Man on Edge

by Humphrey Hawksley

  Royal Yacht HNoMY Norge, Kirkenes, Norway

  ‘The royal yacht Norge measures eighty meters and was built in Britain in 1937 for the famous aircraft designer Thomas Sopwith,’ Sergey Grizlov told the increasingly restless guests whom he had just told yet again about weather delaying the arrival of the two Presidents. Grizlov stood behind a long table set up for Peter Merrow and Viktor Lagutov against a backdrop of the Russian and American national flags. ‘The Norwegian government bought the vessel in 1947 to mark the late King Haakon’s seventy-fifth birthday and I am now at liberty to reveal that her first voyage of the summer will be to visit our beautiful Severomorsk, which many of you will know as a closed military city. What many of you might not know is that Severomorsk and Kirkenes are sister cities and the Russian and Norwegian people feel that a visit by the Norge is long overdue.’

  The Kirkenes mayor gave a whoop of support followed by applause which Grizlov shortened with a louder clap saying, ‘I have also just been informed that the presidential motorcade is minutes away from the jetty.’

  Stephanie looked out of windows streaked with melting hailstones to see security agents take up positions. Merrow’s armored Cadillac stopped just beyond the gang plank that led to the deck of the yacht. Lagutov’s Russian-made Aurus Senat pulled up just before it. Both Presidents got out of their vehicles simultaneously, shook hands for the cameras, and walked on board.

  Grizlov weaved through guests toward the door, beckoning to Stephanie who edged across to him. ‘They’ve closed the border,’ he said. ‘Troops from Salmiyarvi have been deployed along the E-105.’

  That’s it, thought Stephanie. Best efforts and mission failure. Grizlov joined the Norwegian Foreign Minister and American Secretary of State in the greeting line. A naval helicopter took off from the Norwegian frigate behind them. Stephanie’s phone vibrated. ‘We’ve found Ozenna,’ said Harry. ‘I’m heading down there, now.’

  Nikel, Murmansk Oblast, Russia

  Ruslan Yumatov watched the news feed and sent a two-character message to Andrei Kurchin on board the Kasatka through the very low frequency transmitter outside of Severomorsk – GO.

  Kurchin repeated the message to his chief weapons engineer. He watched the Bear-1 detach itself from his submarine. The screen blurred with a rush of white water as software within the unmanned drone adjusted the vessel, found its direction, settled, and set off on its programmed course. The two Presidents were due on board the Norge for just under an hour. By then, they would be dead.

  Salmiyarvi, Murmansk Oblast, Russia

  A blizzard arrived with slicing hail that smashed against Rake like a drum roll. Shrieking wind was strong enough to stop Nilla in her tracks. Rake kept on, lifting his snowshoes high, slowing his steps, leaning forward to keep balance. They were off the road on a narrow track sloping down to the lake, trees on both sides. Clumps of snow thrown off by raging weather drifted in the middle. Visibility cut, Rake felt his way through. He sensed more than he saw hazards on the path. He stepped around them. An inch too far and he would sink into a drift. In this weather, the Russians could never track them. All they had to do was keep moving. He lost sight of Nilla. He stayed on the path. He didn’t want to go past her. He thought he saw her shape, reached out, and found it was light and ice playing tricks. She found him, her hand stretching, probing, like searching inside a dark cupboard. She grasped his arm and pulled him toward her, close enough to see each other. She pressed her gloved hands down on the air: Stop until it passes. Rake put his hands together as if in prayer and pointed ahead: Keep moving. She ran a finger under her throat: Too dangerous. Rake tapped his chest. I will go. Nilla could stay, build a snowhole, keep safe. Nilla waved her hand across her face: Both go. She shouted something, but he couldn’t make out what. He clasped her wrist like a mountain climber.

  Rake led. The downward path became steeper. A gust shook clumps from a tree, part snow, part ice. They landed on the path like a rockfall. Rake side-stepped; Nilla with him. She was good. The treeline ended. Fresh snow was blown away by the wind. The bank to the lake was made up of uneven ice, leading to an expanse of hazy, barren desolation. Rake fumbled with his night vision, got the lenses over his eyes, and saw they had almost walked right into a Russian fence in front of them. It ran along the banks of the fjord and would have sensors and alarms to override the weather if they were working. He judged it about twelve feet high with razor wire at the top. Nilla was by his side. She knew what to do. She led, hand clasped around his wrist, with each step snowshoes locked skillfully onto the ice, picking safe areas, guiding them along the fence, looking for a gap. She moved with confidence as if she knew where one was.

  Without warning, the wind dropped. There was sudden quiet, clarity and extreme danger. They were right up against rows of razor wire, like a film coming into focus. At the bottom, wire was pulled out of the ground, splayed up onto the other side, probably the work of a brown bear. Nilla crouched down and used her gloves to wrench the wire out further. She lay on her front. Rake held the broken fence clear of her clothing. She crawled under. Once through she lifted the wire for Rake. He went crablike on his back, wanting to keep a line of sight around him.

  Once through they needed to get onto the frozen fjord and keep going. The border was unmarked, and this was Nilla’s land. It was why Rake had brought her along. Nilla showed Rake a path with her flashlight, prodding with her pole. Shore ice was the most dangerous, where land became water, where animal warmth and plant growth disrupted, where it was difficult to tell what was under a deep fall of snow. Nilla stopped thirty feet out, shone the flashlight back again to confirm her route. Rake followed. His phone buzzed. He looked down through the transparent sealed pocket in his jacket. They were in Norwegian signal area. He kept walking, trying to work his finger through the plastic to see who called. Lucas. He needed a secure place, but he didn’t want to lose Nilla. He stepped where she had stepped, prodded his ski pole where she had prodded. He felt the crumbling of old snow beneath the fresh first layer. Lucas’ call became a message. His snowshoes hit the smoothness of the lake’s ice. Nilla’s back was to him. She ran her flashlight toward the border, finding a passage of thin snow and flat ice to get them there quickly. Rake glanced at the phone again. Lucas again. Nilla— He couldn’t see more. Wind smashed iced mist against his goggles.

  The snow was more than two feet deep. He lifted his shoe high to be sure to clear it for the next step. He brushed the shattered ice from his jacket and tried to read more of the message. He couldn’t see it. He lowered his foot, pole out, and secure in case the wind struck again. Something cut into his leg. It gripped both sides, sharp metal breaking through his protective clothing and throwing him off balance. The pole snapped out. His right knee buckled, and Rake fell. A cast-iron circle of steel weighed down his right leg, its teeth biting through his reinforced cold-weather pants. Rake knew bear traps. This was a powerful one, about forty pounds, designed to immobilize a big animal. The way the teeth bore into his leg, he knew the spring had been set for maximum tension. The trap would keep up pressure, cutting through material, into skin, muscle, and bone. Nilla had her back to him. She was on the phone, as if she hadn’t seen him. He leaned forward to take hold of the trap. Its teeth penetrated his leg more, cold steel breaking through his skin. He felt for the springs either side of the plate, began pushing down on them, began feeling the pressure ease. Nilla turned, casting her flashlight over him.

  FORTY-NINE

  The way the snow swirled, Rake more sensed her than saw her. Nilla crouched next to him. His left hand worked the spring of the trap. His right patted down his jacket until he reached his pistol. In between the cycles of wind, he heard the high-pitched engine of a snowmobile. Nilla cupped her hand around Rake’s ear and shouted, ‘Give me the drive, I’ll take it across.’

  Nilla’s suggestion didn’t match anything that was happening. She could free him within seconds because she knew animal traps. ‘Help me open it,’ he yelled against the weather. H
e kept the pressure on the trap’s spring, easing the pain. ‘Here, where my hand is.’

  She reached toward him, not for the trap, but for his jacket pocket, her hand ungloved, fingers feeling for the zip. Rake didn’t think. There was no time to work out what was going on. It wasn’t the first time for him that a friend turned enemy. He struck her with force across the face. She fell back into the snow. Rake brought out his pistol. The trap, embedded in the ice like a pole in concrete, confined him. The teeth cut into his leg. He couldn’t see her. He could twist to the right and left, but that was it. Nilla wasn’t there. Her boot landed hard between his shoulderblades, jerking him forward. She kicked the gun out of his hand. ‘Stop, Rake, and listen,’ she screamed into his ear. ‘My job is to deliver you to Russia. It’s not that fucking drive. If you need to get it across the border, I’ll take it.’

  She shifted round, facing him. She pulled up her goggles so he could see her. ‘I know how much it means to you,’ she said.

  Nilla had played him from the moment he arrived in Norway. She had run her flashlight over the exact spot of the bear trap, guiding him into it. She had suggested just he and her cross the border on foot. As they drove to the farmhouse, she had swerved sharply to the right, giving Yumatov’s men a clear shot toward himself and Mikki behind her. She had been as cool as a statue during the firefight, knowing she would never be a target. And before that, she had got permission for Rake to cross the border with her where the Russians tried to take him in. If Rake was her mission, she had carried it out pretty much to perfection. Except, until now, she had failed.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Then you’re stupid, Rake Ozenna.’

  ‘What do you need?’ shouted Rake. ‘To help me out of here.’

  ‘Nothing.’ Nilla pointed north. Rake heard the whine of approaching engines and saw lamps of snowmobiles, flickering across the ice, blurred in fog.

  ‘They’ll take it when they get you, Rake. Trust me. You have my word, I’ll deliver it.’

  Rake’s right hand eased the trap’s spring back further. His left hand gripped the handle of his knife, ready to use against Nilla. She put back on her goggle and face mask, started making a phone call. She abruptly turned, picked up Rake’s pistol, and dropped it onto his lap. Then, she was gone, engulfed by the weather, walking towards Norway.

  The snowmobiles became more distinct. He could see the lamps of each one spread across the ice in a military cordon. There were not just snowmobiles because pairs of headlights emerged, higher off the ground, trucks driving across the fjord as if it were a field, not just one line, but a second layer, more trucks, with a snowmobile on each flank. Far away there was a more powerful spotlight sweeping the landscape behind and Rake heard the clatter of a helicopter. Was all this just for him? The noise of approaching engines became louder, competing with the roar of the wind. The headlamps glared, obscured, vanished, shone through again, depending on the mood of the snow fall and the fog. Rake put all his concentration on the trap. Both hands prized down the spring, easing the pressure on his leg until it was unlocked. He drew his leg out. The cold on the broken skin sent a jolt of extreme pain. He pushed himself up and tested his weight. It was not fine. It hurt like hell. But it would hold.

  He judged the snowmobiles were three minutes out, more if the weather worsened. He unzipped his jacket, untucked his shirt, and cut a large strip off the bottom of his silk vest. He dabbed the material on blood from the cut skin on his leg, tied it around one arm of the bear trap, and secured the trap back in the snow. He zipped up his clothing, put on his gloves and facemask, picked up his ski pole, and followed Nilla’s steps west for seventy-five yards within the effective range of his pistol. Nilla had kept to the path across the ice. On either side was deep snow. Rake sank himself into one and carved out a space that protected him from the wind and gave him a view back toward the trap.

  Clearly defined now, he could see seven military snowmobiles, two of which he identified as the powerful Berkut 2 with a 1,000cc engine, carrying at least two men, and a 7.62mm machine gun on the back. Five were smaller, more versatile, with just a driver. The vehicles behind them were a distorted blur of lights. He heard pulses of the helicopter’s engine, but couldn’t see the aircraft. This level of force had not been deployed just to take in Rake. It was a show of strength that NATO was incapable of rescuing an American soldier in harm’s way only a few hundred meters from its border.

  He had a full Norwegian signal on his phone. The snowhole gave him protection from the noise of the wind. He called Harry Lucas, who picked up. ‘Excalibur,’ said Rake. ‘This is Sword Edge.’

  ‘What is your situation, Sword Edge?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes out.’

  ‘Do you have Carrie?’

  ‘Negative.’

  They should have been across by now, but if they were, Lucas would know. He didn’t react.

  ‘Nilla Carsten is hostile and she is coming across now.’

  ‘We have her tracked. If you’re where the locator says you are, you have Russian hostile forces approaching.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Rake calmly. ‘Tell Stefan to prepare two sleds, eight dogs each, and, repeat, I will be with you in fifteen minutes.’

  Rake slid deeper into the shallow snowhole. The wind was steady, the snow light. A lamp from the lead snowmobile washed across him. There was no reaction, meaning he was adequately hidden. The first snowmobile was smaller with just one driver. Then a larger Berkut 2 broke from the formation and cut across to join it, one man in its closed cab, another on the back with a machine gun. Others circled. The single snowmobile skirted around the bear trap and stopped. A soldier got off. He held a pistol ready and a Kalashnikov on a strap around his shoulder. The flashlight from his helmet cast an arc around the area. He signaled to the crew of the larger vehicle as if to say, ‘nothing here’. As he turned back to his vehicle, Rake shot him in the face and a second round in his right leg made sure.

  Rake leapt out of the snowhole. The second snowmobile caught him in its beam. Rake shot the machine-gunner, riding exposed on the back. He used the same double tap, head and leg. The door to the cabin flew open. There was only the driver inside. Rake fired and missed, but bought himself enough confusion to pick up the automatic weapon hooked to the body of the man he had just killed. He aimed half the magazine toward the cabin, fifteen rounds, in a line of fire that cut through the driver’s torso. The driver fell out, wounded, arms flailing. Inside the snowmobile cab were four hand grenades, another Kalashnikov, and a bag of six thirty-round magazines. Rake carried them to the small snowmobile which would be faster and versatile. The engine was still running. The GPS on the control panel showed the Norwegian border 550 meters due west.

  Five snowmobiles sped toward him, ignoring the unpredictable terrain of deep snow and unseen bumps that could quickly flip them. Ice on top of a lake was the most dangerous condition for a snowmobile. Nothing was guaranteed. Rake sensed rash orders from a commander with his back up against the wall, probably Yumatov in the helicopter, shouting instructions.

  Rake let off the brake and eased out the accelerator. He cut the lamp and followed Nilla’s foot track with his naked eye. She had kept a steady, unwavering pace. The powerful engine below him could go more than a hundred miles an hour. Rake stuck to below twenty, a choice of fine balance; the slower he was, the more chance the enemy had of closing in; the faster he was, the more chance of smashing into an obstacle or veering off into a snow drift. Twenty miles an hour covered nine meters a second. If he were able to keep straight and free of deep snow, it would be just over a minute before he reached Norway.

  One Russian snowmobile was ahead of the rest, zigzagging toward him, its light jumping up and down. One second, he was in its beam, the next it was gone. Rake moved into a cloud of frozen ice, stinging his skin and cutting his visibility. He couldn’t even see his hands on the controls. The wind whipped up. He slowed to walking pace.

  Bullets smashed against the back of
the snowmobile, wild firing from his left. They were guessing. They couldn’t see him. Rake was unable to see Nilla’s tracks. Without them, he could sink into a drift. If he turned on the lamp, he would be dead. Rake kept going, feeling the turning of the treads, the sliding of the skis. He was three hundred meters from the border. They had thermal imaging and infra-red that could cut through the weather and pick up the heat from his engine. The weather was worsening by the second. He could try on foot. He could wait it out. He could risk a high-speed run, across the line. None was a solution.

  A grenade exploded in front of him. Its blast cut through the wind. Flames leapt up from the snow. Shrapnel cracked the windshield. A second grenade went off to his left. They were ranging in on him like with artillery, firing until they hit him. Rake made his choice. He hurled a grenade to his left and one to his right. In an arc in front of him, he laid down a field of fire, using a whole Kalashnikov magazine, threw the weapon onto the snow, picked up another, snapped on the lamp, and opened the throttle. The engine pitched. Shots ripped through the air around him so close he heard cracks of bullets breaking the sound barrier. He picked up speed. An explosion threw up flames and snow on the exact spot he had just been.

  Rake could see ahead, not to his right or left. He spotted the flickering beams of lights beyond the border. There was no line, nor markers, no wall. A searchlight from behind bounced off the cracked windshield and onto his face. His snowmobile shook as it was rammed from the back, its front skewed round to the left, the skids about to sink into deep snow. Rake put his weight to the right to correct it. As it came back, another Russian snowmobile cut across his path, crashing into him. The driver gesticulated but didn’t seem to know what to do next. He touched his earpiece as if waiting for instructions. Rake shot him. Bullets from behind smashed through his control panel. Rake turned but saw no target. He threw a grenade into the vehicle. As it exploded, he hurled himself out, into the snow and away. Rake crawled round to the front, passed the driver he had shot who had fallen into the snow, half in and half out of the vehicle, his legs caught on a strap on the seat, alive and a weapon in his hand. Rake put a round in the man’s head. He pushed himself up and ran, pain pumping through his wounded leg.