by A P Bateman
There was a moan further down the tunnel and King said, “These people aren’t going anywhere,” he paused, looking at both Caroline and Stewart. “Let’s see if we can help.” He pushed past them both and said, “Come on!”
Three rooms down on the left part of the tunnel had given way. The entrance was pinning a woman down in the doorway. Her husband was trying to move the block of ice. He looked up and his face said it all.
“Oh, thank god!” he said. “Here, help me with this…”
King looked at the woman on the floor, then back at Caroline. He didn’t know quite what to say. Caroline took the lead and stepped into the room, put her arm around the man’s shoulder.
“She’s gone,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry…”
The man had clearly been unable to accept the obvious, given the woman’s head injuries, but he seemed able to comprehend Caroline’s words and her sympathetic tone.
“Come on,” she said, easing him around his wife’s body and both King and Stewart, who both appeared awkward and uncertain what to do next. “They’ll take good care of her. Let’s get you back into the warm and see to your injuries…”
The man did not seem to be aware of his bleeding forehead, or that his right shoulder looked considerably lower than his left. Whether it had been damaged in the ice fall, or whether he had dislocated it trying to lift the slab of ice would be unclear, but Caroline could see that he had just realised, and the pain was kicking in. He was about to follow, then fell to his knees and kissed his wife on the cheek. He whispered something to her, then allowed Caroline to guide him to his feet and walk with her down the ice tunnel.
King stared at the woman’s body. He did not see her. His mind full of images of a note on the kitchen table, his sullen footsteps up a rickety staircase, the longest walk he’d ever taken. Ten paces that seemed an eternity. His wife’s body slumped on the bed, lifeless and the smell of death in the air.
“Come on,” Stewart said. He bent down and gave the woman’s legs an almighty heave. “Ease the ice off her and I’ll yank her out…”
King wanted to stop him, show more respect, but found himself heaving on the ice until the body pulled clear and Stewart stumbled back against the ice wall. He let go of her legs and stood up, breathless.
King tidied the woman’s limbs and gently closed her eyelids. Despite the massive head trauma, she looked at peace. He stood up, covered her with one of the animal skins, and said, “Let’s get back to that room and see what delights await us there.”
They stood in the doorway and stared at both pairs of legs under the slab of ice.
King took a deep breath, sighed and said to Stewart, “Here, help me with the other end.” He walked around the plinth which acted as a bed and caught hold of a corner.
Stewart stood opposite and heaved in time. The slab slid off enough to reveal the faces of the couple. They looked as if they had died sleeping. Whatever the case, death had been instantaneous. Their bodies were crushed flat.
“Oh, no,” Caroline said quietly. They looked up as she spoke, then turned back to the macabre sight. “It’s the couple we met as we left the tunnel.” She looked at them, deathly still and silent. She noticed the resemblance the woman had to her own features. The dirty-blonde hair, a similar age. The man was tall and powerfully built. Much like King. His hair was brown and short. Not flecked with a hint of salt and pepper like King’s, but close enough. “Oh, no,” she said again.
“What?” King asked tersely. He remembered how rude he had been, barging past them in his haste to discover who had been spying on them.
“I think they were mistaken for us,” she replied quietly. “Look at the woman,” she said. “And we were in this very room only hours before, when someone had been watching…” she stopped herself from saying more and looked at Stewart. “You were coming up the steps,” she said.
“When?” he asked, his tone hostile.
“Earlier this evening,” she said.
“I went out for a mulled wine and a chance to see the Northern Lights,” he replied.
“Convenient.”
Stewart took a step forward. “Watch your mouth, young lady. Maybe somebody needs to shut it for you!”
“And it will be the last thing you ever do,” said King from behind him, his tone low and menacing.
Stewart looked at them both, shook his head incredulously and said, “Forget it.” He barged past Caroline and stormed off into the tunnel.
The two Russian men entered carrying a shovel and an iron bar. The manager followed, he was wrapped up from head to toe and carried a camera and a clipboard.
“We are recording what we see,” he said. “For the coroner, when he can get up here. In the meantime, we will seal off one of the undamaged rooms and use it as a morgue,” he said quietly. “It is cold enough, obviously.”
“Too cold,” said Caroline. “The bodies have to be cold, but not frozen. It will corrupt the results.”
King touched her on the shoulder. “It will be okay, love,” he said. “I think the results will be cut and dry.” He walked back over to the slab and crouched down, then turned back to the manager. “Here, take some photographs of this.” He pointed to a blackened area, peppered with hexagonal pieces of metal. “These pieces are shrapnel. They are the outer casing parts of a pineapple fragmentation grenade. Russian specification, I suspect.” He stared at both Russians, but they clearly couldn’t care less. They were as indifferent to him as his aspersions.
The manager nodded. He was photographing the damage to the ice and looked back at the doorway as Huss strode in.
“These people shouldn’t be here!” he snapped at the manager.
“Well, Mister Huss,” King paused. “In lieu of any police presence, we are the best you could hope for.”
Caroline took out her MI5 identification card and showed it to the owner. “We’re here to follow up a lead, with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Finnish government,” she lied. “We can take over, utilising the skills we have and hand over to the police when they get here,” she paused. “But I imagine that will be after the storm now.”
Huss looked at the manager, and his look was returned by someone clearly out of their depth. He had other matters to attend to, like terrified guests and half his hotel’s accommodation being destroyed, or at least, rendered uninhabitable. An ice hotel was one thing, but one without a roof and open to the elements of the biggest storm in modern history merely hours away. Huss looked back at Caroline and nodded.
“Okay,” he said as he scrutinised her ID. “Miss Darby. Whatever you want, just ask. My staff will be only too pleased to help.”
“Thank you,” she said amiably.
Huss did not look at King as he left and walked back down the ice tunnel.
“I don’t think he likes me,” King said.
“Well, you could try not shoving him into the furniture for a while. That ought to do it.”
King shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Let’s get back to the main hotel,” she said. “Get warmed up and see if they’ve got the hot chocolate on the go.”
King couldn’t think what else to do, but now he was out in the open and had the cooperation of the owner, the CCTV system would be a good place to start. He didn’t buy that the entire system had been taken out in the squall. He nodded. He could do with something warm to drink as well.
43
The near-perpetual darkness had thrown him. He had never glanced at his watch more. In the end he had taken off his gloves, undone the strap and fixed the watch on the outside of his jacket, threading the black rubber strap through one of the toggles on the chest pocket. Like a ward nurse. He had managed to turn the luminous dials towards himself, so that it no glow was given off, but even the few minutes without wearing the gloves had rendered his hands numb and useless. Now they tingled as they warmed through.
It was truly an inhospitable place. He knew the Sami lived here year-round. Tending t
o their herds of reindeer, hunting for meat and fur, and occasionally heading out to the coast where in winter the icepack made the hunting of seals possible by digging out holes through which the seals would breath, and waiting with a harpoon. He wondered how they could survive such a place but realised they would probably say the same about his native Birmingham. He smiled as he thought they’d have that in common. He tried only to return for family gatherings. Since joining the army, he preferred to be in one place no longer than six months. The SAS had certainly given him that, and MI5 was working out well on that front too.
The hide he had made had utilised the terrain. The elements were such that he had to think smart. He had found the GPS coordinates of the rendezvous, or at least the location he had deemed most likely. Given that it was unlikely the defector had military or specialist survival training or experience, he had plotted the easiest route rather than the most direct. The location gave him a terrific overview of a small plateau fringed with wispy pines on all sides. It was the ideal place for a killing ground. And that was what had drawn him to it. While Ramsay had seen the operation as a defection, Rashid had seen it as an operation culminating in an assassination. Somebody had gone to great lengths to see that Fitzpatrick did not get what MI6 was after. The defector in that operation had either not shown or had been killed also. He would bet his life that this defection was lining up the same way. Rashid was playing a hunch, but he had played them before and he was still alive to tell the tale.
He had chosen the high ground. Rule one of any conflict. He had used a fallen tree for both cover and camouflage. It was a natural feature and he could dig below it using the snow shovel he had stolen from beside the main steps to hotel. Once he had broken through the crust, he had dug out a tunnel just ten percent larger than his own mass. He used the excavated snow to create a ledge in front of the entrance. Rashid got himself into position, wriggling in feet-first and positioning himself back from the entrance with the rifle shouldered to utilise the scope, but without the muzzle protruding. He loaded the rifle, worked the bolt-action and pushed the safety forwards so that the weapon was ready to fire. Rashid no longer left safety catches in the ‘safe’ position. Experience had seen to that. When he needed to fire, he did not need extra obstructions to slow him down or cloud his mind.
Rashid had hired a snowmobile at the hotel desk. He had been issued with maps and a GPS tracker, which he had immobilised. He had also been warned to return the machine before eleven-AM – the time the storm was estimated to arrive – and under no circumstances was he to deviate from the prepared course that had been scraped and banked throughout the forest. A myriad of roads and tracks designed to take users to various lookouts and points of interest along the lake shore and through the hills surrounding The Eagle’s Nest Hotel. Colour-coded markers indicated points, in conjunction with the map, and provided a safe environment in which to ride. Rashid had found the GPS unit affixed to the underside of the handlebars and left it beside the garage. If anybody checked, they would assume he had not left the hotel. The unit was rechargeable, and he estimated he would have approximately six hours before anything was noticed - that is, if they bothered to check in the first place. The machine was now parked up beside two fir trees about two-hundred metres west of his position. Rashid now used the reflected light of the snow and moon to watch the area below him in the gloom. He laid upon a silver thermal ground sheet, keeping himself away from the snow. He was dressed in his own clothing and then an all-in-one snowsuit with another ski jacket on top. Over these bulky items, he wore a white over-suit, like those worn by forensic officers. The hood covered his own beanie and only his boots and gloves remained uncovered. Beside him, a pack contained a thermos of strong, black coffee and a packet of biscuits. He had previously discovered that biscuits did not freeze because of the lack of water content. The same went for the packets of crisps. All of which he had swiped from Ramsay’s mini bar. He grinned as he thought about the man’s room bill and his near-constant battle with the Security Service’s accountants.
Rashid studied the area ahead and below him through the rifle’s scope. He suspected King was correct in his assumption that the weapon would be zeroed for hunting use. And a specific type of hunting at that. Close and practical, not for ego. A kill up here meant food and fur. And with quarry like bears, wolves and wolverines, you wanted them dead. Not merely pissed off. King was right about most things, and Rashid would trust him on this, too. He did not have the luxury of range practice and would if his assumption had been wrong, the moment he squeezed the trigger. Like every other time, he hoped he wouldn’t have to.
44
The gunfire in the remote landscape seemed to echo for an eternity. Natalia had ducked down behind the fallen tree she had been using to take shelter from the windchill. The wind had increased, and the chill factor was off the scale. Simply being out of the wind had felt twenty degrees warmer.
It wasn’t a hunter. She had heard enough gunshots since she had been here. Occasionally a Sami would wander into the facility dragging a deer in the snow, ready to barter or sell the fresh meat to the chef. Hunting was simply a part of life here, and she had heard the occasional single shot throughout the year. But this was different. A rapid burst with a metallic ring to it. Short, sharp and quieter than that of the hunting rifles the Sami used.
It hadn’t occurred to her that she had been the intended target. Not until the second burst of gunfire and chips of bark shattered from the frozen trunk beside her. She had leapt up at first, then thought better of it and dived onto her stomach. She listened, waited. But then her instincts took over. If someone was shooting at her, then they could be edging closer as she took shelter. She needed to get moving. She had the advantage of the perma-dawn. It was at least another three hours before daylight. Enough to get clear. But how had they spotted her? She then realised it had been her profile. Enough to break the contrast of the sparse forest. The grey hue in which the half-light presented itself was pronounced by the snow. A sort of backlight. She had been readying herself to move. Adjusting her suit, her gloves and hat. She wore black and blue clothing. It would all look dark at any distance, most likely black. But the movement and profile had given her away. She knew she would be followed eventually; but so soon?
Natalia crawled away from the fallen tree. The scraping on the hard, impacted snow tore at the scratches on her stomach. She felt them burn, the tinkling sensation of pins and needles was becoming more acute. She needed medical attention, expert treatment. As for the hundredth time since she had left, she touched her pocket containing the USB and her phone, checking they were still there. Her lifeline to another life.
There were no more gunshots, but she kept low and slid down the embankment. She gathered speed, all the time grimacing at the pain in her stomach. When she reached the bottom of the embankment, some twenty-feet or so, she scraped up a handful of snow and rammed it into her mouth. Perhaps it was the dry air, or the exertion, but she had noticed her thirst was insatiable. She had been shovelling mouthfuls of snow all through the night. But as she felt another surge of rawness on her stomach, she knew with a sinking feeling that there was more to it than that.
45
Rashid had been drifting towards sleep. He snapped to at the sound of the distant gunfire and cursed his own stupidity. If he’d had a man serving beneath him who had fallen asleep on watch, he would have had him RTU’d, or returned to unit. Unceremoniously kicked out of the SAS and back in the guards or wherever they’d started out their miserable military career. How could he have been so stupid? So sloppy? He checked his watch. Perhaps the cold had gotten to him? He’d lost three hours. It was now six-AM. Damn this place! Damn the lack of dawn, the lack of birdsong! Didn’t this place ever wake up? Rashid scanned along the plateau, then raised the rifle and started to study the treeline. Again, there was only just enough light to see by. The moon had moved halfway across the sky and was still lighting up the snow, but he was aware that it would get darker
soon. The moon would disappear, and the darkest hours of the day would bring almost total darkness. Dawn, as it was, would start around ten-AM and daylight would be from around mid-day to three-PM. What a place! he thought.
He had been awake enough to hear the last of the gunshots. The burst woke him, but the final shot had been clear enough in his mind to draw assumptions, if not conclusions. Medium calibre, high-velocity rifle round, semi-automatic. An assault rifle. But at what distance? How could the cold, dense air affect things? He knew that bullets travelled more slowly, that the drop was more acute at five-hundred metres when temperatures dipped below minus-five. Around twice that of a shot taken on the equator at low altitude. But what about noise? The pristine forest had nothing to absorb the sound. Everything was hard, the surfaces and surrounds offering nothing in the way of absorption, and even mundane things like getting off the snowmobile seemed to echo. Which meant his best guess at a mile or so away could put it considerably further than that.
Rashid could see nothing through the scope. But he hadn’t expected to. Not with the shots taken at that distance. It was merely instilled drills. Nothing taken at face-value. He lowered the rifle and reached for the thermos. He drank the hot liquid straight from the flask, savoured the warmth, the anticipation of the impending caffeine hit. He squared his kit away and settled in behind the rifle. He had chosen this spot, of the three most likely places, because of its qualities as a killing ground. With the gunshots at such a distance, the other rendezvous possibilities were still in play. Nothing was for certain. He just hoped his gamble would pay off.
46
