by Chris Ryan
‘Don’t touch that stuff!’ said Phil. ‘Geordie, you’ll kill yourself. No kidding. Blow the dump up. Booby-trap the doors. Let the villains blow it up. Anything but go back in there.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘And let loose a bloody great cloud of nuclear fall-out over half of southern Africa? Forget it, lads. Anyway, I’m not going to touch it. Rasputin’s going to handle the warheads. Him and his pilot.’
There must have been something about my manner that cut argument short. Normally, if one of us had made a proposition as outrageous as that, the rest would have ganged up on him and suppressed the idea. For a brief moment I thought Pav was going to come at me physically, but I think he saw that if he did, I’d put him on the deck, and he checked himself.
Everybody was staring at me. I glared back at them.
‘The plan is this,’ I said. ‘The Herc’s due overhead the Mall at 1430 our time. We drive the mother wagon from here to the dump now, load it as fast as possible, bring it out and head for the Mall. The rest of you go back on the pinkie. Get on the OP and position the vehicle so you can cover the road junction with the .50. Get the best protection you can. If Muende’s convoy appears, you’ve got to hold it up at least until the Herc’s on the deck and loading. Then break, belt for the Mall, jettison the vehicle and get aboard the aircraft. Any questions?’
‘Comms,’ said Chalky.
‘We’ll keep the vehicle link open. You’ll have the satcom. You’ll need to keep Hereford briefed on progress. Get a frequency for the Herc and talk to the pilot.’
I looked round, and asked, ‘Anything else?’, but everybody seemed to have been struck dumb. ‘Okay, then,’ I said. ‘Let’s raise the Kremlin on the satcom.’
The call went through without a hitch.
‘We found the stuff,’ I told the Ops Officer. ‘Forty-five warheads.’
‘Christ! How big?’
‘Six-inch diameter. Six feet long.’
‘Weight?’
‘About seventy-five pounds, something like that.’
There was a short pause. Evidently he was doing calculations. ‘Under two tons in all, then,’ he went. ‘Okay. The Herc’s standing by.’
‘Does it have permission to land?’
‘Negative. It’s coming anyway.’
‘What’s its estimated flying time?’
‘One hour twenty to an LZ overhead at Ichembo.’
‘In that case, it wants to take off soonest.’
‘Where’s your present location?’
‘Just north of the town. But listen. The cache is in an old training area. There’s nowhere to land round here. The terrain’s very uneven, all low hills and reentrants. We’re going to bus the stuff out to the LZ we gave you. The Mall. Okay?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I have that.’ He read off the coordinates we’d passed him. ‘But wait a minute. You can’t handle stuff like that without protective clothing.’
‘It’s okay,’ I lied. ‘We’ve nicked some gear off the Russian mercenaries who came out on a recce.’
‘You sure? Can’t you wait till the Herc comes in? They’ve got spare suits for all you guys on board.’
‘Not a chance. There’s a rebel column on its way up from the south to grab the warheads. If we hang around here, the odds are we’ll get into a big fire-fight. It’s touch and go whether we can swag the stuff away quick enough as it is. We haven’t the fire-power to hold anyone off for long.’
‘Well, it’s your decision. What are your timings?’
‘Half an hour to load. Half an hour to drive back to the Mall. One hour from now, we’ll be on the LZ.’
‘Roger. I’ll pass that to the captain of the aircraft. Have you marked the strip?’
‘Not yet. We’ll need to get some smoke going. The strip runs east and west, and we’ll have smoke going at both ends. Wind state zero. Ground temperature around thirty-six. Wait one.’ I did another calculation in my head, and added, ‘Better allow another twenty minutes. Make it ninety minutes from now to the LZ overhead.’
‘Roger. I confirm ninety minutes. And take it easy.’
Dave Alton was a sound enough guy, but the poor bugger could have no idea of the true situation. I expect he had visions of our lads lining up on the edge of the runway, all nice and clean, like a rugby team before kick-off, to receive their poncy new NBC suits from the head loadie before they tackled the cache all together and drove in convoy to the Mall.
I switched off the set and looked round the anxious faces. ‘That’s it, then,’ I said.
‘What about the chopper?’ Phil asked.
‘Torch it.’
‘What, now?’
‘Why not? White phos into the cockpit.’
Phil wasn’t the man to miss an opportunity like that. He dived into the back of the mother wagon, came out with a white phosphorus grenade, ran the fifty metres to the Hind and tossed his little bomb through the pilot’s open door. Moments later there was a hefty crump! Dense white smoke erupted from doors and windows, followed by brilliant sparklets of flame shooting out in all directions. In another couple of seconds the front half of the aircraft was in flames.
‘Okay guys, let’s do it. And good luck.’
FIFTEEN
We tied the two Russians together with their hands behind them, hoisted them on to the front seat and jammed them in between myself and Jason. Then I started up and rolled the heavy truck forward. Black smoke from the burning Hind was billowing over the track, and I crawled through it in second gear until we reached the main drag. There I turned left, accelerating out through the wilderness.
‘Number twenty-one,’ I told Jason. ‘Keep your eyes skinned for a sign. That’s the branch we need.’
‘Yassir,’ he went, and I knew that if anybody could find the way, he would.
Soon, however, I began to be alarmed by the distance we were travelling. In the chopper, the journey had felt like nothing; in the lumbering seven-ton truck, the pitted dirt road seemed to stretch for ever.
Minutes flicked away. Five had gone before we reached the first junction. There, four minor tracks converged on the main route, but only one signpost was still standing: it pointed vaguely to the left and said ‘12’. Ours, I knew, would be to the right.
‘Is there a sign?’ I shouted above the noise of the engine. ‘Number twenty-one?’
‘Nyet,’ went Rasputin, but he nodded to the right.
Three more minutes brought us to the next junction. This time the markers were intact: Routes 16 and 18 went off to the left, 17 and 19 to the right.
‘Next crossroads,’ I told Jason. ‘It should have six side tracks.’
It was already 1342 when we reached the key junction: twelve minutes gone. I retained a mental picture of the intersection from flying over it, and I recognised it the moment I saw it from the ground. But where the hell were the sign posts? Not one survived.
On our right we had three possibilities. Without hesitation, Jason pointed to the first track, and said, ‘This one.’
‘Okay?’ I asked.
Rasputin nodded. I changed down into second, hauled the wheel over and accelerated up the overgrown dirt road.
Sweat was pouring down my face and torso. The cab of the truck was an oven on wheels, and the four of us were crammed tight together. Luckily I’d had the foresight to load up two full water-bottles. I got Jason to unscrew the cap of one and hand it to me. After I’d drunk, I unhooked the mike of the inter-vehicle radio from the dash, and called, ‘Green One. How’re you doing?’
‘Green Two.’ It was Stringer’s voice. ‘We’re in the OP with a good view of the road junction. Well cammed up.’
‘Roger. Nothing showing yet?’
‘Negative.’
‘What’s the range to the junction?’
‘About seven fifty.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘Approaching the cache. Wait out.’
I probably sounded quite cool, but in fact I was
shitting bricks that we were on the wrong road and were going to have to turn back, wasting more time. The terrain looked too flat. Then at last we reached the beginning of a deep gully, and I recognised the ravine with big, smooth boulders along its flanks. At the point where the sides closed in, we came to a wooden pole-barrier carrying one of the blue-and-white danger signs. I didn’t even slow down to look at it, but drove straight through. Under the impact of our bullbar the flimsy pole exploded. Pieces flew into the air and landed among the rocks.
The time was 1347.
‘Nearly there,’ I said, half to myself, half to Jason. ‘But Jesus! It’s going to take twenty minutes just to get back as far as the OP.’
My stomach contracted as the battered grey doors of the cache came into sight. I pulled up opposite them, switched off, and said, ‘Okay, Jason. We’ll both get out. You cover these two while I separate them.’
I opened the driver’s door and slid to the ground.
‘Out!’ I told the two Russians.
They both began shifting and wriggling along the seat towards me. It had been awkward enough getting them in. I’d foreseen that getting them out was going to be worse, and I was expecting them both to tumble on to the deck before they got themselves sorted.
Far from it. Suddenly Rasputin was on the ground, free, and running. Somehow, during all the bumping of the journey, he’d worked himself loose. Before I could react he was well away down the approach road. The pilot was still on the seat. I gave a yell, dragged him forward out of the way and snatched my 203 from its clips. By then, Rasputin was fifty metres off.
‘Stop!’ I yelled.
But I knew he wasn’t going to. I was too hot, too worked up, too mad to piss about any longer. Instinctively I opened fire. The first short burst missed. The second knocked him down, head over heels, and he lay kicking violently in the road.
By then the pilot was also on the move, running as best he could with hands still tied behind his back, not making much progress. Dimly I realised that if I went after him I could catch him easily enough. But I wasn’t in the mood for running anywhere.
‘Stop!’ I yelled again.
He kept going a few more unsteady paces. I brought the rifle up and put the sight on the centre of his back. Suddenly he pulled up and started turning towards me, but it was too late. At that very instant I squeezed the trigger, and the burst caught him full in the chest. He crumpled to his knees, went down into the dust and lay there hardly moving.
I was trembling violently – hands, arms, knees. I glanced to my left and realised Jason was standing close to me. He didn’t speak, but his eyes said it loud and clear: I should never have mown down that defenceless man, at the very moment when he was surrendering.
‘Jason,’ I went. ‘I know. I know. But I’m out of my fucking mind with fright.’
All he said was ‘Yassir,’ but from the way he nodded, and from the expression on his face, I knew he wasn’t blaming me. He understood.
I realised I was hyperventilating, and made a deliberate effort to steady myself down. I was horrified by what I’d done, though more for practical reasons than for moral ones. Feelings of guilt came later. The immediate problem was that I’d killed both the men I was going to use as human shields. In committing a double murder, I’d reduced our options to two: either we had to cut and run for it – and allow a stockpile of nuclear warheads to drop straight into the lap of a mad silvery – or I had to load the weapons myself.
I took the decision in seconds, without conscious effort. No way was I going to quit now. I didn’t feel martyred or heroic or any shit like that; it was just the way things had turned out, this was something I had to do, no matter what the consequences might be.
‘I’ll handle the weapons,’ I told Jason. ‘But first I need that overall.’ I pointed at Rasputin’s body and set off towards it, expecting to find the torso perforated by bullet holes. In fact my rounds had gone high, and only one had hit him, in the back of the neck, so the suit was intact except for a single puncture in the collar.
I rolled the dead man on to his back. His black eyes were wide open, and I had to avoid their stare. There was one long zip down the front of the suit, and others up the inside of the legs, from ankle to knee. Limb by floppy limb, I worked the body out of it. Underneath, Rasputin had been wearing a green linen shirt and thin DPM trousers. All his garments were sodden with sweat. So was the lining of the protective suit, and its collar was sticky with warm blood.
The garment was made of cotton, with a rubberised finish on the outside. It looked far too flimsy to be capable of blocking radiation – and maybe, I thought, the manky thing was radioactive already, from when Rasputin inspected the weapons earlier. Did I really need to wear this filthy thing? I hesitated, then pulled it on. In a pouch on the front I found a pair of gloves and a floppy helmet made of the same material, which zipped on to the collar.
Back at the wagon, I said to Jason, ‘Whatever happens, you are not to enter the silo, you understand?’
‘Yassir.’
‘Equally, you’re not to help me load, or get into the back of the truck. Okay?’
He nodded.
‘Get back up in the cab. Monitor the radio. If any message comes, relay it to me. Watch out for anyone approaching the site. If you see anybody, drop him.’
Again Jason nodded.
My first task was to open the heavy doors. I knew it couldn’t be done by hand, so I started up, swung the wagon round and backed up right close. As I made to get out, Jason also started shifting his arse.
‘No!’ I said sharply. ‘I told you, stay put!’
My hands were shaking again as I brought out Rasputin’s key and fumbled it into the new padlock. With that open, I attached a tow-rope to the big hasps on the right-hand door, jumped back into the cab and drove forward in bottom gear, dragging the inner end of the heavy door round its track. Then I had to repeat the process: back up, unhook rope, re-hook it to second door, climb into cab, crawl forward again. All that took up what seemed desperate amounts of time.
At last, the entrance was clear. Cautiously, I backed in until the tail of the wagon was under the roof, within three metres of the racks. It was a relief – not much, but something – to find that the cab was still just outside the doorway. One last time I ordered Jason to keep still. Then I brought out the helmet and pulled it on over my head, zipping the bottom rim to the collar of the suit. Instantly, I was hit by a sense of claustrophobia. The thick plastic of the visor was so scratched and hazy that I could hardly see through it, and the primitive filter mask made every breath a labour. My instinct was to rip the damned thing off, but I told myself I had to try it. With my watch buried beneath the tight cuff of the protective suit, I couldn’t read the time, and I had to keep asking Jason what it was. As I pulled on the gauntlets, I held up my left wrist for another check.
‘Thirteen fifty-nine,’ Jason called.
Taking a deep breath, I slid to the ground and walked into the silo. The truck took up so much of the open doorway that little light could filter in round it. After the blazing sun outside, the interior of the cache seemed dim as night.
It must have been temporary madness that drove me on. On the road I’d been wondering how I could force Rasputin to close in on the weapons without getting too close to them myself. Now I seemed to have got a terrific psychological boost from Jason’s dose. For the time being, I felt impervious to harm.
I advanced on the rack of warheads and checked the number. As I thought, there were five in the top layer and ten in each of the four lower layers: forty-five all told. I grabbed the nose cone of the one on the left in the uppermost row. The white enamelled surface was so slippery that I couldn’t get a firm enough grip to pull the whole shell forward. Looking closer, leaning right over the stack, I realised that the thing was being held in place by a set of four stubby fins which sprouted from the fuselage a third of the way down. When I lifted the nose vertically, the fins came clear of the timber cradle in
which they’d been laid. Chocks of wood, curved to match the diameter of the barrel, fell away, and the warhead was free.
At its rear end was another set of fins, long and slender, and round the centre Cyrillic letters were stencilled in black. I didn’t waste time trying to read the message. Drawing the missile forward, I held it in my arms, balanced across my chest, and moved crabwise to the tailboard of the truck. The weight was about what I’d estimated, and manageable: maybe seventy-five pounds. The length of the carry was only three metres, but Jesus Christ! The mental pressure of having that amount of warhead right up against my body!
The lads’ last action, before the parties split, had been to clear the rearmost seven or eight feet of cargo space in the back of the wagon. Non-urgent kit had been binned, and the rest piled up further forward. All I had to do, then, was slide the warhead in along the floor, tail first. The fins scraped over the bare steel, and I thought, shit: by the time we’ve driven them to the Mall, these things are going to end up bent and deformed. Then immediately I realised that if we got the weapons out of the country, nobody would want to use them anyway; they’d be scrapped in some safe location, so that minor damage was of no significance.
I got the first six warheads loaded without too much difficulty. But all the time my body temperature was rising; inside that damned suit I was being boiled alive. I could hardly breathe, and there came a point when the volume of sweat on the inside of the visor made it impossible to see what I was doing. There was no way I could continue with the helmet on, so I ripped it off and threw it to one side. My hair was plastered to my head, and rivulets were coursing down my neck and back, but the return of fresh air revived me, and I carried on.
The ninth warhead completed the first layer across the floor of the wagon. They didn’t fit together neatly, like pencils, but were held apart by their fins. At this rate, I could see, there were going to be five layers, the top one at the height of my head.
‘Time, Jason?’ I shouted.
‘Fourteen eleven.’
Christ! I ran back to the stack, snatched the warhead next in line, cradled it, scuttled across, decanted it, ran back. Some of the casings felt rough and puckered; brown spots showed where rust had pitted the surface. Three more like that, and I was panting desperately. The chemical smell in the air seemed to be accumulating in my mouth, producing an acid taste and making my throat sore.