Gray Salvation

by Alan McDermott

  Zhabin shrugged. ‘I can wait until he returns.’

  ‘David won’t be back until later on this afternoon,’ the farmer said to him. ‘Jake and I can help you with your target.’

  ‘Okay.’ Zhabin smiled.

  He watched Fletcher walk away, and once the man was out of sight, he pulled the pistol and silencer from his jacket and screwed the two pieces together. When he heard footsteps behind him, he slipped the weapon between his knees and continued working on the rifle, sliding the scope onto its mounting and securing it.

  Zhabin waited until the two men were standing over the piece of wood, then stood up, the pistol in his hand. Two sharp pffts broke the stillness of the valley, before silence descended once more. He walked over and checked the bodies, ready to finish them off, but his initial shots had proved fatal.

  He returned to the rifle and fed three rounds into the magazine, then lay down and inserted it into the slot on the underside of the gun. After ramming the first round into the chamber, he put his eye to the scope and focused on an oak tree with a light patch where a branch had been shorn off. He pressed a button on the telescopic sight and the laser rangefinder indicated slightly more than seventeen hundred yards to the target.

  Zhabin took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Once the last of the air was expunged, he squeezed the trigger. The boom echoed off the distant hills, but he focused on the result of the shot. The round had embedded itself three inches high and a couple of inches to the left, which he put down partly to the trigger. It took a couple of pounds more pressure than he was used to, but it wasn’t a game changer. He made a slight adjustment on the sight, and then squeezed off another round.

  It landed an inch off centre, and given the wind swirling in the valley, it was as close as he could expect under the conditions.

  Zhabin stripped the weapon down and put it back in its case, then collected the spent cartridges and put them in his pocket. Standing over the two bodies, he was torn between leaving them where they were and disposing of them. When the other son returned and discovered his family dead, the police would be called and a manhunt launched. That wasn’t something he could afford, but the only other option was to wait for David to return and silence him, too. That presented other problems. Someone might come to investigate the sound of rifle shots, and the body count could quickly escalate.

  Zhabin decided to hide the bodies as best he could and hope it was a couple of days before anyone found them. He went round to the front of the barn and began moving bales of straw. It took fifteen minutes to create a space deep enough inside the pile, then half that time to drag the corpses round, one by one, and stuff them into the hole he’d created. He found some tarpaulin and covered the father and son, then replaced the straw bales and got a bucket of water to wash away the telltale tracks of blood leading to their resting place.

  When he was satisfied that the bodies wouldn’t easily be found, Zhabin took out the phone he’d been given and looked on the map for the nearest Tube station. Having identified his destination, he dialled the only number in the contacts list.

  ‘My car will be compromised,’ he said, knowing CCTV cameras could easily track him in a country devoted to public surveillance. ‘I will drop it near Uxbridge Tube station. Have someone pick it up and dispose of it, and have a replacement ready at my accommodation.’

  Twenty minutes later, Zhabin was back on the M40 heading towards London. Once again, he stuck to the speed limit, acutely aware of the contraband in the back. If he were stopped by police, there would be no explaining it away, and the last thing he wanted to do was shoot a couple of cops. That would be the end of the mission and would put a dent in his reputation.

  Zhabin followed the satnav until he saw the sign for the Tube station, then pulled into a side street and parked up, locking the vehicle and hiding the key under the front wheel arch. He carried the case to the station and used his phone to plan his route to the accommodation he’d been given, then purchased a ticket and climbed aboard the waiting train for the twenty-five-minute journey to Wembley Park.

  The apartment was just a couple of hundred yards away from the station, above an Eastern European delicatessen. Dimitri, waiting outside, handed Zhabin the keys to another saloon.

  ‘The other car is taken care of,’ Dimitri told him. ‘Is there anything we should be concerned about?’

  ‘Just tying up loose ends,’ Zhabin said.

  Dimitri ushered him inside the shop and through to the back, where a staircase led to the first floor. The apartment was sparsely furnished, with a small bedroom, living and kitchen area, and toilet with shower. It was far from the most luxurious place he’d ever stayed in, but would suffice for the next couple of days.

  ‘Call me if you need anything else,’ Dimitri said before disappearing down the stairs.

  Zhabin put the leather case under the single bed and locked the bedroom door, pocketing the key, then descended the stairs and walked back to the Tube station. He purchased a ticket to Westminster, and then walked up Whitehall, getting a feel for the location.

  It soon became apparent that there was little chance of taking the shot while his target was here. The tall buildings on either side of the road were likely to be inaccessible, and besides which, they stood too close. He needed to be a sufficient distance away that he could make the kill and clear the area before the police arrived, but there were no buildings in the distance that would give him a clear line of sight.

  If he were going to take out Milenko here, it would have to be while he was still in his car, but that was something Zhabin preferred to avoid. The Tagrilistani president was sure to be conveyed in an armour-plated limousine, and even if Zhabin had the firepower to breach the vehicle, it still meant making a headshot at a moving target. Even for a man of his considerable skill, that was a tall ask.

  With Whitehall ruled out, he found a pub and ordered a sandwich and a glass of water, then took a seat in a corner and checked Viktor Milenko’s itinerary. The president was due to sign the trade deal on Friday, but was arriving the day before for a banquet with business leaders eager to endorse the new trade agreement.

  Zhabin used his phone to find the location of the dinner. It turned out to be a hotel on the bank of the Thames, and he immediately sensed that he’d found a promising opportunity. He finished his food and took a stroll to the hotel, soaking in the surroundings.

  When he reached his destination he saw that there were plenty of tall buildings on the opposite side of the river, and the steps up to the building where the Tagrilistani president planned to dine would give him a few seconds to get the target in his sights.

  It looked promising, so Zhabin continued down the embankment and over a bridge that crossed the Thames. From the other side of the river he could barely see the steps to the hotel, but a higher vantage point would give him the perfect shot.

  All he needed to do was get access to one of the buildings, and a nearby sign offered a simple solution.

  Gray kicked the side of the Land Rover in disgust. Three bullet holes in the bodywork indicated where the last of the fuel had drained away, leaving them stuck in the middle of nowhere.

  Howard had managed to put some distance between themselves and their pursuers by heading off-road and into a wooded area, skilfully weaving between trees that the heavier Russian vehicles could not navigate. The team had begun to feel safer until the engine coughed a couple of times and gave up.

  As if to compound their misery, the rain had intensified, huge drops making the puddles dance like a Las Vegas showpiece.

  ‘How far to the border?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Too far for Andrew to walk,’ Doc said, taking stock of Harvey’s injuries.

  ‘Agreed,’ Smart added. ‘If we’re gonna get out of here, we need transport.’

  ‘We could just get on the sat phone and call for help,’ Howard pointed out.

  ‘Aren’t we forgetting something?’ Gray asked, drawing blank stares from his colleagues. �
�Mac risked his life getting us in. We can’t just abandon him. And if I call it in now, we’ll be ordered home.’

  ‘To be fair,’ said Howard, ‘we all knew the risks when we signed up, Mac included. Don’t forget we’ve still got an armoured unit on our tails.’

  Gray didn’t entirely agree with Mark Howard’s assessment of the situation. ‘Sure, we knew the risks, but we never said anything about leaving men behind.’ He took out his phone and bent over it as he studied the map, trying his best to keep the rain off the screen. ‘According to this, there’s only one road between Mac’s lay-up point and Dubrany. The GPS says it’s two hundred yards to our right. My guess is they’ll bring him in that way.’

  ‘If they come by road,’ Howard argued. ‘Intel was wrong about the BMPs, so who’s to say they haven’t got choppers, too?’

  ‘We’d have heard them by now,’ Smart said. ‘The road’s the only logical choice.’

  Gray did a quick mental calculation. ‘Mac radioed in ten minutes ago, and we’re about three miles from his last known location. Adding in time to secure him and call it in, I’m pretty sure they haven’t come through here yet.’ He checked his watch. ‘I reckon we’ve got ten minutes at the most. We need a plan.’

  ‘We can expect company from Dubrany, too,’ Sonny said. ‘I suggest we stall them somehow.’

  ‘Those BMPs will take a lot of stopping,’ Smart pointed out, ‘and we’re down to a few rounds each.’

  ‘Plus we don’t know what they’ll be transporting Mac in,’ said Howard. ‘Could be a Land Rover or another light infantry vehicle.’

  Gray had to concede that it didn’t look good, but then no combat situation ever did. Despite this, he wasn’t about to give up. There had to be a way of halting the vehicle carrying their pilot while stopping the Russians from Dubrany crashing the party.

  ‘Could we block the road with a couple of trees?’ Harvey asked from the back of the Land Rover, speaking slowly to articulate the words through his injured mouth.

  ‘Those BMPs are like mini tanks,’ Sonny said. ‘They’d roll over them like matchsticks.’

  ‘How about blowing a crater in the road? In this weather, it would soon fill with water and look like any other puddle.’

  ‘Aside from the noise that would make, BMPs are amphibious,’ Sonny told him. ‘We’d have more luck holding up a sign reading “Halt”.’

  ‘I think it’s a moot point,’ Gray said, as the sound of diesel engines invaded the night. He ran towards the road and crouched behind a tree, just in time to see the BMP-3 trundle past. It was obviously searching for them, and would soon meet up with the convoy transporting Mac to Dubrany. Behind it came the BTR-60 and another three armoured vehicles.

  Gray waited until the vehicles had passed out of sight, then stood and rejoined the others.

  ‘Looks like we’ll have to come up with an alternative,’ he said, letting the others know what he’d seen. ‘There’s no way we’ll be able to stop six vehicles.’

  ‘If you were in their shoes, what would you expect us to do?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Head for the nearest border,’ Gray said, and the others nodded in agreement. ‘They’ll probably send every spare man east to cut us off, while a small contingent forces us into the trap.’

  ‘They might think we’re a local Tagrilistani army unit and try to stop us getting back to our own lines,’ Doc suggested.

  ‘Not dressed this way,’ Smart said, ‘and the locals would see no value in rescuing Andrew. Tom’s right. They’d assume we’d head for the border.’

  ‘So the last thing they’d expect would be for us to head back into town,’ Sonny said, a cheeky grin stretching his face.

  ‘You want to go back to Dubrany?’ Howard asked, looking from man to man. ‘Are you crazy?’

  Gray held up a hand. ‘Sonny has a valid point. They’ll be scouring the countryside for us, not the town.’

  ‘Okay, they might not being expecting us,’ Howard persisted, ‘but they’ll sure be on alert by now.’

  ‘For a team dressed in black,’ Gray countered. ‘We can take the uniforms from the first group we took down back in town. That means getting to the truck we hid, then driving it to the jail.’ Before Howard could protest, he added, ‘We’ll have their weapons and ammo, too.’

  ‘The place’ll be packed!’ Howard said. ‘Everyone’s gonna want a piece of Mac.’

  ‘Then we improvise,’ Sonny said, clearly determined to press ahead with the rescue effort.

  Howard shook his head. ‘I’m used to firmer plans than “we’ll improvise”,’ he said. ‘It sounds like a suicide mission to me.’

  ‘Then you stay behind and take care of Andrew,’ Gray said. ‘We can’t take him in with us. We’ll find a place closer in for you both to lie up until we come back out. Doc speaks Russian, so we’ll need him with us.’

  Howard seemed happier with that suggestion, and Gray told the team to set about fashioning a crude stretcher to carry Harvey. They did so with two sturdy tree branches and a waterproof coat they found in the back of the vehicle, then collected their weapons and started the long slog back towards Dubrany.

  Chapter 23

  26 January 2016

  Sarah Thompson sat impatiently at the red light, silently pleading with it to change so that she could continue to the office. She considered blowing through it, certain she’d get away with the minor transgression at five in the morning and with no other cars in sight, but after checking her rear-view mirror and seeing a police car pull up behind her, she thought better of it.

  Eventually she got the green light and pulled away quickly, though not so fast that she drew attention to herself. If the cops pulled her over she could easily explain her way out of any ticket, but she didn’t want the hassle. It would simply take up too much time, and she was desperate to get to Thames House to hear the latest news about the mission to rescue Andrew.

  When she eventually pulled into the underground car park, she was glad to see Ellis’s Jaguar parked in the spot reserved for the director general. Thompson ran up the stairs and swiped her card at the office door. Inside she found the room in near darkness, the only light coming from Ellis’s glass palace. Thompson walked straight in, and her boss looked up from her laptop for a brief second before beckoning her over.

  ‘Any word?’ Thompson asked.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Ellis said. ‘I was just looking over the satellite feed. It’s a few hours old, but it’s all we have.’

  Due to the secrecy of the mission, they hadn’t been able to task the satellite to maintain a position over the conflict zone, instead relying on the few brief minutes when it passed overhead on its continuous orbit high above the planet.

  ‘How does it look?’

  ‘There’s a lot more activity than there was yesterday,’ Ellis told her. ‘Whatever Gray did, it appears to have stirred up a hornet’s nest.’

  ‘That doesn’t inspire confidence.’

  ‘Wherever Tom Gray goes, this kind of thing happens. We can only hope they’re already on their way out.’

  Thompson leaned closer to get a better look. ‘Those look like tanks,’ she said, pointing to two shapes heading away from Dubrany. ‘I thought the Russians pulled them all back.’

  ‘It seems Gayle Cooper got that wrong. Or perhaps they were just well hidden.’

  Thompson wondered what else they’d missed. Hopefully not much, because the odds of rescuing Andrew were slim enough as it was. The last thing they needed was more surprises, especially of the large and armoured variety.

  ‘Wait!’ she said, and Ellis paused her scrolling. ‘Go back.’

  Ellis tracked the image back, and Thompson pointed to the cross in the corner of the screen.

  ‘That’s a helicopter.’

  Ellis looked at the summary Cooper had given her. ‘According to this, the Russian forces never shipped any to Tagrilistan. It must be Gray’s.’

  Thompson’s heart sank. She could see a few men standing around it
– but if they were Gray’s team, they’d be climbing aboard and coming home. They wouldn’t be relaxing and taking in the view.

  ‘Something must be wrong,’ she said. ‘Why are they just hanging around?’

  Ellis’s face told her they were in agreement. ‘Either there’s a problem with the helicopter, or that isn’t Gray down there. Whichever way you look at it, the mission appears to be over.’

  ‘But what about Andrew? We have to send someone else in.’

  ‘Gray was our last chance.’ Ellis pushed back from her laptop and rubbed her eyes wearily. ‘Sending him in was always a risk – if it turns out he’s failed, there’ll be questions to answer. News of the rescue attempt is sure to leak, not least from the Russians, and the PM will want to know my role in this. I’ll keep your name out of it, but as for Andrew, I’m afraid we’ve done all we can.’

  Colonel Dmitri Aminev looked up as the door burst open, unhappy at the late arrival of the captain. He motioned for the man to sit at the table, making a mental note to have him disciplined once things returned to normal.

  ‘As I was saying,’ he growled, looking at the tardy officer, ‘there appear to be five of them. They took the Englishman and made off in a Land Rover. Their last known location is here.’ Aminev stabbed at the map with his pen, highlighting the place where the intruders had crashed through the chain-link fence to make their escape.

  ‘A Tagrilistani unit?’ the late officer asked.

  ‘Clearly not. If you had been here on time, you would know that we managed to capture their helicopter pilot. He’s British, which tells me that we’re facing Special Forces, probably SAS. They operate in small groups, and they hit hard and fast.’

  ‘With their air transportation compromised, they’ll be forced to drive to the border,’ a young lieutenant observed. ‘That means crossing the river, and there are only three bridges. If we can get men there first, we can stop them.’

  Aminev liked the way the junior officer thought. There were two units in the area that could split up to hold the crossings while his main force drove the insurgents towards them.