Lying on my front, I realised how the snow was blotting out every sound. Work on the fence, which had been proceeding intermittently, seemed to have stopped completely, and a heavy silence lay over the compound.
Then I heard a noise of an engine, labouring up the hill from the barrack area. Presently it came into view a mid-grey, square-bodied truck with big snow tyres, weaving slightly as it slithered over the snow. The driver swung up on to the flat area outside the summerhouse, crunched into reverse and backed to within two or three yards of the doors.
He and another man jumped out, and one of them opened the truck"s rear door to release a third. All were wearing dark green overalls and brown fur caps with ear-flaps tied up over the crowns. The driver produced some keys, unlocked the doors of the shed and slid them back. A minute later, out came all three, lugging, between them, one of the components of Orange.
Snow or no snow, there was no chance of me making a mistake the men were only sixty metres from me, and through the gla.s.ses I could see those orange markings perfectly. The sight set my adrenalin racing. Again I had to fight down my instinct to make a direct intervention. A 203 grenade into the front of the van would rearrange Akula"s plans pretty swiftly.
But, again, that might mean the end for Pay and Toad.
The three men went back in and brought out the second half. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the Satcom receiver and switched on. Nothing.
Again nothing.
s.h.i.t! The bomb was about to disappear, and I couldn"t report it.
The men locked the shed, slammed the doors of their truck and climbed aboard. I watched helplessly as the driver started up and drove off downhill, nosing his way carefully through the bends. By now the snow was falling so fast that, even as I watched, the vehicle"s tracks were becoming blurred. In a few minutes they"d be obliterated altogether.
In spite of my anxiety, I realised that what had happened carried one small advantage: now, if the HALO drop did come in as planned, Sasha wouldn"t see the bomb, and wouldn"t know anything about it.
The next hour was one of the most miserable I"d ever known.
I spent it s.h.i.tting bricks that the head-shed might call off the free-fall. They might decide to leave Sasha and me to try and spring the prisoners. I could just hear Bill saying, "Make your own way out as best you can." f.u.c.king thanks, I thought. I kept reasoning, No, they can"t do that they"d be four guys down rather than two. But for all my wishful thinking I couldn"t be sure.
As the snow kept floating down in a dense pall, I speculated about where the bomb might be heading. Back to Moscow, I felt certain. What if the Chechens used it to threaten the Russian government, just as the Americans had been planning to do?
What an irony that would be.
I convinced myself that the blizzard was going to continue all day and all night, and that Akula"s men had come up to move the bomb while they still could, before everyone got snowed in.
At last the snowflakes began to thin, and the sky lightened as the storm moved on towards the north-east. I waited till I could see a patch of blue sky among the clouds, then tried the Satcom again.
This time, thank G.o.d, the call went straight through.
"Bill," I exclaimed.
"They"ve moved the f.u.c.ker!"
"I know. Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"
"Nowhere," I told him.
"The com ms went down in a snowstorm.
"I see. Well, the device has been on the move."
"I was trying to tell you that. Some guys came and carried off the components in a truck. Bill how far"s Grozny from here?"
"Fifty ks. That"s where it"s gone. The Yanks have tracked it that far."
"The d.a.m.ned thing"ll be airborne by now," I said.
"If it"s gone off the air again it means it"s inside a plane. What do we do?"
"Wait one.
I held on, hearing nothing but a roar of static. Then Bill came back and said, "We"re going ahead with the drop, weather permitting. We"re just waiting for the latest forecast."
"The sky"s clearing here," I told him.
"It"s b.l.o.o.d.y cold, too."
"OK, Geordie. I"ll come back to you in a minute."
I waited tensely, longing for the hit to be over and done with.
"Let"s just grab our guys," I said to myself, "and get out of this a.r.s.e hole of a place."
Then Bill came through again. The forecast was good: clear skies behind the storm, and a hard frost. The plan remained on.
What was more, they"d decided to advance the drop by half an hour, moving it to the original time of 1900. The two Chinooks were on their way to Nalchik, and would sit there waiting to hop over the mountain as soon as they were summoned.
"We pa.s.sed all your data to the R.A.F," Bill said.
"They"ve done an appreciation and decided to approach you from the north, down the slope. They don"t fancy coming up the valley an dover the compound entrance."
At 5:30 I gave my press el a double jab and said, "OK, Sasha. I"m on the move. We"re off to the DZ. I"ll come round and pick you up. Stay still till I reach you.
"I wait."
Stars blazed overhead, and even though the moon hadn"t risen yet the night was alarmingly bright, the snow reflecting all the remaining light from the frosty sky. This white blanket was something we hadn"t planned for: the patterns on my DPMs were clearly visible, and I could have done with a snow overall.
Moving cautiously, and keeping to bare rock ridges as much as possible so that I didn"t leave a continous trail, I worked my way round to the helipad. Sure enough, the chopper was still on the ground an Alouette, painted some light colour, its rotor blades drooping under a three-inch load of snow. If it remained in position there"d be nowhere for a Chinook to land. No matter the hostage recovery team could fast-rope down while the aircraft hovered. Then, if we couldn"t shift the Alouette, we might have to exfil from the DZ in the forest.
I found Sasha ready to move. Instead of heading out to the left, in the direction of the DZ, we put in a bit of a detour and made our way straight up to the top fence, which was still unfinished After watching for a couple of minutes we climbed the wire at a point where the wind had blown the snow off a rocky spine, leaving no tracks on the inside. The outside was a different matter. We landed in what turned out to be a gully, filled with snow to a depth of a couple of feet, and we couldn"t help churmng up the surface as we floundered out of the drift. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pine branch and frisked it back and forth behind us, levelling the surface as best I could; but the moonlight was so bright that a trail still showed.
There was no time to mess about. Clear of the fence, we turned left, to the west, through the forest, and again followed the contour. Navigation was simple: I knew that if we held our height, we"d come out on the farm track that led up from the valley to the high hay field Except when we brushed into tree branches, our progress was utterly silent: the dry snow lay like six inches of the softest powder, and our boots made not the slightest sound as they pushed through it.
We reached the track at 6:40 and stopped to listen. Twenty minutes in hand. Suddenly, into the silence, floated a wolf chorus, coming from much farther off than the howling the night before. Turning to look behind me, I saw that the moon had appeared over the eastern horizon, enormous and pale. For maybe a minute the distant, eerie wailing rose and fell. Then it died away.
We moved downhill until we came to the junction and the path that led to the hay field It crossed my mind that perhaps, for maximum security, we should continue to push our way through the trees, rather than use the track. But then I thought, To h.e.l.l with it. There"s n.o.body about. Let"s just get there.
By 6:50 we were on the edge of the field, which glowed brilliant white in the moonlight.
"They"ll see this, all right, when they jump," I whispered.
Sasha nodded. I saw him swallow, and sensed that he was just as hepped up as I was.
"I"ve told them this is the forming-up point, by the old wagon," I said quietly.
"You stay here, just in case anyone"s been following us up. Keep back against that tree-trunk, in the shadow. As soon as I"ve collected everyone I"ll bring them over.
OK?".
"Da, da." Sasha nodded vigorously, then said, "Good luck!"
I punched him on the arm and moved away, skirting the edge of the field to keep in shadow. At 6:55 I stopped to wait, halfway up the long side, and stared to the south-east, way out among those millions of stars. I knew the Here would be coming on the same path we"d used, flying at 28,000 feet. I also knew that I"d never see it or even hear it. All the same, I couldn"t help searching for it in that phenomenal sky. I imagined the tailgate descending, the red warning lights, the guys lined up, three abreast, packed tightly together and laden with all their gear, toddling towards the lip at the back of the cabin floor with good old Pat Newman overseeing.
A minute to go. Maybe the plane was late. No the S-F air crews could hack it to the second. In that case, the Here must be almost overhead.
I walked out a few metres into the field and stood in the open, feeling very exposed. Twenty seconds to run .. . ten .. . five, four, three, two, one. P Hour.
Now where were they?
I found I was holding my breath, and had to make a conscious effort to relax. Were the lads on their way? It was almost impossible to believe that twenty bodies were hurtling down towards me at terminal velocity, a thousand feet every five seconds. Twenty-four thousand feet in two minutes. Then the chutes would deploy at 4,000 feet.
I counted the seconds, staring upwards, with the Firefly in my right hand. Then at last I heard the magic sound I"d been waiting for: the sudden, rattling, snapping flutter of a chute breaking out.
It came from high in front of me, and was quickly followed by another, and another, four, five.. . then several all at once.
Holding the Firefly above my head, I punched the rubber b.u.t.ton on the base and saw a brilliant flash bounce off the snow.
In the enormous silence of the mountains the thin electronic whine of the unit building up to its next discharge sounded like a jet engine. Flash went the light again and then suddenly in my earpiece there was Pat Newman"s voice saying, "OK, Geordie, I"ve got you. Close it down. I"m coming in."
A moment later I saw the angular black shapes of the parachutes gliding across the stars like a formation of giant bats.
In the last few seconds I heard the rush of air spilling from the canopies: then suddenly men in pairs were touching down all round me.
Brilliant! I thought but at that instant, away to my left, a dog began to bark hysterically. The noise was coming from inside the trees, just beyond the old hay cart. Ijabbed my press el switch twice and listened for Sasha to come up on the air.
Nothing.
I jabbed again. The dog was still barking. One of the incoming figures had disengaged from its partner and was coming towards me. I recognised Pat from his rolling walk.
"Get in! Get in!" I hissed.
"That b.l.o.o.d.y dog."
Even as I was talking the barking ceased.
The lads didn"t need telling. Pat had briefed them already, and in any case their instincts and training made them head straight for the dark edge of the pines, dragging their chutes behind them.
In the shadows, Pat had a quick head count.
"We"re OK," he said.
"We"re on. What"s the crack?"
"Not sure. See that old wagon on the edge of the field? I left Sasha there. That"s our forming-up area. It sounded as though he had a contact. Wait one."
Two more jabs on the press el Still no answer. All round me there was a general scrabbling and scrunching as people rolled up their chutes, and a rattle of working parts as they readied their weapons.
"Whatever"s happened, we"ve got to go that way," I told Pat.
"OK," he said quickly.
"Us two"ll move up and check it out." In the lead, I advanced with my 203 at the ready, every sense on full alert, with Pat ten metres behind me. Our boots, cushioned by the snow, were making no sound, but I knew we"d show up as black silhouettes every time we pa.s.sed an open area.
At the corner of the field I stopped to scan with the kite-sight.
Nothing moved, and I"d just started again when my earpiece hissed twice.
"Sasha?"
"Where are you?"
"Same place."
"What happened?"
"One man came after."
"Where"s he gone?"
"I keen him."
"What about the dog?"
"I keen dog also."
"OK. We"re closing on you now.
"Prinyato."
"The guys can come up," I told Pat.
"There"s a cache here for the chutes.
While the rest of the lads came up I moved on, and was right beside Sasha before I saw him, standing against the trunk of a big pine. The snow on the track beside him was spattered with black-looking stains, which I realised must be blood.
"You OK?"
"Sure."
"What happened?"
"I am waiting here. The man comes past. I shoot him with knife gun.
"Where"s the body?"