The Kremlin Device

FIVE

Two days later we were on the training range at LATA, the Langwern Army Training Area just inside Wales, when my bleeper went off Beep, beep, beep. I immediately recognised the number that came up in the little window. It was Bill, the adjutant.

Mal might as well carry on," I told Whinger.

"I'll be back in a minute."

As I walked away to the range hut, short bursts rattled out behind me, so I closed the door and dialled camp.

"Hi, Geordie," Bill said.

"Where are you at?"

"Down at LATA."

"OK. The boss wants an immediate meeting. How soon can you be back up here?"

"Half an hour. Just me, is it?"

"No-the whole team.~ "Bill is something wrong?"

"No, no," he went.

"Everything's fine."

"Has the job been pulled?"

"Not at all. It's definitely on. We'll talk when you get here."

"Where's the meeting, then?"

"In your briefing room.

"OK. I'll see you in half an hour."

The lads grumbled a bit at being dragged off the range, especially Pete Pascoe, whose feelings were always near the surface. I kept thinking there was something strange about the way Bill had said, "It's definitely on." I got the impression that the job was on, but that it had changed.

Ever since our recce party landed back from Moscow, it had been all singing and dancing. I'd put in a positive report, saying that everybody in Moscow was on net, and that, although conditions in the camp at Balashika were primitive, we'd been given a really good hand by the Russians and by the Embassy.

Since then we'd faxed across the names and details of the team, for driving licences and other documentation. We'd also lined up a load of extra stores, and everything seemed to be under control. Thanks to Whinger, Rick's reputation as an instant Russian leg over specialist had gone all round the team: he'd had a lot of stick, but he'd taken it well.

Now what?

When I saw the line-up in the wing, I knew for certain that it was something heavy. The Regiment was represented not only by the CO and the ops officer, but also by the Director — a brigadier who must have made a special trip down from London, leaving at dawn. From the Firm came Edgar, but with him was an older and evidently senior man who was introduced as Mr. Laidlaw.

The CO a small, spare man with a bony face and receding hair spoke first, and I could tell from the pitch of his voice that he was tensed up. Normally he talked at a deliberate pace, but now he had gone up a gear.

He began with the usual spiel about the secrecy of our operation.

"Until now, as you know, it's been classified Top Secret," he said.

"That classification was imposed primarily for the safety of the team going into Russia. I need hardly remind you, it's essential that Mafia elements don't get wind of your presence.

He paused and looked down at his notes. Then he said, "The name of the operation has been changed. It is now Operation Nimrod. Further, it has become a black operation. I don't need to tell you what that means, but I will. It means that absolutely no further mention of it is to be made to anyone except members of the team. The reason will become obvious in a moment. Is that clearly understood?"

We were sitting facing the brass on two rows of chairs, three and five. When I glanced round, I saw everyone nod quickly.

The CO's tension had communicated itself to the team.

"Right, then." The CO cleared his throat.

"Another element has been added to the operation. The training of Tiger Force will go down as planned, but as from today that will serve as cover for a new main task. The first priority of Operation Nimrod is now to plant two compact nuclear devices in strategic positions, where they can be detonated by satellite signal if or when such action is deemed necessary."

Silence. For several seconds nobody moved. I felt as if I'd been skewered to my seat. When the CO continued, I seemed to be hearing him from a distance.

"We realise, of course, that this action is not in line with overt Western policy. The initiative has come from the United States Defense Department. For some time they've been looking at the concept of infiltrating nuclear devices into the former Soviet Union. Now Operation Nimrod is about to provide an opportunity. Any questions so far?"

"You mean you're expecting us to plant nuclear devices?" I went.

"Just that," the CO replied.

"What under the bloody Kremlin, I suppose?"

"Exactly. One of them, anyway."

"Boss you can't be serious."

"I am, Geordie. It sounds outrageous, I know. But I am.

Totally serious."

I felt myself growing angry.

"I thought we were supposed to be helping the poor bastards."

"We are. In the short term, we're on their side. We'll go through with the training programme as planned, and I hope we'll do them a service. The new phase of the operation is a long-term measure designed to keep the lid on things in the event of a take-over by criminal elements."

"That's one way of putting it," I said.

"You keep the lid on things by blowing the whole fucking place sky high."

"Geordie!" The CO's voice sharpened.

"Get hold of yourself The Regiment has received this request from the Pentagon, via the British Governnment. We've agreed to carry it out."

Already I regarded Sasha as a friend, a comrade in arms, who needed all the help I could give him. Now I was going to have to double-cross him in everything I said or did. All my friendly actions were going to be undermined by treachery. Then there was Anna. Even though we'd only met once, I sensed that I could work with her. From day one I'd be deceiving her too.

I heard myself asking, "Does our embassy in Moscow know about this?"

"No." The Boss shook his head emphatically.

"Not a thing.

They'll never hear of it."

Immediately I thought, More people to deceive: the Charge d'Affaires, for a start.

"Christ!" I glanced at Whinger and saw he was looking pretty sick. I looked on along the line of faces Rick, Mal, Pavarotti, Dusty hoping for back-up, but they all wore blank, puzzled expressions.

"These devices," I said.

"Are you talking about suitcase bombs the sort of things that were developed for taking out bridges or dams?"

"A modern version," the CO conceded.

"Slightly bigger, and very much more powerful."

"How are we supposed to handle them? I mean, are they portable, or what?"

"More or less." The CO gestured to his left.

"Mr. Laidlaw is going to give you an initial briefing."

Laidlaw stood up to expound. Plump and rubicund, with dark hair slicked back and a big gut bulging against his doublebreasted, navy pin-stripe suit, he looked a bit of a character, a man who enjoyed a glass or two. Yet his manner was anything but frivolous: "Gentlemen," he said in a thick, fruity Scottish accent, 'for simplicity's sake I shall refer to the devices by initials. In the trade they're known as CNDs, compact nuclear devices. Ironic that the same initials stood for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which some of you may remember.

Nevertheless, those are the initials that we tend to use.

"The two CNDs you will be placing in position weigh approximately a hundred and fifty kilograms apiece. However, each one comes in two parts the size and shape of large suitcases.

One component weighs eighty kilos, the other seventy. Thus each component can be carried without much difficulty by two men. Easier with four. The device is primed by fitting the two halves together. It is then connected to a smaller unit, a radio receiver. The whole is detonated by signal from a satellite in synchronous orbit."

He stopped, scanning our faces.

"Gentlemen, I can see you looking worried. May I emphasise that the chances of any CND ever being detonated in anger are extremely remote. The devices are being planted purely as a deterrent, which the West will use as a form of control, should the situation in Russia deteriorate to a level which threatens the international community. Think of them as an insurance policy, not as weapons of aggression.

Seeing Johnny shift on his chair, he prompted, "Yes?"

"These bombs. How do they get to Moscow?"

"You'll take them with you when you fly in."

"Where are they now?"

Laidlaw looked at his watch.

"They're due into Lakenheath any time now. They should reach Hereford this evening."

I was finding it hard to believe that this whole spiel wasn't some crazy test, sprung on us to gauge our reactions.

"How do we know where to site them, once we get there?" I asked.

"Our friends in the Pentagon have got everything worked out for you. I'll give you a quick idea from these maps. Of course, you'll have detailed diagrams which you can memo rise but these will show you the general idea."

He bent over an open lap-top which stood on the table and punched a couple of keys. The big VDU beside him flickered into life and even before he began to explain the coloured diagram that came up on the screen I knew where we were: on the bank of the Moscow River, opposite the Kremlin wall, practically at the spot where we'd had the showdown with the mugger.

"For security reasons," Laidllaw was saying, 'as from now, the devices will be referred to only by code names. CND 1 is Apple, CND 2 Orange. All right? Now this diagram shows the site for Apple. We're right in the centre of Moscow. Here you have the Moscow River, marked blue, flowing west to east. The river at this point is a hundred and five metres wide. This, here, is the south wall of the Kremlin, running parallel with the river. The interior of the Kremlin lies to the north. Alongside the north bank of the river is a road, then there's a strip of grass. The distance from the water to the Kremlin wall is seventy-seven metres.

"Fortunately for your purpose, the ground beneath the city is honeycombed by tunnels. Not sewage tunnels like in London, because Moscow works on a system of relatively small-bore pipes, which are cleared by high-pressure water jets. Of course, there's the Metro the underground with tunnels on many different levels, as in London." He stopped to clear his throat, and continued in a strange, slightly theatrical voice.

"But there are also various other tunnels, less well known. For instance, there is one major and totally secret system which was built during the seventies, in the depths of the Cold War, to give party leaders an escape route from the Kremlin in the event of invasion or nuclear attack. It's very deep, and one of them's big enough to take lorries.

"At the inner end, access is by lifts from a secret terminal under the Presidium. The tunnel runs roughly here' he drew an imaginary line with his pointer 'southwards under the river, and all the way out to a site near Vnukovo Airport, twenty kilometres to the south-west. There, a complete underground city still awaits its first refugees. The place has its own supplies of food, power, water, air and so on."

He paused for effect, and saw he had us well hooked.

"More recently, in the attempted coup of ninety-three, the rebels were cornered in the White House, the parliament building. You'll all have seen TV pictures of tanks firing on it.

Well, when the defenders decided to run for it, they went down tunnels that was how they got away. The KGB were supposed to be guarding all the tunnel systems, but they just didn't have the manpower.

"Our tunnel, your tunnel, is much more modest, but ideal for your purpose: only six feet in diameter, but adequate for pedestrians. Again, it was built as an escape route, but during the twenties, on the orders of Lenin. This is it the dotted line running from beneath the Great Kremlin Palace, under the river and away towards the south. Fortunately we have been able to acquire KGB records, which show that during the Khruschev era some time in the fifties it was declared obsolete and the section under the Kremlin was filled in with a plug of concrete.

But the next section has remained open, and appears to have been forgotten, or at any rate abandoned, by latter-day authorities."

Once again I couldn't help making a sarcastic remark.

"I suppose it passes right beneath the British Embassy. All we have to do is open a trap-door in the floor of the ballroom and drop into it. Brilliant."

The CO frowned at me, but Laidlaw wasn't fazed.

"You're not far wrong. In fact it passes about five hundred yards to the east of the Embassy. Here's the Embassy complex, on Sophieskaya Quay, and here's the line of the tunnel." He drew another invisible line downwards, passing to the right of the Embassy and on towards the south-east.

"How do we get into it, then?"

"Access is via a shaft in a courtyard behind a church. I'll show you a detailed diagram in due course.

"I know," said Rick suddenly.

"It's that pink-and-white structure, a bit like a wedding cake. Three arches and a tall tower."

I stared at him, amazed that he'd noticed and remembered such detail.

"Yeah," he went on.

"We walked right past it after we'd sorted that interloper. You can look through the gateway and see a little church in the yard at the back. There was a big, wrought-iron gate at the entrance, but it looked as though it hadn't moved in years."

"Pink and white," Laidlaw echoed him, clearly impressed.

Laidlaw went back to his lap-top and wiped the picture.

"Let me show you something else."

Up came a close-in photo of two heavy padlocks, their hasps passing through a pair of thick metal rings.

"These," he said, 'are the locks on the plate sealing the access shaft."

Pavarotti, who was good on his lock-picking, gave a low whistle.

"Fuck me!" he muttered under his breath, as though immediately sensing a challenge, then louder: "I could go through those bastards in under a minute.

"I didn't think they'd trouble you much," Laidlaw said with a smile.

"So that," he continued, 'for the moment, is Apple. Now for Orange. Some of you have already been to Balashika, I believe."

I nodded.

"The second site is less precisely specified."

His next coloured diagram showed mainly open country, with a few buildings and fence-lines running across it.

"This is the southern boundary of the space control complex at Shchiolkovo, next door to the training area at Balashika. It will be for you to choose the exact location, but the objective is to place Orange within a hundred metres of the perimeter, so that its blast effects will cover the entire space complex. As some of you have seen, the training area in which you'll be operating abuts the complex. It should be relatively simple to bury the device at a suitable depth."

"Which is…

"A minimum of six feet, a maximum of twenty."

The guy seemed to know all the answers. Yet still I could not quite believe that what we were hearing could be for real.

"These CNDs," I said.

"How powerful are they? What damage will they cause if they go off?"

"Apple would destroy much of the centre of Moscow, and remove the Russian high command at one stroke. Orange would take out the space complex, removing Russia's ability to launch ICBMs with any precision. In both cases, blast damage would be limited to some extent by the fact that the devices would go off underground but it would still be extremely severe.

"In the city, the Kremlin would disappear. Every tunnel under Moscow would collapse. The entire Metro system would be destroyed. Escape tunnels and nuclear shelters the same. The city would come to a standstill. Within a two-kilo metre radius, I would not expect anyone to survive."

I took a deep breath.

"Between them, then, the devices would kill a few hundred thousand people. Possibly a million."

Laidlaw said nothing, so I went on, "This is all well and good, but we aren't trained to handle weapons of this kind. We won't have a clue about them, and unless we postpone the whole training programme there isn't time to learn."

"No bother," said Laidlaw.

"I gather one of your colleagues has been on a course in the United States."

"That's right," the boss broke in.

"In fact he's escorting the devices over. He's coming in with them this evening."

"Who are we talking about?" Whinger asked sharply.

"Steve Lime."

Steve Lime! The guy whose initial and surname spelt "Slime'.

Whose nickname was Toad. Jesus! This really freaked me. I glanced at Whinger. He hated the bastard as much as I did.

Toad! The colleague from hell.

I heard the CO saying, "He'll be going with you, of course.

You'll need him to look after the devices, and prime them when the time for insertion comes.

Toad had always been a pain to the lads on the squadron, but over the past few weeks, since he'd been posted to the States for a course in nuclear technology, he'd faded into the distance, as it were, and people had stopped beefing about him. It wasn't his fault that he was ugly, with oily skin and protuberant eyes; what bugged us was that he seemed to have no personality, and never got on with any of the guys. He'd go about with a smarmy smile on his face, but there was no warmth in it, and after a while you came to realise that he was wrapped up in his own affairs. At the same time, he was a real crawler, who'd lick up to anyone if he thought he could gain something from doing so.

How he had ever made it into the Regiment I could never understand. He had come from an unusual source the Royal Engineers where he'd worked in bomb-disposal; he was fascinated by explosives obsessed, almost and he spent hours tinkering with time-fuses and remote-firing gadgets.

He'd never tell you what he was doing, or have any real crack with the lads. He'd associate with the cooks and drivers rather than with the rest of us. It was no accident that he'd ended up as an instructor on the lock-picking wing, in a dim little world of his own. I know that all SAS guys, myself included, are loners to some extent; but at the same time everyone has to muck in, and Toad never did.

The idea of having to live at close quarters with him in the camp at Balashika was a fucking wind-up. In fact I found the whole scenario a nightmare.

I'd always hated the idea of nuclear weapons because they're bound to kill thousands of innocent civilians, including any number of children people who have no idea of what's going on. My career in the SAS has always emphasised the need for precision: what you might call 'economy of violence'. People imagine that guys in the Regiment have a cold-blooded, murderous outlook, and regard anybody as a potential target. It isn't like that. All our training is directed to making surgically accurate strikes on targets that have been properly identified.

For the moment, all I could do was grasp at straws.

"This tunnel under the river," I said.

"How do we know it's still open?"

Laidlaw checked his notes, gave a half-smile, and replied, "It was open on the fourth of April this year, and we have no reason to believe the situation's changed."

"That means someone's been down it. If access is that easy, how do we know that the KGB or some other security organisation isn't sitting in there, waiting for us to arrive?"

"The suggestion is that, once you've got Apple in position, you should block the tunnel on the river side of it by dropping the roof, as if there had been a natural fall."

"Not that easy if it's concrete."

"I didn't say it was concrete." A hint of irritation edged into the Scot voice.

"The tunnel is lined with brick, and it's not in the best of condition."

I nodded in token conciliation.

"Even if you do drop the roof, it is recommended that you brick the device into the tunnel wall."

"Hard to camouflage new mortar."

"That'll be up to you. I imagine there may be dust or mud that you can smear around."

Next Whinger came up with, "How do we get the devices on site?"

The CO looked at Laidlaw, as if asking permission to intervene, and said, "They'll travel out with you on the Here, sealed in Lacon boxes. They can be marked the same as ammunition. The weight will be about right. At the other end it'll be up to you to devise ways of moving them to their final positions."

"What if the Here goes down with the devices on board?" asked Pavarotti.

"What's the chance of a premature detonation?"

"None," said Laidlaw.

"Even when the two halves of each device are united, nothing can happen until the control box has been interrogated and primed by satellite signal. You need have no worries on that score.

Thanks, I thought, feeling crushed with a sudden terrific weight of responsibility. The boss was going on again about the paramount need for security; but although I could hear what he was saying I was wondering how the hell I could carry out the training mission with this knowledge in my mind. Every day we'd be dealing man-to-man with our students, instructing and encouraging them, and at the same time, behind their backs, we'd be plotting to annihilate them.

As the main briefing was coming to an end, the CO drew me aside and said, "One thing to remember, Geordie: whatever happens, don't let yourselves get involved in any live operation, like you did in Colombia."

"That was different, Boss," I protested.

"When Peter lifted, we had to do something about it."

"I know. But what I'm saying is that we don't want any repetition. Even if the Russians beg you to take on a job for them, refuse."

"Will do."

From the briefing we went into a close-up study of the two sites.

Laidlaw produced large-scale drawings with much detail on them.

"All this information is on compact discs, which you can obviously take with you," he said.

"The discs are programmed so that if anyone tries to get into one without using the correct password, the contents are automatically destroyed. Nevertheless, you obviously want to handle the discs with the greatest care.

As soon as the brass had dispersed, I called the team together for a Chinese parliament. We got a brew on, and sat round discussing this amazing turn of events.

Rick remembered that, a few months ago, there'd been reports of the Russians losing a whole load of such devices.

"There was something on the Internet that I down loaded on to our Russian file," he said.

"Wait one, and I'll pull off a copy."

While he went to make a search, Whinger and I filled in the other guys on the layout of the Kremlin and the British Embassy, which had suddenly become of critical importance. I felt instinctively that because the Orange site was out in open country, we'd be able to hack it without too much trouble: it was Apple, right under the walls of the Kremlin, that made my neck crawl.

In a few minutes Rick returned with a couple of pages printed off his lap-top.

"Listen to this," he began, reading out his transcript. '"A respected Russian scientist and former adviser to President Yeltsin said on Thursday that during the 1970s, under orders from the KGB, Moscow had secretly developed suitcase nuclear bombs. The devices had an explosive capacity of one kiloton the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT. They could be activated by one person, and could kill 100,000 people. The bombs were designed for terrorist purposes. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, at least 100 such devices have remained unaccounted for."

Rick broke off, looked up and said, "Guess what this respected Russian scientist is called." When nobody answered,

he said, "Yablokov. We all know what that means.

Somebody gave a groan. Yabloko was one of the first words we'd learnt on our Russian course. It means 'apple'.

"Either it's a fluke," I said, 'or someone's having a laugh."

"Maybe someone nicked a couple of suitcases from the KGB, and we're just taking them back," Pavarotti suggested.

"There's a worse possibility than that," said Pete.

"If we're doing this to the Russkies, who's to say they haven't done it to us already? What if there's a CND nicely placed in the wall of the Thames, under the House of Commons terrace?"

"Yeah," Whinger agreed, 'and another under the guardroom, right here in camp.

"It's no bloody joke," I told him.

"Don't you remember that time in the seventies when the Finns stopped an articulated truck and found it contained the roof for a Mexi stay-behind shelter, destined for England? If the bastards were getting dug in in the UK then, why should they have stopped now?"

"Here's something else off the Net," Rick went on, scanning his second sheet. Again he read: '"Russia is regarded as an increasingly unreliable partner on international issues, because of the power of corrupt officials, crooked businessmen and organised crime, a US public policy research group declared on Monday. A panel of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that the criminalisation of Russia's economy, if left unchecked, would make normal state-to-state relations with the country un viable It will become impossible for the United States to have traditional, satisfactory dealings with an emergent Russian criminal state"' He lowered the paper and said, "What about that?"

"That's it, exactly," I said.

"The stupid bastards in the Pentagon have got the wind up. They're bobbing like the shit-house fly, and want us to do their dirty work for them."

Once in Russia, we were going to need several days for site recces. Obviously we'd have to get the training course up and running; so no matter how fast we moved there was no way we could install Apple and Orange immediately. That in turn meant that the devices would have to be stored somewhere secure for the time being.

The idea of having them with us in that decrepit barrack block at Balashika seemed impossible, and I rapidly came to the conclusion that we must get them into the cellar at the British Embassy at the first possible moment. There, apart from other considerations, Apple would be practically on-site anyway, only a few hundred yards from its ultimate destination. The trouble was, the devices would travel into Russia with us on the Here and be off-loaded on the strip at Balashika. How could we account for the fact that we needed to transport heavy boxes into the centre of Moscow?

"Tell the Russians we've shipped in some new com ms equipment, at the Embassy's request," Whinger suggested.

"OK," I agreed, 'but what do we say to the Embassy?"

"That it's some of our own stuff. The security in the Russian barracks is shite, and the equipment's so sensitive that we don't want to leave it lying around while we're out working all day.

You pretty well told the Charge that already."

"All right," I persisted.

"Let's think about transport, then.

That's going to be a bugger. It looks to me as though we're going to have to whip in to the Embassy pretty often. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves by using a military truck or a Brit car. I hope Anna turns up trumps with those Russian vehicles she promised."

After a delay to the MAC flight from Nevada, Toad didn't reach Hereford until late that evening. I was having supper when I got a message to say that he was in the SAW. As soon as I'd finished I went over to the wing's special armoury and there he stood, dry-washing his hands. After a couple of months in the desert sun, anyone else would have had a really expensive tan, but all he'd managed was to turn a sickly yellow.

"Hi, Toad," I went.

"You made it. Where are your packages?"

"Right there." He half-turned to his right, pointing behind him, and there, sitting on a wheeled pallet by the wall, were four black steel trunks, each maybe two feet by four feet, and only a foot deep, with a couple of smaller boxes on top of them. The only markings, stencilled in white paint, said "A-I, A-2, A-R' and '0–1, 0–2, O-R'.

Jesus!" I said.

"So they come in kit form and have to be fitted together."

"Oh yes. Early portable devices were in two parts. Then, as technology improved, they started making one-piece models real suitcase bombs. Those are still around, but when something more powerful's wanted they've gone back to this modular design."

I was horribly fascinated by the thought of what the black cases contained and what they could do. But at the same time I couldn't help being irritated by Toad's proprietorial air. There was something in his gestures, in his attitude, which said, These are mine, and you can keep your distance.

"Everything all right?" I asked.

"Sure." He rubbed his hands some more.

"Good course?"

He nodded.

"Have you been briefed about the operation?"

"Not yet."

"Well, we're leaving for Moscow the day after tomorrow, so there isn't much time. Better come on up, and I'll give you the bones of it now. Then maybe you can brief me and Whinger on the devices in the morning."

We went up to the main briefing room, and I unlocked the safe in which I'd stored the site plans and the CDs. Toad hardly spoke as I went through them, but I knew that his quick mind was soaking in every detail.

"The Orange site is out in open country," I told him.

"Part scrub-land, part forest. As far as I can see, it's just going to be a hole in the ground: either one we find and adapt or one we dig ourselves. So I don't see much of a problem there. The tricky one's going to be Apple. This access shaft, in the courtyard, is at least twenty feet deep.

"Pulleys," said Toad.

"Spot on. I've thought of that. Those small titanium pulleys the Mountain Troop use for hoisting heavy machine guns and mortars up steep hillsides. The thing is, how robust are the devices? Can they stand knocks, or have they got to be feather bedded

"Oh no, they're pretty robust. You could probably drop one down the shaft and it wouldn't come to any harm." Toad frowned and then added, "Cancel that. Better not drop it."

"But it couldn't go off, even if we did?"

"Not a chance. Until the two components are united they're inert. We'll have to take them in separately and couple them at the last minute."

He studied the plan for a minute, then asked, "What depth is the tunnel running at as it comes to the Kremlin wall?"

"We don't know. But it's a hell of a wall. Must be thirty or forty feet high, so the foundations have to go down some way.

"We'll need to get the SCR within ten feet of the surface."

"The SCR?"

"The Satellite Communications Responder. That's the unit which the satellite sends messages to and interrogates."

"How big is it?"

"Oh those small black boxes downstairs. Didn't you see them?

Like this." He held up his hands a foot apart.

"Can they be some way away from the device?"

"Sure. The connecting co-ax cables can be any length."

"Maybe there'll be an old ventilation shaft. Or maybe we'll have to bore into the tunnel roof."

"An auger, then."

"Good thinking. What else?"

Slimy though he was, Toad had his head screwed on, and in the morning he gave the whole team a good briefing. This time he started with the SCR, and described how it needed to be positioned with its antenna coming up to within three or — preferably two feet of the surface. The controlling satellite, he told us, would send it signals to check that the system was working. There was no chance of an accidental explosion, because detonation could only be achieved by a complex sequence of questions and answers, and confirmed by coded messages from the Pentagon.

"The SCR contains its own nuclear power source, which gives it an indefinite life," Toad said.

"One snag is that the generator contains radioactive fuel and could become a health hazard if it gets crushed or broken. That's why it's so heavy: it's encased in a lead jacket."

"What happens if the Russian security forces do an electronic sweep along the front of the Kremlin, up above?" asked Rick.

"Won't they detect it?"

"Almost impossible," Toad replied smoothly.

"For ninety-nine percent of the time the SCR's passive. It's just listening. Its response periods will be pre-set to times like three in the morning, when people are least likely to be about."

Seeing Rick frown, he added in a patronising voice, "I wouldn't worry about it. You can take it from me that it'll be OK. I could go into a more technical explanation, but I don't think you'd understand. The bottom line is that the satellite sends signals down, and the SCR only answers for a split-second every twenty-four hours."

He looked round the row of faces, clearly enjoying his role of teacher.

"For security when the devices are being moved around," he went on, 'there's this very useful piece of equipment."

He crossed to the end of the small case marked A-R and applied his thumb to a shallow depression near one corner. The sprung lid of a small compartment flew open, and from it he took out an object the size of a compact mobile phone.

"This is the radio alarm trigger, generally known as the Rat. Whenever this is switched on it has to remain within thirty metres of the device. If it goes farther away than that it automatically triggers a radio alarm in the device itself. The signal can be picked up by satellite. So if you have to move the device in enemy territory, I suggest that the guy in charge keeps the Rat on his belt like this."

He clipped the thing on to his own belt, then returned it to its lair.

"What about having a shufti inside one of the components?" I suggested.

"Not a chance." Toad started dry-washing his hands again.

"They're all sealed down, and I don't want to break them out until they're about to be put in position. There are quite a few checks I'll have to make then."

We couldn't argue with him and he knew it. He wouldn't even come clean about the damage each bomb was likely to do.

He pretended the information was classified and kept it to himself. We had to be content with staring at diagrams of bewildering complexity which he brought up on a lap-top from his own CD. We all knew, though, that the destructive capacity packed into the black boxes in front of us was something awesome.

"What would happen if we got the devices in position but didn't prime them properly?" I asked.

"What if you deliberately connected them up wrong?"

"The satellite would detect the fault. That's the beauty of the system. The Pentagon would know there was something wrong.

They'd probably send us back to put it right."

"Well," said Pavarotti, as if to sum up.

"I'm not going down any fucking tunnel. That's for certain."

"I wouldn't be so sure," I told him.

Our 'last-minute' checks seemed endless. We were taking our own main weapons and ammunition MP5s and G3s so that we could give demonstrations without having to worry about handling unfamiliar kit. Stun grenades for CQB work; plastic explosive, detonators and det cord for EMOE. Also, I'd cleared it with Sasha that we could take pistols, to carry covertly when we were outside the camp. With crime running at the level it was, he'd agreed that it would be only sensible to have some means of self-defence.

Covert com ms equipment was another basic item we'd need for demonstrations. Also, I foresaw that it would be indispensable when it came to recceing sites for Apple and Orange and then inserting the devices. Plenty of batteries were required, therefore, and recharging kit. For work in the tunnel we needed good head-torches, short-handled picks and jemmies, plus a wire climbing ladder for going down the access shaft, and lightweight pulleys and nets for lowering the component parts of Apple. Also sandbags for removing spoil from the insertion-point, lock-picking kit for the padlocks, shovels for possible digging on the Orange site.. All this on top of our normal equipment and personal kit.

At one point the CO called me in for a private chat.

"Sit down, Geordie," he began.

"I can see you're not happy.

You've just got to make the best of it."

I nodded.

"This mass-destruction it's not like the Regiment.

"I know. But what you've got to believe is that the devices will probably never be used."

"Easy enough to say that. One thing I'd like to be bloody sure of is that they're not going to get used while the team's still over there."

"Don't be stupid. There's no chance of that."

"How do we know? What if the Resident gets assassinated and there's some kind of Mafia takeover? What if Clinton decides that Ri~ssia's going down the tubes and criminals are about to take over? The international situation might go to rat shit in a few hours."

I stared at the boss, and he said nothing.

"What I'd like to know is, whose finger's going to be on the button? Who's really in charge? If it's the Yanks, I'm not at all happy. They're just as volatile as anyone else. Worse, probably."

The boss gave a non-comirnittal grunt, and I went on, "It's bloody two-faced of our own government, anyway. All these overtures to the Kremlin about giving them help and now this."

"That's politics for you."

There was no good counter to that, and I came away feeling pretty pissed off Thinking ahead, I put in a call over the secure satellite link to the Charge d'Affaires in Moscow. He sounded friendly enough, to the point of asking if there was anything he could do to help.

"Well, thanks," I said.

"We're coming in tomorrow night, as planned, but we don't start the course till Monday so I wondered if we could bring some kit to store in the cellar on Sunday evening?"

"Ah." He sounded a bit taken aback.

"I shall't be here. But I tell you what. I'll leave the keys with the duty officer. That's going to be.. wait a minute… Richard Henshaw. I'll tell him to expect you. What time will you get here?"

I had to think fast.

"I'm not certain we'll have transport by then. But let's assume we will have. We should be there between six and seven in the evening. If there's anything different, I'll call to say so.

"Right-oh. I'll leave a message at the gate."

So far, so good. Then, to take my mind off immediate problems, I called Tony Lopez, late of the US SEAL. special forces, but by now working in CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia. I had come to know Tony after he'd rescued me when I got hurt in Iraq during the Gulf War and we'd been interned together for a month. Then, a couple of years later, he had come over for a tour with the Regiment, and had done brilliantly until he'd had his left arm smashed.

His wound was serious enough to finish his career in the armed forces, and when he'd recovered, he joined the CIA. He'd been too discreet to tell me exactly what areas he was working in, but it didn't take a genius to guess that he would have responsibility for special forces projects.

Now, when I got through, he sounded his usual lively self.

"Hi, Tony," I went.

"How are you doing?"

"Good! Good! How about you?"

"Fine. How's the arm?"

"Still improving. About seventy percent now.

"Great. Listen, Tony d'you know people in the Drug Enforcement Agency?"

"Sure do. Why?"

I told him about Rick's friend Natasha, and her sister Irma who'd got sucked into the Russian Mafia operations in New York. I also gave him the name of the brasserie in Brooklyn where the girl was supposed to be working, and asked if he could do anything to help.

He said he'd put in a call to a friend in the DEA, but then in a different voice he added, "So it's you who's been in Moscow. I might have guessed."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. But this assignment could be a hot number. When you go back there, Geordie, take it easy. OK?"

"OK." I wasn't going to ask him anything else. Clearly Tony knew about Operation Nimrod: he knew we'd been over, he knew we were going back… and there were obviously things about the task that he didn't like.