Special Dynamic

by Special Dynamic (retail) (epub)

  Movement: on the facing hillside, across the valley. Like an ant crawling on white-gloss paint. He pushed up his goggles. Could be a reindeer…

  Except it wasn’t. He didn’t stop, because if that happened to be a Soviet it might be better if he didn’t know he’d been spotted — for the time being, anyway, and on the principle of keeping one’s options open… That hillside, like this one, was lightly wooded, but the moving figure was in a more open area where the treeline dipped to what looked like a gully. Like shadow slanting down: the ant was moving more slowly, reaching that point now. And joining another — who’d crossed the stream — or whatever that was — ahead of him. In the greyish slant of the gully were places that seemed greenish, faint green aura on the hill… Ice, he thought. Ice surfaces at angles that reflected light although elsewhere they didn’t. Farther along, on the other side of it, the sparse growth of trees thickened and climbed again.

  Standing with binoculars at his eyes, that first one?

  He’d moved on now, as the other joined him. It was the posture, more than any detail or actual sight of glasses. Or it could even be a touch of paranoia: imagining those as Spetsnazi keeping pace and watching.

  It would be unwise not to assume that they were hostile. And observing him. So, all right, assume it. The next possibility being that they’d come from the area of the snow-hole, that one of them was the man who’d shot Juffu, who’d also know Juffu had had a companion there who’d got away. It was a lot of supposition, but this wasn’t Oxford Street, there weren’t such huge crowds of people wandering around that it would be coincidence, exactly.

  The way to mislead them would be to make a feint towards Norway. Slant left, northwest, let them see one heading for the border.

  They might swallow it, particularly if they didn’t know he’d seen them. And he was in the right place for it. To get to that frontier one would have come this way, most likely. Having passed round the mountain range that was now on his left and ahead, continuing around it he’d be heading about NNW — to cross the frontier roughly where he’d come south with Sophie and the Yanks, and the wretched Isak. That would be the route they’d expect him to take, surely, if he was getting out.

  Which in the circumstances anyone with any sense would be doing.

  One hour, about, to sunset. Dark in say eighty minutes. No need to go far off-course. So, OK…

  He’d go down then, he decided. After he’d let them see him turning away he’d move down into the forest and lay up for the night, continue through low-level forest when he pushed on in the dawn. Having disappeared towards the Norwegian border… He couldn’t see those people now, but the trees were thicker where he thought they must be now; he was in denser cover too, might be out of their sight too at this moment, but they’d have a clear view of him when he was crossing the mountain’s shoulder. Even if they hadn’t seen him yet, they would then.

  *

  Darkness was coming as he made his way down through forest on a long, east-facing hillside. Glad to have got this far: over that high part he’d found himself traversing about three kilometres of avalanche slope, with a convex, steeper part above him and a towering cornice above that, all covered in fresh snow over a hard-crust base. Like playing Russian Roulette: he’d increased the steepness of his traverse, to get it over quickly… But down now into the valley, using the last of the day’s light, side-slipping through clumps of fir with his skis, sometimes clattering over fallen, half-buried branches, the litter of last night’s and this morning’s strong winds. The trees’ branches sagged under the weight of new snow.

  Very nearly dark. Even on the crests the day would be fading, but down here it was as good as over, deep shadows speeding its demise. Partly for this reason he turned north again when he was about halfway down. Navigating by compass and contours then: looking forward to stopping, shedding the weight of the bergen and relaxing strained muscles.

  He found a place that would do. Thick brushwood for cover, and he’d use the tarpaulin as a tent-sheet, slinging it over the nylon tow-rope set up between two trees. It would be adequate, well enough hidden for the dark hours, and before dawn he’d be moving on. He took off his skis, thankfully lowered the bergen to the ground. Cold beans now, biscuit and chocolate, and there was still some tea remaining in the Thermos.

  *

  He’d heard the wolves howling. They must have been wolves, not dogs, there was no Lapp settlement so close. And Lapps didn’t camp with their herds these days, or even very near them, snowscooters had changed all that, allowing them to live in village houses and commute, returning nightly to home comforts. Juffu had said, rambling on in the deer-pit this morning while they’d waited for the dawn, that this led to inefficient husbandry of the deer, so the animals turned semi-wild. Where siidas relied on scooters, he’d said, the deer were neglected, the early-warning signs of disease often not seen in time.

  Carl Sutherland should have met Juffu. A week or two with him, he’d have had a new book to write.

  He was awake suddenly, lying still in pitch darkness, knowing he’d been woken.

  Movement, outside the shelter. Very slight, cautious, barely audible under the sigh of the wind. Then again… Spaced-out movement like a man placing one foot after the other with immense care at long intervals, listening in those intervals for reaction…

  Half up — at least as cautiously — weight on an elbow, arms clear of the bag, MKS ready and switched to automatic. Hearing the same sound again, and closer. Then catching the smell…

  Extraordinarily familiar odour.

  Juffu?

  That was the connection. The first time he’d smelt it had been in the snow-hole, and later it had become an integral part of the atmosphere in the reindeer pit.

  Snuffling. A soft panting. Then again snuffle, snuffle.

  Wolf?

  He moved — suddenly and loudly: ‘Fuck off, you—’

  Convulsion, against the side of the shelter, something crashing into the side of it and a scrape of claws before it broke away through the brushwood. Then nothing except the ululating moan of wind.

  He’d caught on to the connection with Juffu. The answer was damp fur. That had been the smell. Wet animal — wolverine, whatever — and Juffu’s wet furs. All his hunting gear he’d made himself, he’d said, either from reindeer hide or out of the pelts of other animals he’d trapped. And maybe those furs and hides were still closer to their original state than they’d have been if they’d been bought in a shop. In any case, it had been the smell of animal, not of man.

  Couldn’t have been a wolf. A wolf would surely have sounded heavier. More likely a fox, or wolverine. He snuggled down into his sleeping-bag again, with a need to regenerate warmth lost during that short hiatus.

  Long before dawn he was up and preparing to move on. He’d decided, having thought about it in the night, to risk using the naptha stove, making sure the tarpaulin enclosed it completely so no light could show out. Not that it gave out such a lot of light — except when you were getting it going, before it was in control; in fact a cooking smell was the greater hazard, quite faint scents being easily detectable over considerable distances in this unpolluted environment. But remembering the state of exhaustion he’d been in when he’d got back from his trek with Sophie he also thought it would have been taking a chance to have begun the day without some warmth under the belt. In the Thermos too, for later. He made tea, and heated a can of beans. It still wasn’t light outside, wouldn’t be for quite a while, so there was time to take it slowly, absorbing several mugs of the hot, sweet nectar.

  *

  The Sea King from the Naval Air Squadron at Bardufoss came racketing down into the river valley, lowering its camouflage-painted shape into the dawn shadows, dropping out of sight among the trees that filled the shallow depression on both sides of the frozen river. The helo was out of sight then of any ground observer more than a few hundred metres away, and particularly from the nearby Finnish border and points south of it. Thunder
ous noise, downrush of wind whipping up a snowstorm as the machine settled its skids gently on the ice. Ice needed to be twelve inches thick to take this much weight, and there was at least three times that thickness. In the moment of touchdown the cabin door was open, three men tumbling out, turning to receive the gear that was thrown down to them: then all crouching, heads together, arms on each others’ shoulders, the down-draught practically flattening them as the machine thumped its way up into the air. No one at any distance could have known it had landed. Hearing, if they’d known their helicopters they’d have identified it from its sound as a Sea King, but they’d only have seen it dip out of sight, dipping towards the river, then reappear as it soared up again, banking away from Finnish air space as if the pilots had suddenly realised how close to the border they’d been flying. The second pilot, looking down and seeing their three passengers climbing off the ice, throwing their skis up on to the bank ahead of them, saw one of them wave. He muttered, ‘And the best of British to you, old chum.’

  It was Tony Beale who’d waved. He and the two Marines were on the river bank now, having stashed their Clansman PRC 320 radio actually in the bank, with a shovelful of snow over its waterproof cover for camouflage. Now they were getting ready to move off, adjusting their gear. Skis, face-masks, headovers, oiled-wool hats and their outer garments were all Norwegian products, civilian style; their back-packs were all different, but similar to any other ski-trekking tourists’ packs. Their haircuts weren’t noticeably ‘military’ either. No weapons were visible, although in shoulder-holsters they were carrying Finnish-made Jati submachine guns borrowed from the Norwegian Army. Neat little weapons — newish, the Norwegians had had them only for evaluation — fifteen inches long with forty-round magazines of 9-mm parabellum.

  Beale was a big man, six-two in his thermal socks, but spare, bony-faced, with deepset eyes and a big nose. Married, three children, the last one born only a few months ago; the Beale home was in Hampshire. Gerry Simmerton, from the West Riding of Yorkshire, was shorter and of heavier build. Blunt-faced and usually genial, he’d been a Bootneck for six years but had only done just over one year in the SB Squadron. The third member of the team, Bill Howie, was an entirely different type again: he was a Celt, black-haired and blue-eyed, barely five-foot eight but built like a greyhound and — over a good distance — faster. He was from Brechin in Angus. He and Simmerton were bachelors, and both had the SB qualification of swimmer-canoeist third class. Tony Beale was an SC1.

  Looking up at the lightening sky. It was going to be a clear day, by the looks of it. High cloud, wind about force three from the northwest, ground temperature minus twenty… ‘Fit, are we? Want to check the map again?’

  They didn’t. Meaning they had it photographed in their brains. As they needed to, since any one of them had to be able to see the task through if the other two came to grief. Their destination was a snow-hole, presumed to be still in existence, its location marked on Beale’s map from a grid reference contained in a Norwegian bird’s report. This was all they had to go on, for starters. But with luck they might run into Ollie Lyle and his two Americans before they got very deep into Finland. Ollie had been supposed to be bringing these Yanks out, one of them on a ski-stretcher probably, and the more-or-less straight line between here and the snow-hole was (a) the shortest route, (b) the route Lyle had told the Norwegian bird he’d be taking.

  ‘He might even turn up before you start in.’ The Royal Marine major from COMNON’s staff — he’d flown up to Elvegardsmoen to brief this SB team — had told them, ‘And we want them out double-quick. Because apart from obvious considerations, we don’t want problems with the Finns. Any minute now we’ll be blowing the whistle and we think the Soviets will turn about and go home. What they’re preparing — apparently — is a sneak invasion, infiltration, so once they know we’re on to it and ready for them — well, it’s a new ball-game and please God not the game they want to play. But by then we’ll have tipped off the Finns too, so they’ll be deploying — at the least, they’ll have patrols out pretty smartly. And your Captain Lyle—’ Grayling had hesitated, ‘— well, reading between the lines of this rather economically-phrased report, and taking certain other indications into account, I’d guess he’s been throwing his weight about, in that neutral territory. He’d have had no option, I’m sure, but all the same…’ Frowning, pursing his lips; he’d finished, ‘What it comes down to is we want him out, Mr Beale.’

  *

  He had a feeling he’d been here before: looking out from trees across rising ground at a confluence of frozen streams, a bivouac, three men whom he was assuming to be Spetsnazi. Soviets, anyway. Fur-clad, indistinguishable from each other in size or shape. One had just crawled into the bivvy, one was outside doing something — like waxing — to a pair of skis, and the other was moving around, collecting firewood.

  This was an apex of the trees through which he’d come from the south. Open ground in front, a small branch of the spiderweb of streams out on the right and joining the main stream at right angles. A bulge of the forest close to the junction was where they’d put their bivvy, with its back to the trees. They could sit in its entrance — one of them might be there now, but he couldn’t see — and have a view in most directions.

  A detour westward would be the answer. His object was to move northeast, but he was going to have to retreat and then go west — about two kilometres — and circle round, pass round to the north of them. The map showed forest there and one of the branches of this complex of iced-up streams running into it. If there was a stakeout there, of course, one might have new problems, but you wouldn’t know until you got there.

  They could be hunters — wishfully thinking…

  But apart from a different lie of the land and the fact they’d built themselves a bivvy instead of putting up a tent, the set-up looked so familiar, so much like the lookout post he and the others had nearly run into on the day Isak had been killed, that he felt almost sure these must be Soviets too — trained the same way, working to the same patterns. And he hoped they were — because their presence would indicate there was substance in Juffu’s information. There’d be no other reason for them to have been stationed in this remote neck of the woods.

  They’d pass themselves off as tourists on a hunting trip, he guessed, to any other trekkers who might come by.

  He went back through the trees, half a kilometre back over his own tracks. Then west. It would take about an hour of the precious few hours of daylight, this walkabout. But if it was taking him to the target — and this was the only way to get through to it…

  If he’d been running the show for them, he thought, he’d have had patrols inside the forests as well as lookouts in the open. Then you would have it sewn up. But maybe they didn’t have the manpower to spare.

  Circling north, then northeast, maintaining roughly the same distance in from the edge of the forest on his right. It was level going here, on crust with only a few inches of fresh, fine-grained snow covering it. From the point where he’d now turned northeast, the map showed, he’d have a trek of about five kilometres through forest and then a section of open ground to cross. And no way to avoid crossing it except by another much longer westward detour. Too far, too time-consuming… And there was bound to be a lookout post there: if this added up to anything at all…

  Sophie would be worrying, by now. If he’d found the Americans alive he’d have had them across the frontier before this. She’d know something had gone wrong. So would Grayling. But Grayling would have a lot on his plate, right now; and she’d most likely be down in Oslo, they’d have wanted her down there for de-briefing. So she’d be waiting for news from Grayling, probably telephoning him several times a day.

  Maybe he should have headed straight for Norway, from the snow-hole. Nobody had asked him to hang around down here or look for ammo dumps. And if poor old Juffu hadn’t hinted at the existence of one he wouldn’t have been here. That was all it had taken, one barmy old Lapp
’s supposition!

  A Royal Marine general had told him he was a ‘pig-headed bloody idiot’. And he’d heard his own mother say on numerous occasions, ‘You always were strong-headed, Ollie.’

  OK, but he’d had those two Yanks in his personal care, and—

  Forget it…

  Forging on. Somewhat fearful that they might have patrols inside the forests, that as one approached the target their security would get tighter. Having to be very watchful, therefore, while also anxious to push on as fast as possible. Munching chocolate occasionally, but sparingly now because stocks were running low. Raisins had run out yesterday. And supplies had only lasted this long because they’d been intended to feed five people. Three of whom were dead. Incredible — when one thought back to the start of it, to Carl Sutherland telling him over the supper table in Alta that evening, ‘Escort, in a sense, but I didn’t mean an armed guard, for heaven’s sake…’

  A chauffeur-handyman, butler, maybe.

  He was expecting to come to the end of this reach of forest at just about the moment that he saw it coming — a whiteness ahead, the ground rising, bare, to a rounded hill shown on the map by a single ring of orange contour-line. It touched the forest’s edge on both sides of the open strip at about the strip’s narrowest point, where it was about one kilometre across.

  Then from the edge of the trees, with the hill’s summit to his right, he saw a tent perched on it. A hemispherical mountaineers’ tent like the ones they’d abandoned with the pulk.

  There was no sign of life around it, no lookout in sight. But there didn’t have to be, there could be one inside the tent and he’d have a perfectly good view. Checking the map again… From up there you’d have a view northwestward of about six to eight kilometres, and eastward about five. That post covered virtually any approach from southerly directions, in fact.