December (17 page)

As soon as they had arrived at the deserted geological survey base on Sunday, the team had feverishly set about preparations. If all went well they planned to leave at 22.00 the following night, Monday 15th, and hit the camp early on the Tuesday morning.

The civilian Mi-17-IV medium transport helicopter was waiting for them in a large hangar with a workshop. It was a big aircraft, consisting of a front cockpit with a single large cargo bay behind, capable of carrying up to thirty men. Arkady and Yamba fired up the compressors and got to work on it to adapt it for military operations.

Arkady used the oxyacetylene torch to weld the four 80mm rocket pods they had brought onto pylons on either side of the aircraft. Yamba rigged up a simple firing switch through to the cockpit. It was going to be a crude and inaccurate system—relying on the volume of rockets rather than pinpoint accuracy—but would go some way to make up for the imbalance in troop numbers. The automatic grenade launcher was fixed into the cargo bay next to the rear clamshell doors to give the helicopter a sting in its tail if they needed it.

As they adjusted the helicopter indoors, Colin got to work with the spray gun on the huge Vityaz tracked ATV outside,
and Alex was able to get a quick update from Bogdan on local conditions. During this he discovered that the Russian was a former Spetznatz soldier who had been working on Sergey’s close protection unit for years and was trusted by him. He was dour and taciturn, and obviously didn’t like having to work with foreigners, but once he saw that Alex was purely focused on the job in hand he got stuck in as well.

Alex then got the team organised on their skis and they trekked out two miles into the forest. As they slid along between the silent trees, the cold still made him gasp and the dry snow creaked under their skis. They came to a long break through the trees where they could begin zeroing their weapons.

They set up four logs at the end of the open ground. Alex, Colin, Magnus and Pete then lay prone, squinted along their weapons and began the slow process of firing into the targets, stopping to tweak their sights and then firing again until they were satisfied their iron and laser sights were zeroed. Their 5.45mm AN-94 assault rifles were more complex to use and maintain than the older AK-74s, but had a higher rate of fire at 600 rounds per minute, were more accurate, and packed a greater punch with their GP-30 underslung grenade launchers.

Magnus took twice as long as the others as he had his sniper rifle to take extra time over as well; this would be absolutely crucial to the success of the assault and was now his prized possession.

Arkady’s dealer had really come through for them. In a short space of time he had managed to get hold of a much-prized Accuracy International L115A3 long-range rifle. This was the top NATO-issue sniper weapon, firing a 8.59mm bullet, heavier than the 7.62mm round of the old L96, and
thus less likely to be deflected by wind over long ranges. With its Schmidt & Bender 5-25x56 PM II LP telescopic sights, an extra night-vision sight attached and suppressors to reduce flash and noise signature, it was going to add a silent and lethal element to the assault.

The plan was for the three-man assault team of Alex, Magnus and Pete to fly fifty miles due north to the prison. Colin and Bogdan would approach the camp at the same time, but overland in the Vityaz ATV.

The fly-by-wire systems in the Mil made single-pilot operation possible for Arkady, but Yamba would still act as his co-pilot and gunner. To make sure that the helicopter couldn’t be detected by any radar systems in the area they would fly at treetop level. Alex knew from experience that Arkady took this literally. He had come back from more than a few raids with branches stuck in their landing gear.

To avoid the possibility of any noise detection they would rope down into the woods with their skis ten miles out from the camp. On the way in they would recce two clearings large enough to take the Mil’s twenty-one-metre rotors, to act as main and backup extraction points. Co-ordinates for these would then be relayed back to the helicopter by secure burst VHF transmission. Alex wanted extraction to be done well away from the camp. Helicopters were delicate flying machines and he didn’t want theirs brought anywhere near a camp full of men with assault rifles and watchtowers with machine guns.

The alterations on the helicopter had taken longer than expected but once they and all other preparations were complete, the team had sat down with Bogdan round a table in the office to finalise details in the early afternoon on Monday, in expectation of leaving at 22.00 that night.

The door banged open and Arkady stomped in, his face
was grim, a cigarette sticking upwards in his mouth as he scowled. He had just been on the internet and held a printout from the Russian Federation Meteorological Office in his hands.

‘Hmm, it’s not looking good. We have storm coming in tonight from the northeast. That will be real bitch.’

He handed the sheet to Alex. Magnus walked round the table to look over his shoulder. Ignoring the Cyrillic writing, he could see the projected weather maps and they didn’t look good.

Alex turned and looked at him, prepared to defer to his arctic expert. ‘How long will it take to blow through?’

‘Looks like it should go through overnight tonight; it will be quite severe, but fast at least.’

‘What are the operational issues?’

The Norwegian gave his characteristic pause and then cleared his throat before answering, ‘Well, this type of storm will make conditions very dangerous. Flying the helicopter will be difficult, navigation on the ground will be much harder in a whiteout, and there will be increased frostbite risk. I know we have to be quick but I think we must wait for a day until this blows through. It would be risky to go out in it.’

Alex thought hard. This was what being the commanding officer was all about: balancing the possible threat to Raskolnikov against operational conditions. There was no point in rushing off into a terrible situation and risking everything if it would blow over tonight. Raskolnikov could survive another day in the camp.

Alex nodded and turned to the team. ‘OK, then we’ll delay departure until 22.00 tomorrow, Tuesday the sixteenth. I’ll go and transmit that timing to our Moscow contacts.’

The rest of the team nodded, relieved that they wouldn’t
have to face the teeth of the storm. Col sighed. ‘Right-oh, well, I’ll go and put the kettle on, shall I?’

Alex walked out to the small office down the corridor that had an internet connection to send the details to Sergey and the others. As there was no mobile signal around the base, it was their only contact with the rest of the operation.

Two minutes later the door banged open as he marched back in.

‘Right, cancel last orders! Moscow contact reports target will be killed tomorrow morning. We go as soon as it’s dark tonight, storm or no storm! Crack on!’

Roman Raskolnikov was worried.

He was lying on his bunk just under the frosty rafters, in the time before lights out. He had spoken to Olga last Thursday and hadn’t seen her since, so he had no idea if she had been able to pass the information on about the attempt to kill him, and if it would do any good if she had. He didn’t know what she did with it or who received it, and what they could do for him anyway. It just helped to feel that someone outside this place knew and cared about what was happening to him.

Now, however, Roman felt uncharacteristically depressed by recent events. He had taken Danni’s death hard and the river of courage inside him that he had been drawing on for two years seemed to be drying up. As he lay there he had a cold, sick certainty that they were finally going to get him.

All the precautions his supporters had taken to protect him seemed pitiful and pointless. They might want to make his assassination look like an accident for the sake of the press but they could do it whenever they wanted. Whether they used Getmanov or just some guards it didn’t seem to matter. Part of him wished that they would just get on with it.

He heard a whispering sound below and someone
muttered: ‘Vadim’s coming up.’ The high stack of four wooden bunks creaked and swayed as Vadim climbed up the ladder.

He was a supporter of Roman’s, who worked as an orderly in the hospital block, a frail former nurse and junkie convicted of stealing drugs. As a trustie he was able to move around the camp and do jobs that allowed him to pick up information from overheard conversations. He was also a homosexual and had been abused throughout his life for it; he seemed to favour Roman because he had at least tried to stand against the whole system of oppression in the country.

He didn’t sleep in Barrack 9 so Roman wondered what he was doing here now; he hadn’t spoken to him in weeks. He raised himself on an elbow and drew his legs back to allow the little man to swing himself onto the foot of his bed.

‘Roman,’ he said by way of greeting, and nervously put out his hand. They sat next to each other on the bed, hunched down under the ceiling with their heads close together.

‘I’ve been trying to see you for a week now,’ Vadim whispered urgently, his eyes popping out of his rat-like face, ‘but I couldn’t get into your hut until I did someone a favour.’ He winced.‘I tried to come and see you as soon as it happened—I mean Danni…’ He tailed off and ducked his head before picking up again. ‘I was on duty in the infirmary when they brought him in…they were laughing.’ He shook his head. ‘Said it was planned—to let the stove run out—said they wanted to get rid of him so’s they could get at you easier.’ He looked down.

Roman looked at him dully. It was bad news heaped on bad news, like a blow falling on a bruise; he hardly even felt it now.

Vadim sobbed as he recalled: ‘He knew he was going to
die—the guards told him they’d let the stove go out—so he cut the words “Our last hope!” into his forearm.’

Roman looked at him in horror now, shaken out of his numb state.

Vadim took it as disbelief. ‘No—it’s true; they knocked out one of his front teeth when they beat him up in the cell and he used it to cut his skin.’

They both paused to contemplate the horror, before Vadim came out with his parting shot, almost an afterthought now.

‘Also, today, I was in the guardroom scrubbing the floor when I overheard Kuzembaev saying that they’re going to send you to the sawmill tomorrow. He said that orders had come through last week to kill you and that, after they failed with the logging, the commandant just wants to get on with it and make sure they kill you this time.’

Roman was now jolted from grief to fear.

Vadim tried to give a look of support but it ended up looking like pity offered to a condemned man.

When the nurse had swung himself awkwardly back down the ladder, Roman was left in a state of shock. In his mind’s eye he could see the spinning blades of the sawmill.

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.

‘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.’