52
The Lieutenant was in a rage: that much was clear.
‘Congratulations, Blackburn. You found your man. Glad to see you got your priorities right.’
Blackburn said nothing.
‘Campo and Montes figured you must be dead since there’s at least two buried in the rubble out there.’
The news hit Dima like another explosion. Zirak and Gregorin . . .
Cole glared at Dima.
‘So: the executioner. You’ve made quite a name for yourself.’
Dima didn’t respond. When in doubt do absolutely nothing, just think fast and watch hard. The Uzi was half a metre from his foot. He tried to read the Lieutenant: earnest, well-bred, committed, he guessed, here because he wanted to be. In for the long haul. But with something else going on. It was all in Blackburn’s intriguing reaction to his superior officer, as if being rescued by him was the last thing in the world he wanted right now.
Cole stepped closer, eyeing Dima.
‘As good a place as any to end this.’
Blackburn said nothing. The dust had turned his face to a mask. A very unpleasant thought started forming in Dima’s mind.
‘Say, Blackburn. It looks pretty unstable in here. Should get ourselves out before it caves.’
‘Sir,’ said Blackburn. But he made no move. The M4 felt like a betrayal in his hands.
‘You’re very quiet, Blackburn. Guess I know what you’re thinking: now’s your chance. Well soldier, you’ve earned it. You go right ahead. Do what you have to do. Your secret’ll be safe with me.’
I can’t believe this is happening, thought Dima, realising what Cole was intimating. He glanced at the Uzi.
Cole stepped up to Blackburn and shouted in his ear.
‘Hey Blackburn, you hearing me? I’m giving you a chance.’
What a cunt, thought Dima.
Blackburn was frozen to the spot, his M4 now drooping in his hands. In front of him, two men, his CO and his tormentor, telling him to kill the stranger who had just saved his life. And if this man was right about Solomon . . . What happened next took less than a second, but it was a very packed less than a second. Dima, his reflexes taking over, sprang towards the Uzi. Cole, having concluded that Blackburn didn’t have the stomach for it, took aim at Dima. But the weapon that went off wasn’t Cole’s. And the man that went down wasn’t Dima. The shot seemed to fill the whole bunker. Cole’s expression became one of exaggerated surprise as he sank to his knees, moving through dismay, to indignation, and finally to horror.
He stayed upright for a few more agonising seconds, then his eyes glazed and he slumped forward on to the rubble.
Dima, Uzi in hand, wheeled round to face Blackburn. He had seen that look before: Gregorin describing the elimination of his bullying comrade – a certain serenity that follows particularly sweet revenge. He shook his head as if he still didn’t quite believe it. But there was no question, the young American looked as though a great weight had just been lifted from him.
Dima stepped forward and grasped his saviour by the shoulder.
‘Thank you, comrade. I think we’re quits.’
53
Dima had no idea how they were going to get out of the bunker. In the two hours he had been in there, he had faced Yang, then Kaffarov, followed by Blackburn and Cole. And he had heard about Solomon. Survival was what concentrated his mind now. Escape – he didn’t want to tempt providence by even considering it. But with the US Marines outside wondering about the fate of first Blackburn and now Cole, it was only a matter of time before another of them tried to make an entrance. That or another beam smashing down and crushing them to death.
Blackburn was ahead of him.
‘I’ve seen plans to this place. There was some kind of shaft running out through the rear of the bunker. It exits the other side of the mountain. If we can find the entrance.’
Together they made their way over the rubble and broken beams. Through a small antechamber they found a metal door similar to the one concealed behind the panelling in the chalet. Although it wasn’t locked, it looked as though it hadn’t been used in a long time. Blackburn pointed his torch into the darkness.
‘Guess this is it.’
Dima half expected Blackburn to bid him farewell and return to his comrades. But Blackburn hadn’t worked out a plan either. He took off his helmet and wiped his forehead. He was drenched in sweat, which was now forming up into drops on his chin and the end of his nose. His mind was spinning.
‘What just happened . . . I don’t know . . .’
The energy seemed to be running out of him as fast as the sweat. Dima felt for him. He could go back the way he came in, put a good story together, maybe chuck a grenade into the bunker as he left: he had a good chance of picking up right where he was. Cole would be MIA. But they both knew that the Marine Corps would do its damnedest to find their Lieutenant’s body and extract it – and then they would find the M4 bullet in him . . .
Dima put a hand on his shoulder. ‘This much I can say about Solomon. You put what I’ve told you with what you know and take that back to your superiors. They’re not going to want to hear it at first. Even if one of them makes an inquiry about him to Langley, they’re quite likely to tell him to fuck off. Solomon is an untouchable as far as they’re concerned. They’re not going to pull him in and wreck years of what they consider to be high value infiltration just on the say-so of a Marine with a hunch. You are going to have to work hard to convince them. Solomon finds his way to America with one of those bombs, he’s going to need someone on his case. You’ve seen the maps, you’ve seen first-hand how he operates and you’ve seen the device. And you have what I’ve told you.’
There was another massive blast and the bunker collapsed completely, sending a huge choking cloud of dust and smoke rolling towards them. They retreated into the tunnel to get away from it – and kept going. Neither of them said anything as they travelled what must have been half a mile underground.
The tunnel was fairly smooth underfoot, but snaked left and right. The ceiling was low and they had to stoop. The air was stale and damp, but cooler. Blackburn’s helmet torch showed them the way. They stumbled along in complete silence.
Like the one at the entrance to the tunnel, the door at the end was wide open – but the rusty scar across the floor and the blast marks around the old-fashioned locking mechanism suggested that it had been recently prised open, and whoever had come through hadn’t bothered to shut it.
They took their time to let their eyes adjust to the blinding daylight. The exit, half-shrouded in shrubbery, was into a small valley of cypresses. A few metres below the mouth of the tunnel was a track with a fork. To the right it led southeast, up towards a cleft in the mountains, to the left it dropped into a valley and curved north.
Dima studied the ground: fresh tyre tracks. Someone had been here recently and made a turn right by the entrance.
54
It was just before three, the hottest part of the day. The air gushing into the tunnel felt as if it was coming from an open oven. Dima went first, motioning to Blackburn to stay back until he signalled him. He surveyed the area around the mouth of the tunnel: a few cypress trees, a track that ran from the southeast going north. Apart from a half-ruined stone shed about two hundred metres away, there were no signs of habitation. He examined the ground.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Tracks. And they’re recent. Look.’
Blackburn crouched down with him.
‘See the way those blades of grass are broken but still green. And here.’ He circled an area in the dust. ‘Tyre track, wide tread: pickup or SUV.’
Dima’s phone was still on him. He felt it buzz in his pocket. Kroll.
‘Welcome back from the underground. Who’s your new sidekick?’
‘Where are you?’ Dima asked in English.
‘See the shed?’
‘Are we clear to move?’
‘Uncle Sam’s still on t
he other side of the hill, but no one else.’
Dima and Blackburn made their way over to the remains of the shed. Some camo netting had been spread between the walls for cover. Inside was a beaten-up Toyota Land Cruiser. Kroll and Vladimir appeared from behind a wall. Vladimir had a makeshift bandage on his head, and Kroll a strip of shirt tied round his arm. For Dima, the relief of seeing them was overshadowed by what he knew was coming next.
Vladimir spoke first.
‘Zirak and Gregorin didn’t make it. Nor Kristen.’
‘Amara?’
He nodded at the rear seat of the Land Cruiser.
‘She’s a bit banged up, nothing broken. The Americans dug her out, then when the rest of the chalet collapsed they forgot about her. We’d legged it when they turned their fire on the AAs, but we maintained surveillance until we spotted her, then we lifted the truck.’
Kroll beckoned Dima over to the SUV. He looked at the bundle curled up on the rear seat: dusty, dishevelled and in shock, but alive.
Kroll spoke first. ‘Kristen had shown her the escape route on her first visit. So once we’d found it we decided to hang out in case you showed up. We didn’t know if you would, obviously.’
Vladimir was glaring at Blackburn. Dima gestured at his new comrade.
‘Among other things, he saved my life. Give him some water.’
Kroll passed them a bottle of water each.
‘We’re fresh out of sparkling.’
As they drank it down he shook a cigarette out of a pack.
Dima gave them the essentials of what had happened. Out of deference to Blackburn he skipped the business with Cole.
‘But we have a far more urgent situation: it’s called Solomon.’
Kroll’s lighter paused in mid-air.
‘Go ahead and light it. You’ll probably need another after what I’m about to tell you.’
They sat in the shade of the camo net while Dima gave them the highlights of Blackburn’s story – the beheading, the maps and the remaining nuke in the bank vault. When he had finished, Kroll hung his head.
‘I think I’d rather go back to prison,’ said Vladimir.
Kroll drew heavily on his cigarette and gave Dima a look. ‘I hope that’s not your “Anyone for Paris?” face.’
Dima ignored him. ‘We don’t know how long we’ve got: put that down as a known unknown. Whether Solomon has his own people already in place there and in New York, just waiting for the nukes to be delivered – that joins a long list of unknown unknowns.’
‘Yeah, like who in Moscow tipped off Kaffarov.’
Kroll wasn’t one to hide his indignation.
Dima turned to Blackburn.
‘I guess this is the moment you decide what you’re going to do.’
Blackburn looked pale, still stunned by the events of the last half hour. Eventually he spoke.
‘There’s only one choice. I have to get back to my company.’
‘What condition was the chalet in when you left?’ Dima asked.
Kroll made a tumbling gesture with his hands.
‘They backed off after the rest of the front collapsed. Don’t think anyone’s going back in there.’
Blackburn and Dima exchanged a look. Blackburn set the water bottle down.
‘Guess it’s time.’
Vladimir turned to Dima. ‘And that’s not a problem for us? We don’t want the US Army on our tail.’
They all looked at Dima. Blackburn could go back to his superiors with a version of what had just happened and they could come right after them.
It was Blackburn who broke the silence, suddenly calm and resolute. He addressed Kroll and Vladimir. ‘Your comrade saved my life today. And he witnessed something that would put me behind bars for the rest of my life. We have a mutual interest in each other’s survival.’
Dima turned to Blackburn, who had got to his feet.
‘Sure you wouldn’t rather stick with us?’
It was the first time he’d seen a smile onBlackburn’s face. Suddenly he looked much younger.
‘I’m flattered by your offer, Dima. But I think I might cramp your style.’
Dima looked at the track that led up to the cleft between the two mountains.
‘Well, would you like us to see you to the top?’
‘I think I better do this one alone – should an Osprey show up.’
Dima shook his hand. ‘One question, if it’s not too personal. How old are you?’
‘I think we’re well past that point. Twenty-five next Thanksgiving.’
Twenty-five years since Paris, Dima thought. The young man in the photograph – they would be the same age.
‘You mind how you go, Sergeant Blackburn.’
Blackburn saluted him then shook hands with the others. The three of them watched the young Marine until he was not much more than a speck on the mountainside.
Eventually Kroll broke the silence.
‘Are you going to tell us just what the fuck that was all about?’
55
Tehran–Tabriz Highway, Northern Iran
Kroll drove, Vladimir drank, Dima slept: the three of them side-by-side on the bench seat up front. Amara, still fast asleep, had the whole of the back seat to herself. After what she had been through in the last twenty-four hours, no one was going to move her. It was hot and sticky inside the Land Cruiser. They kept the air conditioning off to save fuel but even with the windows open the humid night air that gushed in seemed to have retained the previous day’s heat.
Dima slept fitfully. Too frequently he was jolted back to consciousness by a pothole, or Kroll swerving to avoid stray cattle or lumps of rubble from the quake. And when he did sleep his dreams were disturbing, weirdly edited versions of scenes replayed from the last twenty-four hours. He knew it was inevitable that his brain had to process it all, but that didn’t make it any less unpleasant. Yin and Yang, Kaffarov and Cole, each made an appearance, re-enacting their roles, each time with different outcomes. He felt Yin’s grip as he held him underwater, unrelenting and strong as iron, until he felt the life ebbing from him. That woke him up. Then Blackburn was there again, not reacting this time, and Cole’s gun exploded in Dima’s face, blinding him with a fatal white flash.
Then more distant memories floated back into view. Solomon, when Dima first met him – still a teenager, but with that look he recognised from boy soldiers in Africa, of having seen too much, too soon. His brooding, heavy brow, high cheekbones, olive skin: the calculating eyes that were never still. The brilliant fearless teenager with no past and no name he could call his own. Dima wondered if he had ever found out who he really was. He knew it troubled him not knowing.
‘How can I choose whose side to be on?’ he had said, when the boy inside him was still alive, before it had been extinguished by hate.
‘You’re on your own side,’ Dima had replied, struggling to find him some consolation. ‘Fight for yourself: you are your own cause.’
More than any other, this was the one piece of Dima’s advice Solomon had taken to heart – if he had such a thing as a heart. As Solomon’s trainer and then his handler, Dima had made an effort to befriend him, to establish trust, but Solomon was having none of it. Friendship, he said, was a weakness and a distraction: the first real sign that he was shedding his humanity, like a creature remaking itself. He took himself so seriously that some of his peers teased him. They soon regretted it. He seldom lost his temper but could extract the energy from his own anger, like a solar panel absorbs the sun, storing it for later use. And that could come at any time in the future – three days, three weeks, even years later. Nothing gave Solomon more pleasure than watching the dismay build on a victim’s face as it gradually dawned on them why they were being punished. He was brilliant at deception. His mastery of languages, his gift of mimicry, bettered even Dima’s, and the terrorist cells he was sent to infiltrate were invariably won over by his willingness to undertake whatever initiation rite was demanded to prove his loyalty, no
matter how brutal. He was a chilling adversary. And one Dima had not expected to face – until now.
They kept to the mountains until they were well clear of the Americans, then dropped down to the Tehran–Tabriz road they had taken two days before. Apart from several vehicles abandoned during the exodus from Tehran, it was deserted. They came across a bus that had come off the road and slid down a bank. But there was no sign of the passengers, or the rest of the multitude who had left their homes and livelihoods behind in the shattered capital.
At Miyaneh, southeast of Tabriz, Kroll said,
‘We’re almost out of juice.’
It was three a.m.
‘I guess the fun had to end sometime,’ said Dima. ‘They’ve got gas coming out of their ears in these bloody places, but can you find any when you need it?’
The entire town was shuttered, but a vast impromptu camp had sprung up in the parking lot of a shopping mall, with hundreds sleeping in their cars. They woke a few of them up and offered cash for whatever was left in their tanks, but all swore they were as good as empty. They sputtered on a little further, then the tank ran dry. They found a plastic can in the trunk, and leaving Kroll with Amara, Vladimir and Dima walked on until they came to a gas station.
‘Nice and quiet,’ said Vladimir.
But they were not alone. A gang of raw-looking PLR recruits appeared out of the shadows and raised their AKs. One look at them and you could see the lack of experience, the volatile combination of fear and the lack of impulse control.
‘You’d think just one thing could be straightforward, wouldn’t you,’ said Dima as he identified the leader, a jittery youth in cheap Adidas knock-offs and a red and white scarf round his face. He must have copied his look from an Al Qaeda training video.
Battlefield 3: The Russian Page 21
