by Peter Cave
‘I’ll go back and get the others organized,’ Jimmy shouted, turning and beginning to edge back round the rock face. Hailsham turned his attention to Safar, jerking his head upwards in a clear gesture for him to start climbing. Stepping into the wide base of the fissure, the little Uzbek jumped onto the first flat ledge of protruding outcrop and began to clamber up the chimney. Hailsham watched him progress steadily with almost primate-like agility, marvelling yet again at the man’s apparent ability to tap new reserves of energy.
The major began stripping off his assault rifle and bergen, opening it to take out a coil of thin but tough nylon cord. He secured the SA-80 butt upwards and then slung the heavy bergen beneath it. The rope was only two hundred feet long, but each man carried his own coil. Any two of them tied together should be more than enough for the job, Hailsham figured. By working on the chain principle, adding a new length every time someone retrieved their equipment, they would be able to hoist all the equipment up without facing the problem of how to lower a flaccid rope back down through the convoluted and craggy sides of the chimney.
Jimmy reappeared round the curve of the rock face, leading the rest of the men. He lashed his own rope to the end of Hailsham’s, then secured the free end tightly around his waist. Waiting only for a curt nod of approval from the major, he followed Safar’s lead and started the ascent.
Although physically demanding, the climb was not technically difficult. Even the final stage, which required a certain amount of bodily contortion to get through the narrowest of the crevices, was not beyond the ability of a reasonably fit man with a head for heights. To the SAS troopers, their bodies hardened to peak fitness, it was little more than a routine exercise.
Cyclops, the last man to come up, hauled up his gun and bergen and untied them both, deftly coiling his rope again and returning it to its allotted place. Hailsham considered their new situation. Somewhere on the way up, what had looked like a single and isolated pinnacle of rock at the bottom had merged into the next ridge of mountain behind it. The top of the chimney had opened out onto a wide, flat ledge, which in turn gave way to a narrow pass which seemed to have been slashed out of the mountain with a horizontal, scythe-like sweep. It was an odd-looking formation, and Hailsham could not even guess at the geological forces which could have created it.
Now that they were clear of the chimney, they were all fully exposed to the full force of the elements once again, whose fury showed no signs of diminishing. Although the thunder and lightning had all but ceased, the winds were as savage as ever, and the ambient temperature had dropped dramatically. Obviously the secondary temperature inversion was well under way. All of a sudden the downpour of sleet and rain ceased, to be replaced by a swirling white blanket of fat, sticky snowflakes. Within seconds, it was virtually impossible to pick out any feature more than a few feet away. Hailsham could only hope that Safar knew the terrain intimately, for any further progress now would be almost blind.
The men all pressed themselves in to the deepest part of the ledge, uncomfortably and acutely aware that any one of the violent and unpredictable gusts of wind which constantly clawed along the ledge could suck them from it at any moment and toss them back down the express route of the three-hundred-foot climb they had just negotiated. With knowledge like that, having his back to a solid wall of rock gave a man some degree of consolation.
In view of the dangers, Hailsham thought about ordering the men to rope themselves together, then decided that would be equally risky. Any safety factor was likely to be outweighed by the fact that they were all physically weak from the exertion of the recent climb and their senses dulled by the constant onslaught of the weather. If one man went off the edge, it was more than possible that the next one in line would simply have neither the strength to absorb the sudden strain nor the speed of reaction to do the right thing in the first vital second. In that case, there was every chance that they would all plunge to their deaths without a prayer. All in all, it was probably better that every man took his own chances, Hailsham decided. He had sufficient faith in each one of them to know that they were as much aware of the potential dangers as he was.
Wet snow plastered Hailsham’s face mask and goggles, obscuring his vision completely. He clawed at the tinted plastic covering his eyes, managing to improve his immediate field of vision to a misty yellowish blur in which he could just about see nearby shapes. Safar’s blanket-swathed form appeared as a vaguely ovoid patch of brighter colour against the general dull ochre. Very gingerly, Hailsham picked his way past two other figures, which he took to be Andrew and Jimmy, and pressed his mouth to the side of Safar’s face as it finally came into rough focus.
‘How far to this cave?’ he yelled.
‘Very near,’ came the shouted reply. ‘Perhaps thirty yards, no more. I will lead the way.’
Hailsham shook his head violently. ‘No,’ he shouted, emphatically. Reaching up, he pressed Safar’s head with his fingers, turning it in the direction of Jimmy, standing next to them. ‘You follow him, as close as you can.’
Meekly, Safar nodded his head in assent, without understanding Hailsham’s reasoning, which was essentially simple. The Uzbek guide, being the smallest and lightest of any of them, was the most vulnerable, Hailsham figured. And Jimmy was the most experienced mountaineer in the party. It seemed only logical that he should lead.
The Scot, having overheard the shouted exchange, slipped neatly into his role. Keeping his back still firmly pressed against the rock face, he began to move along the ledge, testing each step with a cautious probe of his left foot before transferring his weight to it. Safar, followed by Andrew and then Hailsham, moved in his wake, their arms outstretched against the rock behind them so that their fingertips were almost touching. Only the sheer size of the blurry figure next to him told Hailsham that the Thinker was the next man on his immediate right. He had no idea of the order of the rest of the men following, although it was really of no importance. Perhaps exercising more caution than was strictly necessary, the windswept party made slow but steady progress along the ledge.
A sudden yell from Jimmy came out of the swirling white fog for a brief second before the sound was snatched away on the wind: ‘I think I see something.’
Even as Hailsham turned sideways, a sudden and particularly fierce gust struck him full in the face as the wind changed direction again and blew directly against the main rock face. The immediate after-effect was to cause a strong back-draught which temporarily sucked the blinding snow away from the ledge like a giant vacuum cleaner. In a few moments of comparatively clear vision, Hailsham was able to see the mouth of the cave as a dark gash against the overall greyish-white of the mountain. He could even make out the look of triumph on Jimmy’s face as he stepped in front of the cave’s mouth and began to turn towards it.
Above the howl of the roaring winds, the staccato burst of gunfire from a Russian AK-47 hit them all with almost physical shock. For the merest fraction of a second before the blizzard closed back again, Hailsham saw Jimmy’s body lifted clear off its feet by the force of the dozen or so slugs which chewed into his upper torso and threw him backwards over the lip of the ledge. The screaming wind drowned out the faint sounds of the trooper’s body bouncing off a series of rocky outcrops on its way to the ground below.
Shock might well have frozen another man in his tracks. For Hailsham, it merely triggered off the lightning responses which had been programmed and reinforced by a lifetime of training. He reacted instantly. No longer concerned with caution, he threw himself past the still figures of Andrew and Safar, rolling his body along the rock face until he was a matter of inches from the mouth of the cave. His fingers were already clawing at his webbing, deftly unhooking a stun grenade and transferring it to his right hand, where he pulled the pin. Counting off the vital seconds, he jumped momentarily into the entrance of the cave and tossed the ‘flash-bang’ in, rolling back against the shelter of the solid rock face again in one smooth, fluid movement.
> Even in such a moment of sudden and terrible crisis, Hailsham’s mind was still making rational decisions. He could have chosen a fragmentation grenade, or he could have simply unhooked the nearest one, not knowing or caring which type it was. But the stun grenade was a deliberate choice. Jimmy’s death was something which was over and done with. It was not an act which immediately cried for vengeance. One trooper was dead – but six remained alive. Hailsham’s responsibility was to them now. Whoever was in the cave, he needed them alive, not dead, for it was impossible to get information from a corpse.
The grenade exploded with an echoing roar. The mouth of the cave belched light and smoke, the force of the explosion clearing a dark vortex in the blizzard. Hailsham swung his SA-80 into position and threw himself into the cave, his keen eyes sweeping the interior. The dull, greenish glow of a chemical light aided him as he made a lightning assessment. Even as Andrew jumped in behind him ready to provide covering fire, he had identified the position and harmlessness of the two occupants and was moving towards them, his finger on the trigger.
The two men, both natives, lay sprawled and motionless on the floor of the cave, temporarily concussed by the effects of the grenade. Hailsham jumped forward, kicking away the AK-47 and the much older PPS-43 which lay beside their bodies.
He waved the business end of the SA-80 menacingly as the first man groaned faintly and began to stir. His finger positively itched against the cold metal of the trigger. Now that the moment of crisis had passed, and his cold logic had been followed through, a wave of pure emotion swept through his body: anger, and sorrow, at the sheer tragedy and futility of Jimmy’s death tore at his guts and brain. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The compulsion to pull the trigger and rip both men to bloody shreds of flesh and bone was so strong that it threatened to overwhelm him completely.
Strangely, it was the sound of the rest of the troopers pouring into the cave behind him and the massed click of cocked weapons which helped him to remain calm.
‘Hold your fire,’ Hailsham heard himself bark. His finger eased off on the trigger as the second man began to revive and pull himself up into a sitting position, staring up at the sudden invaders with a look of sheer terror in his eyes.
‘Who the hell are they?’ Andrew asked, the question tailing off into a faint sigh of despair.
‘Kazakh,’ Safar spat out, total hatred and venom in his voice. He rattled off a short and highly impassioned speech in Russian which caught Hailsham unawares. Long before he had managed an effective translation, the little Uzbek had thrown himself forward and was reaching under the folds of his blankets.
Too late, Hailsham realized his intention. In a matter of seconds Safar had produced a wicked-looking knife and had dropped to his knees in front of the two captives. With two savage, sweeping strokes, he had slit both their throats.
The Uzbek climbed to his feet again, turning towards Hailsham and Andrew with a happy smile on his face. It was an expression which begged gratitude and admiration, much like a young puppy who has just taken his first crap outside the house. His sparkling eyes clouded with confusion at the major’s look of hopeless anger.
With a heavy sigh, Hailsham let his weapon droop towards the ground. He turned to glance at Andrew, his teeth gritted in a gesture of utter frustration.
‘Goddammit – I wanted them alive,’ he muttered helplessly. ‘They could have given us valuable intelligence about whatever other guerrilla forces are out there.’
Andrew glanced down dispassionately at the two bloody corpses. ‘It appears our little Uzbek friend knew something about them,’ he observed.
Hailsham nodded, remembering Safar’s brief speech before dispatching the two Kazakhs. ‘He seems to think they were part of the raiding party which carried out the massacre in their village recently. This ethnic hatred thing obviously cuts both ways.’
‘So what do you think they were doing here on their own?’ Andrew mused. ‘An advanced scouting party, do you reckon?’
Hailsham grunted. ‘Bloody good question. Wish I had the answer. If there are any more of these bastards about, I was hoping to know about it. They obviously shoot first and ask questions afterwards.’
Cyclops was bending over the two bodies, admiring Safar’s knifework. He was obviously impressed. ‘Sweeney Todd couldn’t have done a neater job,’ he murmured, turning to the Uzbek. ‘Nice one, Safar. If I ever do get to shoot that bloody eagle, you can chop its fucking head off.’
Although he did not understand the words, Safar was quick to pick up the suggestion of praise he had been seeking earlier. He grinned again, for the first time in the last few minutes.
‘What shall we do with the bodies, boss?’ Cyclops asked. ‘They ain’t going to be much company if we’re staying around for a while.’
Hailsham nodded towards the mouth of the cave. ‘Just drag ’em out and drop ’em over the edge,’ he replied. ‘There’s not much else we can do.’
The Thinker stepped forward to help carry the two dead Kazakhs to the edge of the ledge and dispose of them. Afterwards he walked back to the thick pool of blood on the floor and made a vain attempt to cover the gory patch up with dirt with the sole of his boot. Failing, he unzipped himself and pissed over the floor.
Tweedledee let out a low groan of disgust. ‘You dirty bastard,’ he complained. ‘We’ve probably got to kip in here tonight.’
The Thinker was unrepentant. ‘More hygienic,’ he muttered, justifying his action. ‘One of the bastards might have had AIDS or something.’
Tweedledee was not impressed with this dubious logic. ‘So we settle for a dose of the bloody clap instead, do we?’ he demanded sarcastically. ‘Well I know where you’re dossing down, that’s for bloody sure.’
Normally Hailsham would have let the harmless banter go. This time, however, he responded with unaccustomed edginess. ‘All right you two, knock it on the head,’ he snapped. He walked quickly to the mouth of the cave and peered out. Even through the white-out of the blizzard, it was clear that the daylight was fading. They had made it to the shelter of the cave just in time. ‘OK, so we basha down here for the night,’ he announced curtly. ‘We’ll grab some scran now and then get a decent night’s kip. We’ll need to be on our toes tomorrow.’
Andrew rummaged through his bergen and fished out the stick of preserved marmot. Only partially cooked, unflavoured and stone cold, it was chewy and barely palatable, but no one complained. Jimmy’s death, and Hailsham’s sombre mood, had subdued them all. They ate in strained silence. The Scot’s name was never mentioned. It was the unspoken law. He would not even exist again for any of them until his name appeared on a clock-tower plaque back in Hereford.
Chapter 17
Major Osipov had not been as discreet as he imagined. More importantly he had overlooked one small thing, in what was to prove a fatal error of judgement. In his contempt for Premier Kuloschow he had failed to grasp the essential nature of the man himself. For while he might be militarily, even diplomatically naïve, Kuloschow was not a fool. And he was at heart a politician, naturally endowed with the devious cunning of that breed.
At best, politics was an exposed and vulnerable profession. Even in the most stable and well established of systems, sudden and dramatic change could sweep up through the levels of power without warning, and with lightning speed. What might begin as a small pebble dropped into a seemingly calm pond had created a huge ripple by the time it reached the shore. And in the chaotic fragility which had followed the break-up of the former Soviet Union, such ripples could easily grow into huge waves which smashed down everything in their path. There could be no defence – only some sort of early-warning system which would detect that first tiny disturbance.
The other fundamental rule of politics was that the man at the top could easily become the most vulnerable – unless he did something to protect himself. The astute politician was aware of that fact and made preparations accordingly. Kuloschow was no exception to this rule. Although raw in act
ual experience, he was well versed in the theory of political power.
The buck stops here,’ as the Americans liked to say. It was not strictly true, of course, since it presupposed a man being careless or stupid enough to let the buck get that far in the first place. Or lacking the foresight to put in place a series of measures which could deflect that buck from its path.
Major Osipov had failed to grasp any of this. His ‘discreet’ enquiries through military intelligence into the buried secrets of the Phoenix Project had been the original pebble in the pond. Premier Kuloschow’s strategically placed chain of spies and informers had detected the first ripple and passed on a warning. This in turn had set in motion an inexorable series of events which could end only one way.
There was a perfect phrase to describe this phenomenon. The Russian peoples dearly liked to believe that it had originated in the roots of their own colourful language. Roughly translated, that phrase was: the shit’s about to hit the fan.
Kuloschow had few illusions about the precise nature of his own position. He was little more than a figure-head, and probably only a temporary one at that. He was premier in name only – a purely titular office in which he danced, puppet-like, to another’s hand on the strings. And it was to that hand that Kuloschow now had to turn.
It was ironic, even slightly insane. For all the cataclysmic upheaval which continued to sweep through Eastern Europe, very little had actually changed. Economic reforms, political moves and counter-moves, optimistic talk of democracy and Western treaties aside, one thing remained constant. The old ideas still ruled, the former regime was still in place and poised to resume its control of power at any time. The old guard had not been dismantled or swept away. They had merely gone undercover, biding their time until the moment was right to re-emerge and assume their former power once again.