Beyond Recall

Chapter 18

Not gone far, not fast, and Gaz had started to struggle. The kids held on to him. He attempted to break free.

“Let me go. I don’t need you.”

Had they let him go, he’d have fallen flat on his back or his stomach, and the bleeding – internal or through the entry wound – would have come on worse, and the pain.

“Don’t need you, don’t want you.”

Difficult ground to cross and they were among low trees; he would have had to accept that the kids understood the need to be clear of the open ground where the heather and short bracken grew, and the bushes with the berries gave no cover. If they had not supported him then he’d have tripped on a rock, gone down slithering into a bog… Gaz was alive, and angry. Would not have had that anger if he’d been in Helmand or central Syria because a Chinook would have scooped him up, and alongside the protection of the machine-gunners aiming down through hatches would have been the team of trauma geeks: the needle going into his arm, and chasing him. Could not hand over responsibility for his safety, his survival, to the kids.

“Let me go. Christ’s sake, free me.”

They were high up on the tundra plain. Before going into the dark of the close-growing pines he had been able to say where he’d be heading – not to the west and towards the frontier, but to the east. Would not have had that chance now as the cloud was thickening and the wind pressing against his body. When they had started back he had been able if he squinted, and bit at his lip for concentration, to see the ribbon of water that ran out to the north and into the Barents Sea. Had definitely seen it. Had promised himself that the inlet was the sole route out that remained to him… had been told it, had been given the promise of the fishing boat’s crew.

“Go back to flogging skunk, whatever. You owe me nothing. Get the hell out.”

Neither of them had a spare muscle in their body. They were both thin and pale and breathing hard, but their hands gripped him. They shielded his face from the stinging whip of branches flicking back on to his face. The sight of the inlet that led out to the open sea was lost and he did not know if they headed in the direction he had demanded or whether they merely blundered into the depths of the woodland – or whether they went in a circle which would have been the worst of catastrophes… There had been a Scots boy in the regiment, known as ‘Bare Arse’ because he wore a kilt off duty and shunned underpants, and he had been lost on a plateau on the north part of the Helmand sector when fog had come down, and had suffered flat batteries on his communications, and had walked twice in big circles and had lost thirty hours, and a big hunt was on for him and then the fog had lifted and he’d been sitting on his haunches, his head on his knees, and weeping, because he had screwed up big time, two huge circles and each time back where he had started, and he was a skilled navigator. Truth was, Gaz would not have known if they had walked in circles unless they had splashed in the pool where his blood had coloured the water.

“Just leave me, walk away.”

If anything, they held tighter to him. He wanted to walk, put the wound behind him, control for himself what destiny was left him. Pretend that he had not been shot. Reality was a wound in the upper chest that would not have been life-threatening if the Chinook had come in fast and the expert care was on board. He had his right arm around the boy’s shoulders and most of his weight rested there, and the girl had snuggled herself closer to him and had an arm around his back and clutched the waist of his trousers to keep a firm grip, but struggled to sustain the burden. What he was, a damned burden.

“Am asking you, ordering you – I am pleading with you. Leave me.”

He flailed with his arm. He might have caught Natacha’s chin with the heel of his hand and he saw her head rock but she rode it. He kicked at Timofey’s shins, to better effect. Two results of his efforts to free himself: when he hit her he widened the entry wound, and aggravated the dirtied tunnel of the bullet’s passage, and felt pain along the depth of the wound, seemed to split his chest in two on either side of its passage, and the agonies crumpled him… And because he kicked and Timofey hopped one-legged and lost balance, they almost fell and the boy had to reach down and steady himself before straightening. He thought he saw a shape that moved alongside them, tracked them. Thought he had seen it before. Delusions, a degree of madness. Gaz wanted to be free of them, dependent on himself, and they did not permit it. Trees were close around them. The wind came on harder and riffled the branches over his head… and without them he was dead.

“You help me and I’ve the right to know. Why?”

Timofey’s answer: “We have to.”

He was a city boy. Some of the kids of his age were a part of the Nashi youth group. A favoured arm of the regime, they had summer camps in the forests, and hung banners of flattering portraits of the leader, called him Vova, and girls wore knickers celebrating the ‘close relationship’ with the President, the hero. A brutal version of the Komsomol of Soviet times. Inside the ranks of the non-believers they were the Putin-jugend. Timofey avoided them because he, or Natacha, would have had a beating off them if they had trapped him on the street… would have stolen his stuff, would have smoked it, would have beaten him for amusement. The Nashi boys and girls might have had an idea about how to move across this barren, frightening place, and hold the direction he was asked for. But they would have been in the wilderness if recruited in Murmansk… the ones who strutted on the parades for Defender of the Fatherland celebrations. He did not know whether they went forward or sideways – could have gone backwards – but reckoned the injured man had the strength to guide them in the right direction, had to. Each time that the direction was set, Timofey took charge. Why? Not easy to answer without baring something that was private to him, shared only with Natacha – and only then within limits. Started slowly, and was thoughtful, but would grow in confidence.

“Because of what you brought us, friend. I call you ‘friend’. You are a soldier, I am a dealer in narcotics. You would have a uniform to parade in. I have a uniform if I go to gaol. She wore a uniform in the prison. We are so different, but you gave us something. What we did not have. First, the start. Who I am. The result of a bastard’s birth? Have your blood in me, some of your people’s blood. A sailor’s blood. Would have been ordinary, not an officer. Met a girl in the shadows, in winter. And a child born. And the child would be a grandparent, mine. That is how I feel I am joined to you. I tell you something you bring to me and why I have a love of you, friend. I am not a serial killer, I have not stolen millions, have stayed at a humble level and sell drugs. Good weeks and bad weeks, and I have Natacha. What I despise is the corruption. Who am I, a criminal, to speak of wrongdoing? I am entitled. I see it. We are stopped in the car. The car is searched. The cannabis weed is found. We can be handcuffed, arrested, sent to court, sentenced and imprisoned. You would not want to spend days in a gaol here, friend. Or, I can feel under my seat, where I keep trading cash, and I can pay them, and come back again the next evening and pay some more, and again. You give me a chance to kick their testicles. I think you made them angry, and I think they will be angrier if they do not have you imprisoned, where it would go badly for you. The way it is, I give one kick to one testicle, and you give the second kick to the second testicle. I see them, then, at FSB on the Prospekt, doubled in pain. That is why I help you. Please, friend, do not hurt me again, it slows me. When we reach the Kola inlet you have not told me what we look for, what will happen. Because, friend, you do not fully trust us?”

No reply given him. Nor did he know if his words were heard. He thought they were watched from the deeper undergrowth, and sometimes he looked behind him, and sometimes he thought a shadow passed between the trees. But the wind had freshened and the noise from the trees clattered in his ears. When there was wind, there would be rain chasing behind it.

“You have given us something, friend. That is enough. We rejoice in it, the freedom, the opportunity to kick. And you are heavy, friend, fuck, you are heavy. And I tell a truth. You should have killed him and now he is free, and he will be back with the snakes he lives with and they come for us, and all we can do is kick. You should have killed him.”

Lavrenti hopped from rock to rock, and sometimes jumped to clear the bog pools. He could have been out in the carefully preserved woodlands – accessible only to residents of the gated dachas near the President’s own palace – where he had walked as a teenager, before his father had decided that he should go to the Academy of FSB, and start the fast track. A great weight, one that had bowed him, was lifted. His mother was not in his thoughts, nor his father. No longer any consideration of what curtains he should have in his new Moscow apartment, and what girls he should take to dinner, nor which businessmen entrepreneurs he should offer a protective ‘roof’ and what rewards would accrue and how his promotion prospects could be enhanced.

The rain was hard in his face, came from ahead of him where the border was. It flattened his hair and ran down his face and added to the weight of his military tunic.

Lavrenti Volkov’s decision was made. Not usually generous in handing out gratitude, but in his mind, Lavrenti was prepared to give thanks to the man he now knew as the corporal. He held the pistol in his right hand and his finger rested on the trigger guard and the rain washed it and highlighted where the paint had been scraped from its body. He had not fired his own pistol while in Syria, also a Makarov, except on that day. If the corporal had been a witness to the long hours spent at the village then he would have seen him shoot. Of course, the two sergeants were also witnesses but their loyalty was to his father and no mention had ever been made of his behaviour and actions at Deir al-Siyarqi. Their attitude towards him had changed, formality turning to scarcely disguised contempt. They had eked out their time with him, would shortly – with his father’s blessing – retire to their dream of the restaurant with chalets on the Moscow-St Petersburg road. The day had never been spoken of, nor had he challenged them if they were late, slovenly dressed, or the car smelled of their sweat or fast food… neither possessed the corporal’s dignity.

It was as if a way had been shown him: what the corporal had done.

Through the rain sheeting on to him and below the cloud that bucked on the tips of the trees, he had seen the two men who had been at his side on that day. They should have driven him to the airport, grunted a farewell, and he would have boarded his flight south and they would have spat an insult. He would never meet them again. He could not remember when he had last met a man, uniformed or civilian, who had been with him, close, for only a matter of hours, who had been able to cleanse him. A good man, only a corporal but with behaviour that could not be faulted. The arrival of the witness had brought conclusion to a nightmare. He was at peace.

He barely noticed the rain, and the wind. His sergeants would beat him to the fence and he assumed by now that the militia would be deployed. Everything was clear in his mind. There had been confusion back on the path, with the kids trailing them. A single shot from an AK47 assault rifle and the corporal had pitched over. Not dead but hideously wounded. Then, two more shots. A Dragunov sniper rifle, he’d judged. Had seen no marksman. Had realised the shots were aimed to intimidate his sergeants, had been successful. He’d no idea who else might have been out in that wilderness.

Delta Alpha Sierra, the Eighteenth Hour.

The dogs, ahead of them, realised first.

Soft growls, would have been showing their teeth then scurrying, low on their bellies, to bring stragglers to the main group. In the heart of the goats were Gaz and the girl. The goats picked up on the danger and started to blast. Neither Gaz nor the girl were alert enough to recognise the dull shadows ahead of them, too exhausted, too mentally stripped. A searchlight came on, caught and blinded them. The growling went up a pitch and the bleating become a chorus. And the light went off; they had been illuminated for some five seconds, again were in darkness and clouds must have covered the moon and the stars.

Gaz shouted his name.

Was answered, “Is that a fucking zoo you’re bringing?”

Gaz did not know whether she understood Dusty the Scouser’s crack, but she seemed to stiffen beside him. She had done well to walk that far, bloody well, had not complained, had just slapped one foot in front of another, and her body had been violated and her mind would be turmoil: she was bereaved, in shock. He had his arm around her waist. The light came on again. Now, she looked straight into the beam and did not blink, showed no weakness and the herd was buffeting her legs and the dogs ran rings round them.

“Brought the missus with you, Gaz?”

“Shut the fuck up, just shut…” Never finished. It was like he had already been removed from the comfort zone of the regiment, had lost the protection its cordon gave. Black humour was their way of handling bad times, the worst exposure to experiences. One they liked was, ‘This trooper on his deathbed, shot to Hell, was asked by a priest to renounce Satan before he passed on, and he replied that this was no time to be making new enemies.’ That was a favourite, was all right between them but not in the presence of an outsider. Not acceptable after what she had endured, what she had seen. There must have been a whip in his voice. The lights were killed. He was with the Golf Charlie team. The goats milled close to the wheels of the vehicles, started to search for anything to eat and found filled sandbags, started to chew.

He was asked, “You all right, Gaz?

“I’m good.”

“Who’s the lady?”

“Just someone I met at a bus-stop.”

“Don’t fuck about, who is she?”

“She has a herd of fine goats, I don’t know her name.”

“Get your goodbyes done, and we’ll be off. Not a place I care to hang about, but you’d know that. Took your time, but all’s well that ends…”

“She’s coming with me.”

“What about that bus she was waiting for.”

“Needs medical treatment.”

“So does half this fucking country.”

“And she saved my life.”

“I’ll take her with you, but we’ll not manage the goats and the dogs.”

A formality. Had to be done. One of the boys, a fellow corporal, came forward from the darkness and patted her down. Arms, spine, thighs and shins, and nodded that she was clean: just doing his job. She was indifferent, probably hardly noticed. Gaz told the girl that the goats and the dogs would stay where they were. Told her that it was not up for argument, she would be seen by the medic team. Reluctant, seemed to pull away from him, but he only freed her when she crouched down and spoke into her dogs’ ears, then stood and her eyes blazed as she looked around her and would have taken in the sight of armed men, masked faces, protective vests, heavy machine-guns, and might then have been half-choked at the spill of exhaust as the engines were revved. A hand came down and hoisted her up, and that was Dusty, the Scouser, and he called her ‘love’ and seemed soft, caring. Gaz had tears and wiped them on his sleeve. She was at his feet, down on the floor, squashed in, and the weapons were manned. They bumped away. Just used side-lights and it was the knack of the drivers that they could follow a seldom used track, and they went fast and her shoulder thumped against his knee. He choked back tears, made a noise of it, but never heard her weep… He thought that all she had in her life, only bloody thing left her, was her goats and her dogs, and now she had lost them.

The memories came in waves, surged in his mind, and always the image of the officer. She had said, I had to survive because there must be a witness who lives. Had made a promise, had shared it with him, passed on responsibility for it.

“And you,” he asked her. “Why?”

“Better we move than we talk. Talk is empty.”

“I have to know. Why?”

Her steps were shorter, and Timofey heaved. Exhaustion weighed them. The man, named as ‘friend’ by Timofey, seemed heavier to her and her arms ached and her shoulders were bowed, and the forest of low trees they moved through was darker than before. Rain pattered down and the upper branches shook in the wind. She did not know how much longer she would be able to support him. His problem was to know why? Why did she help him? Did it fucking matter: more important was whether he would reach the coastline of the inlet, somewhere between Polyarni and Vidyaevo. Her answer… staccato… breath harder to suck down.

“Because you are against them. Because your navy would have rescued some of the Kursk boys, if it had been allowed. Because you stand for something they would not comprehend. Because you have a principle, friend, would not kill him – as you should have. Because you are destroyed by the principle, but do not regret it. I tell you, as a fool, I think every day of Kursk, the crew, the death. Every day, and the guilt of it killed my father… And because it has been good, has been fun, is excitement. Beyond anything I knew. Getting clear of the cops by the railway station when selling is big but you brought the biggest, the best.”

“Would you come out, after… after whatever happens to me, would you come out? Go to that banking island, Guernsey, go to the counter, empty the account, take it in notes… keep walking, be at the airport. Take a plane – somewhere, anywhere – would you?”

“End a dream? That is boring, friend, is bourgeois. That is what ‘they’ would do. They are from the Prospekt and they would go to this island and try to keep moving the money, make an industry of it. We stay, and then we can hold the dream. We try to help you, and may succeed, and may not, but we try. But we will not follow you. You want me to sing? Do I strip again to make you laugh? Your principle, friend, it has fucked us all.”

She felt tears well in her eyes. Did not care.

They came to a clearing, only a few metres across. She paused, as did Timofey. Their ‘friend’ seemed to sniff the air and there would have been only the scent of the wind and the taste of the rain, and her hair no longer blew because it had been plastered on her scalp. It would have been a good afternoon, the right sort of weather and the police and militia anxious to stay in their patrol cars, and trade would have been brisk when the great snaking train came in from Moscow or from St Petersburg. There was no horizon to guide him, just a cloud that sat low on the treetops ahead of them. She thought he smiled, and his voice was faint and hard for her to hear, but it was a remark about a helicopter and no visibility, and the clouds’ low base, and she thought that a small victory. A hole in his chest, and blood leaking, and damage inside… Quite often, down by the cutaway section of the Kursk’s tower, she would let tears run. Would stand, feel no embarrassment, just cry – would be the same if they lost him. She thought him weaker…

“Come on, our ‘friend’, don’t fucking fail us, keep your eyes open.”

… and slapped his face. A light blow but not a caress.

His voice was a whisper and she strained to hear.

“You owe them nothing. You should have gone home, never been here. Listen to me while I can still talk. They are never grateful. Should you ever get to London there will be no trip to the Palace, and no posh men in pinstriped suits to grip your hands, and no medals dished out, and the ‘thanks of a grateful nation’ on offer. I know, I’ve seen. We had wonderful people in Afghanistan, in Syria, put their lives, and their families’ lives in our hands. Fought alongside us… Then we were bored, or could not afford to fight any longer. We went home, and the Yanks did, and these good people were abandoned. Do we give them asylum in UK, a safe refuge from the Taliban, from the Damascus regime? We do not. Charities make a bigger effort to bring a mongrel puppy in because it used to have the run of a soldiers’ garrison camp, and a guy is lonely without it. But the heroes who fought alongside that guy, they don’t get the treatment. Nor will you.”

“Talking just tires you.”

“You ought to have left me.”

“You, friend, should have shot him.”

“I’ve told you who they are, what they are.”

His head dropped, chin on to his chest, and he would have seemed heavier to her and to the boy, and the rain came down and the cloud was lower. He wanted to sleep, to lie down on the pine needles, and… She slapped him again. They went forward, but slower.

Knacker and the Norwegian sat close to each other, had a decent view, and he’d dozed, and in front of him the troops beyond the wire showed no sign of immediate action.

His phone vibrated. Alertness returning, and ignoring the rain that dripped on his head, his shoulders, found its way under his shirt collar, puddled in his lap. He saw the source of the call… had dozed and had dreamed. Had been up on the Wall, and Maude had been somewhere within shouting distance. Plastic sheeting had jumped and arched over her, and mud swilled over her waterproof clothing, and she had been at the cleaning job with her toothbrush. God, it must have been foul for them there, stuck by that rampart, watching that frontier, waiting for the bastards to come out of the mist, screaming and shrieking and wanting blood… And on a similar day, the chap in the woad, their intelligence officer who plotted moves against the wheat collector and garrison commander, would have been huddled – pretty much as Knacker was now – in bushes or under trees, waiting for an agent to come through the gate ahead of him, and leave Roman territory and keep walking with his mules. All the time that individual would have been, near as dammit, messing his pants for fear that a Roman voice would peal out into the rain. Might have an accent of empire from Spain or from North Africa, or from the Tigris River where the bargemen were originally recruited, might have called the wretch back. Probably restless and gasping, because twice the Norwegian had elbowed him, but dreaming and understanding the future. Him up on the Wall, squatting on a shooting stick and watching the horizon, and Maude with her archaeology friends. Knacker had a skill that was much envied by those of the same trade: he saw little point in Canute levels of obstinacy.

“Yes, DD-G, how may I help?”

Actually, Knacker was told, it was ‘acting D-G’ who called him, not ‘DD-G’. Had he received communications?

“I have, yes.”

Was he at the airport? Was he flouting instructions? Did he regard himself as emanating from an independent fiefdom?

“Just wrapping things up, tying loose ends, not wanting to leave any untidiness.”

Had matters been made plain to him? A new broom and a new mood, and a new acknowledgement of ethics and morality, and a new rubbish bin for outdated attitudes towards the Russian ‘enemy’. Did he not realise that times changed, attitudes moved on, techniques grew more sophisticated in the light of electronic advances? Putting these unprotected wretches in harm’s way for the sake of some hypothetical advantage to be gained in central Syria. All ridiculous. Quite apart from justifiable annoyance felt by the Russian agencies. It was over, and the stable was to be cleaned. Did he understand?

“All understood.”

He would have expected a fight. Probably, in front of him and at the desk where he sat – hopefully on borrowed time – would have been a crib sheet of clever lines to throw back at Knacker if he’d argued. Would have slapped him down and would have had around him a room full of Young Turks, or Albanians, or Egyptians, wherever they came from these days. Would have seen himself as a prizefighter with an opponent on the ropes and a stadium baying for blood. Knacker gave him a trifle of ducking and weaving, and then silence. To the point of impertinence, he frustrated, gave no cause for the crib sheet to be used. Would he not, at least, stand his corner?

“Just those loose ends, then be on the plane.”

And his man? How was the ‘wretch’, his man, doing? Going to make it out without repercussions off the Richter? Or in a holding cell, waiting to be shot dead on the wire? What was happening?

He terminated the call, then switched off the power. The Norwegian would have heard it all, gave a sardonic grin. The top of the thermos was unscrewed. Fish soup was offered. A foul night, and cold, and hope dying and any form of intervention beyond his capabilities… taking the rough with the smooth… win some, lose some… worth the risk, wasn’t it? Through the wire he could see that the border troops huddled in their oilskin capes or crowded close to their trucks for shelter. The sort of evening, and sort of weather, where optimism was difficult to purchase.

“So, this is the end for you… will you miss it?”

Knacker held the coin, felt each indentation. He said, “I am going to be a wheat collector and plan the decapitation of my opponent, or I am going to be wrapped in a wolf pelt, my face painted blue and plotting how to slit the collector’s throat… Sorry but no large lady has yet sung. Not the end, not yet. What we call the dark hour, but then there’s dawn… A hell of a good soup.”

“Is that them?”

“Could be, I’m not sure.”

The wind pounded them and the rain was relentless and the light faded and clouds hugged the hills either side of the entry to the harbour at Kirkenes.

Fee said, “Just can’t tell.”

Alice said, “Would they have just fucked off without a word? I mean, after all we’ve done for them, and what we’ve paid them up front.”

“Rats getting out early, sinking ship and all that,” Fee said.

“You’ve got the glasses,” Alice said.

Which meant that Fee had to get her hands out of her pockets and then root in her ample handbag, and it was sods’ law that the pocket binoculars were at the bottom. Swore softly because the rain was now coming into the bag. She had the glasses, wiped the lenses on her pullover.

“It’s them. Pretty much have the registration bit. Not a hundred per cent, but near enough. Bastards…”

“The same old trouble. You bring in outsiders and they say the right thing, then haggle over the washers, then reckon they’re your best friends, then fuck off out without a word of what’s been done for them. Predictable.”

They were on the coast road. Deep in the mist was a fishing boat, a dark grey outline and chucking back a small wake from its engines. Grey sea, a grey mist and grey hills.

“And us? What about us?” Alice asked. “Are we joining the rats?”

“Could sign up. Rats have a trait of survival. Would be sensible,” Fee answered.

“Knacker wouldn’t. He’ll not compromise.”

Fee said, “Truth is, best will in the world, this has been a right shambles. This is ‘piss-up in a brewery’ stuff. I’m not listing them, but it had no right to work for us.”

Alice said, “Looks like he’s going to be dead or banged up in a cell. That’s worse than a shambles.”

“Too rushed.”

“Never had a chance. Sensible to be a rat.”

“Knacker’ll be out on his neck. We’ll get a billet somewhere. Keep our heads down, and mouths shut.”

They held hands, had lost sight of the fishing boat.

Fee said, “And our boy, he wasn’t wonderful, was he? Pretty ordinary.”

Alice said, “If he’d had the balls he’d have plugged that fucker, Volkov. That’s what it was all about. Sending a message to allies and friends in Syria, little people on the ground. There would have been a right old jump-up of pleasure in every Jordan refugee camp when word spread that a Russian, an officer, a war criminal, had gone off to the big gulag in the sky. But he bottled it.”

Fee grimaced. “Know what’s worst, poppet? Having wet ankles. I hate wet ankles.”

“That flight out?”

“Two hours till check-in. We go, whether or not Knacker’s back from safari.”

Alice bit at a lip, distorted a pretty face. “Be a rat, get along the hawser, be safe and have a life… Come on.”

They scurried away, headed for the safe house and a change of clothes, and a whisky. Not their fault that it had fouled.

The seas would be difficult once the fishing boat was clear of the hills on either side of the inlet. They made the harbour at Kirkenes a haven in the poorest weather. Out beyond the twin headlands and the island of Kjelmoya, uninhabited and ribbed with granite strips, was the Barents Sea. Few would treat the open water lightly, certainly not the men who had experience of the northern gales, winter and summer. On the fishing boat, among the four of them, there had not been a rancorous debate as to whether to leave Kirkenes as the weather closed and the visibility shortened. All of them were from families that had sailed from the Shetland islands on the bus routes to the Norwegian coast, and had only gone in winter because then the perpetual darkness gave protection from air attack, but those months were the most savage in terms of mountainous swell and the force of the gales. They were fuelled up and the engineer had pronounced himself satisfied that the engine would – if God blessed them – survive what the elements threw at them. Everything on deck that could be loosened by the pitch of the boat was strapped down. They would not use the radio, would give no indication of their route to the Harbour-Master’s Office, but before casting off had spoken about heading for the Norwegian ports of Alesund and Bergen far to the south. The radio would not be used again and the predicted bad weather would reduce their footprint both in terms of satellite imagery and shore-based radar.

Why?… None would have been clear in giving an answer. All were men of few words. Each of them, if challenged would have grimaced, would have gazed from a porthole or out of the reinforced wheel-house windows, would have looked anywhere other than into the eyes of the questioner. Then an answer of sorts… ‘Because it’s what sea people do, who sea people are.’ It would be a big moment when they were clear of the inlet, the hills lost in the mist and the cloud behind them, and the decks glistening with water from the rain and the spray off the crests. The skipper would swing the wheel and they would go to starboard and catch the gusts and be shaken and rocked. The boat would lurch and swing and waves would hammer it. It would be a gesture.

“Don’t fucking shoot. Lower the fucking rifle.”

Mikki would have said, under any circumstances, having a rifle aimed at him, and an eye squinting over sights was an unhappy place to be. He could barely breathe and his mind had lost coherent thought. They had run but neither had helped the other. Supposed to be the best of friends, men who would stand together in whatever front line confronted them . . . had been ‘each for himself’ in headlong flight. He had fallen, tripped on roots and stones and fallen and Boris had raced past him, had not stopped to heave him up. And Boris had slumped and had been holding his guts, but Mikki had left him and gone on ahead. Where was the bear? Mikki had no idea. A full ten minutes before he had shouted back at Boris. Had he seen the bear? Seen the bear in the last kilometre? A guttural response from his long-time friend, future business partner; had not seen it. Had he heard the bear? More gasps and more coughing to get air down into the lungs. Had not heard it… Might not have seen it and might not have heard it, but Mikki would not advocate standing still, cocking his head, straining his ears and gazing into the rain… looking for the bear, listening for it. So, he had kept running, and Boris had chased after him.

They were near the wire, in the last line of stubby fir trees. He would be from the border guard. He held a shiny new rifle, and aimed it. Mikki stood, statue-still. Boris cannoned into him, jolted him, then saw the guard and the rifle.

Boris had an arm out, leaned on Mikki. Croaked at the militia kid. “Point that fucking thing somewhere else, boy.”

The ‘boy’, a conscript far from home, soaked and cold, and likely no food or drink provided, and told some shit story about an officer taken prisoner, kidnapped, dragged towards the border, might have thought a NATO armoured division was running escort, and might have his safety lever up and might have it down. Mikki said, trying to find authority, that he was putting a hand in his pocket and would take out his identification card. And did so, and held it up so that the boy could see it. The kid looked scared, not half as scared as he’d have been if he had first dropped his rifle and then had that fucking bear coming after him… only one foot at the front end of it, just a stump, but the other foot had claws that could have sliced him to spaghetti lengths. And now he might be shot by a kid.

Mikki said, “Aim it somewhere else, kid, or I’ll eat your dick off – see if I don’t.”

They were taken to an officer. Mikki’s mind went at flywheel speed. What to say, what to tell? Both spoke.

“I am the driver…”

“I am the bag carrier…”

“For FSB officer, Major Lavrenti Volkov. He was kidnapped this morning.”

“We are both FSB personnel. Immediately we reported to the Prospekt. We had information…”

“From an informant, that the foreign agent would attempt to cross the frontier…”

“Do that at this location. Take the major with him. Why you are deployed…”

To the complicated part. The officer barked into a handset, relayed what he was told.

“We had weapons.”

“Had drawn FSB weapons.”

“Were following, had a sight of them.”

“Fired a single shot, put down the foreign agent, dead or wounded.”

“But…”

“We were fired on ourselves…”

“Almost killed – had to drop our weapons, then…”

“A bear chased us…”

“A brown bear… Major Volkov is behind us. We could not stop to wait for him.”

“Because of the bear.”

The officer left them, went to his truck and his communications.

Mikki said to Boris, “That was fucking awful.”

Boris said to Mikki, “Fucking awful and worse.”

“They won’t credit us until he comes.”

Kneeling, hidden, Lavrenti watched the squirming performance of the two who had been tasked by his father to protect him, and had failed. It no longer mattered to him. Could tell from the shifting feet and fidgeting hands and slumped shoulders that the buck was being passed. He saw an officer take charge. Men were despatched, and it was necessary for Lavrenti to lie flatter, stay still, as they pounded away noisily on the path close to where he hid. They would find where the British corporal had been shot and, in spite of the deluge of the rain, there would still be blood, though thinner. That would initiate the chase… and nothing he could do would alter it. On other matters his mind was clear, sharp. Almost ready, and still at peace with himself. He would have liked one more chance to speak with the corporal, regretted that he was denied the opportunity. Would have liked the chance to speak with the kids who had likely wrecked their lives by following in the wake of the corporal’s escape; for excitement and to imitate something out of the movies. He had only paused once when he had gone up the last hill before the tree line, had followed the pair of them, the idiots on his father’s payroll, and had looked back and seen the two kids, the girl and her boy, struggling to lift him and then beginning to go back the way they had come. Alive, but almost certainly dying. The corporal had affected the kids as he had affected Lavrenti. Only a few more minutes, on his knees or on his stomach, and sheltered from the rain, and then he would move.

Almost certainly dying, which hurt him, and all chance of a decent ending long gone. He felt a strange calm, one he’d not known before.

Jasha stepped out and blocked the path.

He did not have to. Very little of his life since he came – phsyically injured and mentally scarred – from the military and lost himself in the wastelands of the Kola, was not decreed by himself. Not told when to wake, what to shoot, how to feed himself, what to earn for survival. He was that rare individual in the society of the Arctic north, ‘his own man’. They were just kids… city kids and had the wrong clothing and the wrong footwear and seemed to blunder erratically in the hour, or more, that he had watched them. They were cowed under the weight of the man they tried to help. More confusion for Jasha: they did not go towards the fence but headed inland instead and would very soon have crossed the main highway, and where they aimed for was a headland on the inlet that was between the two submarine bases, Vidyaevo and Polyarni. He thought, quite soon, they would drop the man and let him sink into the undergrowth. They might collapse alongside him and rest, or they might manage a shy sort of farewell and make excuses, head off… There was an old saying: ‘the enemy of my friend is my enemy’. He supposed it had as great a relevance to a Russian as to an American, an Afghan or a Chechen. He could make a ‘friend’ of the wounded man. Could make an ‘enemy’ of an FSB officer being taken to the border.

Jasha had tracked them since they had first hoisted him up, set off with their burden. Surprised they had gone so far with him, taken that weight for so long. He had stopped once only, and allowed them to get ahead, and had heard that noise close to him – broken dried twigs and rustled leaves and the clatter of branches sliding back after being pushed aside. He had been firm. Been too many days and too great a familiarity. Had said in a clear voice, against the wind and the rain. ‘Get this message, Zhukov, I do not want you. I helped you when you needed help. What anyone does, gives help. Now, bugger off back to your own territory. Stop following me. And stay away from my home. Stay away from my dog. Stay away, Zhukov, from me.’ Would have sounded decisive.

He was in front of them and they stared at him. He would have made a frightening figure: in camouflage clothing, his rifle with the barrel topped by the bulk of the telescopic sight, a balaclava unravelling at the slits, two more rifles slung on a shoulder. He missed the beast already, did not have the peculiar feeling of company and assumed Zhukov had taken him at his word.

The kids were close to collapse. It was not Jasha’s argument and he owed nothing to an unknown casualty, and nothing to the kids… But had owed nothing to a bear with a limb poisoned by wire and then with a fence staple stuck in its pad. He told them to lower him, and gently. The kids gazed back at him, had the same defiance in their faces: took orders from no one, were from the city streets and high-rise shadows. If he did not involve himself then he could have retreated to his cabin and barricaded the door, and let the storm beat against the grimed windows and be with his dog. He took his lead from the kids, both thin and pale, sodden and shivering.

Jasha said, “Put him down, please. Trust me. Accept help. Whatever you try to do, I am your only hope of achieving it.”

They laid him down, wary movements, and there was no shelter. The rain careened over them. He crouched over the man and passed the Dragunov to the girl. She took it. That was trust, passing her his rifle. He spoke only Russian, but had a smattering of key words in Pashtu from the Afghan days. The girl said he was English, that she spoke a little of it, and her boy spoke some from school. Where did they try to take him?

To the coast, and the boy took from his pocket a scrap of paper on which were a line of pencilled numbers, and the wet caught it… any sniper could navigate from co-ordinates, and he understood them, and had an idea where the lines would cross, vertical and horizontal. And what was there? The boy said there was a marker and the girl said it was green. The girl had her anorak off, a pathetic little garment that would be right for a shopping mall and she held it, stretched fully, and it deflected some of the rain from the man. They told him his name.

He started to peel back the clothing from around the entry wound.

The wound at the front of his chest was examined, then he was gently rolled over and his back was exposed after his jacket and T-shirt were delicately cut and pushed aside. A single-bladed hunting knife was used and he thought it wickedly sharpened. They had no bottled water and used what came on the wind: his T-shirt was used as a swab, and the pain came bad but he did not cry out. Supposed there was no alternative to what was being done. On the Chinook he would long ago have had the needle, morphine draining into his blood stream. Might have started to hallucinate and wondered where ‘Bomber’ might be – at Benson or at Odiham or still piloting the big bird out of the Forward Operating Base. Thought of Aggie, perhaps did not do her justice, and she was talking about her pottery, and the temperature for the glaze, ‘I don’t care,’ he was telling her. Might also have been on the edge of a dream and not sure if he believed what he saw. The girl, little Natacha, crouched and laid the anorak across his back, then wriggled out of her vest. No fuss, and her skin white and wet, and she was ripping the vest into pieces, then passing them to the man who was dressed as a hunter – the sort of backwoodsman who hid in wildernesses. But might have been a dream… until the pain woke him.

He saw an old face, lined and leathered and with pepper stubble on his cheeks and chin. The knife was used to ease back the entry wound to see how clean was the flesh at the start of the cavity the bullet had made. The same was done at his back. The knife was handled with delicacy.

She told him, “If we are to get there, in this weather when the helicopter is unlikely to fly, then we go now… The question, what can you manage?”

Gaz pushed himself up. Slipped back to his knees, then pushed again. He stood, they steadied him. The wind flapped at his sliced clothing, and he wiped rainwater off his face, and the cold chilled him.

“What is his name – what is my friend’s name?”

The answer was given him. “He is Jasha.”

He would have been an old soldier, a veteran. Would have been a marksman, a combat sniper. Would also have owned a cussed and obstinate streak of independence. Would have been confronted with a platoon of arse-lickers and page-turners and all of them trying to whip him into the conventional; had turned his back on them, been self-sufficient, would have gone to the aid of any suffering human being or creature, and had nurtured a love for freedom in whatever form, whatever it meant. Lucky to have been found by this man, lucky he was with the kids.

“Can we get it on the road, move the show along?”

He put his arms around the girl and felt her warmth and allowed her to be close enough for the wound to spasm and hugged her, and she was giggling; then the boy and held him tight, then broke from both of them and lifted the arm sufficiently to create more bad pain and let his hand fall on the man’s shoulder, Jasha’s… and let his mouth touch the rough growth on the cheek.

“Thank you – all of you.”

Words exchanged, more translation. “Not your business to know I have today lost a friend, my best friend. Told my friend to fuck off. Have been successful, have not seen my friend in the last hour. He is Zhukov. He is a brown bear… so, I need a new friend.”

They were all laughing. Unreal and impossible. Laughter helped erode the reality. The wind came in a gust, shook him. But he took a first step… and a second, then his knees buckled and he was caught. The kids tried to support him, but were brushed aside. No ceremony. He was lifted, was slung over a shoulder, was gripped behind the knees and had two rifle barrels hard against his throat and head. They were on the move and the man went quickly and easily. Gaz remembered a sergeant who had told it to them like it was before a mission that promised a shed full of difficulties: ‘Of course the plan is daft, idiotic, but it’s our plan, the only plan in town.’

Into the teeth of the gales and of the rain, the man carried him and the kids bounced along behind and chattered, had no idea of the dangers they faced – or did and ignored them. Lucky to have found them all, blessed, and giving him one chance – a small one, but a chance.