by Tim Heath
Rad turned on the computer on the desk which after a few seconds of hesitation––as if waking up from a deep sleep––it finally flickered into life. Rad switched on the modem––cellular quality was touch and go this deep into the woods, but he’d long since connected a satellite receiver in the high branches of a nearby tree, the wire running down onto the roof and into the lockup. Rad opened Yandex and made a search on the first Russian name his President had given him the day before. He sat back in his chair. There was a lot to go over, and Rad had been travelling for a few hours. He first needed a drink.
He jumped up to grab the kettle, but once he tried the tap for a few seconds––he always allowed the water to run to clear the pipes––the flow stopped altogether, meaning the well was empty. Rad picked up another bunch of keys, dropping a handgun into the back of his jeans––old habits and all––and went back out the front door. There was no one about. He crossed the path, walking twenty feet and past the outdoor toilet, behind which sat the unit housing the well. He used the key to open the lid and switched on the pump. Within seconds, water filled the bucket. It could take twenty litres when full, enough for a few days, though he wasn’t planning on spending that long there. After a few minutes, it was full, and Rad switched off the pump again, locking the lid back into place. Pipes connected the well to both the lockup, which acted as his sleeping accommodation, and the basic toilet hut, attached to which was a hose pipe which acted as his shower, and the banya, the Russian style sauna that most dachas had. His entire setup was a little less conventional than most but it worked for him. Rad wasn’t there to relax or unwind, it was always only business. Somewhere to plan his next operation, somewhere to research without being interrupted. He was more likely to see a bear or deer than he was another human being, and the gun stored at the base of his back was for the former possibility, not the latter. Thankfully he encountered nothing as he went back into the lockup, the tap now filling the kettle. He switched it on moments later.
Power to the property had been tapped from street lighting over six kilometres away. He’d paid a local firm to do it a decade before, carefully hiding the wiring underground and through the forest so that nobody would know he had a place that deep into the woods. He wouldn’t use it much in winter––especially when snow was heavy. On those winters, when a visit was unavoidable, he would have to ski into the area and was an expert at cross-country skiing. One year the whole unit had all but been entirely covered in snow.
Winter had passed, the last of the snow already vanished a few weeks before in the city. Trees were turning green though were yet to fully come into leaf. That meant for the deciduous trees around the lockup, there was more visibility than usual, though most trees were pines, meaning his dacha stayed hidden for much of the year, regardless. More so in the snow.
The kettle boiled, and Rad put a bag of green tea into a teapot he assumed was reasonably clean. There was not an actual sink in the place, just the tap against the back wall. He had a microwave. He filled the pot to the top, grabbing the one cup he had available, and poured himself a tea. He went back to the computer. Rad studied photos of his target. He had to pick the face out of a crowd, to instantly recognise his mark from a group of hundreds. It was a long practised routine, and something Rad was good at. Preparation in his line of work was everything. Rad refined his search results, going back years, seeing the man with fewer signs of age, though the images were remarkably similar. The man had aged well. He flashed forward to the most recent photos. There were not as many as he would have hoped. This was a man cutting back his public appearances.
Rad never asked why a specific target was to be taken out––it was not his job to ask questions, just to carry out orders. It was also not the first time they had commissioned him to work for the President though it was the first time someone had asked him in person. Rad was still taking in his first encounter with the new President from the day before. He didn’t yet know what to make of it all.
Rad then looked a little into the business connections, though the light was fading outside now, and the tea was finished. If he would eat later, he knew he needed to set traps. Rad picked up his rifle. It was short range, not anything he’d ever used in battle, but ideal for his current situation. In the woods, Rad had to be much nearer his target, and that was more than okay for him now, as his target today wouldn’t be shooting back at him. Before leaving the lockup, Rad took down three ground traps that were hanging on the wall, and wire he had available, and his fishing line, and he opened the door, locking it behind him. Rad arranged the gravel in such a way––changed the combination each time, but always knew how he had left it. It was just one of a hundred things he’d perfected over time, all based on keeping him ahead of any would-be intruder. It kept him one step ahead of most.
Without snow on the ground anymore, tracking would take on another style. Rad searched for any recent animal movements though there was nothing obvious. Some animal droppings were a few days gone already––there was evidence of rabbit and deer––though, for the latter, it didn’t seem like deer were in the area at that moment. His arrival earlier in the day might well have made them flee. He would have to go out and find them. On the off chance that rabbits were around––these animals travelled in much smaller areas, and he’d always been able to catch some in the past––Rad set up two traps in his usual spots. About two kilometres from where he was there was a stream opening into a river that fed the nearby lake which offered him a good chance of fish. He would set off in that direction, as with the sinking sun, it also gave him the opportunity to spot any larger animals that might move at that time of the evening.
Twenty minutes later he was at the water, having half jogged to the area, where the terrain allowed. He hadn’t broken a sweat. He was upwind from any potential larger animals anyway so they wouldn’t be able to detect his presence. Rad dropped in his fishing line. Once in place, he lowered himself to the ground, taking the sniper’s scope from his pocket––he always carried it with him, even though the weapon it attached to was still inside the lockup––to scan the horizon. There was something instinctive about looking through the scope, and for Rad, it was almost a primeval ability. He felt at one with the lens. In the distance, he spotted movement, on the water’s edge, but distinctly a deer. It was well out of range from the only rifle he’d brought with him to the river, but good to see that he was at least in the right area. He watched the animal move around a little. It was only young, maybe born the previous spring. Its mother would still be around, though when Rad swept back and forth as only an expert spotter would, even he couldn’t pick up the adult deer.
He fixed back onto the fawn which had moved up out of the water now though was still alone. Then it bolted. Something had disturbed it. Rad scanned around quickly. If there was a predator in the area, other than him, he needed to know. The forest was too far west to have any of the more serious threats though the grey wolf was a strong possibility. Rad had seen them before once having to climb a tree to deter an attack. He’d heard them passing by his lockup frequently, usually in early spring, just after the snows melted. By the summer they were a long way from there.
Rad soon fixed his scope onto the cause of the fleeing fawn, and his heart sped up for a moment, but not in the way it does when danger looms. It was a woman from the next dacha from his, about three kilometres as the crow flies, though hidden behind a few ridges. She was bathing, having most probably just come out of the banya and down towards the water to cool off. The air temperature couldn’t have been over ten degrees. She was naked.
Rad lowered the scope, the reason for the fawn dashing now clear. He avoided the instinct to take a second look. She deserved to have privacy––even if she would never know Rad was watching––as much as he would like to keep watching. Something was fascinating about the female form, and he’d just stumbled across an excellent example.
Rad stood up from his spot, keeping his head low, not that he thought he ha
d any chance of being spotted by the woman at that distance. It was just instinct. He’d been on too many battlefields to leave from a site any other way. He didn’t know if the neighbours had ever located his lockup. Most kept themselves to themselves in the area. Folks had walked near the dirt track in the past, and his tyre tracks would have at least raised awareness that someone had arrived over the years he’d been coming. But folks didn’t hide out in the middle of nowhere to spend too much time with strangers. It suited them all to have a little privacy. And there was nothing more private than miles and miles of Russian forest.
Rad checked on his line in the water. His luck was in. The fish would feed him that night, and might well satisfy him for breakfast. He collected his traps again on his walk back to the lockup––there was no need to catch anything else now he had enough food. He’d never needlessly killed any animal, neither needlessly murdered a human. He did it all out of necessity, and in the case of the latter, he was just a good soldier following orders from above.
Collecting firewood as he approached the building, Rad dropped the fish onto a makeshift table he’d set up outside a few years ago from a large wooden coil for electric wiring. He’d found the drum by the roadside––probably fallen off the back of a lorry, as opposed to being dumped there––not too far from where his driveway started and had rolled the thing all the way back. On its side, it made a perfect height for a table. Rad stacked the wood next to a fire pit he’d made by digging down about one foot and circling the area with large rocks. Unfortunately for him, there were plenty of large rocks around the place. He had pushed most to one side when he’d initially constructed the buildings. The forest had already grown around the piles which he hadn’t touched since making them.
Rad opened the lockup, putting his weapon just inside the door––he still had his gun in the back of his jeans––and picked up the fire-lighters. The wood was not yet dry enough to ignite purely from a match, however. He had selected logs that had been shielded from the damp as best as he could. Getting the fire going had to be the next priority. There was something fundamental about man and fire. He felt alive in the wild and making fire was now second-nature. It was getting darker though he had at least an hour before it would be too dark. He would have to hurry. It was still too early in the year, and darkness would bring those hunters of the night out scavenging for food. He didn’t want to be on the menu.
With the fire now burning, enough wood in place to last the next sixty minutes, Rad pulled out a knife from his jacket and in less than five minutes had gone to work on the fish. Two perfectly cut fillets were cooking on a pan over the burning wood, Rad throwing the remains of the fish into the fire itself. Nothing was to be left behind.
He checked his watch. Sunset would be in about thirty minutes. Rad dropped the remaining wood onto the fire––the flames would ward off any would-be visitors of the animal variety––and used the toilet before going back inside the lockup and securing the door behind him. Not long after that, darkness descended around him, forest noises picking up as nocturnal animals made their presence known. It was a sound Rad found almost therapeutic, a memory he would go back to in the moments of most intense battle, when he found himself in some of the most unforgiving places man could create, looking down the scope of his weapon, bombs exploding not too far away. It would be the forest at night that carried him through those hellish encounters. He thought once again about the guys he’d left behind in Syria. Rad wondered why he was now out of there, why he was in another world, the contrast as extreme as he knew. Yet he knew why he was there and the others weren’t. It was what had made him stand out since his youth, what had kept him apart ever since. He could kill from a distance and with nearly total accuracy better than anyone else in the entire Russian army. He was now the chief sharpshooter. And he was now working for the new President.
That final thought brought him back to the moment. He knew little about Matvey Filipov, a man he hadn’t voted for––not that Rad would ever let that on––but who was now running the country. For someone in the know, it concerned him. Ousting Putin from power would only have been possible if the newcomer now in charge was equally financed. Rad did a little searching on the internet regarding the new man at the Kremlin and soon had seen enough. Filipov undoubtedly had plenty of money behind him. Rad went back to his original search results, still open on his computer as they had been since he first got there. Having eaten and with a few hours before he would sleep for the night, he had a lot of planning to do. As with the deer or wolf, Rad had to learn the patterns of his target, understand where this Russian went, where he leisured, who he screwed. Rad had to know everything about him to pick the perfect time to strike. You didn’t get a second chance with men like these––it had to be perfect.
4
Republic of Ireland
1991
It was a bright morning in Shannon as the Aer Lingus flight lifted off, destination Moscow. Shaun O’Doherty was travelling under a different name. He’d left Belfast the week before, getting back to Dublin where he met with a few top leaders within the IRA, before preparing for his trip to the Soviet Union. In the past the organisation had looked to work with the PLO, so meeting with the Soviets was nothing new, though offered its own challenges. Someone had made them clear that anyone looking to wage war with the West was welcome to start a conversation. This was Shaun’s second trip to the Soviet Union, and this time he was expecting to get his hands on what they’d been discussing, secretly, for months.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was rumoured to be weeks away––nothing that the Irishman would tell those he was meeting with––but it made completing this deal even more crucial.
The flight was only half full, and O’Doherty was one of just four others in the first-class section. No one spoke to him, which suited him perfectly. His appearance had been utterly transformed for the trip, he now represented the average businessman just making yet another routine flight. He dressed accordingly. On the seat next to him he’d laid out the Russian phrase book. He’d found it useful last time but there was at least a little English spoken by those meeting him. He’d never been able to make any sense of the strange Cyrillic letters that surrounded him in the Soviet Union.
O’Doherty was met outside the airport by the same man who had seen him the last and only time he had visited. O’Doherty was due to spend one night in a Moscow hotel, his registration requiring that, before flying down to Saratov Oblast the following morning, a ninety minute Aeroflot flight to a closed city around one thousand kilometres from the capital. That trip was strictly under the radar. He would travel on forged Russian papers. No foreigner was knowingly allowed in such a place, and yet this foreigner had been sanctioned from the very top for just such a trip.
O’Doherty was handed a wedge of rubles by the Russian and taken to a hotel in central Moscow.
At half eight the following morning, O’Doherty was outside the hotel again. Several cars were driving around the streets, a sign that there was wealth in the nation despite so many living with little. The sky was clear. People scurried past him––no one would speak to a stranger, especially outside the central hotel that foreigners used––and O’Doherty smoked three cigarettes before his Russian minder finally appeared nearly ten minutes after nine. The Irishman followed him into a waiting car without saying a word.
At eleven, he was once again in the air. He’d been handed his documents, German papers linking him to a pesticide factory in East Berlin, his name was Russian, although he couldn’t speak the language. He couldn’t speak German, either, but trusted no one would find that out. His minder had left him at the gate. Someone else would meet him in Saratov, a region so secretive that even to be on the flight meant something. No one asked him any questions.
By one, O’Doherty was already in a car at the other end. The flight had been non-eventful, and the Russian-made vehicle tore through the empty streets like there was no tomorrow. An hour later, they were reaching
Shikhany and the Chemical Research Institute. This was where O’Doherty was to spend the rest of the day, and the sole reason for his trip to the Soviet Union.
Kovalev met O’Doherty at the side of the road, the car pulling away again. They would summon it when the Irishman was ready to return to Moscow. For now, it didn’t need to be there. Kovalev had met the Irishman once before, the two men introduced to each other at a function in Moscow during O’Doherty’s previous visit. Nine months later, and the Soviet Union on the brink of collapse, an agreement had finally been reached via both men’s superiors, though O’Doherty was really there for his own ends. He worked for no one, in his book.
The two men shook hands before turning and silently walking towards the Institute. He would be the first foreigner to set foot in the place, not that anyone outside a tiny circle of people would ever know. Even fewer knew about the precise workings of the Institute.
O’Doherty was shown around the building. The Russian talked with great pride in his work as he described the various sections, the varied research that was being undertaken within its walls. He spoke like a father boasting about his children. Tour complete, Kovalev turned to his guest, the Irishman having had enough of walking around a Soviet facility. It was time to discuss business.
“I think it’s time we talked about the main reason you are here, right?” O’Doherty just nodded, as he followed the Russian into a smaller office, a room they’d passed early in the tour, and a section defined as being the most secret area of all. They could see technicians behind thick glass panes in protective chemical suits. Both men calmly took a seat as if they weren’t currently surrounded by such potentially lethal substances.
“I find it funny you also have an A232 south of London.” The Russian was smiling. He’d always referred to O’Doherty and the UK as being the same. O’Doherty was Irish, not English, but the Russian had never understood the difference. O’Doherty had let it ride for too long now it was beyond correcting. He also knew exactly what the Russian meant. However, the A-232 they were there to chat about had nothing to do with a road out of Croydon.
