Taking their time was all part of the EOD mystique: these were the men who had cheated death time after time, calmly disabling devices with added booby traps designed to catch them out. They were among the most respected men in the field, and among the most frequent casualties. ‘Least when it’s our time to go, we go. When you’re that close and it blows, we’re gone baby gone,’ Blackburn had once heard one say. But Blackburn wasn’t paying full attention to Gunny’s investigation. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he had seen on the monitor, the man with Al Bashir. Clean shaven, high cheekbones. Just like Harker’s executioner.
He wanted to tell Cole but he knew he would be suspicious and start questioning him: ‘Still got that on your mind, huh? Eating into you is it? You watching from a safe distance as that sword . . .?’ Blackburn got up and paced about, replaying over and over what he had seen on the vault security monitor.
The images in his mind were as clear as if he had the tapes. Four views. Two were blank. One showed the main customer floor with the bronze doors of the entrance. The other showed a second smaller exit, which was the one that Al Bashir and one other man had passed through. The second one was carrying two cases. Campo had spotted it first.
‘Holy fuck – you see what I’m seeing?’
They all stopped and stared at the screen. Blackburn glanced back at the one remaining nuclear device.
‘Bashir’s sidekick’s got the other two . . .’
Campo shrugged.
‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
Matkovic snorted.
‘No: let’s not get too worried that America’s Most Wanted just left the building with two WMDs.’
Black raised a gloved hand.
‘Just shut up and watch, okay. There’s fuck all else we can do.’
His voice trailed off as he stared at the monitor. The two men exited the building. The camera angle showed a small area of the street. Al Bashir hesitated. The second man looked round, tall, clean shaven, high cheekbones, local dress. To Blackburn it looked as if he was staring straight at him, right through the security camera, taunting him.
Campo shrugged. ‘They waiting for a cab or what?’
Matkovic turned to Black. ‘Who’s the other guy?’
Campo turned away from the screen. ‘Don’t know, don’t care. Fuck all we can do about it. We need to secure that nuke.’
After what seemed a month, Gunny set down the Geiger counter and pulled off his gloves. He chuckled and shook his head.
‘It’s a nuke Jim, but not as we know it. Fucked if I’ve ever seen anything like it.’
Cole, arms folded, sceptical, shrugged.
‘Thought they only belonged to James Bond bad guys.’
‘Well it’s Ruskie, no question about that.’ He pointed to the Cyrillic script and glanced in Black’s direction. ‘Any Russian speakers on your crew?’
Black shook his head.
Gunny peeled off his bomb gear.
‘Back in the Nineties, Sixty Minutes ran a segment with former Russian National Security Advisor General Aleksander Lebed, claiming that they’d lost track of over a hundred suitcase nukes with a yield of one kiloton – that’s equivalent to a thousand tons of TNT. Claimed they’d been distributed to members of the GRU. You know what that is?’
‘The equivalent of our Foreign Military Intelligence Directorate.’
‘Bonus point, Lieutenant. In fact it was widely concluded that Lebed was shitting us to gain cred in Washington, which he was hoping to make his new home.’ Gunny nodded at the device, relishing the opportunity to share his knowledge with an appreciative audience.
‘Okay, now figure this: weapons grade plutonium has a market value of over four thousand dollars a gram. So for the Russians to have parted with one of these, well, someone’s had to pay them a hell of a lot of roubles – unless they’re supplying the PLR for other reasons. I mean, I don’t want to worry you guys but it’s starting to look an awful lot like Russia vs. US of A all over again. Like the Cold War just came back and got way hot.’
Gunny put the device on a pallet and four of his team took it away.
‘Hey, no going over the bumps, okay?’
Cole remained still, staring at the ground. Eventually he looked up at Black.
‘You ready for another YouTube moment?’
32
Niavaran, Northeast Tehran
They waited in the crack in the road until the Humvee had gone away, and then waited a bit longer to be really sure the coast was clear.
Dima led, the others followed several metres apart. There were no cars to hijack or steal. Everything on wheels, right down to the last supermarket trolley, had been pressed into service for the mass evacuation of the city. There was a brief moment of excitement when they spotted a Peykan, but it soon faded when they discovered it was missing its engine. Several stray dogs had come up to them, hoping for food.
‘Believe me, I know just how you feel,’ said Vladimir, scratching the head of the nearest canine. ‘Watch out for Kroll as you pass.’
‘I once ate a fox,’ said Zirak.
‘I’ve had cat,’ said Gregorin. ‘I still spit up fur balls.’
‘In the ’50s, when my father was a prisoner in the Gulag,’ began Vladimir, ‘he and some of the others made a pact that if any of them froze to death, the rest would eat him.’
‘I hope there’s a funny ending to this story,’ said Kroll.
‘There isn’t,’ said Vladimir.
They walked on in silence.
Too tired and hungry to stay focused, Dima let his mind wander further than he had yet allowed himself in these past twenty-four hours. Inevitably the photographs swam back into focus in his head, where he had stored every detail. The young man’s eyes, the shape of his smile, the fine crease in his chin and the slight arch to his eyebrows, all confirmed for him beyond doubt who his mother was.
Camille had been the right person at the wrong time, though looking back over his life now, when would have been the right time? Dima had been sent to Paris to befriend the impossibly smart Harvard students, the future powerbrokers of America. She was one of the few French girls who hung around with them.
There was a dinner, one of the secretly Soviet-funded ‘Detente’ occasions that brought together American students interested in discovering more about the Evil Empire and bright young things from the USSR – those who had achieved the rare privilege of a scholarship to study in France. Of course, like Dima, all the young Russians were recent recruits of the GRU or the KGB or one of the other ministries that could justify the expense of sending its best and brightest to the West. And Farrington James was a standard-issue preppie, with one of those patrician Boston names that looked like it had been written down the wrong way round. Who calls a kid Farrington, for fuck’s sake?
Dima had briefly auditioned him with the standard leading questions about China and Africa, until it became clear that James made Ronald Reagan look like a liberal. He was about to strike him off his target list when James introduced his fiancée, Camille. First Dima noticed her hands, fine porcelain-delicate, then her eyes, green-grey, with finely-drawn eyebrows and a smile which, when she beamed it at Dima, made him think that she had created it just for him.
Camille Betancourt was the only daughter of the Marquis de Betancourt, part of the flotsam that bobbed on the surface of French society for no good reason other than seven or nine generations earlier one of them had been given a plot of stolen land – and a title that had probably been snatched as well. What little Betancourt money was left over from the father’s monstrous gambling addiction went on keeping his daughter out of trouble and all polished up, in the hope she would snare a rich American like James.
And it had all been going so well. The Marquis toasted Farrington with the last of the family’s wine cellar. Dazzled by the father’s aristocratic charm as much as by the daughter’s beauty, Farrington proposed, but Camille, harbouring doubts about her boyfriend’s true sexual preferences
as well as his politics, was taking her time to give him an answer. And then Dima arrived in her life.
Holy fuck, he thought, I’m really letting myself go tonight. Trudging through the ruins of Tehran, he realised that he hadn’t allowed his memories such free rein since giving up drinking ten years before. But for the first time in ten – no, twenty-five – years, he had a good reason to remember.
James had swanned into the banquet mainly for an opportunity to lecture the Russians on how Marxism was really Satanism for the twentieth century. Lost in the hyperbole of his own self-righteous pomposity, he was blind to what was happening as Dima’s laser gaze locked on to the exquisite young French woman at his side, sipping Soviet-bought vintage Dom Pérignon.
Six weeks: that’s all they had. Neither Farrington nor the Marquis were going to stand for Camille’s affair with a young Soviet, but Camille had already told her father that she didn’t care a damn about Farrington or France. As far as she was concerned, she now belonged to Dima, and was ready and willing to elope to Moscow with him. And if he needed any convincing, she was carrying his child.
He never saw her again. All trace of her vanished overnight as if she had never existed. The tiny apartment she had rented was let to another student. Her tutors at the Sorbonne were told that she had dropped out of her course and moved abroad. Frantic, he appealed to his masters in Moscow for leave to go in search of her. But his superiors in Paris had already alerted the Kremlin, and the next thing he knew he was being dispatched on an urgent mission to French West Africa.
A year later a friend in Paris sent him a cutting from France Soir: the only daughter of the Marquis de Betancourt had been found drowned in the lake of the family’s château in the Loire, whether it was by accident his friend couldn’t say. And what had become of the child? ‘Channel it,’ Paliov had told him. ‘Direct that rage into your work. Don’t waste it: turn it to your advantage.’
Now, here he was, on the wisdom of that advice. He had compressed all of his feelings into a tight ball of fissile energy that sat deep inside him. Whether it had served him well he didn’t know. Perhaps it was what had made him awkward, aloof. ‘You’re so difficult, Dima: you’re your own worst enemy. So much potential, so little to show for it.’ How many times had he heard that? He looked over his shoulder at the men following behind. Vladimir, Kroll, had they fared any better? Each of us in our own way is a casualty, he reflected. The GRU’s walking wounded.
Kroll caught up with him and clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Hey.’ He peered into Dima’s eyes. ‘Uh-oh, I know that look.’
‘Kroll, your life is shit. What makes you so fucking cheerful all the time?’
Kroll shrugged. They paused to let the others catch up. Vladimir caught the change of mood and grinned his vampire grin.
‘It beats another night in Butyrka.’
Zirak nodded at the street ahead. ‘I hope Amara’s got the dinner on.’
33
Camp Firefly, Outskirts of Tehran
Black sat at the folding table, the field laptop open in front of him and Campo and Montes behind, the light from the screen giving their faces a ghostly glow. The video, shot at night, was almost indecipherable, but there was enough to be in no doubt as to what was happening. Cole stood over them as they watched.
Campo hissed through clenched teeth.
‘We got any idea who this cocksucker is?’
The man, tall, with the end of his turban wrapped round his face, stood over the hooded figure, whispering. Then with a magician’s flourish he whipped off the hood to reveal the face of the terrified tanker, Miller, before he drove a blade into his neck.
Cole reached forward and slammed down the lid, looked at Black, waiting.
‘Same guy?’
Black nodded. ‘It’s like he’s taunting us. Does he think making us this mad’s gonna help his revolution?’
‘What do intel say? They got a fix on him?’
Cole shrugged.
‘Nothing. Okay guys, listen up. We got confirmation Al Bashir’s run to the northwest of the city where the PLR forces are concentrated. They’ll be kept occupied by ongoing airstrikes.’
Cole broke open a map and spread it over the table.
‘Al Bashir and any sub-commanders must be captured alive. Assault element, call sign Misfit 2–1, will be flown in by Osprey. Black, your team will provide overwatch from these positions.’
Cole pointed to two locations on a satellite shot of a large shopping mall.
‘Extraction will be by Osprey. Okay gentlemen, get to work.’
Montes looked at Black.
‘Do you get the feeling we just missed another night’s sleep?’
Campo chipped in. ‘No way baby, you’ve just had eight hours and a nice lie in. Don’t you remember that nice nightcap the lady with the big tits brought you in your suite? And how she served it, with whipped cream and—.’
Black wasn’t listening. He opened the laptop. Played the video again.
34
‘Hey! “Is it a bird? Is it a plane?” Whooh!’
Campo, grinning, watched through a tiny window as the Osprey’s rotors tilted from take-off into flight position. He nudged Black, yelling above the roar.
‘Man, don’t you love it? The first flying machine to combine the vertical take-off capability of a chopper with the cruise speed of a turboprop plane. Is that a beautiful idea or what?’
Black wanted Campo to stop nudging him and shut up but he didn’t say so. He knew he meant well. Campo always meant well. If he hadn’t damaged an eye in training he’d have been up there in the cockpit. Flying was what he’d signed up for, but his injury had finished that dream. He had accepted it as he did all setbacks, by seeking out the next positive. Blackburn wondered what positives he would have found if he had seen Harker’s beheading.
‘And you know what’s way cool? The enemy can hear us coming but they don’t know where the fuck we gonna land. ‘Cos this thing can drop on any roof, any playground it wants. They gonna be shitting their girlfriends’ panties in that shopping mall when we come out to play!’
Campo gave him another nudge.
‘And you know who wanted to kill it off? The Lord of War himself, Dick Cheney, back when he was Secretary of Defense. But know what? He got overruled by Congress. Our elected representatives said, “Go build that bird”.’
The relative merits of the Osprey were a subject of heated debate among the Marines. Being able to fly right in and deploy on top of the enemy was a big plus: why fight your way into hostile territory by land when you could just drop regular Marines right on top of their HQ like they were Navy Seals going to get Bin Laden? All good, except for that tense moment they all hated, as the craft hovered teasingly over its landing site while its rotors switched to land position.
‘Not so much a sitting duck as a hovering duck,’ Campo said.
What was on Blackburn’s mind now wasn’t the Osprey, but Cole’s last words before he boarded. ‘You bring us back Al Bashir, the Harker thing is forgotten. Got that?’ Cole wasn’t letting up.
Black looked out of the porthole as they swooped towards the LZ. Above, a black night dotted with stars, an almost full moon rising over the mountains to the north. It was a long time since he had looked at anything so beautiful. He stared, as if trying to absorb as much of the serenity as he could before the Osprey took them back down into the firestorm.
35
Niavaran, Northeast Tehran
Amara cradled the glass in her hands and stared at the last remaining mouthful of rum.
‘Pig scum.’
Dima wasn’t sure exactly sure who she was referring to. He decided not to seek clarification.
She had taken the news of Gazul’s death with a stoic resignation that he hadn’t anticipated. He might have sat beside her and ventured to put a comforting arm round her shoulder, if she hadn’t been such a miserable bitch. Plus on the way back into the house he had caught sight of his reflectio
n. Vladimir’s attempt at wiping off the remains of her husband’s brains had left a lot to be desired, so after the battering he’d received earlier he opted to deliver the news from a safe distance.
‘Just to let you know – I let the boys use the facilities to get themselves cleaned up.’
Miraculously the showers in the house still worked, and the electricity was on a generator. Vladimir was in a bath, singing a rousing old Soviet pioneer song, splashing as he raised his fist and slammed it back into the water. ‘Forward, people of the Motherland! Fight girls! Fight boys! Slay the fascist beast . . . ’ Ah, the good old days.
From the kitchen he could smell a stew being prepared by Zirak, of what it was probably best not to ask. Kroll, who would have to be reminded to wash, was trying to fix the scanner, which had suffered its second near-death experience during the evacuation from the burning APC. Gregorin, freshly groomed, had helped himself to Gazul’s wardrobe and was engaged in cleaning their weapons, getting smears of grease on his dead host’s best shirt.
The house looked just as the home of the Intelligence Chief’s mother should. No one had come looting or even bothered the current occupant, because they were too busy fleeing.
‘Pig scum. I hope they are hijacked by Taliban and spit roasted, both ends.’ She pointed her two forefingers at each other and made a sharp jabbing motion.
‘All the other wives, first hint of trouble —.’ She sliced the air with her hand. ‘They take the first plane out to Dubai. They’ll be round the pool at the Jumeirah Beach now, knocking back the daiquiris at 150 dirhams a time, eyeing up the waiters and thanking Allah their husbands banked offshore.’ Her hand flew in a wide circle, indicating the house. ‘Mother, cousins, sisters: all gone. When we married they took me into their family.’ She jabbed her thumb in the air. ‘Fuck them all!’
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