by Mark Dawson
Bloom looked out of the window. The landscape was bleak and desolate, and visibility was drawing in with every minute. The forecast had predicted heavy snow and it was quickly apparent that it was accurate. Deep drifts had already been ploughed to either side of the road, leaving a white path down the middle that was often treacherous. Fat flakes fell down on to them, swept aside by the windshield wipers to gather in plump lines at the edges of the glass.
‘What a fucking mess,’ he muttered to himself.
Blaine turned to him. ‘Are you comfortable with what has been proposed, Mr Bloom?’
‘I used to be a field agent,’ he said. ‘Did you know that?’
The man said nothing. The man. What was he thinking? Bloom shrugged at the use of the word, so preposterous in the circumstances.
He continued. ‘I was based at Moscow Station during the Cold War. Have you been to Moscow, Blaine?’
‘No, Mr Bloom, I have not.’
‘Horrible place. Horrible now, of course, but for entirely different reasons. The nouveaux bloody riches rolling around in their obscene petrodollars. When I was there, it was just horrible. Cold. No money. The spirit crushed out of everyone and the bloody KGB everywhere. The world’s fucking arsehole, that was what I thought it was. I was there for five years. Hated every day of it.’
The car slipped across a patch of black ice, the rear wheels spinning and the engine whining as the traction control adjusted the power to keep them pointing ahead.
‘This reminds me of then. Not the snow, although I suppose that’s a part of it. Going to an exchange. I did two of them. Both on the Glienicke Bridge that linked West Berlin with Potsdam. 1985 is the one everyone remembers. Twenty-three American agents swapped for Marian Zacharski and three Soviets. Three years of negotiation, and then everyone drives out to this one place, their chaps are sent out to the middle so they pass our chaps coming the other way. We know they’ve got snipers. They know we’ve got snipers. All the time we’re worried that they’re going to start shooting and they’re worried we’ll start.’
Blaine watched him as he spoke. ‘You know Pope,’ he said.
‘I suppose I do.’
‘What do you think he will do?’
‘He’ll be careful,’ Bloom said, nodding to indicate the lights of the Escalade ahead of them. ‘We have his wife and we have his children. We have the advantage on him.’
‘Perhaps,’ Blaine conceded. ‘But he chose to meet here. There’s a reason for that. He is an experienced soldier. He will have made a tactical decision that the location suits him.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think that this is the only road in and out. He knows we won’t allow him to leave. He’ll have a plan.’
‘And are we confident about our own?’
‘Yes, Mr Bloom. Of course. We just need to execute it, and we will. None of them will leave this mountain alive.’
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Isabella turned back to look at the dashboard clock.
It was twenty minutes past four. She had been here for four hours.
‘Isabella,’ Pope radioed. ‘They’re coming.’
She saw lights angling up from the road. A car was climbing the access road to the parking lot.
‘I see them.’
‘There are two cars and a van behind.’
‘You told them just Bloom.’
‘They were never going to go along with that. It won’t make any difference.’
The cars crested the hill and approached across the parking lot. They were Escalades, big and black and with powerful headlights that swept ahead of them like acquisitive fingers. The cars crunched through the snow, leaving stippled tracks behind them, and pulled up, twenty feet away, one on either side of the Cherokee. They were both angled inwards so that the beams of their headlights hit the Jeep from two sides. Isabella had to blink and look away.
‘Stay in the car,’ Pope instructed.
‘Have you got them?’
‘Stay in the car.’
Bloom waited.
Blaine opened the door first and stepped out, followed by the man in the seat ahead of him. He swivelled in the seat, looking back through the smoked window to see whether he could see the van that had stopped on the slope before they reached the final turn. Blaine had explained that the men inside would fan out and work their way through the trees on either side of the cleared space. They would establish control of the location.
The second Escalade was visible through the window to his right. The lights blazed, but there was no sign of movement from within. Blaine had spoken with the driver over the troop net that all of the men were connected to. Blaine had told the man to hold position until he said otherwise, just as he had told Bloom. They would be cautious.
Bloom looked forward, past the driver and out of the windshield to the Jeep Cherokee that was lit up in the lights of both cars. There were two people inside – one in the front and one right at the back – but the light was bouncing off the glass and it was difficult to make out details.
His door opened. Blaine was there, the handle in his left hand and a pistol in his right.
‘Ready, Mr Bloom?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want you to raise your hands and make your way to a point between them and us. Call for the girl to come out.’
‘The girl? Where’s Pope?’
‘We can’t see him. There’s someone else in the Jeep. We think it’s the girl.’
‘And Maia?’
‘There’s someone in the trunk space. Probably her.’
Bloom’s breathing raced; he tried to master it. ‘I go out, ask her to come out, too, then . . .’
‘Ask to speak to Pope. Everything as we discussed. I’ll cover you from here and we have the men in the trees. Pope won’t do anything until he has his family.’
‘Yes.’
‘And listen carefully for my instructions. When I tell you, I want you to drop to the ground and find cover.’
‘Yes,’ he said, feeling all of his years. ‘Find cover. I understand.’
‘Now, sir – please, come out. This will soon be over.’
The Mercedes-Benz van had been parked at a right angle to the road, blocking the way back down the mountain. The six men who had travelled inside it dropped down, split into two fire teams and then hurried into the trees at either side of the road.
Curry led the team that headed to the north. They were all armed with M4 carbines, the 5.56×45mm gas-operated assault rifle favoured by the Marine Corps. Curry had fitted an M203 grenade launcher to the barrel of his weapon in the event that they might need additional firepower.
They were dressed all in black; they wore black helmets and their faces had been daubed with black camouflage paint. They wore night-vision goggles on standard assembly rigs that were attached to their helmets, and they had microphones suspended on cantilevered booms. Curry could hear Blaine, all of the other men and the control room back at the Lodge.
Curry picked his way carefully up the slope, moving more slowly than he might otherwise have chosen so that the other two men behind him could keep up. Even at half speed, they found the effort of matching his pace difficult and they started to breathe more heavily.
Curry forced himself to slow.
‘Curry to Ops,’ he said into his microphone. ‘Where’s the drone?’
‘Coming on station in T minus twenty minutes.’
‘That’s too long.’
‘It’s as fast as we can get there.’
‘Is it armed?’
‘Yes, sir. Two Hellfires.’
‘Full IR sweep as soon as it’s on station.’
‘Copy that, Curry.’
Isabella gripped the butt of the Glock a little tighter as the first and second men got out of the Escalade. They stayed near the car, the first man walking slowly around it to reach the other side. The headlamps were too bright, so she couldn’t look at the figure for long, but she could see enough to make
out that he was male and that he was carrying a pistol in his right hand.
The man with the gun opened the rear passenger door of the Escalade and, after a short moment, a third man stepped out. She tried to make him out, but, again, the light was too bright.
‘Pope,’ she said into the walkie-talkie. ‘Someone else just got out.’
‘It’s Bloom,’ he said, a fresh note of steel in his voice.
‘The other one?’
‘I can’t make him out.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Just as we said. Step out and call over to Bloom that you’ll meet him halfway. Then give him the second walkie-talkie so I can speak to him.’
‘What about the man with the gun?’
‘I’m covering him. If he does anything I don’t like, I’ll drop him.’
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Isabella looked back at Maia. She was still cuffed; she didn’t know whether she would be able to get out of the back of the car or not. She showed no inclination to try. Pope had already said that he would fire on her if she made the attempt; perhaps that threat had persuaded her to stay where she was.
Isabella opened the door and stepped out into the cold night air.
She raised her hands and walked forward.
‘Where’s Vivian Bloom?’
The old man turned to one of the two who had exited the car with him. Words were exchanged; Isabella couldn’t hear anything.
‘It’s me,’ the old man said.
‘Come over here.’
The old man walked out into the space between the cars. The lights of the vehicles formed a V, meeting at the Jeep. Isabella stepped through them and into the darkness, the beams forming a bright golden barrier behind her.
The old man was close enough for her to see his face now. His eyes were wide. He looked frightened.
‘Pope wants to speak to you,’ she said, holding up the third of McCluskey’s four walkie-talkies.
The snow continued to fall.
She took a step forward, extended her arm and held out the unit. ‘Here. Press the button to speak.’
Bloom took it from her a little gingerly, as if it might deliver a shock, and put it to his ear.
He pressed the button on the side of the unit. ‘Pope?’
The volume was turned up loud enough so that Isabella could hear Pope’s reply: ‘Hello, Vivian.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Don’t worry. I’m here.’
‘Really? Looks like you sent a girl to do the job for you.’
‘No, I didn’t. I don’t trust you. And I’m a better shot than she is.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can see you, Vivian. I’m looking at you through the sight of my rifle.’
Isabella watched the old man’s face; it looked as if he was about to void his guts.
The walkie-talkie crackled again. ‘Are you still there, Vivian?’
‘Yes,’ he said, failing miserably to keep the anxiety from his voice.
‘I’m sure you have something similar in mind for us. Snipers. A lot. An ambush. I don’t really care. You tried it in Syria, no reason why you wouldn’t try it here, too.’
Bloom looked up into the darkness that cloaked the hills. Isabella knew that it was impossible to see anything.
‘Where are my family?’
‘In the other car,’ Bloom said, gesturing behind him.
Isabella heard the sound from above and away to the northwest: a low buzzing, insistent, constant.
Bloom turned to the man behind him. ‘What is that?’
The buzzing grew in volume. It became a hum, then a drone, and grew louder and louder.
The other man spoke into a microphone, loud enough for Isabella to hear. ‘Blaine to all units. Inbound helicopter. Repeat, helicopter is inbound.’
Chuck McCluskey was concentrating hard. The weather was bad. He remembered what his army instructor had taught him decades ago. Mountain flying was challenging, but you always had to remain in control of the flight. You couldn’t let the mountain, the weather or the temptation to compromise do the flying for you. He kept that in mind as he flew into the mouth of a wide pass, staying reasonably low as Pope had instructed.
The snow had eased a little, but, if he had been given a choice in the matter, he would have preferred to stay on the ground tonight. The helicopter could fly through the snow with no problem, but the limited visibility meant that he was reliant on his instruments. Mountainous terrain like this was challenging at the best of times. It was even more so when you could only see the peaks and ridges when you were almost upon them.
McCluskey approached the coordinates that Pope had provided. The snow eased off a little more, and he could see far enough to make out the scene below him. He was descending towards a wide parking lot that had been built on a natural plateau. There was one access road into the lot and then a trail that led up to an observation deck that had been built nearer to the summit of the mountain. There were four vehicles beneath him: one of them, a car, was parked in the centre of the lot, away from the others; there were two big SUVs that had been parked so that they blocked the way to the access road and the descent back down the mountain; the final vehicle was a black crew van, parked behind the two Escalades, slotted across the middle of the road as another block.
He saw people outside the vehicles. There were two men standing in front of the first Escalade. One of the men was old, wrapped up in a thick jacket and with a hat on his head. The other looked to be younger and less encumbered by his clothes. He was armed with a medium-sized automatic rifle. Isabella Rose was standing directly across from them. There were twenty feet between them. They all looked up at the clatter of the Huey’s engine.
McCluskey reduced the speed to give himself enough power in reserve should he need to combat downdraught and then slowly started to descend. He didn’t want to stay on the ground any longer than he had to. Pope had explained that this was going to be an extraction away from possible hostiles, and it was clear from the rifle that he had not been kidding about that. The longer he stayed on the ground, throwing wet snow up at the helicopter, the greater the chance of something bad happening that would make it difficult to get back into the air. Ice could adhere to flight surfaces and change their aerodynamic properties, making them less efficient at creating lift. Chunks of ice could be thrown off from the rotor blades and get ingested in the engine, creating an engine stall. The chopper was de-iced, with protection on the intakes, main rotor, tail rotor and rear stabiliser, but that only allowed it a few minutes on the ground before it would be unsafe to attempt to take off again.
Pope was going to have to be quick.
Pope lay still beneath the Mylar blanket that McCluskey had bought for him. He was in the prone position. Both elbows were solidly grounded, with his supporting left elbow directly beneath McCluskey’s Winchester rifle. His body was at a slight angle to the gun, with his right leg slightly bent. The fore end of the rifle was supported on his pack; he was able to achieve excellent stability. He had folded the blanket in half so that he was lying on one half at the same time as the other was wrapped over him. He had been in the same position for thirty minutes and, as a result, the blanket had also been covered with an inch of snow. Pope was pleased about that. Between the blanket and the snow, his heat profile was significantly reduced. He had wondered whether Manage Risk would have been able to route a drone overflight at short notice or whether they might have IR night-sights. If they did, this would help hide him for a little longer.
He hoped it would be long enough.
The Huey’s engines clattered as it slowed overhead. McCluskey activated a downward-pointing spotlight and slid across the parking lot until he was directly over a wide space away from the three vehicles. The spotlight lit it up, picking out the clouds of snow that were thrown up by the downdraught from the Huey’s rotors. The chopper started to descend, a maelstrom of snow thrown up all around it.
Pope put hi
s eye to the sight again and looked through it at Bloom. He put the walkie-talkie to his mouth and opened the channel.
‘Are you still there, Vivian?’
Bloom had to shout to make himself heard. ‘What are you doing, Pope?’
‘Get my family out and send them to the helicopter. Isabella is going, too. Remember, I’m staying here until this is done. My rifle is trained on you, Vivian. I’m close enough to make this a straightforward shot. I won’t miss. You and me are going to stay here until Isabella tells me that she and my family are clear. If anything happens to them, if you try anything to stop them leaving, if you do anything I don’t like, I’m going to put a bullet in your head. Now – give the walkie-talkie back to Isabella and do whatever she tells you to do.’
Chapter Sixty-Nine
The helicopter touched down. It stirred up a vortex of snow, wet flakes being flung across the parking lot.
Isabella heard the squelch of static and then Pope’s voice. ‘Ready?’
She was frightened, but she tried hard to hide it. ‘Yes. Now?’
‘Now,’ he said.
She went around to the back of the Cherokee, gripped the pistol a little tighter and opened the rear door.
Maia was lit by the courtesy light.
‘It’s time to get out,’ Isabella said.
The woman did not demur. She unfolded her legs, brought them over the sill of the loading area and, with Isabella’s help, slid over and dropped down to the ground. Isabella told her to walk around the Jeep towards the two Escalades. She started to move. Isabella followed behind her, the pistol quivering a little in her hand.
She looked ahead.
Bloom was still there.
The man who had been standing behind him had gone to the second Escalade.