The Protector: A gripping, action-packed spy thriller

by Mike Lunnon-Wood

  Maintenance staff had been clearing ice from the lines since early morning and, for a few hours, Kirov was concerned that they would close the cable car down. Now they stood not in a group, but scattered amongst the others, the only difference between them and the other late season climbers and skiers that their packs were heavier. Otherwise they were dressed in brightly coloured ski jackets and hats and two were wearing traditional salapets under their jackets. Anyone would have noticed that their skis were covered, and close observers would have noticed that the boots were all randonee, for ski touring rather than simple downhill. Three of the six Spetznatz soldiers now wore light beards and one, with supreme confidence, leant indolently against a wall and chatted up two German girls.

  A car number flashed up on the sign and they all began to move forward, their fifty kilogram packs seemingly light in their hands.

  The easy confidence they exhibited when faced with the prospect of the coming days was testament to their training. Four of the six had done the advanced winter survival course, phase one in the Ural mountains and phase two in Siberia. They had lived off marmots and sable, pulled down reindeer and killed them with their bare hands and lived in snow caves, being hunted for weeks on end by their equally talented colleagues. One of them had lost a finger of his left hand, frost-bitten during a forced march in the endless February night in the mind numbing cold above the Arctic circle. For them glacier, crevasse, snow and ice were routine conditions. They were arguably the finest winter troops in the world.

  They went up in two separate cars, the second half arriving twenty minutes after the first group and joining them at the end of an ice tunnel that opened out onto the ski run and the valley blanche.

  Kirov took one look and knew that they would have to get away quickly. The visibility had closed right in and the ridge line down to the ski-off area was only an expanse of loose powder, yet to be trampled down by anyone foolhardy enough to go out. It was bitterly cold and the winds added fifteen degrees of chill to the already sub-freezing temperatures. The air was thin and, as Kirov breathed in, he reminded himself that they were twelve-and-a-half-thousand feet up.

  With this in mind, he watched the team donning skis and adjusting packs. The cloud swirled away for a second and, for the first time, he got a good look downward to the flat plateau at the bottom of the steep access ridge. Jesus Christ, he thought, Quayle has climbed this for fun!

  As soon as the last man was clear of the tunnel and had his skis on, he lifted one of his poles to signal he was ready. A woman, one of the several people who had turned back from the prospect of walking the ridge in boots and crampons, was watching from the end of the ice tunnel, unable to believe what she was seeing. These men were going to ski the edge, diagonally off the ridge down to the plateau, and she held her breath as the first led off. If she hadn’t been watching so intently, she would have heard the only word said, and may have even been able to tell by its tone it was an order. But she spoke no Russian and would not have been able to understand it anyway – and, as the last man dropped off the steep edge, she shook her head and walked back into the tunnel, knowing not to bother telling anyone because no-one would believe her anyway. One crazy hotdogger maybe, but seven men, one after another, wearing huge packs, in Randonee boots? No way!

  The new loose powder was crisp and squeaky and flew upwards as they moved with precision down the slope. The cloud had closed in and Kirov – who had given up the lead to his senior NCO – watched with pleasure as he swung the team expertly round the ridge and onto the plateau. There they stopped and, without speaking, dropped their packs and began reversing their gear quickly in the cold. The inner side of each man’s outer clothing was white and, as they reversed the garments and pulled them on again, they began to look like soldiers again, winter troops in snow camouflage. The last items pulled on were white gloves, white balaclavas and white thermal smocks, that covered the packs on their backs, and broke the outline. Now the only things not white were the skis, and for that they had spray paint. That could wait for tonight and their first bivouac above the Leschaux glacier opposite the refuge.

  Soon they had pushed off again, down the long gentle approach to the Valley Blanche, now a line of white shrouded figures almost invisible against the snow. From here they would ski for two hours down hill and glacier, before moving up the Leschaux glacier towards the awesome, almost vertical, broken slabbed beginnings of the mighty Grand Jorasses.

  Below, in the valley, the Chamonix Bureau De Guide charged with the safety of people in the mountains closed the lifts up to the Brevant and the Augille Du Midi, re-evaluated the avalanche danger, pegged it at eight, the highest level, and flew the yellow and black chequered avalanche warning flag outside the bureau offices. The other Bureaux in the valley did the same, all the way up to the Argentierre.

  Half way up the valley, in the chalet complex Girard reported this to his masters – who, being men who liked risks, and being men who had been waiting to climb the Macintyre for weeks, shrugged and agreed to go anyway. It was cold enough and they were experienced climbers – and half of climbing was evaluating the risks and accepting that they were part of the challenge.

  It would, they all agreed, be a fitting prelude to the events of the coming week.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The helicopter was fitted with a compressed air system that fed its engines, and advanced high altitude rotors. Even so, the pilot was concerned about weight and watched carefully as Quayle threw his packs into the rear door. No problem here. This job would be a breeze. One man and his kit was a lot easier on the aerodynamics of rotary wings in the thin air than six with dogs and probes and a stretcher.

  As part of the Italian Mountain Rescue service, this particular job was a little odd, but the order had come from someone high up in the Ministry of Defence and had been countersigned by the correct people. The method of its delivery had been strange – arriving by uniformed courier from – but the pilot didn’t care. He was paid to fly choppers in the Alps and that’s what he did.

  But the job wasn’t just strange; it was dangerous as well. Dropping some crazy man on the top of the Grande Jorrasses meant first stealing over the border, hugging the mountain’s side, hovering over the line and letting him jump from the skids. Down drafts and high winds were a problem up close to a peak that size, and time was pressing. He signalled to the man that they needed to hurry, pointing to the turbulent sky. Up there, the swirling clouds over the peaks were grey and heavy. If they left it much longer, it wouldn’t matter who had signed the order. Zero visibility was zero visibility.

  Quayle nodded and jumped in after his kit, thrusting a map at the pilot. He had already marked the point he wanted – and, as the helmeted flyer took the map, he nodded, raising a thumb.

  Soon, the collective was being raised and the rotors began their meaty thumping, the engine revs picking up. Seconds later, they hovered a few feet over the ground; then, the nose dipped and they began to move forward, gaining speed, like a huge dragon fly over a pond.

  Through the scarred perspex canopy, Quayle could see the rising massif of Mont de Rochefort and, towering above it, the south aspect of the Grand Jorasses itself. The track should take them parallel to the range; after that, it would be a slow thin air climb for the rotors, up the glacier to a point opposite the head of the Walker spur. There he would have to cross on foot back into France and over the ridge summit – and, once he got there, he would be positioned above the final towering pillars and stacks of the Macintyre route.

  He had collected his gear from Lacoste, the guide having been in fine spirits the night before. ‘I got myself a new job, Titus!’ he’d exclaimed. ‘Maybe retirement isn’t for me after all!’ he’d joked, with a wink. Then, wishing Pierre well and leaving Holly with Kurt, Quayle had driven through the Mont Blanc tunnel, happy with their security arrangements. Kurt had returned from Bonn with two men whose sole job was to guard Holly Morton, and they had unpacked their equipment and silently set
things up as they liked. Sergi had immediately collected his gear and taken the last cable car up the Augille du Midi and planned to do a night run down the Valley Blanche to catch up with the rest of his unit. Quayle didn’t even ask if he was comfortable with the thought of a lone night ski down a mountain he had never seen in his life, nor the seven hour up-glacier trek that would follow. He had supreme confidence in his abilities.

  As the helicopter took flight, Quayle took the opportunity to run through his packs and re-adjust some of the weight. He had brought three, including the parapente – and, in addition, his skis and boots. The large pack would go on his back, the smaller at his waist with the parapente, and the boots on the front. For the last hundred meters, the climb was not technically demanding. Just tough on the legs.

  The pilot eased the machine slowly through the billowing clouds, watching the vapour for the tell-tale signs of down drafts and eddies that, while picturesque from the ground, were sure death for light aircraft within scant feet of rock walls.

  Quayle pulled on his thick warm pants, pulled his boots back on and slipped on the crampons, leaving the bright yellow plastic protective covers on to protect the floor of the helicopter. Then, tightening the spring clasp at the back, he secured the safety binding at the front and sat back.

  The pilot raised a thumb at him and held up two fingers. Quayle nodded back, sliding his packs towards the door. As he did so, the helicopter began to ease its way in towards a boulder strewn shoulder, picking its way through the scudding cloud like a small boy through the couples on a dance floor.

  As soon as the tips of the skids touched, Quayle was out, pulling the packs after him, the wind gusting at the machine while its rotor wash flattened the snow. As Quayle found his footing, the cold seared into his lungs. Slamming the door shut, he banged once and dropped clear, lying down across his gear as the machine backed up from the ground. Within seconds it was away, its clatter dying – and, suddenly, Quayle was alone in the mountains, with only the lonely moan of the wind to keep him company.

  Shivering, he broke open the pack pulled out the guide jacket, which he pulled over his jumper. Warm again, he looked upward at the ridge line. This close, the summit was a sharp jagged jumble of rock, deep fissures eroded by wind and ice, deep enough to lose a man. I’ve an hour at least, he thought. Better get on with it. Loading the gear and humming out ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’, he pulled his Vuarnet sunglasses from his pocket and slipped them on; up here, snow blindness was an ever-present threat, even if the glare was filtered by cloud. And so, with a long-handled ice axe in hand, he set out for the ridge line, the hundred-pound load making the pace slow over the broken rock and ice fields.

  At that moment, several things were happening. Four men were converging on Chamonix from different directions. In the last miles of a journey that had begun in Moscow, KGB General Borshin drove the Saab Turbo hard up the valley. He enjoyed driving western cars and took the opportunity whenever possible, his driver sitting in terrified silence beside him. Meanwhile, Tansey-Williams had just arrived from Geneva with Kurt Eicheman’s boss, the head of the BND. The last man was an American, the Deputy Director of the CIA. He was not travelling alone, but with a retinue of three aides, who were hurriedly trying to piece together exactly what it was that the Brits wanted, and why they and the West Germans – in the absence of the Director himself – had insisted he attend. Leo Gershin was not a man who liked surprises, and it looked as if they were about to be brought in on something right at the very last second.

  Three hundred feet above the Leschaux glacier, Kirov’s team had dug their first snow cave at the base of a rock monolith. They had chosen the site with care. Whatever the snow conditions above them, whatever avalanche risk existed, the rock had been there ten thousand years and another few days seemed likely.

  There, in the deep snow, dug in and back, packing the walls and smoothing them down. Like Inuit people, they built a sleeping platform well above floor level with an air hole above them to allow the air to circulate. The cave was big enough for all of them, but would only ever have half the team inside at once. Below the main cave were two smaller two-man observation caves. These were narrow and long enough to lie in out of the wind and in relative warmth. Through a small entry hole, normally obscured by a white nylon flap, a man watched the glacier below and the refuge up on the other side through powerful binoculars.

  The day’s preparations were complete. Two men had crossed the glacier that morning and had worked their way up the other side, the route to the Jorrasses from the refuge. They had found the places they needed and had returned by early afternoon. The others had prepared for the specialty of these winter troops: crevasse ambush.

  Five crevasses had been prepared, with ice screws and cables set four feet down the wall. On the cable, and secured by a safety line, a soldier could wait in ambush almost indefinitely, appearing as a white shadow against a white world, to wreak havoc on any advancing army and disappear seconds later.

  Kirov himself was in the refuge in civilian clothing, a collection of oddly dated equipment about him, the trappings of an eccentric, waiting to play his part. As the sound of a helicopter reached the men in the cave, they tapped the transmit button on their radio and his hissed softly. Kirov himself reached over, switched it off and then concealed it out the back of the dilapidated hut in the snow. They were coming in by chopper. He had expected that. Too much powder snow for ski aircraft. The helicopter made four trips up the valley that afternoon and, by dusk, there were sixteen men at the refuge. They had quickly broken into two groups, four inside the hut and the remaining twelve outside, setting up small four man frame tents. They did so clumsily and there wasn’t the sheer bulk of equipment to support four four man teams on the face. While it had all the appearances of a major expedition by modern Alpine standards, Kirov – who had his gear spread across one of the bunks in the hut – quickly classified the group’s structure. The twelve outside were muscle, there to see no harm came to their masters while they indulged in their sport. They had been surprised to see anyone in the hut, but the demands of mountain etiquette kept their suspicions down and, when Girard recognised Kirov from the Albert after his ebullient greeting, he had spoken to the other three quietly and explained that he had seen the man before in Chamonix and he was harmless enough. Kirov had then welcomed them all – as one does in the mountains – and used one of his solid fuel blocks to heat water for coffee.

  “Here long then?” Girard asked in French.

  “Sorry,” Kirov said in English. “I only speak English and Finnish.”

  “Ah,” Girard said, pleased, repeating the question in English.

  “No. Away. Later tonight. I will do a night ski down the valley. Fund raising for the Sisters of Mercy Orphanage in Helsinki,” he explained, noticing Girard’s raised eyebrow.

  “And you? By the look of your gear, it’s the Petit Jorasses.”

  “No,” Girard corrected, stiffening. “The Grand Jorasses.”

  “Mister, had you noticed that winter is here?” Kirov warned him, good-naturedly. “That’s no mountain to be on in the winter!”

  “It needs to be winter to climb where we go,” he replied arrogantly as his three companions entered the hut.

  “Oh well,” Kirov said, smiling like a fool. “Rather you than me, eh? I don’t like that ice…”

  “You have done the Jorasses... in winter?” one of the other three asked.

  Kirov looked at him. He was the oldest of the group, silver hair well cut, nails manicured, a look of prosperity about him. “Yes. Some bits good, some bad. The stones…” As he spoke, he remembered the words with which Quayle had coached him, and added a Gaelic shrug for authenticity.

  “Which route?” he asked.

  “I tried the Macintyre two seasons ago. The weather closed in. Then last year..”

  “The ice on the Macintyre?” one said, a little too eagerly. “How thick at the top of the runnel?”

  “Well,” K
irov said, “half a metre in places in mid-winter, but now enough for a screw.” And, inwardly, he grinned. Thanks very much, gentlemen. The Macintyre it is. Tomorrow you can discuss the ice with my friend who knows much more than me. He’s looking forward to meeting you up there. If you like the thrills of climbing, you’re in for the thrill of a fucking lifetime. “Well, that’s the coffee finished. I shall get my gear together and one of you can have the good bunk, eh?” Then he began packing his gear into a faded khaki coloured pack, and finally took his skis from where they stood outside in the snow. They had watched him in silence so he thought he would add some authenticity to his story. “I’m night skiing every major glacier in Europe. For a few centimes per kilometer, you can become joint sponsors. It’s a good cause. The children are...”

  “I serve charity through other channels,” the silver haired man said. His tone was bored and his eyes gave away nothing, now that talk of the ice was forgotten.

  “Oh well,” Kirov said cheerfully. “Good-bye and may God go with you!” And he went around the room, shaking each man’s hand, thinking: if Titus doesn’t get you, then I’ll see you over my gunsight, fucker.

  But, as he left, there was one man whose hand he didn’t shake; one man whose presence he didn’t even detect, sorting equipment, down in the tent line.

  Quayle sat in a narrow fissure just three feet below the crest. He had selected the spot because, from there, he could see the valley below, and by rolling three feet he could look straight down the big wall itself, the sheer face of the ice field and across to the central couloir. The drop was three thousand feet straight down, the blue ice and black rock becoming one as the light fell.

  He had laid out his gear for the night bivouac and, just to be sure, had put a piton into the rock, then made a safety line through to his thigh harness. It was bitterly cold even out of the wind, but that could change in seconds and, in down pants and a heavy down jacket – and with the sleeping bag ready – he sat with his binoculars, watching the valley floor and the twinkle of light from the refuge. Some time later, he took a solid fuel cell from his pack and, setting up the tiny stove, he warmed a tin of macaroni cheese as best he could. At this altitude, nothing ever really boiled, but warm would be better than nothing. To follow it, he would drink cups of sweet tea and, later on, there was soup and high calorie iron rations in the form of chocolate and peanuts, broken up in a bag to be eaten by the handful.