10
Ryazan, Russia
However good it looked, Dima didn’t like what he was seeing. He watched from his temporary Ops Room as the giant Mi-26 ‘flying slug’ he’d ordered, the world’s largest chopper, eased its way down on to the apron. Able to carry eighty troops with ease, it could even swallow an eight-wheeled APC. He wondered briefly whether Zirak and Gregorin would arrive to find Vladimir with his bags packed, all ready and waiting for them at the gates of Butyrka.
Half of him marvelled at the speed with which whatever he wanted was provided. The other half – the doubter, the sceptic, the half he listened to the hardest – knew this was all too good to be true, which was why he had called Paliov.
‘We have to talk.’
‘We’re talking now.’
‘Face to face, not over your phone. Or else it’s off.’
He’d hung up before the old man could protest.
Dima’s plan had come together quickly. The Slug would drop them and their transport ten klicks from the compound, well out of earshot. Burdukovsky had sourced a pair of Peykans, Iran’s most popular car, for his advance party. They would conduct a final recce before cutting the compound’s power. Then they would rappel in over the walls – and with silenced weapons methodically clear each room until they had Kaffarov. Meanwhile, the Slug would have moved to the location ready to lift them all out. Back before breakfast.
But the team who had choppered in with him made him suspicious. Then he learned he had been ‘given’ a team of fifty airborne ‘for backup’, plus a second chopper team from a separate agency.
The GRU’s ‘executive’ Mi-8 parked by the Slug. Its passenger door flipped open and out stepped Paliov. As he watched the old man progress stiffly to the building, he saw the Commandant striding out to greet his unexpected guest. Paliov appeared to be alone. That was telling. People of his rank usually never travelled without aides and security. Vaslov directed him to the building where Dima had set up his post and started to walk alongside him until Paliov waved him away. This was going to be a one-to-one.
Dima was back behind his desk when Paliov came in. As if it was an unconscious reflex he did a quick recce of the room, his eyes darting to each corner.
‘I’ve already swept it; you have nothing to worry about.’
Paliov lowered himself carefully into a chair as if he’d walked from Moscow. ‘Have you been getting all the assistance you require?’
‘My every whim fulfilled. Imagine that.’ He smirked at Paliov. ‘Thank you for opening all the channels.’
He accepted the compliment with a nod.
‘If this doesn’t work out the way you want it, I’m still expecting you to keep your half of the bargain.’
‘Ah, the photographs . . .’ He sighed. ‘If this doesn’t work out I doubt you will see me again.’
‘I thought as much. You’re so desperate for this not to go wrong you’re throwing everything you’ve got at it. And there’s more to collect than just Kaffarov, isn’t there?’
Paliov folded his hands in his lap. ‘I’ve no idea what you mean.’
Dima slammed his hands down on the desk. ‘Dont fuck with me.’
‘There are . . . operational obstacles. Even Timofayev has to tread carefully. One foot wrong, even at his level, and we all go down the crapper.’
The sheen of sweat on the old man’s brow told Dima his instincts were correct. ‘Okay then I’m going to tell you. There’s another team who go in when my lot come out. Because Kaffarov’s left something precious there.’
Paliov looked ashen.
‘The Chernobyl cleaner team landed their chopper here an hour ago. They’re repatriating warheads.’
Paliov raised his hands and let them fall on his knees. He smiled wanly. How pathetic, Dima thought. To be so high up, at such an age, and to be so scared. Perestroika, the transformation of the evil old USSR into the shiny new Russian Federation. Nothing had really changed. They might as well be back in Stalin’s time.
‘And Timofayev insisted I wasn’t told.’
Paliov had managed to stop the flow of sweat down his forehead.
‘Their existence is classified at the highest level. Only three people in the Kremlin know of it. It is therefore most embarrassing for those who do know that this has come to pass.’
‘Al Bashir gets his hands on this, he gets the nuclear capability his country’s been craving, to put them in the game with Israel and Pakistan. The Americans get wind of this, if they haven’t already – they’re going to be seriously pissed off with Russia for supplying a rogue state. I mean, seriously.’
Paliov reached into his jacket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He helped himself, lit up and drew on it deeply like a man enjoying his last one before the firing squad.
‘As I recall, the smallest we ever made weighs in at over 90 kilos and is about the same size as a medium-sized domestic refrigerator.’
Paliov shifted in his seat and gazed at his knees.
‘There have been developments. The use of carbon fibre and the miniaturisation of key components has brought the size down to that of a normal suitcase. The blast potential is the equivalent of 18 kilotons of TNT – about the same as the Hiroshima bomb.’
‘How do you know it’s still there, in the compound?’
‘It gives off a signal, which Kaffarov seems not to be aware of. He’s lucky. That’s how we knew where he was.’
Paliov drew again on his cigarette. Already past his sell-by date, he seemed to have aged another ten years just in this meeting.
Dima felt a small flicker of contempt. ‘Your job’s on the line, isn’t it, pension even threatened. I do so feel for you.’
Paliov let out a smoky, sardonic laugh. ‘My life, more like.’
Dima pursed his lips and blew out a long sigh. ‘And fuck the rest of us. Right, now listen to me. The photographs: I want a name and an address, and when they were taken. You tell me now, or do the job yourself. I’ve had enough of being fucked around by you people.’
‘Timofayev has that information.’
‘And he doesn’t even trust you?’
Paliov shrugged. ‘No one trusts anyone.’
‘Then why should I trust you? What do you take me for?’
He wanted to kill him there and then, squeeze the life out of his contemptible, wobbly, time-serving little body. But then he would never get the photographs.
Paliov leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, his hands pressed together as if in supplication, the cigarette jutting between them. ‘Give me back twenty years and I’d be going in with you. If you succeed, I will give you every assistance to help you find . . . that which caused you to accept this mission. I know what those photographs mean to you. If it was in my gift you’d have it all now. Oh, and by the way, Timofayev has promised you thanks in person from the President.’
‘I hope you told him I don’t give a shit about that.’
Paliov stood up and offered Dima his hand. ‘But, if this goes wrong, my honest advice is – don’t come back.’
11
Iraqi Kurdistan/Iran Border
By the time Blackburn got to the dead Marine there was nothing on him. Helmet, M4, body armour, ammunition: gone. Fatigues, gone: tags, gone. Even his boots, watch and wedding ring. Even his underpants. The crowd had picked him clean. Headless, naked in the shattered landscape, surrounded by rubble, he looked like a fallen statue. Only the dust-specked delta of blood oozing out of him was proof that he had ever been a living man.
A few feet away, like discarded candy wrappers, he saw a couple of crumpled photos. He reached down and picked them up. One was of a girl sitting on the hood of a blue Firebird, the other a labrador leaping in the air to catch a stick.
There was nothing Blackburn could do for him. He smoothed out the photos and put them in a pocket. Then he whispered a prayer, and inwardly promised himself he would put a name to the dead man and somehow avenge his horrible, inglorious death. He knew this image w
ould remain with him forever and that in the future he would never speak about it, because nothing good or positive could ever come from communicating it. Now, for the first time in his life, his father’s silence finally made sense.
It was dark now. The temperature was falling. He was weak and desperately thirsty. The deafness had turned into a steady buzzing in his ears like a malfunctioning radio. He turned and started heading east back towards the border from where they had come he didn’t know how many hours before. He had been walking for an hour or so, stumbling along what was left of the road, when above the buzz he heard the welcome throb of an Osprey. He doubled his pace and immediately tripped and fell on some rubble. He got back up and continued more slowly. The Osprey disappeared over the horizon, but it had given him some hope, something to focus on. As the sound died away he became aware of other sounds in the darkness: shouts, a vehicle being furiously manoeuvred, gears screaming, then shots and a flash. If there was fighting, he reasoned, there had to be good guys as well as bad.
In the area he was now walking into, the quake damage was less intense. The street was still strewn with rubble but most of the buildings were intact. He heard a voice and aimed for it. It was coming from a vehicle, a crashed Humvee. He could see a figure leaning out of it as if waving him on, but the angle was wrong. The soldier, hanging half out of the cab, was dead, his arms splayed. Blackburn focused on the source of the voice. It was several seconds before he registered that it was American, coming from somewhere on the ground – a radio.
‘. . . Roger that, we’re engaging in the vicinity of two two four eight six grid.’
‘Misfit 1–3, that’s a Roger, rotating in for CAS-EVAC . . . ’
He grabbed the radio. The outer casing fell away. He tried to open a channel, no go, so he tossed it aside as right on cue the Osprey reappeared, clattering overhead, its twin rotors tilting into position for a landing. Blackburn found energy he didn’t know he still had as he half stumbled, half jogged in the direction the chopper had gone. He kept it in sight, a dark cutout against the night sky, until its lights came on, flooding the area beneath. He tried to manage the outpouring of relief he felt. He wasn’t there yet, and the lights had provoked a volley of small arms fire followed by a blast and a fireball to the west of where the Osprey was landing. Now it was out of sight behind the buildings.
Suddenly it occurred to him that no one on board knew he was out there heading for it. With fire around it would be on the ground for the minimum time to take on its cargo of wounded. He had to get there before it lifted off again. Not far now: he could feel the wind stirred up by the rotors, the furious crashing sound of the propellers slapping the air. He was running now, with better vision and a powerful turbo charge of adrenalin, leaping over boulders and bodies in his path, not pausing to look at the carnage he was passing – from the quake or the fighting, it was impossible to tell.
The Osprey put down in what had been a square, its rear ramp lowered, two sentries on guard as medics hauled the casualties aboard. He heard the engine revs climb, the air whipping up a tornado of dust. The sentries backed up the ramp as the suspension of the landing gear slackened and the chopper started to lift. He was shouting at the top of his voice but it was pointless against the roar of the rotors. Something clanked off his shoulder and he felt a sting as if from a huge wasp. The ramp was waist high as he reached it: arms outstretched, he scrabbled for a grip, felt himself slipping back until four hands from heaven reached down and hauled him aboard by his epaulettes. Only then did he allow himself one look back at the receding devastation as it sank into the gloom of the night.
12
Ryazan, Russia
They were standing in the vast metal cave that was the Mil’s hold, Zirak and Gregorin a few paces away, a look of quiet triumph on their faces, Kroll lounging against a mound of camo net. As trucks came and went on the floodlit apron, a steady stream of men, purposeful, focused, loaded kit on to the deck of the hold. Several glanced at the group in their Iranian standard issue men’s clothes – dark suit jacket, loose trousers. One gestured discreetly at the new arrival, then muttered something to his comrade, whose face registered a mixture of awe and disbelief. Vladimir was notorious, a Spetsnaz legend. Dima hoped to God the reality still lived up to the mythology.
The prison van had screeched up to the Mil at ten-thirty. It looked like it had travelled through a war zone. Its windscreen was cracked and one side mirror hung drunkenly from its mounting. Zirak and Gregorin stumbled out of the cab wearing stolen prison guards’ fatigues, with their captive looking dazed and moving stiffly. As they led him up the ramp into the hold of the Mil where Dima was standing, Vladimir threw his head back and erupted in laughter.
‘Tell me this is a joke.’
‘No joke.’ Dima grabbed Vladimir and kissed him on both cheeks. He smelled rancid.
‘You spring me from one of Russia’s baddest prisons. Did everyone else turn you down? I get it, it’s a suicide mission and you figured I’d prefer it to another five years in there. Nice sense of humour you have, Dima Mayakovsky.’
Dima studied his old comrade. Prison had not been kind to him. His weight was down, his skin was an ugly pallor from lack of sunlight and there was a livid scar on his cheek from a recent knife fight. He’d arrived in jail with several teeth gone and had since lost several more. Dima gestured at his T-shirt. ‘Off.’
Vladimir peeled off the grubby garment. Dima circled him, studying his frame, which to his relief didn’t look as bad as his face. He thumped him hard in the abdomen. Vladimir barely flinched.
‘You found time to visit the gym then.’
‘Nothing else to do.’ He dropped on to all fours and started rapid push-ups.
Dima nodded to Kroll.
‘Take him away, brief him and get him something decent to eat. The man’s not had a proper meal in two years.’ Then he nodded at the other two. ‘Well, you passed the initiation. Lose the van somewhere.’ Gregorin started to speak, but Dima shushed him. ‘Tell me later. We’ve got to get this show on the road.’
Another pair of vehicles drew up to the ramp. Burdukovsky, the logistics man, stepped out of one and beckoned Dima over to it. ‘Happy?’
Burdukovsky slapped the hood like a car salesman. ‘Peykans. The Lada of Iran. Finest examples available.’
Dima knew them well from his tour. They had been the commonest car on Iran’s roads and these two looked authentically weary. One had a bashed door, the other two different coloured front wings and a roof-rack that was entirely rusted. They would blend right in. Burdukovsky gestured at the licence plates. ‘Genuinely from Tabriz, more or less.’
‘You’ve surpassed yourself. Do they work?’
‘New engines and drivetrain. You should have no trouble. And I’ve thrown in full tanks of gas. If you can, bring them back in one piece: usable ones are getting harder to come by.’
He waved them on to the ramp then gestured to Dima to join him on the tarmac.
‘There’s more.’
He walked backwards until he’d got a decent view of the Mil, then beckoned Dima again. Like a kid in a Ferrari showroom, Burdukovsky bristled with excitement. ‘You’re very privileged. See those?’ He pointed at the dishpan-shaped cowling on the rotor. ‘Noise suppressor. Top secret. The Americans used it on the Black Hawks when they went to get Bin Laden. They don’t know we’ve got it. It’s a big bus but it has all the toys off the combat Me-28s. Low-level and extreme terrain-following capability with a combined radar and thermal imaging system. Duplicated hydraulic and control systems, armoured cockpit’s got a separate, ceramic fuselage, bulletproof windshields and armoured partition between crew members, self-sealing polyurethane foam-filled fuel tanks.’
He strode forward and smoothed his hands over the fuselage as if it were the flanks of a prize racehorse. ‘Feel.’
Dima felt.
‘Special paint to suppress infrared detection. First time we’ve used it.’
Dima pointed at the Nuke
team’s Mil-24. ‘And that?’
Burdukovsky shrugged, the first sign of a chink in his armour of enthusiasm.
‘Standard issue, so keep them back till you’ve secured the site.’
Dima walked over to the other aircraft. Shenk, the Nuclear Recovery team leader, was doing final checks on radiation gear with his crew. When he saw Dima he stopped and stood with his arms folded as if barring the way. He had a long tombstone of a face, more suited to an undertaker. If there was a Mrs Shenk he felt sorry for her.
‘Something you need?’ He jutted his chin out.
Dima suppressed a desire to give it a good whack.
He tried a warm smile.
‘Came to wish you good luck.’
‘You do your bit right, we won’t need luck.’
The rest of the crew stopped what they were doing.
Dima pressed on. ‘I need pictures of the device I can show the team. They need to know what they’re looking for.’
Shenk shook his head slowly and deliberately.
‘Classified.’
‘Ha ha, very funny.’
Shenk jutted his chin. ‘Very serious. All pictures, diagrams and descriptions are only for those cleared by the Defence Secretary himself. You secure the area and find your target. We do the rest.’
Battlefield 3: The Russian Page 8
