December

by James Steel

  He knew he would not sleep that night but would lie awake trying to fight the challenges of the day to come in advance, wearing himself into exhaustion.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ‘OK, let’s do noise checks.’

  Alex stood back as Pete jumped up and down. Something rattled in one of his webbing pouches and he quickly repacked it so that the spare magazine wouldn’t give his position away when he was creeping up close to the enemy.

  The assault team were doing a final check of each other’s kit in the hangar. Alex wanted to get going as soon as possible before the storm made flying too dangerous, but equally he didn’t want to rush off half-cocked.

  In Alex’s webbing pouches he had everything he needed to live and fight for twenty-four hours: rations packs, field dressings, small stove, fifteen magazines with 450 rounds for his assault rifle, frag and phosphorous grenades plus two smokes if they needed to signal the helicopter or cover a retreat.

  A camelback water pouch was slung across his stomach, under his clothing—if it went on his back, as it was supposed to, the water in it would just freeze. His white rucksack rested on top of the line of belt pouches around his waist. It contained an entrenching tool for digging out snow, ten MTP-2 mines with radio detonators, his squad and VHF radios. Strapped onto the side of it was an RPO Shmel fuel-air bomb launcher, which looked like a three-foot green drainpipe with simple fold-out sights and trigger grip. One round was already inserted in it and he carried two more rockets.

  He wore a lot of clothing; they knew that the storm was going to be ferocious. Over layers of underwear and socks went padded Gortex salopettes and Thinsolite boots. Similar layers covered his torso and then came his body armour, with a heavy Kevlar plate over his heart. He still had Lara’s lock of hair tied on his webbing.

  Over this was a three-layered snow smock, consisting of a fleece undergarment, a cotton layer and a Gortex outer shell. On top, Magnus had added a heavy parka with a large fur-trimmed hood. His rucksack, Shmel launcher and spare rounds went outside of all this, with his assault rifle slung across his chest. When it came to the actual assault they would ditch the parka and fight in their smocks in order to be able to get to their webbing equipment quickly.

  His hands were covered in silk glove liners, gloves and then a heavy pair of Thinsolite mittens. These were clipped onto the sleeve of his coat so that if he needed to work and fire his rifle he could just shake them off and get firing. Over his face he wore wide snow goggles and a white face mask with eye, mouth and nose holes that covered his whole head to keep the heat in. A throat mike and a headset over one ear allowed quiet radio comms.

  Before they had put on all this kit, they spent a lot of time on navigation, compasses and maps: checking distances and directions, estimating speed, rations and water usage. With no moon or stars and a storm whiteout, their GPS and compasses were going to be vital. The large-scale geological maps and satellite photos that they had would be of limited use, as most detailed terrain features would be buried under drifts of snow.

  Alex had also run through their ‘actions on’, such as: ‘Actions on getting lost: make for rendezvous at grid ref X.’ Other eventualities he planned for were: equipment failures, misread signals, unexpected contact with enemy units, stepping on a mine and casualties in battle.

  As ever, when going into combat, this last one ran through his mind like an annoying song that he couldn’t get out of his head. His usual litany of injury fears were: losing a limb or being paralysed (his personal horror), being blinded, decapitated or disembowelled. He had seen them all and unwanted images flashed back in his head.

  At least on this operation they could get going as soon as they were ready so they didn’t have to hang around waiting for a deadline. Alex always found that the worst bit about getting ready for an assault was when he had nothing to do but just sit around and think about what could go wrong.

  As soon as the equipment checks were finished the three heavily laden figures trooped outside to the helicopter. Arkady was stalking around next to the cockpit, having a last nervous cigarette. They stamped up the cargo ramp at the back of it with their skis and poles clutched in one hand, and settled onto a metal bench on one side. Yamba was attaching the line that they would rope down from the rear ramp, clipping it onto a hardpoint by the rear door.

  Colin and Bogdan followed them into the aircraft to say goodbye.

  Alex stood up and turned round to face the whole squad. As the commander this was the final moment when the weight of responsibility for everything that would happen really did bite deep into his shoulders. He was not one for speeches; he knew that they had done everything they could and that the team were all good men.

  He kept it short and to the point.

  ‘Right, everyone knows what to do; we just have to get on with it now. We go in, hit them hard—bags of aggression—get our man and get out of there. They won’t be expecting us and they won’t know what the fuck hit them.’

  Chapter Thirty

  5.30 P.M. CHITA PROVINCE TIME ZONE, MONDAY 15 DECEMBER

  The storm was picking up as the helicopter lifted off.

  Gusts of wind ran before the weather front like eager outriders ahead of the main army, lifting flurries of snow off the tops of pine trees and whipping them into the helicopter windscreen as they flew low overhead.

  Arkady switched on the wipers; they were flying straight into the wind and it made a huge howling noise around them. The idea was to drop the assault party ten miles north, and therefore upwind, from the camp, meaning they could approach it with the wind at their backs. Magnus reckoned it would make a significant reduction to their frostbite exposure, to have the brunt of the wind on their rucksacks rather than in their faces.

  The aircraft was completely blacked out; Arkady had his flight helmet on with his night-vision goggles down. He had to have the ambient light magnification turned up highest because the low, heavy cloud deck cut out any moon or starlight. He needed all the illumination he could get so that he could fly the aircraft low to the trees to avoid radar detection.

  Alex sat with the others in the noisy, black cargo bay, shivering with cold. He was used to flying in Africa with the clam-shell doors at the back open, enjoying the cool rush of air through the cabin and the view out of the rear. That same breeze now would kill him.

  The wind began throwing the machine around and they had to hang onto the aluminium struts of the cargo bay to stay on the bench. Then the underside of the helicopter crashed through the top branches of a tall larch.

  Fuck!

  Alex knew Arkady was a good pilot but sometimes his machismo made him take unnecessary risks. Alex stood up and made his way forward, holding onto the cargo straps on the walls. He poked his head through the door into the cabin, where they had the heaters on full blast, and had to clutch the doorframe hard as they lurched in a gust. He recovered and stared out of the front window, but without his NVGs he could see only the ice-rimed edges of the window panels and the lashing snow that the wipers constantly fought to clear.

  ‘Take it easy, huh?’ he shouted to Arkady, who grunted in reply.

  ‘How long?’ he shouted to Yamba, who checked the GPS on the instrument panel and the map on his knee.

  ‘Five minutes.’

  Alex nodded and then stumbled back to the others to get ready to go. After five minutes, Yamba joined them and they stood up and groped their way to the back of the cargo bay, weighed down by their webbing, weapons and rucksacks, and holding their skis and poles tied in a bundle that would hang down from their waists as they lowered themselves.

  Arkady had them in a drifting hover as he tried to find a gap in the trees to lower them into.

  ‘LZ!’ he shouted through his headset mike to Yamba in the back, who hit the switch to open the rear doors and lower the ramp. Hydraulics whined, a gap opened in the back of the aircraft and immediately the wind burst in, eagerly clawing at the hole as it widened. A large black chasm opened, which ho
wled with wind and snow.

  Arkady was now struggling to hold the aircraft in position as the gusts kept shoving it away from the small clearing.

  ‘Make it quick!’ he yelled.

  Yamba kicked the long coil of rope out of the back; they were all going to go down on just the one line as the wind would tangle up three ropes. It was clipped onto a hardpoint high at the side of the doors so that the men could hold it easily. Pete had volunteered to go first; he lowered his bundle of skis and poles over the edge of the ramp, gave a thumbs up, adjusted his rifle across his chest and then walked backwards into the abyss. The others couldn’t see, because his face was obscured by his ice mask, goggles and hood, but he was grinning quietly. Events were beginning to edge over his danger threshold and he was enjoying himself.

  He lowered himself down. As Yamba peered out after him, his white form dwindled into the darkness. Alex and then Magnus followed him and, to Yamba, it seemed that a human being could not survive in the thrashing black maelstrom into which they disappeared.

  Once they were down, Alex gave a quick double click on his radio transmit button: the rope began to disappear back into the darkness and the noise of the huge aircraft above them drifted away as Arkady moved on to his next objective.

  They were now alone.

  Even with their NVGs lowered it was hard to see anything because of the amount of snow in the air around them, both falling and being whipped up from the ground; contrast in the subsequent whiteout was limited. The wind raged through the branches of the trees like a maniac, bowing and snapping them.

  They hunched together for some shelter and Magnus, as calm as ever, peered at his map in its clear plastic case around his neck and then checked the compass and GPS strapped onto his forearms. To Alex he looked like an alien—the single lens of the NVG stuck out of the funnel of his parka hood like a strange snout. The creature came close and shouted in Alex’s ear over the noise, ‘We move this way!’ He gestured behind him to the south.

  Alex slapped his arm to signal a response rather than trying to shout over the wind. They clipped their toes into the ski bindings and Magnus led off, followed by Pete and then Alex.

  The Norwegian was never happier than when he had his sniper rifle strapped across his back and was heading out into a storm with his skis on. He set off at a steady pace, poles rising and falling in time with his long, sliding strides. Everything moved in a graceful rhythm, the heel coming away from the ski on each step as he coasted forward. The other two followed with a less relaxed, choppier motion. They had ten miles to cover to the camp.

  They should have plenty of time to do all this; Alex was beginning to wonder if he had allowed too much time and set off too early. They couldn’t survive out in the open in this weather for long.

  The storm was rising. The noise of the wind had become a constant base roar with higher-pitched screams overlaid on it. The blizzard was tearing at any loose clothing, flapping and billowing their parkas, making it look as if they had the outlines of madmen jumping around them. With the constant buffeting Alex felt it was like trying to move with a snarling snow leopard on his back, bowing him down under its weight, ripping at his clothing with its claws and roaring right in his ear.

  Ice particles drummed on the hood of his parka in a continuous barrage and he began to get earache on the left-hand side of his head—the storm was northeasterly, they were heading south and so the left side of his body was more exposed. He was at the back of the group and, even with his rucksack taking the brunt of the wind, the wind chill on his legs, head and left side was down to minus seventy degrees C.

  He was a large man, well clothed and burning calories with the skiing, but even with these factors the wind was sucking the heat out of him faster than he could produce it. His core body temperature began to drop.

  He could feel the straps of his pack cutting into his shoulders; it was heavy with the weight of the mines and Shmel rockets. His fingers hurt like hell, the cold ache from his left ear had increased and spread across that side of his head, and he forgot to keep flexing his hands on the ski poles to keep their circulation going.

  As he got colder and more tired his reactions slowed and he became clumsy. He had a picture of Magnus’s effortless gait in his head, which he tried to emulate, but his rhythm began to go and his steps became shorter and less economic. He failed to balance himself when they skied over a tree root and simply flopped over.

  His shout of alarm was loud enough to reach Pete, just ahead, who yelled, ‘Magnus!’

  The leading figure stopped and neatly flicked each ski round in turn with a flowing movement, as elegant as a ballet dancer. Alex floundered in the snow, furious with himself for the fall. The shock of it had woken him up and he shouted at himself in his head: Fucking hell, Alex! Keep up!

  As Magnus skied back towards him Alex managed to use his poles to lever the weight of himself and his heavy pack back upright. The effort left him feeling weak and giddy, but he was determined not to slow the team down.

  ‘No, I’m fine, I’m fine!’ he shouted at Magnus. ‘Let’s crack on!’ He jabbed forward with the handle of his right ski pole.

  Magnus looked at him for a moment; he was watching him carefully for the first signs of hypothermia: clumsiness and slurred speech. He knew that the sufferer was often immune to them himself, as his brain functions begin to shut down. However, he didn’t want to counteract his commander directly so he leaned close to Alex and shouted over the wind, ‘I think you go in the middle now, yes?’

  Alex nodded, lumbered in front of Pete and they set off again.

  After another five minutes they came to a slight hill and Magnus sidestepped up it. Alex skied up towards him and then, as the incline started, fell over again; Pete only just managed to stop in time.

  Alex lay on the snow. It felt comfortable and he had the same pleasant sensation as when falling asleep in a boring meeting. Feelings were moving away from him: the annoying pain of the cold and the bellowing wind were retreating. His vision blurred, and he didn’t really care about the mission much, it no longer seemed such a high priority.

  Magnus stepped back down the slope and looked at the two of them: Alex on the ground and Pete swaying on his skis. ‘OK, now we make the camp!’ he shouted at them, and looked around.

  ‘Come! We go over here!’ He dragged Alex to his feet and got him into shelter behind a large pine tree. ‘Get some food down him!’ he shouted to Pete.

  He unclipped his skis, stuck them in the snow and shrugged off his pack to get his entrenching tool out. He cast around him for a minute until he found a large drift of snow packed up against the hill.

  He set to work cutting into the side of it to make a snow cave. With his experience and the small spade he quickly cut blocks of compacted snow out, making a narrow entrance passage, and then widened it inside. He made a rectangular chamber just big enough for the three of them and then poked a small air hole through the roof with the end of his ski pole. He dragged Alex in out of the wind, followed by Pete, and then sealed up the entrance with the blocks of snow. Alex was shivering uncontrollably now. He tried to stop it but his body was shaking as if were in the grip of an evil spirit.

  Inside it was still minus thirty-five but they were out of the killer wind; it was also pitch black. Magnus switched on a headtorch with a low-wattage LCD light.

  He set his hexiburner going on the floor and made an energy drink with melted snow. He then fed them both the hot, sugary liquid and some high-energy rations.

  Being out of the wind and taking on a steady flow of warm liquid and calories all meant that Alex’s core body temperature rapidly climbed back up and he quickly regained his faculties. He felt tired and weak but was at least alert again.

  Having solved the emergency, Magnus could now move on to assessing if there were secondary ones.

  He pulled Alex’s bulky outer mittens off.‘Hold your fingers out straight,’ he said. Alex tried but had difficulty; they had frozen into claws fro
m clutching his ski poles.

  Magnus pulled his fingers straight for him, took his outer gloves off easily and then began peeling off his inner glove liners. His right one came off fine, but as he was pulling away at the left hand one, the thin silk glove stuck on his little finger. It was frozen solid on to it.

  Magnus paused, looked at it closely with his torch, made a ‘Hmm,’ noise and then said, ‘OK, we leave it a while.’ He turned to Pete and began the same process on him, without any problems.

  Alex’s hands were red and swollen; as the circulation came back into them he felt a biting pain. He shook them. ‘Ah! Hurts like shit!’

  Magnus nodded.‘OK, well, this is good. So we are warming up. Let me try the left hand again.’

  This time the thin glove liner peeled away from the skin. Magnus peered closely at the hand with his headtorch; the little finger was frozen stiff and was white and waxy in appearance, the skin hard from ice crystals under it.

  He manipulated it gently. ‘Do you feel this?’

  ‘No.’

  The air in the cave had warmed up but was still only minus ten so without internal circulation the finger remained frozen solid.

  Magnus frowned. ‘OK, so we now have, er, the problem.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Hmm, you have what you call “wooden finger”.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘No, it’s not—the burns are very severe. When the tissue thaws out it will blister and then rot.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Well, we cut it off.’

  ‘What?’ Alex stared at him. ‘Are you joking?’ He still felt light-headed from the cold, and Magnus’s usual understated tone had confused him.

  The Norwegian shook his head and continued, ‘No, we will have to amputate it now. It is dead and will have to come off sometime anyway. This is the last chance that we will have to operate on it before the mission gets going and we don’t know how long everything in Moscow will take. It could be days before we can operate on it, and if you leave it that long you would risk getting gangrene and septicaemia.’