by James Steel
His tone became more conversational. ‘You see, that sounds obvious but in practice there is a huge void placed between what we know and what we suspect we know. And our challenge is to cross that void, to overcome that uncertainty, to have faith.’ His face shone as he built up to a climax. ‘That is the only way that we can externalise our vitality, that we can reach that greater vision, that magnificence of soul that is Russkaya dusha!’
Lara could not argue against him any more. He had accepted his fate—that he might have to die to save the revolution—and in the face of this magnanimity her worldly concerns seemed petty and inconsequential. She knew he had won.
As ever, in these encounters with Sergey, she was thrown back into herself by his fervour. It had always been like that with him. It was how he had taken her soul in the first place and she began to feel pain again as his words tugged at the scar of that old wound.
Grigory could see that they had come to an accord and that it was time to move them back to more pressing practical matters. He walked towards them and the movement broke the tension.
Grigory was always a very generous character, used to handling sensitive creative egos. ‘Sergey, that was great, just beautiful, just beautiful. I loved it. Now, we need to think about when things are going to happen tomorrow.’
Sergey and Lara both nodded.
Grigory continued, ‘So, the email from Alex says he thinks he will have completed the raid and taken off from Krasnokamensk at 7.30 a.m. tomorrow. They are five hours ahead of Moscow, and the flight time is also five hours, so they will arrive here at 7.30 a.m. Does that work?’
Presented with a simple practical question, Lara could get going again. ‘Yes, we need to make the morning rush-hour news broadcasts. If we can get Raskolnikov into the studio straight away then we can go on air at once—maybe 7.45 a.m.? We have to hit everyone at the beginning of the day or all the media effect of a live broadcast will be lost. We need people going into work talking about it so that they can either come straight out onto the streets or at least spend the rest of the day watching it on TV.’
‘Hmm.’ Grigory furrowed his brows. ‘Right, I will email Alex now and tell him he needs to get that plane in here as fast as he can or we are lost. We can’t afford to have our big broadcast go out late.’
He turned to Sergey and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘And, Sergey, you will have to get yourself away from Krymov as fast as you can tonight or you are lost as well.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lieutenant-General Fyodor Mostovskoy knew that the attack on the prison camp would start that night but he did not hurry to get to his post at Moscow Air Defence Command.
Fyodor never appeared to get excited about anything.
The expensive call girl that he had just shown out of the door felt chilled by her recent encounter with him. With his thin features, pale skin and hair and lack of animation, it had felt like doing it with a corpse.
Even though this would be the riskiest night of his life, Fyodor had not hesitated from booking her; he never had any problem compartmentalising the different areas of his life.
It was late afternoon, but he took his time, dressing fastidiously in his airforce uniform. Although it might have seemed an odd time to go into work, air defence was a twenty-four-hour business and none of his subordinates questioned him; they were all too terrified of his chilling stare. Fyodor was that unusual creature in the Russian military, a teetotal hard worker, and this contributed to his capacity to unnerve his colleagues.
He did up his tie precisely as he looked out of the window of his apartment off Ulitsa Kosygina at the bleak winter view over the Moskva River. It was dark already and he could see the lights of the waterfront opposite through the gently falling snow. The area was the preserve of top government officials, bankers and businessmen. Fyodor was one of the youngest generals in the airforce and hadn’t pushed his way up to the top so fast for nothing; he knew what he wanted and enjoyed the trappings of power. His official driver and limo were ready waiting for him in the basement garage as he walked slowly down the corridor to the lift.
The black Zil swept out onto Leninskiy Prospekt. Fyodor enjoyed the feeling of being screened from view behind the small black curtains as they drove through the frozen Moscow streets. Although his features never showed it, the whole experience of the coup exhilarated him. It was a high-stakes game of poker that he had calculated would make him billions of roubles if his gamble paid off. It would also allow him to take cold and very bitter revenge on that idiot Krymov, who had failed to respect him in the allocation of spoils from the United Aircraft Corporation.
The rush-hour traffic going out of town was light because of the petrol rationing. They headed southwest, over the MKAD ring road towards an area of pine woodland. Passing the turning into the village of Kommunarka, they continued on and then turned right through a band of trees into a fenced-off military installation with a sign that merely read: ‘Moscow Military District Depot 5’.
The car pulled up at a guard post with a striped road barrier and his driver passed his ID out, as Fyodor waited dismissively behind his black curtain. They drove through into a large empty factory shed and parked.
When Fyodor got out, his expensive leather shoes clicked on the cold concrete and a small stream of frozen breath followed him like a scarf fluttering in the wind. He walked over to where more armed guards stood by a door and slotted his security tag into the wall. The factory shed was actually just a cover over a low reinforced-concrete bunker to shield it from satellite observation. He walked inside and through more security checkpoints, a metal detector and then had his retina scanned before he finally came into a room with a lift door.
A guard snapped to attention and he entered the lift and settled back to wait for the long descent. Eight floors down, the door opened and he walked out through another security checkpoint into the Moscow Military District strategic command bunker. This was the place that, in the event of a nuclear war, command would initially be handed to. The huge semi-circular room had rings of officers sitting at desks all facing a massive screen with various computer map displays showing the disposition of Russian air, sea and land forces around the world, as well as the last known position of potential enemy units: NATO forces marked in red and Chinese in orange.
It was full of officers from all the services: navy, army, marines, FSB, MVD, GRU and airforce, and had the subdued lighting and feel of a library. People stared at computer screens on their desks or talked quietly on secure phone lines. The main status board updated every five seconds, blinking as it refreshed. He shrugged off his greatcoat and handed it to the pretty female NCO by the coat racks and then walked over to his usual desk in the inner ring in front of the main screen and sat down to await events.
Nothing in his demeanour showed, but Fyodor took a distinct pleasure in knowing that somewhere in Siberia right now a small team of armed men was preparing to shatter the tranquillity around him and that, as a result, enormous amounts of money and sweet revenge would be flooding his way.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As soon as they had arrived at the deserted geological survey base on Sunday, the team had feverishly set about preparations. If all went well they planned to leave at 22.00 the following night, Monday 15th, and hit the camp early on the Tuesday morning.
The civilian Mi-17-IV medium transport helicopter was waiting for them in a large hangar with a workshop. It was a big aircraft, consisting of a front cockpit with a single large cargo bay behind, capable of carrying up to thirty men. Arkady and Yamba fired up the compressors and got to work on it to adapt it for military operations.
Arkady used the oxyacetylene torch to weld the four 80mm rocket pods they had brought onto pylons on either side of the aircraft. Yamba rigged up a simple firing switch through to the cockpit. It was going to be a crude and inaccurate system—relying on the volume of rockets rather than pinpoint accuracy—but would go some way to make up for the imbalance in troop numbers
. The automatic grenade launcher was fixed into the cargo bay next to the rear clamshell doors to give the helicopter a sting in its tail if they needed it.
As they adjusted the helicopter indoors, Colin got to work with the spray gun on the huge Vityaz tracked ATV outside, and Alex was able to get a quick update from Bogdan on local conditions. During this he discovered that the Russian was a former Spetznatz soldier who had been working on Sergey’s close protection unit for years and was trusted by him. He was dour and taciturn, and obviously didn’t like having to work with foreigners, but once he saw that Alex was purely focused on the job in hand he got stuck in as well.
Alex then got the team organised on their skis and they trekked out two miles into the forest. As they slid along between the silent trees, the cold still made him gasp and the dry snow creaked under their skis. They came to a long break through the trees where they could begin zeroing their weapons.
They set up four logs at the end of the open ground. Alex, Colin, Magnus and Pete then lay prone, squinted along their weapons and began the slow process of firing into the targets, stopping to tweak their sights and then firing again until they were satisfied their iron and laser sights were zeroed. Their 5.45mm AN-94 assault rifles were more complex to use and maintain than the older AK-74s, but had a higher rate of fire at 600 rounds per minute, were more accurate, and packed a greater punch with their GP-30 underslung grenade launchers.
Magnus took twice as long as the others as he had his sniper rifle to take extra time over as well; this would be absolutely crucial to the success of the assault and was now his prized possession.
Arkady’s dealer had really come through for them. In a short space of time he had managed to get hold of a much-prized Accuracy International L115A3 long-range rifle. This was the top NATO-issue sniper weapon, firing a 8.59mm bullet, heavier than the 7.62mm round of the old L96, and thus less likely to be deflected by wind over long ranges. With its Schmidt & Bender 5-25x56 PM II LP telescopic sights, an extra night-vision sight attached and suppressors to reduce flash and noise signature, it was going to add a silent and lethal element to the assault.
The plan was for the three-man assault team of Alex, Magnus and Pete to fly fifty miles due north to the prison. Colin and Bogdan would approach the camp at the same time, but overland in the Vityaz ATV.
The fly-by-wire systems in the Mil made single-pilot operation possible for Arkady, but Yamba would still act as his co-pilot and gunner. To make sure that the helicopter couldn’t be detected by any radar systems in the area they would fly at treetop level. Alex knew from experience that Arkady took this literally. He had come back from more than a few raids with branches stuck in their landing gear.
To avoid the possibility of any noise detection they would rope down into the woods with their skis ten miles out from the camp. On the way in they would recce two clearings large enough to take the Mil’s twenty-one-metre rotors, to act as main and backup extraction points. Co-ordinates for these would then be relayed back to the helicopter by secure burst VHF transmission. Alex wanted extraction to be done well away from the camp. Helicopters were delicate flying machines and he didn’t want theirs brought anywhere near a camp full of men with assault rifles and watchtowers with machine guns.
The alterations on the helicopter had taken longer than expected but once they and all other preparations were complete, the team had sat down with Bogdan round a table in the office to finalise details in the early afternoon on Monday, in expectation of leaving at 22.00 that night.
The door banged open and Arkady stomped in, his face was grim, a cigarette sticking upwards in his mouth as he scowled. He had just been on the internet and held a printout from the Russian Federation Meteorological Office in his hands.
‘Hmm, it’s not looking good. We have storm coming in tonight from the northeast. That will be real bitch.’
He handed the sheet to Alex. Magnus walked round the table to look over his shoulder. Ignoring the Cyrillic writing, he could see the projected weather maps and they didn’t look good.
Alex turned and looked at him, prepared to defer to his arctic expert. ‘How long will it take to blow through?’
‘Looks like it should go through overnight tonight; it will be quite severe, but fast at least.’
‘What are the operational issues?’
The Norwegian gave his characteristic pause and then cleared his throat before answering, ‘Well, this type of storm will make conditions very dangerous. Flying the helicopter will be difficult, navigation on the ground will be much harder in a whiteout, and there will be increased frostbite risk. I know we have to be quick but I think we must wait for a day until this blows through. It would be risky to go out in it.’
Alex thought hard. This was what being the commanding officer was all about: balancing the possible threat to Raskolnikov against operational conditions. There was no point in rushing off into a terrible situation and risking everything if it would blow over tonight. Raskolnikov could survive another day in the camp.
Alex nodded and turned to the team. ‘OK, then we’ll delay departure until 22.00 tomorrow, Tuesday the sixteenth. I’ll go and transmit that timing to our Moscow contacts.’
The rest of the team nodded, relieved that they wouldn’t have to face the teeth of the storm. Col sighed. ‘Right-oh, well, I’ll go and put the kettle on, shall I?’
Alex walked out to the small office down the corridor that had an internet connection to send the details to Sergey and the others. As there was no mobile signal around the base, it was their only contact with the rest of the operation.
Two minutes later the door banged open as he marched back in.
‘Right, cancel last orders! Moscow contact reports target will be killed tomorrow morning. We go as soon as it’s dark tonight, storm or no storm! Crack on!’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Roman Raskolnikov was worried.
He was lying on his bunk just under the frosty rafters, in the time before lights out. He had spoken to Olga last Thursday and hadn’t seen her since, so he had no idea if she had been able to pass the information on about the attempt to kill him, and if it would do any good if she had. He didn’t know what she did with it or who received it, and what they could do for him anyway. It just helped to feel that someone outside this place knew and cared about what was happening to him.
Now, however, Roman felt uncharacteristically depressed by recent events. He had taken Danni’s death hard and the river of courage inside him that he had been drawing on for two years seemed to be drying up. As he lay there he had a cold, sick certainty that they were finally going to get him.
All the precautions his supporters had taken to protect him seemed pitiful and pointless. They might want to make his assassination look like an accident for the sake of the press but they could do it whenever they wanted. Whether they used Getmanov or just some guards it didn’t seem to matter. Part of him wished that they would just get on with it.
He heard a whispering sound below and someone muttered: ‘Vadim’s coming up.’ The high stack of four wooden bunks creaked and swayed as Vadim climbed up the ladder.
He was a supporter of Roman’s, who worked as an orderly in the hospital block, a frail former nurse and junkie convicted of stealing drugs. As a trustie he was able to move around the camp and do jobs that allowed him to pick up information from overheard conversations. He was also a homosexual and had been abused throughout his life for it; he seemed to favour Roman because he had at least tried to stand against the whole system of oppression in the country.
He didn’t sleep in Barrack 9 so Roman wondered what he was doing here now; he hadn’t spoken to him in weeks. He raised himself on an elbow and drew his legs back to allow the little man to swing himself onto the foot of his bed.
‘Roman,’ he said by way of greeting, and nervously put out his hand. They sat next to each other on the bed, hunched down under the ceiling with their heads close together.
‘I’ve
been trying to see you for a week now,’ Vadim whispered urgently, his eyes popping out of his rat-like face, ‘but I couldn’t get into your hut until I did someone a favour.’ He winced.‘I tried to come and see you as soon as it happened—I mean Danni…’ He tailed off and ducked his head before picking up again. ‘I was on duty in the infirmary when they brought him in…they were laughing.’ He shook his head. ‘Said it was planned—to let the stove run out—said they wanted to get rid of him so’s they could get at you easier.’ He looked down.
Roman looked at him dully. It was bad news heaped on bad news, like a blow falling on a bruise; he hardly even felt it now.
Vadim sobbed as he recalled: ‘He knew he was going to die—the guards told him they’d let the stove go out—so he cut the words “Our last hope!” into his forearm.’
Roman looked at him in horror now, shaken out of his numb state.
Vadim took it as disbelief. ‘No—it’s true; they knocked out one of his front teeth when they beat him up in the cell and he used it to cut his skin.’
They both paused to contemplate the horror, before Vadim came out with his parting shot, almost an afterthought now.
‘Also, today, I was in the guardroom scrubbing the floor when I overheard Kuzembaev saying that they’re going to send you to the sawmill tomorrow. He said that orders had come through last week to kill you and that, after they failed with the logging, the commandant just wants to get on with it and make sure they kill you this time.’
Roman was now jolted from grief to fear.
Vadim tried to give a look of support but it ended up looking like pity offered to a condemned man.
When the nurse had swung himself awkwardly back down the ladder, Roman was left in a state of shock. In his mind’s eye he could see the spinning blades of the sawmill.