The Kremlin Device

by Chris Ryan

  Spot on 2150 we heard faint metallic noises above our head a clinking and scraping. Then came a slight change of pressure as Toad lifted the cover. A few seconds later the ladder-end flicked down beside us. I sent Pay up first, and heard him grunting with effort as he climbed. When the ladder twitched twice, I started up myself.

  In the blackness of the shed I whispered, "OK?" and Toad said, "Fine' as he undid the ladder, closed the hatch and slipped the original padlocks back through the securing rings.

  We pulled some of the rotten hay back over the cover and stood listening in the doorway.

  "There's still something on in the church," said Toad quietly.

  "People keep coming back and forth. They're crossing to that doorway with the light showing.

  We were so wet and filthy we looked like a couple of drunks who'd fallen in the river, so even if we did meet someone there was a chance they'd pay no attention.

  "Let's go," I said.

  We hustled along the edge of the yard, past the church door, back to the entrance gate. We'd hardly crossed the road on to the pavement beside the river when we saw a car coming in our direction.

  In my earpiece Whinger's voice went, "I have you visual," and I knew it was him. Ten seconds later he pulled up beside us, and we were safely on board.

  "All quiet up top?" I asked.

  "Beautiful. But, Christ, what have you been doing?" He turned and glared at me.

  "Eating caviar and drinking vodka," I told him.

  "What's the matter?"

  "You stink like the arse hole of the universe."

  "Thanks, mate. That's what it's like down there. Stinking. The bastard tunnel's lined with shit and what's more, it's full of water.

  "Could you get through it?"

  "Not this time. We waded as far as we could, but we need breathing kit and dry-suits. Head for base, Whinge. We're soaked to the bloody skin."

  Back at Balashika I called straight through to the duty officer in Hereford on the secure Satcom link. We'd set up our equipment in the office-cum-ops room, with the dish aerial on the roof of the building. Daily sweeps for bugs showed that the microphone in the kitchen was still live, so nobody talked any kind of shop in there; but there'd been no reaction to Steve's disabling of the bug in the office, and we reckoned that room was secure.

  We were back at 10:40 Moscow time; England was three hours behind, and I knew the duty officer would be around in the ops room in Stirling Lines. Technically, the connection was perfect; if it hadn't been for the half-second lag in transmission as the message went up to the satellite and down again, I might have been in the next room rather than 2,000 miles away.

  I recognised the voice at the other end as that of Bill Bravington: I'd spoken to him a couple of times already since our deployment, and had no need to fill him in on background.

  "Bill," I said, 'we've hit a problem. The Apple site. The approach is blocked by water.

  "Wait one.

  I imagined him reaching for a notepad.

  "All right," he went.

  "Carry on.

  "We can't tell if the site itself is flooded. If it is, we'll need an alternative. But even to recce it we need breathing kits, dry-suits and half-hour tanks. Plus some of those Boat Troop rubber bags for the components. And two big underwater torches. Can you organise all that soonest?"

  "No problem. How many suits?"

  "Two. Correction: three suits and three tanks. Plus rubber bags."

  "Number?"

  "For three pieces. You know two big, one small. But we'd better have spare small bags as well. Say half a dozen small."

  "Got it. Fins?"

  "Sorry?"

  "Will you want fins?"

  "No, thanks. The distance isn't great enough."

  "OK'."

  "And Bill listen. We need this stuff right away."

  "We'll get it all to London tonight, for the next Diplomatic Bag."

  People must have pulled their fingers out all along the line, because the kit reached the Embassy on Monday afternoon, less than forty-eight hours after we'd found the water. On Tuesday night Pavarotti and I were back in the tunnel, with the same back-up team on watch above. On a weekday evening there was more traffic along the quay and more pedestrians about, but we made it into the stable undetected, and down below everything was precisely as we'd left it: the marks I'd scraped in the dirt on the floor were still fresh, the surface of the water still one inch below a horizontal line I'd scratched in the slime on the wall.

  The discovery of water and the sight of the various falls had led me to change our plan. I reckoned that if we managed to reach our destination on this second recce, we might as well start opening up the site for the CND. My reasons were: first, that the chances of any inspection team coming through the water within the next few days were zero, and second, that even if somebody did come snooping, a hole in the wall wouldn't in itself excite suspicion as there were plenty of other natural cavities already.

  So it was that this time we had jemmies and small picks in a bergen. Having zipped each other into dry-suits over our clothes, we fitted our tanks and breathing kits and waded into the inky water. On our outward trip the water was fairly clear, and our torch beams reached a few feet ahead enough for us to spot two submerged heaps of rubble before we blundered into them.

  We'd been through all the measurements again, and I'd calculated that the fully flooded section of the tunnel couldn't be more than fifty or sixty metres long. So I wasn't surprised when, after two minutes half-walking, half-swimming, my head broke the surface again. As we continued to advance, an upward slope lifted us steadily clear of the water. Soon we were back on dry land.

  The original distances given us by the Firm turned out to be spot-on. A total of 340 metres from the old stable, we came to a circular hole in the roof- the ventilation shaft. When I stood upright with my head in the bottom of it, my helmet lamp revealed that it did not rise vertically, but turned at an angle to my right. I could feel cool air flowing down, so I knew it was open at the top.

  "Shit hot," I told Pay. I brought out my tape and held it across.

  "Twenty-eight inches. That's easily big enough to accept the SCR and anyone making visual checks down the manhole won't be able to see round this corner. Made to measure.

  Five metres beyond it, the tunnel had been sealed with a wall of concrete blocks. Yet providentially, just on our side of the barrier was another big fall.

  "Look at that," I said to Pay.

  "Made to measure again."

  "Yeah and we won't even need to move any spoil. We can just add whatever we bring out to the heap that's here already."

  We'd prearranged with Toad that we would stay down for ninety minutes. That gave us an hour of work-time, so we stripped off our dry-suits and took turns to put in concentrated attacks on the clay subsoil. Soon we were both in a muck sweat and having problems with our breathing, perhaps because the air was so damp. None the less, before our hour ran out we had enlarged the cavity to about half the size we needed. We kept the overhanging roof and edges rough, and left a pile of rubble on the base of the hole so that, when we returned to install Apple, all we'd have to do would be to enlarge the hole, clear the bed and lift the components about two feet from the floor before pushing them sideways into their final resting place.

  Our return to the surface posed no problems, and once again the pick-up went without a hitch.

  "So it's a foot on the brake, is it?" Whinger asked as we drew away.

  "What's that?"

  "Piece of cake."

  "I wouldn't call it that. But it's possible wouldn't you say, Pay?"

  "Oh, yeah," he agreed.

  "It's definitely on."

  So we drove back, feeling quite chuffed.

  But as we arrived in camp, the shit hit the fan. We hadn't even drawn up at the back of the accommodation block when Mal came running down the steps to meet us.

  "Geordie," he said, "I need to have a word."

 
; "Walk this way, then."

  We went a few yards down the track into the woods, and as soon as we were out of earshot Mal said, "Somebody's been tampering with number two lap-top."

  "How d'you know?"

  "They've killed the disk with the plans on it."

  "Killed it?"

  "The contents have been wiped. Somebody must have tried to get into it without using the password."

  I stopped walking and turned to stare at Mal, who was barely visible in the dark.

  "Is it possible the person could have read the contents and then deliberately destroyed them?"

  "Not a chance." He sounded fairly confident.

  "They tried a wrong password, and that did it."

  Jesus, I was thinking. Are we compromised, or what?

  "If they'd got into the disk they wouldn't have wiped it," Mal added.

  "They'd have left it intact to cover their traces."

  "True. But who the hell was messing about in the office?"

  My first instinct was to blame Toad, whose duty it was to maintain security. But of course he'd been with us in the city. In his absence, the two scalies, Steve and Terry, should have been in occupation.

  "When did this happen?"

  "It must have been some time this evening, while everyone was out working."

  "So who was in the block?"

  "Only the scalies."

  "What do they say about it?"

  "I haven't asked them yet. I only just discovered it. I tried to boot up the lap-top and found the floppy was still in the slot."

  "Grip them, then."

  I was enraged. Trust those arse holes of signallers to foul up our entire enterprise.

  I rushed into the building and dragged Terry off his pit.

  "Dozy wanker!" I yelled.

  "Get into the ops room, NOW!"

  No. 2 lap-top, a Toshiba, stood open on the ops room table with its screen raised and the floppy disk still in the port on the right-hand side.

  "There's been a major breach of security," I started.

  "Who used that computer last?"

  I glared round, but one by one the lads shook their heads.

  None of them had been on the lap-top that day, they declared.

  They'd been out of doors, on the ranges, then on a night movement exercise.

  "Well then, how the fuck did that programme disk come to be in the port? It should be locked inside the filing cabinet.

  Everyone here knows that."

  Still there was silence.

  Suddenly Rick said, "Wait a minute. There was the Colonel."

  "The Colonel?"

  "Anna!"

  "Jesus!" I said.

  "You mean she came in here? What did she want?"

  "She said something about her phone having gone down. She asked if she could use ours."

  "And you let her in here?"

  "Well, yeah she being a colonel and everything. I didn't think I could tell her to fuck off."

  "So what happened?"

  "She dialled a number and started talking in Russian.~ "What was she saying?"

  "I couldn't understand a lot of it. Something about transport cars.

  "And you stayed in the room with her?"

  Rick shook his head.

  "No I let her carry on. I was working in the kitchen and I went back in there."

  "Ah, Jesus! How long for?"

  "Five minutes?"

  "Cunt!" I was almost on the point of whacking him, so angry did I feel.

  Obviously he realised it, because he blurted out, "I mean, with her being our OC, more or less, I thought everything was above board."

  "Rick," I said, 'that's the second time you've dropped a bollock. And this one's serious. This is your last chance. Any more cock-ups and you're going home."

  I took a deep breath. It was too late. The damage had been done. But how the hell had Anna got her hands on the disk so fast? She must have had a duplicate set of keys for the filing cabinet. But how far had she managed to get? Had she been dictating stuff straight off the computer screen to some FSB colleague? Or was the conversation Rick had heard just cover for her attempt to get into the program?

  "What happened at the end, when she left?" I demanded.

  "I came back in here. I was going to offer her a cup of tea."

  "Bloody hell! What was she doing?"

  "She was sitting there at the table."

  "With the lap-top in front of her?"

  Rick frowned.

  "I never noticed. She was still talking on the phone."

  "And then?"

  "She rang off, put the phone back on the hook. Then she said thanks and went out.

  Now what? It was the same dilemma as when we'd found the bug. Should we reveal our suspicions, or should we keep quiet?

  Even if I didn't accuse Anna of trying to break into our computer programs, should I drop some casual remark about her having used our phone, just to show that her visit hadn't gone unreported? Should I confide in Sasha and see what he thought?

  "Wait," was Whinger's advice.

  "Let it develop. Say nothing.

  See what happens. If she has managed to bust into the program, the next thing we can expect is a massive search. If they suspect we've got a couple of suitcase bombs about the place, they're going to go mad trying to find them. On some pretext or other, they'll turn everything upside-down tomorrow."

  "What about Hereford?" asked Pavarotti.

  "Are we going to report this to base?"

  "Wait out on that one too," I said.

  "They'd shit themselves if they heard about it, and they've no means of assessing the position from that end. No point in stirring things up unnecessarily."

  Mal our best computer buff but always a worrier said, "Yeah, and I for one wouldn't blame them."

  "Who?"

  "The Russkies. If they made a search. It pisses me off that we're doing what we are, anyway.

  "Me too," I agreed.

  Most of the guys, Mal in particular, were confident that it was technically impossible for Anna to have accessed the program.

  They reckoned that her visit was nothing more sinister than a repercussion from her past a return to her old KGB habits of snooping and that she couldn't have discovered anything damaging. So, after a bit of a Chinese parliament, we decided to keep quiet.

  Until that moment I'd had no cause to suspect the woman of duplicity. Quite the opposite: she'd seemed fully on side, and had been a terrific asset. She'd thrown herself into the training with real zip, and had never shown the slightest irritation when people kept calling on her for translations. Her physical presence had been enough to give everyone a lift: she was very fit and energetic, and went up ropes or over the assault course as fast as any man, often joining in for the fun of it when there was no real need. And the students liked her as much as we did. They were slightly in awe of her, and referred to her as Polkovnik the Colonel in a way that was partly sarcastic but had an edge of respect as well. Several times she'd reinforced my impression that she was right behind us visitors by telling indiscreet stories about her days in the old-style KGB. She'd joke about how clumsy and stupid and suspicious all her Communist comrades had been with the implication that nowadays everything was sweetness and light.

  Her private life, though, had remained mysterious. Like Sasha, she had a room in the officers' mess at the other side of the camp, and she'd dropped hints about a flat somewhere in town. Beyond that I knew nothing about her. On a personal level I was still fancying her in a cool sort of way, and I was planning to ask her out to dinner one evening when the time seemed ripe, suggest a meal at a place of her choice and see what developed.

  So far, though, I'd been so busy and had so much on my mind that I hadn't got round to issuing an invitation.

  For a long time that night I couldn't go to sleep. My mind kept returning to the tunnel, to the hollow we'd made in the brickwork, right under the wall of the Kremlin, and to the chaos that would follow if we'd been ru
mbled. Arrest? Gaol?

  Deportation? International incident? Should the whole team do a runner while the going was good?

  No matter which way my thoughts turned, they were anything but soothing.

  EIGHT.

  Through my sleep I heard a hammering on our door, and in burst Johnny, shouting, "Geordie, get up! There's a panic on.

  For a moment I thought, Christ, the search has started already.

  They're turning us out of bed. But at least they can't search the Embassy so sod them.

  Across the room Whinger protested from under his pillow, and I groaned, "For fuck's sake what time is it?"

  "Six-fifteen," said Johnny.

  "It's Sasha. He's desperate to see you.

  "Where is he?"

  "Here. In the passage.

  "Bring him in. Sasha!" I shouted, rolling out of bed.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  Sasha appeared in his DPMs, writhing with embarrassment at having crashed into our preserve and finding me naked.

  "Zheordie, I am sorry..

  "Forget it. What's the problem?"

  "We need your help."

  "Now?"

  "Immediately."

  "Tell me, then."

  I began pulling on clothes as Sasha spilled his story: how a 'beeg Mafia feesh', self-styled Keet, the Killer "Whale, who normally ruled the roost in Chechnya, had been sighted in Moscow. He and his two brothers, known as Akula (Shark) and Barrakuda, were the godfathers of the Chechen Mafia. Now Keet had been traced to an apartment which belonged to another known criminal in a new, sixteen-storey block in the suburb of Lianozovo, on the northern fringes of the city. His presence in the capital, reported by a tout, offered the authorities a rare chance of getting at him on their own ground.

  Senior officers in Omon were anxious to take him out, but they were nervous of the firepower he commanded. Not only did he have a team of four bodyguards armed with sub-machine guns for close-protection; the apartment block in which he'd holed up was equipped with the latest security systems, including closed-circuit television, remote-controlled locks and so on. The whole block was under Mafia control, from the team running the security on the ground floor to the janitors who passed out information about people's comings and goings. In other words, any attempt to storm the building would inevitably end in a major gun battle, probably with a load of casualties, and certainly with more publicity than anyone wanted.