by Peter Cave
It was inevitable that the silence would be broken with a joke. Both Davies and Major Hailsham had been fully expecting the typical response of men facing up to a life or death challenge. It was a mantra against the terrors of the unknown.
Surprisingly, it came from a totally unexpected source.
‘Well, I’ll be all right,’ the Thinker intoned in a rich, deep baritone. ‘My old dad kept his Mickey Mouse gas mask from the Second World War in the garage for years. I’ll just nip home and get it.’
‘You’re not talking about one of those things with two flaps of rubber over the nose-piece and a flexible tube on the mouth, are you?’ Cyclops jeered. ‘That wasn’t a gas mask, you plonker. Everybody knows those things were standard Army-issue condoms. The idea was to make sex so fucking boring that all the men couldn’t wait to get back to barracks.’
‘Yeah, only they didn’t work too well,’ Jimmy put in. ‘That’s probably why you were born, Thinker. We’ve often wondered.’
A loud chorus of cathartic laughter rippled around the briefing room. Major Hailsham let it die away naturally before addressing the men.
‘On a more serious note, gentlemen, you will all, of course, have to report for a three-day refresher course in anti-chemical warfare protection. After that, we’ll all be taking a nice week’s holiday in the country.’
‘A bit of mountain scenery, perhaps?’ Jimmy asked, sensing what was coming.
Hailsham smiled. ‘Good guess, Trooper. Yes, we’ll all be tripping off to the Brecon Beacons for some climbing practice. Two or three runs up Pen-y-Fan with a bergen full of bricks on our backs should soon have us all leaping about like a bunch of mountain goats.’
This news was greeted by a loud chorus of groans, none of them louder than those from the younger troopers like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, for whom the harsh basic training in the Welsh mountains was still a comparatively recent ordeal. Yet they all realized its importance and value. Even the biting gale-force winds and icy blizzards of a Welsh winter would seem benign compared with the conditions they could expect on the mission.
‘So, your suggestions, gentlemen,’ Hailsham said, throwing the briefing open. ‘And if anyone says, “Let’s go to Majorca instead”, I’ll personally kick his arse round the Clock Tower.’
‘What’s the latest intelligence on guerrilla activity in the region, boss?’ Andrew asked.
‘Good question,’ Davies commented, taking over. He consulted the notes which Major Grieves had handed him the previous evening. ‘Basically, our latest information is that things are hotting up fast. The Uzbek Popular Front, the Birlik, appears to be gaining a lot of ground recently, and the principal Muslim brotherhoods are beginning to splinter into different Sunni and Shiite factions. Without putting too fine a point on it, Kazakhstan is rapidly shaping up as another Yugoslavia. What’s more important from our point of view is that any one of these guerrilla groups is likely to regard us as a strictly hostile presence. And you can forget any notions of a bunch of simple peasant farmers armed with pitchforks and the odd shotgun. Many of these groups are exceedingly well armed with Kalashnikovs, mortars and grenade-launchers. And what they might lack in training is compensated for by the fact that this is their home patch. As a result, they know how to use the terrain to their advantage. They know instinctively where to hide, where to launch an ambush and how to disappear after they’ve hit. It’s a formidable technique, gentlemen, and one which the Russians found out to their cost in Afghanistan.’
‘And what’s our brief if we get bumped by one of these outfits?’ Cyclops asked. ‘Shoot ’em in the legs and let ’em limp away?’
Davies looked at them all gravely. ‘I don’t need to remind you that this is not our war,’ he said simply. ‘Obviously you will be expected to avoid direct confrontation if at all possible. If not, your lives, and the integrity of this mission, become your number one priorities. You’ll have to make up your own minds if and when the occasion arises.’ He paused, looking around the room. ‘Now, are there any more questions?’
There was a long pause, broken by a few odd mutterings but nothing spoken publicly. Hailsham looked round one more time before finally nodding. ‘Then go out and have a good time tonight, lads. As of tomorrow you’ll all be confined to barracks until this mission is completed. We expect to go in two weeks.’
Davies walked over to Piggy as Hailsham followed his men out of the briefing room. ‘Do you think they have any real idea what could be in store for them?’ he asked.
Piggy shrugged. ‘I doubt it,’ he said, honestly.
Chapter 7
High in the Sailyukem Mountains, in the southwestern fringes of the Western Sayan range, the building seemed to be nothing more than a low, flat expanse of grey concrete which seemed to melt into the rocky hills surrounding it. Snow-covered and desolate, it was merely a vaguely geometric shape which looked oddly out of keeping with the peaks and contours of the enclosing terrain. Other than the dozen or so frozen human bodies which had not yet been completely covered by the swirling snow, or the burnt-out shell of the Russian MIL Mi-6 ‘Hook’ helicopter 100 yards away, there was nothing to suggest the Phoenix Project was anything but abandoned.
But deep inside there was life, even though here too, there was also much evidence of death. Silent and locked laboratories, sealed corridors and entire closed-off wings of the upper levels were littered with corpses, some human, some animal, some hideously indefinable. Hermetically sealed, and with all heating and power sources isolated, the building was a cryogenic mausoleum, preserving the bodies in much the same condition as when they had dropped, some four months previously.
On the fifth subterranean level, Tovan Leveski paced his small air-conditioned office and wondered if and when a second attack would come. He did not fully understand the first, any more than he could understand why his KGB paymasters had ceased all communication over a year earlier.
But then there was much that he could not comprehend any more. Although his body was over eighty in strict chronological age, he had the outward physique and appearance of a fit and healthy man of less that half that age – the direct result of one of the first of the project’s long-term experiments into arresting the ageing process, an initial step towards the dream of human immortality. Like so many of those early, hopeful experiments, it had been long abandoned. Too late, the scientists had realized that the drugs worked well enough on the physical body but could not arrest the insidious decay of the brain which comes with ageing. In fact, they even accelerated it. So Leveski survived, but with the mind of a centenarian trapped inside a middle-aged body. A mind which even at the height of its powers had fringed on the psychotic.
There were still a few brief moments of clarity left to the Russian, although they were becoming increasingly infrequent. When the epidemic had first become apparent, he had still retained the mental power to order the lower levels to be sealed off, condemning the healthy and uninfected to die along with their sick companions. And when the Army assault helicopter had arrived, in response to an unauthorized distress signal, it had been Leveski who had masterminded its destruction and the slaughter of those few soldiers who managed to escape from the burning wreck.
Now he waited, wondering if they would try again, and failing to understand why the once-prestigious Phoenix Project seemed to have been so abruptly and utterly abandoned by those who had so enthusiastically supported and nurtured it for so long.
But though slow and feeble, Leveski’s mind was still capable of sporadic cunning. He had taken precautions. If they did come again, Phoenix was ready for them. He still had control over eighty to ninety per cent of his original security force. The outer perimeter of the complex had been electronically mined and the wrecked helicopter and several of the Russian corpses booby-trapped. Any new intruders would die as the first ones had. This thought afforded Leveski a degree of satisfaction, despite his prevailing depression and sense of abandonment. Outsiders were unwelcome, and must be killed. In his
confused state, he was incapable of conceiving that the assault force had been on a mission of mercy and rescue. To Leveski, they had been simply invaders, coming to unveil the secrets of the Phoenix Project.
And many of those secrets were too dark, too guilty, to ever be revealed to the outside world. For nearly fifty years, Phoenix had been inviolate, a law unto itself. Funded by secretive agencies without reserve and staffed by experimental scientists without principles, Phoenix had carried out a range of experimentation which was without precedent and almost beyond the imagination of a normal mind. Using the unfortunate inmates of Soviet labour camps and asylums as basic stock, the Phoenix scientists simply bred their next subjects in much the same way as a battery farm would produce new chickens. By the mid-1950s they were able to incorporate new discoveries in the field of hormone research to force male and female children into sexual maturity at a much younger age, thus saving a few extra years on each new generation. A decade later a generation had been reduced to just ten years, and in vitro fertilization techniques and the use of fertility drugs to create multiple births were increasing both the breeding stock and the available gene pool.
But with the 1980s came the new climate of détente and glasnost. Official Kremlin interest in the Phoenix Project, which had never really been acknowledged in any case, began to wane. Soviet scientists in the mainstream of research became convinced that they had more than made good any technology gap with the West, in all branches of science. Phoenix, although it continued to be well funded by the KGB, became something of an embarrassment, and best forgotten.
Increasingly cut off from the outside world, the Kazakhstan complex rapidly became fanatically and fiercely independent – a secretive and self-sufficient community which closed ranks around itself and its short but terrible history.
Cyclops motioned the nearest air hostess over with a wave of his finger and ordered two more cans of beer, ignoring the faint look of disapproval on her face. Reaching down into the webbed pocket on the back of the seat in front of him, he retrieved the four previous mangled cans and placed them on her tray.
Jimmy McVitie accepted one of the offered beers with a wry grin. ‘Well, I’m bloody glad I don’t have any shares in British Airways,’ he said. ‘You’ll have drunk ’em into bankruptcy before we reach Hong Kong.’
Cyclops opened his can expertly and held it to his lips, taking a deep draught before answering. ‘Make the most of it while you can. You’ll find it pretty difficult sinking a pint with a bloody respirator over your face.’
Jimmy shuddered just thinking about it. ‘God I hate those bloody things,’ he said with distaste. ‘That’s going to be the worst part of this little jaunt.’
Cyclops grinned. ‘You could always take the new Irish version,’ he suggested. ‘You carry two rats in a little cage – like miners used to take live canaries down the pits. When they keel over, you know it’s time to close your mouth and stop breathing. It’s not only foolproof – it actually serves a dual purpose.’
Jimmy bought into the gag. ‘Oh aye, and what’s that?’
Cyclops eyed his companion over the rim of his can. ‘When you get hungry, you can eat the fucking rats.’
The Glaswegian was not amused. ‘Don’t even joke about it,’ he warned his mate. ‘With the sort of scran we’re likely to be getting our teeth into, rats might be a bloody delicacy.’
It was a sobering thought. ‘Mind you,’ Jimmy went on philosophically, ‘I did a four-day survival course on Dartmoor once and the boss had us eating worms. You sort of stir-fry the wriggly little bastards into a goo. A bit like grey porridge, really.’
‘Aw, Christ,’ Cyclops groaned, wrinkling up his nose in disgust. ‘What do they taste like, for God’s sake?’
Jimmy shrugged. ‘Not too bad, funnily enough. Fucking gritty, though. The trick is to suck it down without chewing too much.’ Having imparted this nauseating piece of culinary information, he returned to his beer with no apparent damage to his appetite.
Food and drink were not high on Major Hailsham’s list of priorities at that precise moment. With six hours still to go before their own Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, and a fast car waiting to whisk them directly to Heathrow airport, he sat in the ops room at Stirling Lines with Sergeant Andrew Winston, running a final check on the list of arms and equipment they would need on the mission.
‘So we’re decided on bullpups, are we?’ Hailsham asked, referring to the somewhat controversial Enfield L85A1 SA-80 assault rifles which had been made available to the Regiment just before the Gulf War. The weapon had suffered from several teething problems, including vital bits such as magazines falling off under combat conditions. These early design faults had now been largely corrected, but the gun retained a somewhat dubious reputation.
Andrew nodded. ‘I think so. Weight has got to be one of our primary considerations, and the SA-80 offers an appreciable saving over a conventional SLR or an M16.’
It was not a point which Hailsham was prepared to argue with. The chunky 5.56mm weapon might not be popular, but it was ideally suited to the operation, being easy to wield and possessing high accuracy up to a range of 300 yards. The fact that its design incorporated a plastic stock and foregrip made it markedly lighter than any other assault rifle with similar fire-power, weighing less than 11lb when fully loaded with a thirty-round box magazine. In addition, each man would be wearing the back-up of a standard Browning High Power 9mm handgun on his hip – a valuable addition to his personal armoury.
Cyclops’s L96A1 sniper rifle was another priority. Hailsham and Winston had considered the possibility of including a second and heavier 12.7mm Barret as back-up and rejected it. If Cyclops went down, any one of them could still handle the L96A1 creditably, if not with the same uncanny skill. And the weapon itself was by now proven reliable. Short of actual combat damage, it was rugged enough to survive most conditions.
A pair of general-purpose machine-guns, or GPMGs, were equally essential. The SAS had always made extensive use of this weapon, and it was rare for any four-man patrol to venture out without at least one. Although heavy, weighing in at nearly 24lb without ammunition, its belt-fed, devastating and accurate fire-power at ranges of up to 1500 yards had demonstrated it to be a life-saver in any situation where heavy cover was required. As was often the practice, the 200-round spare ammunition belts would be shared out and carried by all the other members of the team.
There is one minor blessing,’ Andrew pointed out. ‘At least up in the mountains we’re unlikely to come up against anything really heavy. So we can safely do without any anti-armour capability.’
Hailsham thought this over for a few seconds, before finally nodding thoughtfully. ‘Our main weakness is going to be attack from the air,’ he then said. ‘If we’re anywhere near rebel activity, it’s a sure bet that the official Kazakhstan Army is going to be monitoring the area with regular helicopter patrols. It would be nice to justify carting along a Stinger, but I think it’s going to be out of the question. What do you think?’
Andrew shook his head slowly and doubtfully. ‘I agree that it probably wouldn’t be feasible to take it all the way,’ he agreed. ‘But you’re right – being without any SAM cover at all leaves us extremely vulnerable. How about a compromise? We take a Stinger and say four missiles in with us as far as the lower foothills and then cache it at our first RV point for retrieval later? That way we would at least have some protection while we were still out in open country.’
It was a good suggestion, and Hailsham considered it carefully. The American Stinger system was a very effective hand-held surface-to-air missile, ideal for protecting small, isolated units from enemy air attack. It had certainly proved its worth in the Falklands, in similar terrain to the miles of steppe that they would have to cross before reaching the foothills of the Western Sayan. The weapon’s main drawback, from the point of view of this, or any other SAS patrol, was that the launcher alone carried a 33lb penalty and its individual missiles were each
a similar weight. It was a lot of extra baggage for a threat which might not even materialize. Hailsham was in two minds about it.
‘I’ll volunteer to carry it, if it makes any difference to your decision,’ Andrew put in, noting Hailsham’s continued hesitation. ‘And that’s not sheer masochism – I’d feel happier.’
The major thought for a couple more seconds, then said: ‘All right, you’ve got it. But we dump it as soon as we start any serious climbing. Hopefully the mountains themselves will give us reasonably adequate air cover.’
Andrew grinned with relief. ‘Understood, boss. Now, what about mortars?’
This did not need as much thinking about. ‘We’ve only got one choice, haven’t we?’ Hailsham asked. ‘It’ll have to be a couple of 51mm. Anything heavier is out of the question. I’ll take one; the Thinker can carry the other. Ammo?’
‘Mixed bag,’ Andrew said without hesitation. ‘Frags and smoke for daytime use; flares for night.’
Hailsham ticked off the last two items on the personal list he had scribbled out earlier. ‘Add a Claymore for each team and six fragmentation and four stun grenades apiece and that should take care of the hardware. We won’t be exactly travelling light, but it’s a step up from water pistols and a big stick.’
It was intended as a joke, but it reinforced what they both knew – the two patrols were cutting armaments to a bare minimum, perhaps even below adequate protection levels.
‘Mind you,’ Hailsham added, trying to put things in a better perspective. ‘We should keep in mind that we’re not actually supposed to be fighting anybody.’
Andrew smiled thinly. ‘Yeah, but has anyone told those bastards that?’
It was not a question that Hailsham wanted to answer. He scooped up his little pile of notes from the table. ‘Well, we’ve done our shopping list. Let’s just hope the delivery service is making house calls to China this week.’
‘In plain brown envelopes, of course,’ Andrew joked.