him standing there, and she’d dismissed it as a product of her overwrought imagination, paranoia. She knew now she should have urged the driver Don’t stop, put your foot down…
11
Motionless, among the litter below the tree and part of the tree itself, mixed in the pine’s straggly bottom branches. Needles and sticks broke up the whiteness, ice-particles clung to the dead lower parts of the tree and he was an element in this confusion, prone, facing back to and across his own ski-tracks, thirty yards clear of them. Waiting — waiting happily because he’d heard some heavy vehicle stop and a door slam before it had ground on northward, noisily shifting gear. It had left him with a feeling of victory and great happiness — Sophie safe and away, the news on its way to Grayling. Like having played poker all night, trebled your stake and locked most of it away, playing on now with nothing to do but win.
Still a few hands to play, of course. This one now, and then the Yanks to be extricated. By that time things would be humming elsewhere. Hot lines busy, deployments on the Northern flank no longer prefixed ‘for exercise’.
So thank God for great mercies. Although it might take a little while, the high-level stuff. Oslo, Brussels, Washington, London, Helsinki would all have their hands in it. Her message had to be received, understood at the point of receipt, flashed to the summits who’d then presumably confer — electronically no doubt but also man to man, voice to voice — before wheels could begin to turn.
Hours? Days?
The Soviet strategic concept for the launch of conventional war in Europe was said to be based on the primary essential of reaching the Channel in five days, the basis for this being an estimate of five days as the time it would take for NATO to react with a nuclear response, the one type of reaction which the Soviets dreaded. In this case — touch wood — you wouldn’t be reaching for a nuclear response, so surely decisions would be reached far more quickly: say one day — having Norwegian forces immediately available as well as 3 Commando Brigade already deployed?
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