Overkill (52 page)

The American looked at him for a moment before speaking. ‘Well, Mr Ambassador, that’s certainly good to know,’ he replied. Karasin relaxed slightly in his seat.
‘Unfortunately,’ the President continued, just as smoothly, ‘that does present us with something of a problem.’ Karasin looked at him, but said nothing. ‘When we last
discussed this,’ the American said, ‘I told you that we had information that an assault was being planned by Russia upon America.’

‘Yes, Mr President,’ Karasin said, nodding. ‘I remember our conversation. I hope you also remember that I said at the time I had no knowledge of this alleged assault. I repeat
that now, with the further assurance from our President.’

The American spoke softly. ‘Quite so, Mr Ambassador. The problem is that we now have it on unimpeachable authority that this assault has not just been planned.’ He paused. ‘We
now know – not believe or think, but know – that this assault has already been implemented.’

Karasin clenched his fists, his face growing white. ‘I assure you, Mr President—’

‘Assurances, Stanislav,’ the American said, using Karasin’s first name quite deliberately, ‘are no longer sufficient. I have no choice but to advise you that, unless we
receive an unequivocal guarantee from your President that the assault has been halted, no later than fifteen hundred hours Eastern Standard Time – that’s twenty three hundred hours
Moscow time – today, then one hour later we will launch our strategic bomber force without any further notice or reference to you.’ Karasin shook his head. ‘You should also be
aware, Mr Ambassador, that the United States will go to DEFCON ONE in –’ he looked at his watch ‘– a little over eight hours from now. You are aware, I hope, of what that
implies.’

‘Yes, Mr President. We know what that means. I repeat, our President has assured me he knows nothing of this assault. How, then, will he be able to convince you that it has been stopped?
And how can he stop it?’

The American stood up. ‘Those, Mr Ambassador, are his problems, not mine. I have told you what we will do. Our position is non-negotiable. Good day to you.’

Autoroute A26, vicinity of Couvron-et-Aumencourt, France

‘What?’ Richter demanded. ‘Where? You mean they’ve turned off it?’

‘No,’ Lacomte said. ‘They’ve pulled into the service area just north of junction fourteen.’

Richter relaxed. ‘Probably just a fuel or food stop,’ he said.

‘I hope so,’ Lacomte replied, ‘but what concerns me is the traffic. I’ve just ordered the autoroute closed north of that junction.’

Richter thought for a moment. ‘We have to preserve the illusion of normality at all costs,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll have to open it up again until they get
going.’

Lacomte nodded and jumped back into the van. Richter told Dekker his men could relax for a few more minutes, and climbed into Lacomte’s van to wait for news. The messages they were getting
from the driver who had followed the convoy into the service area didn’t seem to indicate anything suspicious. The lorry had been refuelled, as had the cars, and the occupants were visiting
the toilets and the shop, always leaving one person in each vehicle. After fifteen minutes, they started their engines again, and eased out into the traffic stream.

Lacomte waited until the pursuit car driver radioed that the convoy was established westbound, and then ordered the autoroute closed once again. ‘Now we wait,’ he said.

Twelve minutes later the radio speaker crackled and, behind the French, Richter could hear the sound of a big diesel engine. ‘The truck’s just passed the Forêt de Samoussy rest
area,’ Lacomte said. ‘Our first truck is pulling out to follow.’ A minute later the second truck moved out to follow the limousine, then running about half a mile behind the
second Mercedes saloon.

Richter opened the van door and called out to Colin Dekker: ‘Go.’ The SAS officer gave a thumbs-up sign and climbed into the Transit, started the engine and drove off slowly along
the hard shoulder, hazard lights flashing. Erulin got into his Renault Trafic and followed.

‘Time we organized your breakdown,’ Richter said to Lacomte. They went round to the cab of the van and opened the bonnet. Then Richter turned on the hazard lights, took a warning
triangle from the rear compartment and placed it about fifty metres behind the van.

The traffic flow had reduced markedly as the closures Lacomte had put in place at junctions 12, 13 and 14 took effect, and only an occasional vehicle passed in either direction. Richter looked
up the autoroute. About three-quarters of a mile ahead, he could see one of the GIGN men placing cones in a narrow triangle to protect the Transit. To Richter, it looked convincingly ordinary, but
his opinion wasn’t the one that mattered. He climbed back into the van, closed the rear doors, put on a headset and thumbed the button. ‘Colin?’

‘Here. SAS check-in.’ Three voices acknowledged in sequence.

‘Lieutenant Erulin?’

‘Here.’

The radio operator spoke to Lacomte, and he tapped Richter on the shoulder. ‘Chambry,’ he said.

‘All positions,’ Richter said into the microphone. ‘This is Control. The target vehicles have passed Chambry. We estimate they’ll be with us in four minutes. Stand
by.’ Erulin repeated what Richter said, in French, to the GIGN troopers. The rear doors of the Renault had small windows, and Richter stood up and looked back down the autoroute. The road was
empty, no traffic moving in either direction. Lacomte told one of the radio operators to get out and fiddle with the engine of the van – an added touch to lend veracity to the scene.

Then Richter saw them. The lead Mercedes was just passing under the flyover that carried the D967 between Laon and Crécy-sur-Serre, and as he watched the second saloon moved into view
from behind the bulk of the articulated lorry. Richter pressed the transmit switch again. ‘All positions, Control. Two minutes.’

Richter turned his attention back to the autoroute. The road was almost perfectly straight, and he couldn’t see either of the French trucks, but he could see both blue saloons. ‘Both
Mercedes are ahead of the truck and accelerating.’ Richter looked back through the window. Behind the Russian truck he could just see the cab of another articulated lorry coming into view,
obviously accelerating to overtake. It looked to Richter as if he had left it too late.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Bykov said.

Modin had been dozing quietly. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Bykov repeated. ‘There’s too little traffic. I have a feeling—’

He broke off, lowered the limousine’s partition and spoke urgently to the escort in the front seat. ‘Send the two Mercedes ahead. Tell the crews to look out for anything
unusual.’

‘They’ve already started moving,’ the escort reported.

Bykov turned to the driver. ‘Ease back. Stay well behind the lorry.’ Bykov twisted round in his seat. Nothing behind but a single articulated lorry, about five hundred metres back.
In front, another French-registered artic was just passing the Russian lorry. On the opposite carriageway, nothing moved.

‘It’s probably just another accident,’ Modin said, stifling a yawn. ‘We’ve seen two today already.’

‘No. This is different,’ Bykov snapped. He reached for the car phone clipped below the partition. He looked at the status display, then showed it to Modin. The tiny grey-black
letters proclaimed ‘No service’.

‘All French autoroutes have excellent cellular coverage,’ Bykov said. ‘Somebody has disabled the local cells.’

Modin rubbed his chin thoughtfully, sat up straighter in his seat and peered ahead up the autoroute. ‘You might be right, Viktor,’ he said softly. ‘I think we may have a
problem.’

‘One minute.’ The Mercedes were coming, one in each lane, the two lorries about half a mile behind them. ‘Thirty seconds.’ Both Mercedes, running almost
side-by-side, swept past the Renault and on towards the Transit. ‘Twenty seconds.’

The French lorry had eased in front of the Russian vehicle and was moving back into the nearside lane. The Renault shook, twice, as the two heavy goods vehicles roared past. Richter turned his
attention to the autoroute in front, and looked through the front screen of the Trafic. ‘Ten seconds,’ he said. He was guessing, but that should be near enough. As Richter released the
transmit button, the leading articulated lorry’s brake lights went on, and then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The lorry lurched to the left, and Richter could see the smoke of
burning rubber from its tyres. The trailer skidded and slipped, almost hopping, and turned broadside on to the carriageway. Speed dropping all the time, the cab just brushed the steel barriers on
the central reservation.

The brake lights flared on the Russian truck. The driver had reacted late, but he had reacted. The leading lorry halted, completely blocking the carriageway and obscuring the view of everything
beyond it. The cab door opened, and a diminutive figure wearing an orange jacket jumped out, vaulted the central barrier and disappeared from sight to the south of the auto-route. It had been one
of the most impressive pieces of driving Richter had ever seen.

The Russian truck was slowing gradually, then lurched to the right. Richter saw the puff of dust and rubber as a tyre exploded under the impact of the 7.62mm round, and the cab start to weave.
But its speed was already low enough for there to be no real danger.

Richter glanced quickly out of the rear windows. The other lorry was parking, the driver taking his time, broadside on to the carriageway about half a mile back, and between it and the Renault
van Richter saw the black limousine for the first time.

Anton Kirov

The
Spetsnaz
trooper halted outside the door of the Second Mate’s cabin and knocked twice. After a few seconds Colonel Zavorin slid the door open.
‘Yes?’

‘He’s gone, sir. Captain Bondarev has gone ashore.’

‘Good. Tell the technician I’ll meet him outside the hold.’

‘Yes, sir.’ As the trooper hurried away, Zavorin closed the cabin door and followed. It was time for the final check on the weapon before it was unloaded, and Zavorin was keen to
ensure that Bondarev knew nothing about it. Zavorin had been embellishing the cipher machine story in their recent conversations, and was certain that Bondarev believed it.

But if Bondarev found out that the
Anton Kirov’s
cargo included a nuclear weapon that was going to be unloaded the next day and left, primed and ready, when the ship departed from
Gibraltar, Zavorin was not sure what he would do. Sometimes, ignorance was best for all concerned.

Autoroute A26, vicinity of Couvron-et-Aumencourt, France

‘There has been an accident,’ a calm voice reported from the front dashboard speaker in the limousine. ‘Two small trucks are involved, but the road ahead
is not blocked.’

‘Look behind you,’ the escort shouted into the microphone.

‘We’ve burst a tyre,’ the lorry driver yelled, ‘and some idiot Frenchman has just slewed his truck right across the road in front of us.’

A babble of voices burst out of the speaker. ‘Quiet,’ Bykov shouted, grabbing the microphone. He looked behind, and saw the second lorry just completing its manoeuvre.

Modin smiled faintly. ‘I think, Viktor,’ he said quietly, ‘that someone has found out.’

‘Convoy,’ Bykov called, ignoring the older man. ‘This is Bykov. Assume an attack is imminent. Await my command to respond.’

Richter looked ahead. The Russian truck had stopped, and as he watched a figure rolled out from underneath the trailer and sprinted off over the hard shoulder and into the
scrubland. Behind. The limousine was coasting to a stop, around fifty metres behind the Trafic. Ahead. For a long moment nothing moved. The Russian truck sat idling, exhaust fumes just visible
above the twin silencer boxes behind the cab. No noise, no movement. Then the plastic explosive detonated with a crack that Richter heard even through the headphones. ‘Go!’ he shouted
into the mike. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ The figure in camouflage gear stood up beside a bush just off the hard shoulder and pointed a stubby, bulky weapon at the cab of the artic. The figure
recoiled as the gun spat flame and the right-hand-side door window disintegrated. A second round followed, and suddenly the cab was billowing with the distinctive white fumes of CS gas.

A long way ahead Richter heard the sudden crackle of small-arms fire.

Colin Dekker ducked down behind the steel barrier at the side of the autoroute as the rear window of the leading blue Mercedes saloon slid down six inches. All SAS personnel
are required to be expert in weapon identification, and he knew instantly that he was looking down the barrel of a Kalashnikov assault rifle. He raised his Hockler, selected semi-automatic, flicked
off the safety catch, sighted quickly and fired two rounds at the vehicle.

His first bullet slammed into the rear door of the Mercedes, scattering flecks of paint and leaving a dent which confirmed that the vehicle was armoured. The second round went higher and hit the
partially-lowered window, but by then the Kalashnikov had added its deeper voice to the exchange, and Dekker tumbled flat on the ground as bullets ploughed through the steel barrier within inches
of where he lay. Where the hell were Erulin’s men?

Even as the thought crossed his mind, Dekker heard two sharp cracks, then a third, as two of the
Gigènes
fired through the partially open window of the Mercedes, the bullets
bouncing around the inside of the armoured vehicle. Dekker heard a sudden scream, a cry of pain, and then silence as the Kalashnikov’s muzzle dropped out of sight.

Richter tore off the headset and looked behind. Fifty metres away the limousine was starting to make a U-turn, to head back to the east. Richter kicked opon the rear doors and
pulled out the Smith, but at that range it was useless. One of Erulin’s GIGN snipers was crouching behind the Renault and Richter shouted to him. ‘Stop him,’ he yelled.
‘Shoot his bloody tyres!’ The GIGN trooper looked round blankly. Richter cursed. What the hell was French for ‘tyre’?

Lacomte jumped out of the van. ‘
Les pneus!
’ he shouted. ‘
Tirez sur les pneus!
’ The sniper nodded, took aim and fired. The echoes of the shot had hardly died
away before he fired again, and when Richter looked the limousine was lurching drunkenly towards the hard shoulder, both left-hand tyres in shreds. Erulin was right about the shooting skills of his
men. Richter shouted to Lacomte as he took off at a run down the autoroute. ‘Check with Colin.’