Soldier M: Invisible Enemy in Kazakhstan

by Peter Cave

  The Foreign Secretary had been busy making notes. He looked up now, tapping his pen on the table to draw Piggy’s attention.

  ‘So what you are saying, in effect, is that this project has never actually offered any direct, or perceived, threat to the Western powers, or us in particular? At worst, in fact, it might have cost us a few gold medals in the Olympics?’

  Piggy nodded, conceding the point. ‘Up to now, yes. But recent developments have given us cause to think again.’

  The Foreign Secretary chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘And what are these new developments?’

  ‘With respect, sir, I believe I can best answer that,’ Grieves said, rising to his feet and waving a buff-coloured dossier in one hand. Satisfied that he had the floor, he cleared his throat with a slight cough and carried on. ‘About three months ago, GCHQ monitored what appeared to be some kind of distress signal sent out from the Kazakhstan facility to the old KGB HQ in Moscow. From this, we must deduce two things – A, that some sort of accident or emergency situation had occurred within the complex, and B, the personnel inside are seemingly unaware that the KGB has been virtually broken up and disbanded over the past year or so. This further suggests that they might be completely out of touch with what has been going on inside the Soviet Union and the world at large.’

  ‘But how can that be?’ the Foreign Secretary wanted to know. ‘Surely they must have regular contact with the outside world – supplies, that sort of thing.’

  Grieves shook his head. ‘Not necessarily, sir. Our intelligence has always suggested that the facility was designed to be virtually self-sustaining. As long ago as 1969 an American spy satellite carrying out routine surveillance of the Soviet nuclear weapons testing facility at Semipalatinsk happened to overfly the base and monitor an internal nuclear power source. This suggests that it has its own closed power source, and it is probable that they also have their own hydroponic food-production facility along with a pretty sophisticated recycling system. The very nature of the complex has always been secretive, even autonomous. It is more than likely that it even has its own security system – a private army, in effect.’

  ‘Just what are we actually talking about here?’ Lieutenant-Colonel Davies interrupted. ‘A scientific research facility or a bloody garrison? Just how big is this damned place, anyway?’

  If the Foreign Secretary found Davies’s language at all offensive, he gave no sign. ‘A good question,’ he muttered, glancing questioningly at Grieves.

  The Intelligence officer shrugged faintly. ‘Again, inconclusive evidence,’ he said. ‘Satellite observation suggests that much of the complex is built underground, but we don’t know how many subterranean levels there might be. Basically, we have no way of knowing the actual size and personnel strength of the establishment. It might house a few dozen scientists and support staff. Or it could be an autonomous, full-scale community, of several hundred people living in a miniature city. Don’t forget that this place has been established for nearly fifty years now. There’s no guessing how it has developed.’

  Grieves fell silent for several seconds. When he spoke again, his face was grim and his tone sombre. ‘Of course, personnel numbers could well be a purely academic point. They may, in fact, all be dead anyway. Which, incidentally, is where the Chinese come in. They’re afraid that some sort of chemical or biological contamination may have escaped from within the complex, and may already have crossed the Mongolian border.’ He paused again, longer this time, to allow the full significance of his words to register.

  Finally, Davies attempted a brief recap. ‘So what you’re suggesting is that this place may have been engaged in chemical or bacteriological warfare research, and something nasty might have got loose?’

  Grieves nodded. ‘In essence, yes.’

  ‘Have the Chinese any direct evidence for this?’ Davies asked. ‘Have there been any actual deaths?’

  Grieves consulted his notes briefly. ‘It’s difficult to be absolutely sure,’ he replied. ‘You have to understand the unique background and make-up of Kazakhstan itself. It’s vast – almost unbelievably so. You could fit Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Finland and Sweden into it quite comfortably. Yet it only has a total population of some seventeen million – an improbable mix of races and cultures including native Kazakhs, Tartars, Uzbeks and Uigurs along with emigrant Russians, Germans and others. In Stalin’s heyday, Kazakhstan was Gulag territory. When the concentration camps were disbanded, many of the inmates settled in the area. Stalin also used the region as a dumping ground for vast numbers of people he considered ‘political undesirables’ – Volga Germans, Meskhetian Turks, Crimean Tartars and Karachais to name but a few. So we’re talking about millions of square miles still sparsely populated by people of widely differing religions, cultures and languages. And we are also dealing with a particularly remote region, in mountainous terrain not far from Mount Belushka. Because of the nature of this terrain, and the scattered, semi-nomadic distribution of the peasant population, there is no direct communications network. Any information which comes out of the area is essentially rumour, or word-of-mouth reports which might have been passed through several dozen very simple people before reaching the ears of the authorities. However, there are enough reports of dead and missing goatherds, peasant farmers and the like filtering through to give these Chinese fears some credibility.’

  ‘So why can’t they go in and sort it out for themselves?’ Davies asked. ‘After all, they’re right there on the spot.’

  Grieves did not attempt to answer. Instead, he glanced towards the Foreign Secretary.

  ‘With respect, Lieutenant-Colonel,’ said the latter, addressing Davies directly, ‘you’re looking at this through the eyes of a military man, without taking into account the highly complex and sensitive political issues involved here. This whole region is a territorial minefield. There have been border clashes between the Chinese and Russians for the last three decades, and stability balances on a knife-edge. The Chinese don’t dare to make a serious incursion into Russian territory for fear of sparking off a major incident.’

  ‘Then it’s up to the Russians to sort it out for themselves, surely?’ Davies suggested.

  The Foreign Secretary smiled thinly. ‘Perhaps you’re forgetting that there is virtually no longer any centralized decision-making inside former Soviet territory,’ he pointed out. ‘Every region, every state is in turmoil – fragmented and politically unstable if not actively in the throes of civil war. The Kazakhstan region is no exception. There are perhaps up to half a dozen different guerrilla groups and political and religious factions already fighting for territory virtually on a village by village, valley by valley basis. You only have to look to Georgia, just across the Caspian, to get an idea of what’s going on there.’

  Davies nodded thoughtfully. Grieves coughed faintly again, drawing attention back to himself.

  ‘Actually, to answer Lieutenant-Colonel Davies’s last question, I ought to point out that we believe the Russians did manage to send in at least one military team to investigate,’ he volunteered. ‘Our intelligence suggests that they disappeared without trace, with absolutely no clues as to what happened to them. We have no way of knowing if they even managed to get anywhere near the research facility.’

  ‘But I still fail to understand how the Chinese reckon to get us involved in all this,’ Davies said, becoming increasingly bogged down in the political intricacy of the entire affair.

  The Foreign Secretary treated him to another thin, almost cynical smile. ‘Politics sometimes makes for strange bedfellows,’ he said. ‘The Chinese are desperate for Western acceptance after the Tiananmen Square massacre. They are equally desperate for access to European trade markets, and, rightly or wrongly, they seem to believe that Britain could be holding the top cards in the Euro-deck right now. And, as we are already involved in close association over the Hong Kong business, they feel they have an ace of their own to play.’

  Davies started to unde
rstand at last. ‘So it’s a threat, basically?’ he said. ‘Unless we play ball with them, they’ll make the Hong Kong negotiations more difficult?’

  The Foreign Secretary smiled openly now. ‘I see you’re beginning to get a grasp of modern-day diplomacy,’ he murmured, without obvious sarcasm. He paused to take a slow, deep breath. ‘So, Lieutenant-Colonel Davies, that’s it, in a nutshell. We appear to be stuck with the problem, and the SAS would appear to be our only hope.’

  ‘To do what, exactly?’ Davies demanded. He was still not quite sure what was actually being asked of him.

  The Foreign Secretary stared him directly in the eye. ‘To get in there, monitor the situation and neutralize it if possible. Of course, you understand that we are talking about some of the most difficult and inhospitable terrain in the world, under the most extreme climatic conditions. As I understand it, the difference between daytime and night-time temperatures can be as much as 20°C. Once you’re up into the mountains, you can expect extremes as low as minus thirty – plus fierce and bitter northerly winds straight down from Siberia.’

  Davies nodded thoughtfully. ‘Not exactly the Brecon Beacons,’ he muttered. The reference to the SAS testing and training grounds went over the top of the Foreign Secretary’s head.

  ‘You would, of course, be given the full support of the Intelligence Corps and access to all the relevant files,’ the latter went on. ‘You would be expected to liaise with Captain Baker about the finer points of the operation, including more detailed briefing about the geography of the region. All I require from you at this stage is a gut assessment as to the feasibility of the operation. In short, could your men get a small team of scientists into that complex with a reasonable hope of success?’

  The last sentence was a sudden and totally unexpected sting in the tail. Davies jumped to his feet angrily, quite forgetting the company he was in as he banged his fist down on the table. ‘No bloody way,’ he shouted, vehemently.

  The Foreign Secretary kept his cool admirably, merely raising one eyebrow quizzically.

  ‘Come now, Lieutenant-Colonel. I would have thought this was right up your street.’

  ‘No bloody civilians, no bloody way,’ Davies repeated, virtually ignoring him. ‘The SAS isn’t a babysitting service for a bunch of boffins who probably couldn’t even step over a puddle without getting their feet wet. If we go in at all, we go in alone. And if we need any specialist know-how, we’ll take it in our heads.’

  The Foreign Secretary seemed unperturbed. ‘Yes, Captain Baker more or less warned me that that would be your reaction,’ he observed philosophically. He thought for a few moments. ‘Well, as I can’t order you, we shall have to resort to Plan B. Your men will secure the area and neutralize any obvious threat to an Anglo-Chinese team of scientific experts who will be airlifted in behind you. Can you do that much?’

  Davies simmered down. ‘We can have a damned good try,’ he said emphatically. ‘What about insertion into the area?’

  ‘That’s one of the matters we’re going to have to discuss,’ Piggy put in. ‘But basically you’d probably have to assemble somewhere neutral like Hong Kong. You’d go in as civilians, of course – either as tourists or visiting businessmen. From there you would be contacted by the Chinese and transferred to a military base on the mainland. We would expect the Chinese to put you over the border somewhere just inside Sinkiang Province, probably 100 miles north-east of Tacheng. You would then be facing a foot trek of around 350 miles. It’s going to give you supply problems, but there’s a possibility the Chinks would be willing to risk a brief air incursion into Soviet territory to drop you one advance cache. Certainly no more, since the official Kazakhstan government is extremely well armed with the latest high-tech kit. The republic has even managed to retain nearly fifteen per cent of the former Soviet total nuclear arsenal, much to the Kremlin’s annoyance.’

  ‘In that sort of mountainous terrain?’ Davies shook his head. ‘No, we’d probably never find it. And if we put it in with a homing beacon there’s every chance someone else would get to it before we did. No, we’d have to go in on a self-sustaining basis. What’s the local wildlife situation?’

  Piggy shrugged. ‘Sparse – particularly at this time of year. Probably a few rabbits or even wild deer in the foothills, but not much else. Your best bet would probably be airborne. Carrion crow, the odd golden eagle – probably not much different to turkey if you eat ’em with your eyes shut.’

  ‘Sorry, but you two gentlemen seem to have lost me,’ the Foreign Secretary put in. ‘I thought we were discussing a military operation, not a gourmet’s picnic’

  The politician went up an immediate notch in Davies’s estimation. The man had a sense of humour.

  ‘It’s a question of weight and distance ratio,’ Davies hastened to explain. ‘With a round trip of 700 miles, my men are going to be limited in the amount of food and supplies they can carry in their bergens. They’re already going to have to be wearing heavy thermal protection gear and, from the sound of it, Noddy suits as well.’

  ‘Noddy suits?’ the Foreign Secretary queried.

  The SAS man smiled. ‘Sorry, sir. I mean nuclear, chemical and biological warfare protection. Cumbersome, uncomfortable, and all additional weight. Quite simply, it’s going to be physically impossible to carry all the gear they will need for an operation of this size and complexity. So we cut non-essential supplies such as food. Troopers are trained to live off the land where necessary.’

  ‘They could, of course, take in a couple of goats with them,’ Piggy suggested. It was not intended to be a facetious remark, but Davies glared at him all the same.

  ‘I’m concerned about keeping them alive – not their bloody sex lives,’ he said dismissively. ‘And in that respect, where do we get kitted up, if we’re going in as civvies?’

  ‘No problem,’ Piggy assured him. ‘We can arrange for anything you ask for to be ready and waiting for you when you arrive at your Chinese base.’

  The Foreign Secretary was standing up and gathering his papers together. ‘So I can leave you two to sort out the details?’ he asked, beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable and superfluous. ‘How soon do you think you might be able to come up with a reasonable plan of operations?’

  Davies shrugged. ‘Six, seven weeks maybe. There’s a lot of groundwork to be done.’

  ‘Ah.’ The Foreign Secretary frowned. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have the luxury of that sort of timescale,’ he said. ‘There is another problem.’

  ‘Which is?’ Davies wanted to know.

  Murchison answered for the Foreign Secretary. ‘It’s a question of climate and temperature,’ he explained. ‘If there has been a biological leak, our experts seem to think that the extreme cold might well keep any widespread contagion in check for a while at least. Come the spring, and warmer weather, it could be a different picture altogether. We had been thinking in terms of getting something off the ground in three weeks maximum.’

  Davies sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly over his bottom lip. It was a tall order, even for the SAS. He looked at the Foreign Secretary with a faint shrug. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said quietly, unwilling to make any firmer promise at that stage.

  The Foreign Secretary nodded understandingly. ‘I’m sure you will do everything you can, Lieutenant-Colonel.’ He glanced almost nervously around the table before directing his attention back to Davies. ‘You understand, of course, that if anything goes wrong, this meeting never took place?’

  Davies grinned. It was a story he had often heard before. ‘Of course,’ he muttered. ‘They never do, do they?’

  The two men exchanged a last brief, knowing glance which established that they were both fully aware of the rules of the game. Then the Foreign Secretary picked up his papers, nodded to his two ministers and led the way out of the conference room.

  Left alone, Davies crossed over to Piggy and slapped him on the back. ‘Well, I think you and I need to go and sink a few ja
rs somewhere,’ he suggested.

  Chapter 5

  ‘So, what’s your gut feeling on this one?’ Davies asked Piggy after he had helped install his electric wheelchair in the lift down to the high-security underground car park.

  Piggy let out a short, explosive sound halfway between a grunt and a cynical laugh. ‘You know my views on anything to do with the fucking Russians,’ he replied. ‘And I’m not too sure about the bloody Chinks, either. Personally, I’m inclined to the view that every takeaway in London is part of a plot to poison us all with monosodium glutamate.’

  Davies grinned. ‘You’re a bloody xenophobe.’

  Piggy shook his head, a mock expression of indignation on his face. ‘That’s a vicious rumour put about by those jealous bastards at Stirling Lines. I take my sex straight.’ He paused to flash Davies a rueful grin. ‘At least, I do when Pam hasn’t got a bloody headache these days.’

  Davies smiled back. ‘Christ, are you two still at it? You dirty old man.’

  ‘Lucky old man,’ Piggy corrected him. ‘Actually, I think it’s just the delayed effect of all those hormones I was taking for forty years.’

  Davies’s eyes strayed briefy to the wheelchair, and Piggy’s truncated torso. ‘You never had any problems, then?’ he asked, a little awkwardly.

  Piggy grinned again. ‘No, the old Spitfire still flies. They may have shot the undercarriage to hell, but there was nothing wrong with the fuselage. The hormone treatment did the rest.’ His face suddenly became serious again, almost sad. ‘No kids, of course – that’s the only part that still hurts.’

  Children were a sore point with Davies as well. ‘Count yourself lucky,’ he muttered. ‘Mine hardly ever bother to even talk to me these days. Now they’ve got a new dad and a new baby-sister, I’m just a relic from the past.’