Hard Cover

by Adrian Magson

  I slowed down and did a quick 360-degree check. There was nothing behind me and nothing immediately ahead. Forget either side – that was black and blacker. The flickering tracker light on my cell phone showed the Touareg was about five miles in front of me, and had been holding a steady speed for some time. It was good going considering the state of the road and the amount of surface water they had to plough through.

  I slowed some more, letting my speed bleed away until I was doing no more than twenty. The reduction of speed, engine and road noise meant I could hear better, even above the pounding rain, although it still wasn’t crystal clear. But something was out there … I could feel it. Now I’d got the window open, the vibration I’d felt earlier had translated into a definite drumming in the air – and getting louder. Then I had it. It was a sound I’d heard too many times before.

  A helicopter. The thudding sound of the rotors was unmistakable. But in these conditions? Somebody must be desperate.

  I heard Lindsay’s voice. ‘Watchman, come in.’

  ‘A little busy right now,’ I told her calmly. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Sorry, but I just got in a fresh satellite feed tracking aircraft in your area. There’s a helicopter moving up on your position right now—’

  She stopped speaking because I was holding the phone out the window so she could hear what I was hearing.

  I brought the phone back in just as she said, ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  ‘Sure is. I’ve got company and it’s about half a click away and coming in fast. But I don’t think it’s me he’s after. Wait one.’

  A faint light had appeared off to my right, showing briefly through the line of trees. It wasn’t much, probably no more than a running light or the flash of an instrumentation array off the cockpit. But seen from my low perspective, I figured the helicopter was about 500 feet up and by the varying pattern of flight, was being shaken like a rag by the force of the wind and rain. Too much of that and it might start to come apart at the seams.

  ‘I have to go,’ I told Lindsay quickly. ‘I’ll call again later.’

  ‘Copy that, Watchman.’

  I switched off and checked the road ahead; I could see maybe a half-mile to a mile of blacktop with no vehicles or obstructions and no signs of habitation. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I slowed to little more than a crawl and kept one eye on the helicopter as it came up level with me and began to move past. By now it was losing speed and altitude until it reached treetop height. Whoever was flying it must be an expert or crazy – or maybe a little of both. One error and they’d crash and burn among the trees, with nobody but me right now being any the wiser.

  Then the engine note changed and the machine flared suddenly, the nose going up for a moment before it sank with amazing elegance, and disappeared from sight.

  I switched off the headlights and stopped, then jumped out of the car, waiting for the sound of a crash. Nothing. Instead I heard the whine and the telltale whup-whup of the rotors slowing down. They’d landed.

  I got back in the car and edged forward a couple of hundred yards until I figured it was safe to pull off the road. A quick check of my cell phone to make sure the tracker light was still flickering up ahead, and I decided to take a quick look. I was taking a chance stopping like this, but instinct was telling me that whoever was in that helicopter was no errant traveller who’d lost their way, but was connected in some way with Tzorekov.

  If they were out here flying in these conditions, it was because they wanted to – or had to. And that meant I needed to see who they were.

  I climbed out, taking the Grach 9mm and the night vision scope with me, and locked the doors. Then I scooted across the road and into the trees, where I ducked down and tuned in to the night, allowing the atmosphere around me to settle.

  The scope was a godsend. It stopped me walking into a ten-foot flood-ditch just off the road, and showed me the way through the treeline roughly in the direction of where the helicopter had landed. And if I had any doubts, I could smell the stench of aviation fuel in the air and the harsh residue of exhaust fumes lingering in the vegetation before being swept away on the wind.

  I took it slow, treading carefully over the underlying blanket of pine needles and broken branches littering the ground. I was counting on the weather giving me some cover, and the knowledge that anybody travelling in a noisy helicopter would be feeling slightly deafened for a few minutes afterwards until their hearing returned to normal.

  A hundred feet later and I was looking at a twin-engine utility helicopter with a four-blade rotor, sitting in a clearing. It looked like an Ansat but I couldn’t see any markings. Whoever the pilot was, he should have taken a bow for getting them down in one piece in such lousy conditions.

  As I watched, the clamshell-style doors opened, one up and one down to form the steps, and two men emerged. Both were armed with handguns, just visible in the interior light in the cabin, with two more men standing behind them. Another two were at the controls up front.

  I eased back in case they had night-vision goggles, and slipped behind a small pile of logs. Whatever these men were doing here, it didn’t look like good news.

  The first two stepped away from the helicopter and disappeared into the darkness, shoulders hunched against the wet. Either they were going for a comfort break or checking out the scenery. Something told me the latter. I kept my head down, and minutes later one of them walked past my position before returning to the helicopter and meeting up with his colleague. Whoever he was, he moved through the trees like he knew how and I put his age at somewhere in the thirties.

  As soon as they were together, one of the other men inside stepped down from the cabin and stood looking down at a cell phone, apparently oblivious to the rain. He was taller than the others and broad across the shoulders. The light from the phone showed up a face with strong cheekbones and a beak of a nose, and I had a feeling this was the man in charge. It took me a second or two before I realized that he and the others were dressed in camouflage uniforms and jump boots.

  Something in the way the big man was standing, and the manner in which he was holding the cell phone, looked odd. It was only when he turned to look to the north, then looked down to check the phone again, that I realized what he was doing. He was confirming a location against his current position.

  I eased away and hurried back to the pickup. Armed men, military or ex-military, flying in close to zero-visibility conditions miles from anywhere and being forced to land. A wild explanation might say they were Russian special forces on a field exercise; but somehow I didn’t think so. Most military chiefs will hesitate to risk valuable men and machines in training unless absolutely unavoidable.

  And the fact was, these guys weren’t miles from anywhere; they were up close – too close – to the same godforsaken patch of remote forest and lakes as Leonid Tzorekov and his bodyguard.

  My only question was, how could that happen?

  TWENTY-TWO

  On the side of a tree-covered hill thirty miles inside the border with Finland, two figures were huddled inside a concealed observation post. Sergeants Robert Cross and Joe Cundell had parachuted in three nights ago using the HAHO – high altitude, high opening – technique to drift across the border, and had concealed their chutes deep in the ground where they would never be found. After force-marching – or tabbing, as they called it – overland to their present position, they had dug in and set up the BAE Systems-manufactured Blackbat stealth drone ready for flight. From here they would watch out for the signal from the target vehicle they would hopefully see on the screen of the control unit, before sending the data to a receiving station near London.

  Cross was awake with Cundell catching up on some sleep while the opportunity allowed. Both men were highly experienced and had worked together before, in Afghanistan and Iraq, setting up Forward OPs – observation posts – and living for days in dangerous terrain, constantly exposed to possible discovery with little or n
o chance of survival. Back then they had contended with mostly desert conditions, dry rations and hot days; at least here they had trees, cool air and water – lots of it – to soften the assignment.

  Cross checked the screen of a handheld motion detector for signs of movement. They had planted several monitor spikes in the ground around their position, which would alert them to anything larger than a dog approaching by means of a tiny light showing the direction of the potential threat. So far, the spikes had remained silent.

  He leaned across and ran his eyes over the Blackbat, checking again for signs of damage to the casing that could signify a possible malfunction. If this bird didn’t work at this late stage in the operation, they would have no option but to up sticks and tab back out all the way to the border, where they would be eased across to safety.

  Satisfied he had done as much as he could, Cross sat back and tuned into the night, shutting out Joe Cundell’s soft snores and subconsciously counting down the minutes to launch time. Their biggest moment of danger would be when they released the drone from a clearing close to the top of the hill. They needed very little space for the flight take-off, since the machine would hit vertical lift almost immediately. But sudden powerful gusts or an increase in rainfall at the wrong moment could be disastrous. There was also the risk of hunters in the region, who might spot them as they moved to and from the launch position.

  He flicked back the cover of his watch. Ten minutes to go. Enough for a quick bite and a drink. Then it was suck-it-and-see time. He nudged Cundell with his foot and watched as his colleague came awake, hardly moving but alert and ready to go.

  He couldn’t see clearly in the dark, but he knew Joe would have reached instinctively for his weapon. Except on this trip there wasn’t one. No guns allowed, just some camera equipment to go with the drone as cover in case they were blown, and papers from a wildlife production studio back in the UK. They might not be sufficient to explain how they had wandered across the border without realizing it, but it was worth a try.

  They ate quickly, absorbing as many calories as they could. Like sleep, food was something to take in whenever you could, because you never knew when the next opportunity might present itself.

  ‘You ready?’ Cross said, and waved his satellite phone.

  Cundell nodded. ‘Let’s play spy planes.’

  ‘Christ, don’t even use that word.’ Cross thumbed the speed dial number and waited while the call went through. It was answered after ten seconds, the soft voice of a female comms operator coming all the way from GCHQ, the UK Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

  ‘Go ahead, Blackbat One.’

  ‘Ready to fly. Five minutes.’

  ‘Copy that, Blackbat One. Ready to receive. Good luck.’

  Cross cut the connection and stowed the phone in his jacket, and both men crawled out from their OP. They took the drone and control unit with them, and wore night-vision goggles.

  It took three minutes to reach the clearing, and another two to check that all was clear and ready to launch. The wind was minimal and the rain had stopped.

  It was a small window and possibly the only one they might get for a safe launch. Once the machine was in the air, it would virtually fly itself on a pre-set course, adjusting to the elements even under fairly extreme conditions. The greatest hazards were while it was close to the ground, but it had been designed specifically for this kind of operation. Cross lifted the drone above his head and nodded at Cundell, who switched on the control unit.

  The speed with which the drone reacted still surprised Cross, even though he’d spent many days training with the machine. With barely a hum from its small motors, it lifted out of his hands and disappeared into the night sky, the black, non-reflective casing invisible even from a few feet away.

  The two men retreated to their OP, Cross leading the way while Cundell kept an eye on the monitor showing the machine’s height and direction. They had fed a straightforward grid pattern into the computer to cover the initial search area, and the drone could be relied on to do its job. If they didn’t pick up a signal after thirty minutes, it would be simple enough to change the parameters and start again.

  Back in the OP, Cross called in to GCHQ.

  ‘Blackbat One. Up and flying.’

  ‘Copy, Blackbat One. Out.’

  They ate again and settled down to wait. This was the worst time of any covert operation, when all they could do was sit and wait, monitoring the screen and motion detectors and hoping the drone stayed in the air and undetected. The sleek contours of the body combined with the powerful motors made it perfect for night-time use, but if a strong weather pattern closed in, all their hopes could be dashed by a chance wind throwing the craft off-course. And right now that was a distinct possibility. If the drone did go down, all they could do was hope to find it by following the GPS signal and then start tabbing fast for the border and home.

  Then Cundell said softly, ‘Gotcha, baby. Talk to Daddy. OK, we’ve got a signal. Target acquired.’ He grinned, his face just visible in the reflected light of the screen. ‘I think I’ll celebrate by making a brew.’

  Cross nodded, sharing the relief of a job at least starting out right. ‘I’ll do it. You keep an eye on the birdie.’ He moved across the space to break out a drink.

  ‘What the hell …?’ Cundell swore softly. ‘Look at this.’

  ‘What?’ Cross instinctively checked the motion detector screen, but it was dark.

  ‘I flicked the dial just to check we were in the clear, and picked up a second signal.’

  ‘Could be a radio beacon … or a local military comms site.’

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s coming from the same co-ordinates as the other one.’ Cundell turned the screen so that Cross could see it. Sure enough, a signal was coming in, but it didn’t bear the signature of the one they’d been told to expect. ‘Maybe it’s the second vehicle – the one we’re supporting. He wouldn’t be that close, though, would he?’

  Cross shook his head. Their briefing had been short on details about who else was involved, since theirs was a distance-support only assignment with strictly no local communication or contact. Drop in, run the drone for as long as it took, feeding back information as required, then tab out again without leaving a trace. They were experienced enough to know that the kind of task they’d been given was in support of an operative on the ground. Who he was and what he was doing hadn’t been disclosed, but they were both savvy enough to realize that some poor guy was out there on his own in bandit country, and relying on them to provide electronic backup.

  ‘If it was our guy, why would he be carrying a tracker? Maybe it’s a freak echo.’

  ‘No way.’ Cundell studied the screen again. ‘It’s definitely in the same location. And I mean, the exact same – like on the same body frame.’

  ‘Shit.’ Cross tried to figure out what it meant, but there was only one conclusion he could draw.

  Somehow the target vehicle had picked up a second tracking device.

  He picked up the satellite phone and dialled in. ‘We’d better report in. If somebody else has joined the party, our guy could be in all sorts of trouble.’

  ‘Fine. What do we do in the meantime?’

  ‘We carry on. He’s relying on us.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘Watchman, come in.’

  ‘Go ahead. Lindsay.’ I could guess what she was calling about and she quickly confirmed it.

  ‘That helicopter that came close to you,’ she said. ‘It was an Ansat-U military aircraft, currently listed as non-assigned. We checked all flights and it originated from the Moscow area via Vologda. We haven’t found a flight plan and if he has a transponder, it’s switched off. But it is carrying an ADSB beacon which showed continuous emissions except for a short time around Vologda. It only became visible again to our monitors just before reaching your location.’

  Somebody was being extra cautious. If it was listed by the Rus
sians as non-assigned, it could mean almost anything, even a euphemism for non-operational or private. They must have flown at very low level from somewhere outside the immediate Moscow area. A major city like that, you didn’t fly through it without letting air traffic control know where you were. In these troubled times, that was a quick way to have a MiG-31 closing on your ass with a finger on the button.

  Once clear of the main Moscow-Vologda corridor flight zone, they had ducked out of sight somehow. After that, if the pilot was capable – and he clearly was, from what I’d witnessed – he’d kept low to the ground and skipped under the radar like a hockey puck all the way to this dark and dense neck of the woods.

  It told me one important fact: whoever was on board liked to move in the dark. And travelling in these conditions, they must have got a solid reason for risking life and limb to be here.

  But why here and why now?

  I confirmed that it had been an Ansat and added, ‘I have four on board with two crew. The four were in camo gear and armed. They looked and moved like regular forces but I couldn’t see any insignia.’

  ‘Copy that, Watchman.’ She hesitated and I heard a voice in the background. Then she came back. ‘I think we might have an answer on that. Wait one, please.’

  ‘Watchman?’ It was Callahan. ‘I’ve just had a call from GCHQ in the UK. It seems we have another party tracking the Touareg. Three days ago a two-man British Pathfinder team was inserted north-west of your location with airborne tracking capability. They were put in by Tom Vale to assist in finding and tracking Counselor in case you struck out. They just reported in, saying they’ve picked up a second signal from the target vehicle.’

  Double damn. So that was how they’d done it: they’d managed to get a tracking bug planted on the Touareg. All the helicopter crew had to do when they got here was lock in on the signal, just as I was doing. As for the Pathfinders, it would have been nice to know that there were more friendly bodies in the field than me, but that was strictly a need-to-know thing and I understood the reasons for not telling me. What I didn’t know couldn’t harm them if I came unglued.