by A P Bateman
“So there was no Russian Spetsnaz soldier sacrificed by British intelligence.”
“Oh, there was, but not my son. That was a nice touch, don’t you think? Dimitri was there, went missing in action for a while but got out, escaping into Turkey. He was injured, but made his way back to Russia. We gave the dead soldier Dimitri’s identification, his life. This allowed Dimitri to disappear, lay the plans for this. Work behind the scenes. My team, apart from Alesha that is, all thought Dimitri was dead.”
“I even told your boss Howard about it before I killed him,” Dimitri Zukovsky said. “All calls are recorded; it will all add to the deception.”
“So what was your motive for all this, if not revenge?” asked Caroline.
Zukovsky smiled. “Many, many motives… But nothing you will have considered. You see, I worked for most of my life to do two things. Prevent an attack on Russia from the west, or attack the west. There were wars and insurgencies in between, but primarily that was what the Soviet Union trained for. And then we became as bad as the west. We found money and western values, celebrity culture and unearned entitlement. But not all of us feel this way. Look at the Ukraine for example. Separatists aided and funded by a hard core of true patriots. We have given enough away and we will give no more. We are not only strengthening our borders, but we aim to weaken our enemies.”
“A few demoralised underachievers? You’ll have to do better than that,” King scoffed.
“We have led you a merry dance! Destroyed your so called Security Service!”
“You killed three people due to retire within five years. We know about the hostages, where they were heading, the name of the boat. If we don’t have them back yet, we soon will.”
“A decoy! Some busy work for you to worry about, to draw pointless conclusions, to waste your time while we brought in a nuclear device under your noses!”
Caroline took her eyes off the pan. The steam was rising steadily, the burnt caramel filling the room with a bitter odour. “So your plan was to set off the bomb and get away?”
“Of course!”
“But we know your identity,” she said. “You’ll be hunted down.”
“By whom? We will be rewarded, receive new identities. Medals, even!”
“Medals?”
Zukovsky grinned, nodded emphatically. “Of course! This is sanctioned! This directive has come from the Kremlin itself. It was carefully conceived, even the GRU were tasked with investigating so there was always a trail and if the operation was pulled, nothing would stick to the men in power. Major Droznedov was sacrificed for authenticity, to cover the government and lay a false trail. This is the culmination of a task I was given in the mid-eighties. Then the wall came down, the Iron Curtain, as your prime minister at the time called it, and suddenly there were no more operations to plan, no more ground to be gained. I have waited half my life for this moment. This operation was Russian policy!”
“It can’t be,” Caroline said quietly.
“Every day, Russian aircraft probe your borders, stray into your airspace. You send an interceptor as a show of force, we move away. But every day, we go a little further, a little lower. Every week we send more,” Zukovsky smirked. “After the warhead wipes out your global communications at GCHQ, irradiates and contaminates your SAS at Hereford, all of the personnel in ten military installations within the fallout of our dirty bomb, including a US airbase, these Russian aircraft will be full of paratroopers. One hundred thousand troops dropped all over your feeble little land, they will target the police and have details of all your politicians, your local government. They will kill or capture anybody in a civil service role.”
“And the president is behind this?”
Zukovsky scoffed. “Not likely! But if we are successful, he will be assassinated and the man who will take his place orchestrated this mission. We will have a strong leader and a dominant presence on the world stage.”
“You’ll have war!” Caroline spat at him.
“Which we will win!”
Alesha walked over to the range and placed her AK47 on the worktop. She picked up the pan and smiled. Dimitri Zukovsky aimed his pistol at Caroline. Alesha walked over slowly, held the pan low. “Look what we have here,” she said. “You see what you did to me? You bitch!” Caroline glanced at King, then looked at the pan. She could see the froth of brown foaming caramel continuing to boil even though it was no longer on the stove. Alesha came closer. “You will not believe how much it hurts.” Caroline backed into the chair. Dimitri kept the pistol firm and steady. He was smiling. “It burns for hours afterwards,” Alesha teased. “And you will look far worse than I do!”
King straightened up, but Zukovsky senior shook his head, his pistol held loosely at waist level.
Caroline shook her head. “Don’t! Please!” She backed up further in the chair, it almost toppled but the heavy farmhouse table behind her held it firm.
“Beg, bitch!” Alesha said through clenched teeth. She held it out for Caroline to see. “You will wish you were dead when it eats through your pretty pale skin…”
Caroline flung herself forwards and kicked the pan. It upended and hit Alesha full in the face, her eyes and mouth taking the brunt of molten sugar. Every person in the room felt her scream reverberate within them. Dimitri and Vladimir stared on in horror as Alesha fell to the floor and wailed, but the wail became a gargle as the sugar in her mouth started to set and blocked her burnt airway. Her throat swelled, slowly but steadily closing off her air supply.
King took the kitchen in three strides and punched Dimitri in the face. The Russian started to go down, but fired his pistol as he turned. Caroline screamed, but soon regained composure and was out of the chair and heading towards Vladimir Zukovsky, only she was sticking to the floor on the cooling caramel. Dimitri fired again, but King had control of the man’s arm and was dragging it with him to the floor. Vladimir Zukovsky ran for the internal door and slammed it shut after him. Dimitri and King were fighting for possession of the pistol. King managed to get the gun hand out straight, then slipped his left forearm around Dimitri’s chin and onto his throat. He pushed down with both arms, and his upper-body strength advantage soon had the Russian groaning, but he pressed his knee deep into the centre of the man’s spine to unbalance him further. Simple physics meant something would soon give, and King shunted his position a little to make sure that it was the man’s neck which gave out first. Dimitri’s head started to turn upwards at an impossible angle and he grunted more as his neck was forced simply too far. There was an audible ‘crack’ and the man went limp. King let him drop to the floor and stepped towards Caroline.
“Oh my God! You’re hit!” she exclaimed.
King looked down and saw the blood on his shirt, he started to look unsteady on his feet. The wound was under his ribcage. Caroline stepped over Alesha. The woman was in the death throes. She was no longer visibly breathing, her scalded eyes were completely white with no colour and her hands had stuck to her face as the sugar started to cool. Only her feet moved, thrusting out in spasm every so often.
“Has the bullet gone through?” he asked, propping himself on the table.
Caroline checked, felt with her hand. She looked at her fingers and the thick blood covering them. “Yes.”
King nodded. “Get me some cloth, a tea towel. Preferably clean.”
Caroline rushed over to the drawers. She came back with two clean tea towels. She folded them and placed them over the wounds. King held them in place, wincing at the effort. Caroline unbuckled the dead man’s belt and pulled it through. She wrapped it around King and fastened it tightly. Dimitri Zukovsky was thin and the belt just caught on the last hole. He shuffled forwards and picked up Alesha’s Kalashnikov.
“Get his pistol,” King said, nodding towards Dimitri’s body. “We need to stop Zukovsky.”
The door had been bolted shut. King stepped back a pace and fired two shots at the lock. Caroline tried the door but nothing happened. He flicked
the selector up a notch, took aim at an approximation of the hinges and fired a short burst. Wood splinters spat out of the wood. He aimed at the lower hinges and fired another burst of about ten shots or so. He shoulder-barged the door and it gave way. He struggled to keep on his feet. Caroline steadied him. “We need to get you to a hospital,” she said.
King nodded, but he walked onwards. They heard gunfire. Four shots, medium calibre. Three shots a little louder. Two more quieter shots. Less echo, a sharper pitch. Now the sound of a car and some erratic acceleration and the sound of gravel under a wheel spin. They made their way through a scullery. Through the open door and into a large lounge area, empty except for an eight-foot long pine table, reinforced with blocks. King froze. Caroline stood behind him, pushed around his shoulder to see.
King quickly surveyed the area, then walked tentatively to the table. The warhead stood three-feet high and almost as wide. There was a timer on the side. It was counting down.
“He’s killed us all,” Caroline said from behind him.
King studied the timer, the wires coming from it. The timer looked to have its own internal battery supply. He could see the power source for the initiation, a series of laptop batteries. They only needed to hold enough charge on a standby setting, the timer would activate them to power-up and send their supply to the ignition, or detonation system. King recognised the thermite as Czech-made plastic explosive. A variation of Semtex. He looked at the wires feeding in. The heads of two RDX detonators were visible, but almost flush.
“I need some plyers, nail clippers, anything that will cut through electrical wires,” King said. Caroline bolted out of the room. King bent down and studied the plastic explosive. He ignored the timer. It was only going to interrupt his thoughts. After two minutes, but what seemed like thirty, Caroline came back in. She was pale, ashen. She held out a red Swiss Army knife. “Brilliant,” King said as he took it. He opened the scissors and clipped the first of four wires on the detonators. “Where did you get it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly.
King snipped the wires, coiled them backwards and gently eased the detonators out of the plastic explosive. His brow was perspiring, he wiped it with his sleeve. He felt nauseous. He knew he was losing blood. He started to lift out the plastic explosive, but stopped suddenly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Too easy. I mean, these things tend to be less technical than in the movies, but all the same…” He walked around the table and crouched down, looking up at the underside of the warhead. “Now this is more like I’d have expected.”
“What is it?” she asked, then said, “King, there isn’t much time.”
“Don’t tell me,” he said and started to dig at the explosive. “He’s put another one in here, but I can’t see the power supply. Oh, no…”
“What?”
“The power supply is set within the plastic explosive. The explosive is moulded around it. It’s a bundle of rechargeable batteries and a synchronised timer. There’s another electrically initiated detonator but the electrical current is also rigged to an old fashioned type fuse wrapped in some kind of abrasive paper – like a match and striker. If I simply pull it out it will light like a taper.”
“And that’s not good.”
“No. If I get the detonator out from the explosive and it explodes, it wouldn’t normally threaten the plastic explosive, but the old fashioned type fuse is highly combustible. It will be enough to detonate the plastic explosive. He’s got three in here by the look of it, he’s just hedged his bets.”
“King, I don’t want to worry you, but time is ticking.”
King pulled at the detonator, but it did not budge. He dug at the explosive, channelling out the detonator until he could see the wires. He started to clip them, but the scissors would not cut the wire. It seemed tougher than the previous wires, like titanium. He dug at the plastic explosive again and got most of the detonator clear. He looked up at Caroline earnestly. “I can’t cut this wire. Okay, tell me the time!”
“Seven seconds!”
King yanked at the detonator, but it didn’t move. He ripped the blood-soaked pad from his stomach and wrapped it in his hand, closed it around the detonator and squeezed as hard as he could. The timer counted out and the explosion sounded like a shotgun going off in the room and King fell to the floor. He couldn’t hear Caroline’s screaming because of the ringing in his ears. He looked at his hand, the cloth was in tatters and his burned flesh was stuck to the material. There was the smell of charred flesh and hair in the air.
Caroline looked at him, then turned her eyes to the timer and the warhead in front of them. She seemed to be waiting for an explosion she would never see or hear. She seemed to realise this and she dashed around the table and started to help King to his feet. “Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he sucked air through his teeth. “I need to get it in water.”
Caroline helped him back out into the kitchen. Both Dimitri’s and Alesha’s bodies lay still and twisted on the floor. It was a strange, macabre scene; they had almost forgotten about them. Caroline got the cold water running and put the plug in the sink. King put his hand in the water. He cupped some in his other hand and lapped at it thirstily. Caroline called an ambulance and the police on her mobile. She rubbed a hand over his shoulders, turned him toward her and they kissed. It wasn’t the prelude to anything more, simply a release.
“Let’s go outside.”
“You’ll be better inside. The ambulance will be here in ten minutes or so.”
“No, King said. “I need to go outside.”
Caroline helped him across the room. He was heavy against her, growing heavier as they walked. She opened the door and they shuffled out into the glare of the sun. The wind was cold, but the sun was warm. King shivered. Ahead of them the service’s blue Ford Mondeo was parked with the door open and the driver’s window shattered. Frank lay face up on the ground, his stomach and chest were bloodied from gunshot wounds and the Walther pistol was still in his hand. She helped King down onto a bench seat that had been made out of part of a wooden trailer. She hurried over to Frank and bent down, checked for a pulse in his neck. She stood up and walked solemnly back. Shook her head at King.
“Frank must have got worried, or bored waiting for us. He saw the damage to the Jaguar, took that Walther out of the boot. He managed to fire back at Zukovsky,” she paused. “It was Frank’s Swiss Army knife. He was dying when I got to him. He wanted me to stay with him, to pass a message on to his wife.” She rubbed tears from her eyes. “I had to ignore him. I knew we didn’t have the time.”
King nodded. His breathing was shallow. “I like you a lot,” he said. He looked down at the blood seeping out of the bullet wound. He knew the exit wound would be bleeding more. They were usually larger because the bullet deformed and changed shape, lost velocity.
Caroline took off her jacket, folded it over and pressed it into the wound. She smiled at him. “I like you a lot too.” She shifted closer into him. “It will be okay.”
The ambulance siren was audible, the police too. It looked as if the police vehicles had come from one direction and the ambulance had come in from another route. The flashing lights congregating at the entrance to the lane and filing down.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“For getting me outside.”
“Why?”
King rested his head on her shoulder. He was heavy, becoming heavier all the time until she felt he was completely rested against her. “I never wanted to die inside. I always wanted to be able to see the sky one last time.”
74
Six Months later
Moscow
Dzhokhar Ivanovich closed the file in front of him and looked at the eleven men around the table. Each man had given their opinion and each man had drawn the same conclusion. There was no practical way
to revive the operation known as Probuzhdeniye-Medved, or Awakening Bear. Sanctioned by the four most powerful men in the government, beside the president himself. Spoken of in whispers the operation was now being blamed on separatists within the military. The same separatists who had never given up on the Ukraine. Former army general Vladimir Zukovsky was originally to be named and blamed, but he was to be confirmed dead. FSB director Dzhokhar Ivanovich had made plans to award Zukovsky the highest service honour, the Geroj Rossijskoj Federatsii, or Hero of the Russian Federation. Of course, with a new identity and an award that would never leave the Kremlin, Vladimir Zukovsky would not be able to live as a national hero, but he would live out his retirement on the Georgian coast, a secret hero of the federation and in permanently funded comfort.
That was before the failure. Agents of the Russian Federation had been killed, the nuclear warhead was in British possession, funds were unaccounted for, and although Vladimir Zukovsky had escaped capture, his whereabouts was still unknown. Zukovsky was capable of finding the means and opportunity to return to Moscow and make a report. He had simply chosen not to. His failure to capitulate and throw himself on the mercy of the FSB was telling. The funds placed in various European Banks had all been withdrawn. The accounts now lay empty. Zukovsky had accepted that he was now wanted man. He had been blamed entirely and was now considered an enemy of the Russian Federation and would be treated as such. The directive had come from the president himself, and all twelve men at the table had agreed and sanctioned his termination. They had an ulterior motive though, and hoped Zukovsky would be killed before he could talk.
Dzhokhar Ivanovich stood up, bringing the meeting to a close, their business concluded.
75
Mallorca, Balearic Islands
They had taken the mountain road from Porta Pollensa. The road twisted back on itself more times than they cared to remember. A twenty-five-mile route that had taken over an hour and a half. They had stopped a few times for photographs, but the road climbed high through the mountains and the straightest section was no more than one hundred metres. She had started to feel nauseous at one point, so he had pulled over and they had sat and taken in the dramatic and quite beautiful view. Sat together on a large rock, their arms around each other, comfortable and complete.