by Chris Ryan
Keeping it short, I told him about my marriage to Kath, a Northern Irish girl, and how she'd been killed by the premature explosion of an IRA bomb outside a supermarket in Belfast.
"Our son Tim was only three then, so he went to live with Kath's parents in Belfast," I explained and that led on to an account of my feud with the man I held responsible for her death, the leading IRA player Declan Farrell.
Sasha listened sympathetically, then said, "It is your own Mafia, I think, the IRA." He pronounced the name "Ee-ra'.
"Not really. The IRA's driven by politics and religion.
Political and religious hatred, more than money. Anyway, because we couldn't get this guy on legitimate operations, I was stupid enough to go after him on my own.
In a few minutes my reminiscences led me to describe the kidnap of Tracy and Tim.
"Tracy?" Sasha interrupted.
"She is who?"
"A girlfriend… Jesus!" I hadn't meant to get into all this. I pushed back my stool, looked at my companion and said, "We need another drink." When I stood up and went to the bar to fetch two fresh pints, Sasha came with me, pulling out his wallet.
"Put it away," I told him.
"In England, you're our guest."
He gave a little nod by way of saying thank you.
"Yes," I resumed as we sat down again.
"Tracy. A great girl.
At least, she was. A redhead. Taller than you. Good fun to be with. She worked as a receptionist at the med centre, in camp.
There'd been nothing between us before, but after Kath was killed we gradually got together, and a few months later she moved in with me. It was fantastic the way she took over Tim as if she were his mother..
"That was great until the IRA grabbed her and Tim."
I described the desperate struggle we'd had to recover her.
"It took us two months more to get her back. And when we did, I found she'd flipped."
"Flipped? What is this?"
"She'd gone out of her mind. The stress had made her ill. She was a different person. We tried everything: rest, a holiday in the sun, a shrink a psychiatrist but nothing worked. She recovered physically, but not emotionally. She blamed me for the whole episode. If I hadn't been in the SAS, it never would have happened all that crap. As a couple we couldn't get back to where we'd been before."
"And?"
I sat back and took a deep breath.
"She went away to her family, somewhere in the north. It's more than a year since I last heard from her."
"And the boy?"
"He's seven now, doing well. He's living with Kath's parents in Belfast. He's growing up a little Ulsterman."
"You see him?"
"Oh yes, from time to time. We're good buddies."
Sasha's mind was evidently dwelling on the IRA.
"Why be so soft with such terrorists?" he asked.
"Why not eliminate all? In Chechnya we shoot many rebels, no problem."
"Yes but down there a lot of innocent people got killed as well."
"Chechens vary primitive people," Sasha said scornfully.
"If they come to Moscow they go beggars. They make things worse.
"And in any case," I persisted, 'you didn't win the war."
"And why? Because our army has such bad equipment. Many, many shortages. No guns. No ammunition. No food. But Zheordie — I tell you something… "What's that?"
"The Chechen Mafia vary clever at stealing gold. They have more gold than all the other Mafias collected together. Chechens are gold specialists. Drugs also. They bring drugs from
Central Asia and send to Europe."
"What about the army?" I asked.
"How's morale?"
"The army? The Russian army?" He looked round wildly.
"Zheordie if I am to speak of army, I need vodka."
"Is it that bad?"
He nodded.
"Vodka, then. Anything with it?"
"No thank you. Just vodka."
When I handed him a double, neat, he raised the glass in my direction, smiled, called out, "Vzdrognem!" and tipped it straight down. I'd got myself the same amount of water in another glass, and tipped that down with an answering "Cheers!"
"Good vodka," he said.
"No samogon.
"What's that?"
"Vodka made at home, from potatoes, wood even. What the soldiers get. It is very dangerous."
"Don't they drink beer?"
"Beer too expensive. And anyway, drinking in barracks is strictly forbidden. So the soldiers go out at night and buy secretly from babushkas, old women. Then one junior soldier stands in the passage' guarding, you say? while the others drink themselves crazy.
"But morale you say it's bad?"
"Zheordie, you must understand. There are too many armies.
For example, Ministry of Interior has own army, one and half million men Kulikov's men, we say, from General Kulikov, Interior Minister. That is more than the regular army. Then Ministry of Defence has own army. Special forces for this, special forces for that. You know, there is even special force for underground?"
"You're joking."
"Konechno nyet! It is called GRU. Special troops trained to live in tunnels and work in missile silos. Altogether too many armies, no money. Food is very bad. Soldiers eat shit on starvation rations all the time.
"Like what?"
"According to the law, it is such kind of menu. For the morning, it is tea, two pieces bread one white, one black. Fifty grams butter, but only once a day. Butter only once. And kasha, of course. Porridge. Always porridge.
"For dinner, they could get meat in their soup, but very small pieces. Usually young soldiers, for their first half-year, get no meat, because the cherpaks, the second-years, grab it. In the evening dishes, every day it is potatoes with piece of socalled fish, bread black and white, tea, and three pieces of sugar.
"For celebration on important days, state holidays they have special menu. What does it mean? It means, two biscuits per man, and maka roni poflotski macaroni naval style, with very small meats, like the ship's rat chopped up. Maybe piece of water melon, and one grape per man.
"That's what soldiers eat. That's why they are ready to rob, do anything."
As I fetched another round of vodkas from the bar with a double for myself this time I wondered what the hell we'd do about our own food once we got over there. None of our cooks had high enough security clearance to come on an operation as sensitive as this one, so we'd either have to eat with our hosts or fend for ourselves.
Again Sasha knocked his spirit straight down, with another cry of "Vzdrognem!"
"Also," he went on, 'there is much torture of recruits."
"Bullying, you mean.
"Torture also. Many beatings. If sergeant does not like junior soldier, he drags him out of bed and makes him stand on one leg half the night. You have heard of velociped, the bicycle? No? It is what they do to young recruit. They come to him while he is sleeping, lift up bottom of bed, and put between the fingers on the feet-' "His toes?"
"Yes between his toes they put paper or cotton wool, then set it on fire. When flames reach him, he does the bicycle."
Sasha whirled his hands round in imitation, and I couldn't help but laugh.
"No laughing!" he said indignantly.
"It is very bad. Officers terrorise soldiers beat them, shoot them-' "Not really shoot them?"
"Certainly! Many men are shot dead by own officers.
Absolutely incredible."
"Do people get fined?" I asked.
"Fined?" Sasha seemed astonished.
"How can they be fined?
They have no so big money. And in any case, it would be very dangerous for commander to punish kontraktnik, a prafessional soldier, in this way. Such persons do not like to pay. Easier just to kill officer with shooting."
"What about special forces? They must be better."
"Many, many special forces. Every ministry has special force.
<
br /> Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Federal Security… "So who's taking on the Mafia?"
"Good question. Under whose jurisdiction is situation going?
These too many bodies in the past they have no joint policy.
But now we have new initiative result of your Prime Minister's visit to President Yeltsin last year. From this has come new agreement. Yeltsin has persuaded Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Interior to create Tiger Force, specially to combat Mafia operations."
"So who are the guys we'll be training?"
"All kontraktniks. That means prafessional soldiers with contracts not conscripts. At least two years in the army. All officers, from junior lieutenant to captain. Good types, I hope."
"Where do they come from?"
"From all different special forces. From Spetznaz, from Omon, from Alpha, from Vympel…"
I saw him stifle a yawn.
"Come on," I told him.
"Time you got your head down.
Tomorrow's a full training day. You can meet the guys and tell us what to do."
"Khorosho! Zheordie let me say thank you for very kind reception. Also for clothings."
"It's a pleasure."
One amusing twist that I didn't yet explain to Sasha was that our own headquarters were known in the Regiment as the Kremlin. Valentina had impressed on us that the word simply means 'citadel', but we were chuffed to think that, for the first time in history, our own little Kremlin was about to join forces with its Big Brother in Moscow.
THREE
For the next few days my most important task was to keep up the momentum of our countdown to departure; but at the same time I had to show Sasha round the base and give him an idea of how we did things. Certain areas of camp were out of bounds to him, notably the SAW and the ops room, but there was plenty else for him to see, not least the Killing House, where the CT team laid on a demonstration of hostage-lifting. At first he was cautious about expressing opinions, but the more time I spent with him the more he became prepared to criticise or compare our methods with his.
For us, Killing House demos were routine, but for Sasha they were an eye-opener. The guys put him and me into the left-hand corner of a special room, corralled with two other visitors behind white tape. As usual, the live hostage-figure was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, with his two guards, in the form of figure-targets, on either side of him. Behind the hostage stood the sergeant in charge, commentating on events.
Just as he seemed to be in the middle of his spiel, giving the principles of close-quarter battle: "Speed, aggression, surpr-' BANG! Loud explosion. Door blown off Two assaulters running in. Ba-ba-born! Ba-ba-born! Short bursts from MP5s. Targets riddled, hostage lifted and gone before anyone else could react.
Nothing left but smoke and dust.
As our ears recovered, Sasha turned to me, beaming, and said, "Vairy good! Vairy prafyessional!"
Before we went out he took a close look at the construction of the building, pulling back the metre-wide sheets of thick red rubber, which overlapped each other by nearly half their width,
so that he could inspect the steel-plated wall some three inches behind them. Seeing all the crumpled bullets lying on the floor, he understood at once how the rubber caught anything which flew back off the wall, killing its energy.
"This we would like," he said wistfully, looking round.
"You don't have it?"
He shook his head.
"Only rubber wheels."
"Tyre houses?" He nodded.
I knew what he meant, because I'd seen them in the States: skeleton buildings with walls made of piled-up motor-tyres filled with concrete, which, in a crude way, performed the same function as the rubber sheets.
In another room a young assaulter dressed in full black kit had his equipment spread out on two tables for Sasha to look at.
The Russian carefully inspected the guy's primary weapon an MP5 with laser marker and torch attached and some of his EMOE devices. His close interest offered an unwelcome opening to the range warden, a retired RSM who'd been given a kind of grace-and-favour job keeping the place tidy and sweeping up empty cartridge cases. The old guy could be a pain in the arse, as he always tried to latch on to our guests, and now I had to prise Sasha away from him before we got any awkward questions about where he came from.
From Sasha I gained a more precise idea of our task. He had already explained that the personnel of the new Tiger Force were being drawn from various sources. Most were from Spetznaz, the elite military special force, controlled by the Ministry of Defence, or from Omon, the civilian militia, which came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior.
Normally, Sasha told me, Omon dealt with problems inside Russia while Spetznaz worked in foreign countries; but the point of Tiger Force was that it should be a highly trained and highly mobile unit, ready to tackle emergencies either at home or abroad. When I remarked that this made it rather like the SAS, Sasha seemed surprised: he had always supposed that we only operated overseas.
He told me that Tiger Force would be directed by the Federal Security Bureau, the FSB, the largest remaining constituent of the old KGB, which had now been broken up into several parts; the bureau was in charge of security and counter-intelligence.
The person in charge of our tour, our liaison officer and interpreter, would be an FSB officer.
"And who will that be?" I asked.
He spread his hands.
"So far, no information. I find out when I am back in Moscow."
As I guided Sasha round camp, his meetings with the CO, the ops officer and the rest of the team all went fine; but where he came into his own was in polishing up the diagrams we were preparing for the course. Technically he was way behind because we were working on computers, aiming to project three dimensional diagrams from our laptops, whereas the Russians apparently were still using blackboards and overhead projectors but he was very quick on the uptake.
Among the diagrams Sasha had brought with him were two of the weapons that Tiger Force personnel would be using: the Stechkin Mark 5 9mm automatic pistol, and the latest creation of the Rex Firearm Company in St. Petersburg, the 9mm Gepard, a modular weapon which can be instantly adapted for use as rifle, sub-machine gun or pistol. I thanked Sasha as gently as possible for bringing them, then let him know that, as well as better diagrams, we had an actual example of the Gepard which we'd acquired via another channel. In fact I'd arranged that Johnny would give the rest of the team a lesson on stripping down and reassembling the weapon, with Sasha present.
This demo proved a big success. For one thing it gave Sasha a chance to start getting to know our guys, and for another, he hit top form during the talk, acting up and joining in Johnny's commentary.
"Gepard is Russian for cheetah," he told the team.
"Very fast, very light." He made springing, bounding movements with his hands.
"It was developed from the Ryss, which is lynx. Lynx is OK, but cheetah is faster and lighter."
"That's right." Johnny took him up, holding the weapon across his knees as he sat at the front of the classroom.
"It's a beaut. It's got everything bar the spots." He hefted it in one hand.
"Extremely light. Under four and a half pounds without a mag.
As you see, there's a strong resemblance to a sawn-off Kalashnikov AK74U: more than half the parts are interchangeable. But it's a hell of a lot more versatile. From what we've seen on the range so far, it's accurate and nicely balanced.
Handles exceptionally well. Looks like it could be a winner in CQB and law enforcement."
He demonstrated how the tubular steel butt-stock could be flipped out to turn the weapon into a rifle, or downwards to form a grip for sub-machine-gun mode. Then he rapidly stripped it, removing the bolt and bolt-carrier, the return spring, the upper hand-guard and gas chamber. As he brought each component away, Sasha gave us the Russian names.
"Two models of magazine,"
Johnny went on, having reassembled the pieces.
"This one holds twenty-two rounds, this one forty. The selector switch here has three positions. On safe, the bolt is locked half-way back so you can just see down into the magazine. Second position, 0, as you know, stands for odin one. Odinochmy is single fire. Is that right, Sasha?"
"Konechno." The Russian grinned.
"And next position, AV, is for avtomaticheskiy automatic."
So they went on, back and forth. The Gepard's greatest novelty lay in the fact that it could fire several different types of 9mm round without having to change the barrel. Sasha reeled off eight possibilities, ending with the 9 x 30 hard-alloy-core bullet called the Groin.
"You know what groin means?" he asked jokily.
"It means thunder! Very big impact and penetration. Will pierce body armour at three hundred metres."
Sasha also sat in on a couple of language classes. When he and Valentina found they came from the same city the place the Communists had called Gorki, now back to its original name of Nizhni Novgorod they really hit it off There was one hilarious session when somebody asked Val for a few swear words just to put us in the swim, and she pretended to be greatly shocked.
"Swear-words?" she said.
"In Russia, there are no such things. The Communist system was so pure that after seventy five years of it, all obscenities were eliminated."
Her teasing kept everyone in good spirits. Of course there was no question of her joining the team in the field, but as we broke up from one lesson, to butter her up, I said, "Val, I wish to hell you were coming with us."
"Get me a visa and give me a Gepard," she quipped back, 'and I'll be there."
One little task I set the lads was the creation of lapel badges bearing their names in English and Russian. Obviously we didn't want anything that would flap about, so I told everyone to make up a cream-coloured linen patch, with black writing on it, that could be stitched on the tunic of the Russian DPMs we would be wearing. My own name came out as ZHORDI, Mal was exactly the same MAL and Rick was RIK, pronounced as if he stank.
Johnny became ZHONNI, Dusty DOSTI, and Pete PYOTR.
Even Pavarotti could be easily transliterated. But the one name that knackered everybody was Whinger. His real name was Billy, but he'd been known as Whinger for so long that none of his mates could call him anything else. The trouble was, the Russian alphabet has no W, and the nearest we could get to it was VUINZHA.
