A murmur of agreement trickled through the camp.
‘And with Allah on our side, how can we not win?’ Akhmet’s voice soared. ‘Some accuse us of being terrorists. What does that make the Russians? What do you call those who kill thousands of innocent Chechen women and children and old people? What words do you find to describe those who rape and murder a heavily pregnant women and the baby in her womb? How many of you have lost loved ones, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons? Remember this, if you remember nothing else: we fight today to defend our people.
‘Do not forget that the Russians are running scared. They are so frightened of us they lie to their own citizens about our victories in battle. Our ambushes are explained away as mines, or booby-traps, or roadside bombs, and when a Russian soldier is killed, his death is blamed on an accident, a road crash or the mishandling of a weapon. Sometimes a death is not mentioned at all. This is the Russian way,’ he sneered. ‘What must the mothers think, that their sons were taken away by evil spirits?’ Akhmet let out a derisive laugh, his fighters joining in until he finally called for quiet with a raised hand. Silence fell soft like a cashmere blanket. Nobody moved. Nobody stirred.
‘Do not spare the enemy, but be careful where there are civilians. We do not want to hurt our own. Remember that we live in equality. We respect the rights of others. We live free and equal like wolves.’
Then his tone became grave. ‘Some of you today will not return,’ he said. ‘To those who go to Paradise, I say think of us as we will surely remember you. Keep in mind that to die in battle is a magnificent thing. Remember this also: this is our land. It belongs to us. It will always remain our land.’
‘Ready?’ Darke said, eyeing him. He wore grenades in his webbing, a pistol on his belt, Kalashnikov in his hands. His stare was icy.
Tallis nodded, grabbed his Kurtz and six mags, thirty rounds in each, and followed. He had no choice.
They moved in a slow convoy down the other side of the mountains while the mist was still creeping among the trees. The track was stony and rutted, eventually widening as they dropped down into the foothills. With several fighters in their vehicle, Tallis had little option but to go along with what was being asked of him. If this ever got out, he wondered how the SIS was going to square two Brits fighting alongside Chechen warriors against the sovereign forces of Russia. And it made him feel queasy.
From the moment they reached flatter ground, they moved on foot, in single file, two metres apart. The way was wooded, giving excellent cover. They advanced in a rough arrowhead formation with Sultan as point man, Darke following as leader, Tallis behind him to cover, with two flanking warriors carrying machine-guns and grenade launchers, and two men behind them, including the Russian, Alexander. They formed the small advance party to secure a temporary base, the remaining fighters split into groups of four sixteen-man units some distance behind, the rear led by Akhmet. Lula and Irina alone were given a roving commission, their job to spot and kill.
They were in a forest, thick with leaf, the mist swirling like smoke through the trees. Several dozen metres ahead lay the police station, its occupants sleepy and unaware. Sultan stopped, scanning the horizon, ears attuned for sound of the enemy—and that meant anyone who fought against them. Silently giving a thumbs-up, he motioned for the other sections to advance, which they did by fanning out, the team to the right charged with setting up base plates without which the aim would prove inaccurate for the mortars.
The military convoy was timed to pass that way in less than half an hour. Explosives had already been put in place to bring the convoy to a halt. Akhmet and his men planned to take the convoy and the police station simultaneously from all four sides in an overwhelming show of force. Surprise was key. The enemy might set the time, Tallis remembered from a piece of military fieldcraft, but the attacker sets the place. A lot would depend on the incompetence of the opposition. And, in his book, no matter the intelligence, it didn’t pay to underestimate the enemy. Never mind what Akhmet had said in his call-to-arms speech, Tallis felt immediate concern for the homes nearby and the villagers who could easily be caught in the crossfire. He mentioned his worry to Darke but was assured that, with the sudden surge in fighting, most had fled the area.
Darke’s party, or assault team, was charged with opening fire on the halted vehicle and those soldiers leaving it, their escape routes cut off by the three other groups with machine-gun fire and mortar shells fired directly into the killing zone. Irina and Lula’s job was to kill the occupants of the police station. If all went according to plan, it would be a bloodbath. Tallis fingered his weapon nervously, considering how long he could last without firing a shot, wondering also how long it would take Darke to attempt to slot him. Nerves and tension, he reminded himself coldly, equalled mistakes.
Twenty-eight highly charged minutes passed during which Darke made one radio transmission, telling Akhmet to stand by, the message, in the normal scheme of things, picked up by the commanders of the other two groups. There was no response. At once Tallis saw a fatal flaw in the plan. Foliage and mist could have seriously adverse effects on radio communication. He looked, questioning, at Darke. Darke opened his mouth to speak but stopped at the sound of an engine, the note heavy, denoting a truck. Tallis’s ears became keen as the noise grew louder, confirmation, at last, of a military vehicle approaching.
All seven men hunkered down. The truck swung into view barely visible through the shrouds of morning fog. Tallis watched and waited for the explosives to detonate and bring the vehicle to a halt. Any moment now, he thought. Seconds ticked by. He could feel Darke tense next to him, body wired, finger on the trigger, all senses on high alert. Still they waited. The truck drew to a halt. No explosion. Silence, the damp air swaddling their ears. Tallis was reminded of another piece of military law: when it goes quiet the enemy is up to something. No sooner had the thought taken form in his brain than he heard a scream and whistle followed by the howl of descending mortar rounds as they flew from two directions, from the left and from the right, red-hot metal fragments slicing into two of Akhmet’s units simultaneously, the yells of those already cut down around them ringing in their ears. At the same time, men in the station were letting loose with a terrifying volley of automatic fire. Next, the familiar whine and hiss as rocket-propelled grenades flew through the air, parting Tallis’s hair as a barrage of bullets whizzed past. Christ Almighty, Tallis cursed, realising the trap they’d walked into. Momentarily shocked by the sudden onslaught, a zillion thoughts pounded through his mind, notably that whoever occupied the building retained the high ground. In an instant the odds had spectacularly reversed against them.
He dropped flat onto the ground to try and work out what was going down, a storm of bullets flying over his head in all directions. The Chechens were outmanoeuvred, the Russian attack planned, highly organised and therefore predictable: they were going to draw them into the killing zone, outflank them and cut off their escape route. It was imperative they melt back into the landscape, and quickly. To their advantage, the fog, as long as it remained, would aid their flight, and the Chechen were masters at taking advantage of the local terrain. It’s what made them expert at guerrilla warfare. At least, that’s what he’d been led to believe. From where he was lying, it was hard to tell. Some, he could make out, had sprinted for cover. Most had become detached from their units. It was every man for himself.
‘Come on,’ Darke said. ‘I’ll go first. You cover.’
‘Like old times, then.’ But Tallis’s voice was lost in the clamour of arms, the pyrotechnics of battle, the smoke and dust and shouting.
Both of them spread out, creeping low, laying down a burst of suppressing fire at the same time as the military vehicle discharged a seven-man crew of blackclad soldiers letting off magazines on full automatic.
Darke darted forward with a grenade, pulling the pin, waiting two seconds while it ‘cooked’ then lobbing it. Tallis, instinct kicking in, followed up w
ith a short burst of fire, killing three, heads exploding like coconuts at a funfair. The drawing of enemy blood seemed to have a morale-boosting effect. Within seconds, the girls, the snipers, had lined up and taken out one of the Russians’ mortar guys, giving the remains of Akhmet’s mortar men time to fire an accurate shot with which they hit a unit of Russian soldiers. With awesome courage, one young Chechen rushed forward and fired an RPG into the police station, only to be cut down in a fusillade of bullets as bits of the building shattered and collapsed. Of those who escaped, many Russians were picked off. A loud cry of victory went up from the Chechen gunmen.
Then, to his horror, Tallis spotted more soldiers coming from the east, from the west and from the north. The fact he could even see them meant that the curtain of mist was lifting. All they needed now was an air strike and they’d be finished. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he cursed aloud, suddenly seeing a grenade hurtling in his direction. Letting out a shout to Darke, he flung himself down onto the ground, putting his hands over his ears. First there was silence then a terrific boom as the thing exploded, shrapnel spraying into a man metres away, at waist height, shredding his body to pieces, guts and intestines spilling out, hot and bloodied on the ground.
Temporarily deafened, and with the smell of freshly mutilated body parts strong in his nostrils, Tallis staggered to his feet, a storm of bullets smacking into the dirt around him. It felt as if it was raining steel. He exchanged glances with Darke, who was slightly in front, both falling into a well-choreographed pattern of laying down suppressing fire and covering the other while withdrawing, other fighters who’d managed to escape valiantly taking care of arcs of fire on the flanks.
Men fired at long range and at close. Some Chechens, including Sprite, Tallis noticed, had taken to hand-to-hand combat at which they excelled, the scare factor alone enough to rock and seriously undermine an inadequately trained soldier’s morale. Tallis glanced in awe as Sprite tore through a Russian’s windpipe with a hunting knife. But whatever valour the Chechens displayed, they were overwhelmed by sheer volume of numbers.
Then, from out of nowhere came a mighty roar, like the sound of a pride of lions. Tallis felt his bones vibrate, the blood pump in every vein and vessel of his body. Lights flashed. Tracer rounds ripped through the forest behind him, tearing down trees, shredding anyone in its wake. He knew instinctively that a largecalibre cannon had been discharged, scorching the way back, razing the ground, turning it into a dead zone. Darke let out a gasp. ‘Whoever sold us out, I hope he’s happy with his thirty pieces of silver.’
With the way behind open to another round of cannon fire, they moved forward again, each covering the other, heading for the remains of the police station yet trying to avoid the killing zone. Leaping in front of Darke, Tallis heard the deadly hiss of RPGs, the dull crump of mortar, the chatter of machine-gun fire, and everywhere the sound of wounded and dying.
At last they came to the remains of a house. Mortared in the crossfire, it was just a collection of walls and rubble. Apart from the dead, the place was empty. Both men fell against the nearest pile of stones, glad of the obscurity. Tallis loaded another mag into his weapon.
‘This way,’ Darke said, scooting along, keeping low, Tallis in full flight behind. As they turned a corner, they found Sultan beating a Chechen in a leather jacket with the stock of his automatic, what was left of the man’s face a bloody mess.
‘The hell are you doing?’ Darke said.
‘He’s with them,’ Sultan spat, his face a collection of dark edges. ‘He works for the FSB.’ Sultan took out a long knife from his belt. ‘I’m going to gut him.’
‘No, let me,’ Darke said, reaching for his own knife.
A terrible moan came from the man on the floor, snot and blood oozing from a hole in his face. Tallis froze in horror then blinked in astonishment as Darke whipped the pistol from his belt and emptied two shots into Sultan’s head.
‘Say nothing, or I’ll kill you.’ Darke swivelled round, his cold eyes level with Tallis’s, the pistol still in his hand. ‘Now move it.’
It was chaos. With smoke grenades launched to mask their retreat, the only way left to them was to flee back into the mountains where the fog hung still and in heavy folds. Out of the seven men in their group, only three were left—Tallis, Graham and the Russian, Alexander. Of the other three groups, the casualties were hard to estimate. Everywhere Chechens were in retreat. At one point it was rumoured that Akhmet had been killed, until word on the ground confirmed that he was safe. What couldn’t be denied was that they’d been hammered.
And one among them was a traitor.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘IT WAS him,’ Lecha said, his voice spiked with malice, pointing an accusing finger at Tallis.
They were counting their losses. Of sixty-eight men who’d gone out to fight, twenty-five returned, two dying on the fierce retreat through the mountains. Of those twenty-five, ten were injured, three seriously and not expected to last the night. Women keened for their lost husbands and sons. Children cried for their fathers. Everywhere there were women with empty eyes. The mood in the camp was sombre. And there was anger.
‘How can it be him?’ Lula said, drawing a shape in the earth with the toe of her boot. ‘He only just arrived. This has been planned for days, if not weeks.’ She glanced at Darke, who was also standing with them. For a second Tallis wondered if Lula suspected something.
‘Doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved,’ Darke said, casting Tallis a stony look.
Thanks very much, Tallis thought. He understood Darke’s desire to protect his back and his cover, but he didn’t need to sell him out to do it. As for what he’d witnessed on the battlefield, he hadn’t yet fully processed it. Darke’s behaviour was a paradox. Just when Tallis thought he had a handle on it, that Darke had, indeed, turned native, Darke acted in a way that didn’t fit. Spy or rogue? Tallis simply didn’t know. Akhmet, his fury contained under an ominous cloak of silence, was of the opinion that the informer was a police officer. Tallis was not fooled. The cold look in those dark eyes told a different story. No way had Akhmet ruled out that there was a traitor among them.
That night there was no celebration, no dancing. The dead were washed and prepared for burial, their bodies dispatched to the ground on a grassy slope to the east of the compound with a speed that left Tallis breathless.
Many hours later, as the night manacled the moon to a cloud, Tallis made his way to Darke’s quarters, a low dwelling of stone and corrugated metal. Nudging the door open, he slipped inside. A kerosene lamp burnt in the centre of the room, casting shadows over Darke’s living quarters. It took Tallis two seconds to see that Darke was not in bed.
Two seconds too long…
The blade felt cold and sharp against his throat. Darke, shorter in stature, was wiry and extremely strong, the muscles in his bare arms rope hard. His voice was a low growl.
‘You’ve got thirty seconds to make your pitch. You screw up and either I’ll denounce you as a spy and hand you over to Akhmet’s tender mercies, or I’ll slit your throat here and now.’
‘I’ve been sent to find you and bring you back.’
‘Who by?’
‘The SIS, the people you work for, or had you forgotten?’ The blade grazed his throat, making a tear in the skin. Fuck, it hurt. Tallis tried to control his breathing.
‘Keep talking.’
‘They say you’ve dropped off the radar, that you’ve made no contact for months.’
‘I nearly died, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Alright,’ Tallis conceded. ‘Thing is they have intelligence that you’re directly involved in a number of murders in Moscow.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘They have forensic evidence.’
‘Bollocks again.’
‘They think you’ve defected.’
‘Absolute crap.’
‘Is it? It would be understandable.’
Darke wrenched at his throat hard, almost throttling him. ‘H
ave you forgotten what I did on the battlefield?’
‘Maybe you did it for show,’ Tallis rasped, ‘to impress me, seeing as I was the only witness.’ Christ, Tallis thought, he was taking a risk. An image of Sprite cutting a Russian soldier’s throat, animal and gory, raced through his mind, but he had to be clear about which master Darke served.
‘And maybe they sent you for show,’ Darke sniped back.
So you do remember me, Tallis thought.
Darke was still arguing. ‘If anyone else had seen, we’d both be dead. These murders…’ he said, relaxing his grip a fraction.
‘What about them?’
‘I can’t be answerable for the entire Chechen nation.’
‘So you had no involvement?’
‘How could I?’
Easily, Tallis thought. You could have trained the killer. ‘You know nothing about a plan to murder those involved in the last conflict?’
Darke let out a low laugh. ‘Now I know why they sent you. You always were a fool, Paul. It would be suicidal for the Chechens to do such a thing,’ Darke said, cold creeping back into his voice.
‘Pity they didn’t remember that when they stormed Beslan.’
Tallis felt a blade of fear pass through Darke’s body and into his own. ‘That was different.’
‘Was it?’
‘It was a grave mistake and I wasn’t involved.’
‘You mean you didn’t actually take part?’ Tallis said, his voice scathing. ‘Isn’t that what the guards said when they herded the Jews into the death camps?’
‘How fuckin’ dare you?’ Darke snarled. ‘You think I like what I do? Think I enjoy it?’
So it wasn’t exactly a denial, Tallis thought. Something cold slimed in the pit of his stomach. ‘It’s well documented that although many terrorists were killed at Beslan, some escaped. Were you one of them?’
Land of Ghosts Page 22
