Red Station

TWENTY-ONE

Sixty miles to the north of Tbilisi, in the foothills of the Caucasus, a late breeze was sliding off the mountains, bringing a cold snap from the peaks. It was a welcome relief from the unusually warm lull that had been hanging around the lower plains during the day, and the man on watch shivered slightly under his camouflage smock. Winter was making its first move, far to the north and east.

He moved with care, scanning the lake three hundred metres away. The lightweight thermal infrared monocular was good to go in any light, and the long range optics could pick up any heat source or movement.

At any other time and place, he reflected, such as his native Michigan, it would have been a joy to sit and drink in the utter stillness and beauty of nature. A few birds were swinging slowly over the water, occasionally dipping to gather insects or some drops of moisture, then soaring upwards like elegant kites, feeding off the remaining thermals. A bunch of crows called among a stretch of conifers over to the right, their haunting sounds echoing across the lake, and a fox poked its nose out of the bushes and made its way down to the water’s edge, where it drank in brief bursts, before slinking back into the shadows.

The watcher, whose name was Jordan Conway, glanced at his watch. The dulled case and face reflected nothing, both treated with light-absorbing film. For out here, even the smallest movement, the tiniest glimmer, could betray a man’s position in an instant. As if to test the theory, he stared beyond the trees to the right of the lake, where he knew Bronson and Capel were dug in, watching their flank. There was no sign that they were there. He hoped it stayed that way.

‘How’s it going?’ The whisper came from a few feet to his rear. The speaker was Doug Rausing, the leader and fourth member of the Delta team and a ten-year veteran of covert operations on behalf of the Pentagon and the White House. He came from Tennessee, although none of his colleagues held that against him. Surfacing from a brief sleep, he was inching forward to take over from Conway as soon as the light dropped.

‘No signs,’ said Conway. ‘Just the birds.’ He wished he could move and scratch the itch on his upper right arm, which was driving him crazy. He was sure he could feel the tiny electronic biscuit under his skin, although they’d told him he wouldn’t; that it was buried too deep. But they’d also said the alien object wouldn’t trouble him after the first couple of days. Darned fool scientists, what the hell did they know? Did they ever come out here in the field and test this stuff for themselves?

Behind him, Rausing was also fingering his upper arm and wondering how the others were coping.

Two hundred miles west of Conway’s position, three members of the British Special Reconnaissance Regiment were in their initial observation post, rotating to watch the northern approaches. Shrouded in a makeshift basha, they had eaten their rations and were waiting for the light to fall before moving forward to take up a better position on the lower slopes. This would place them at the neck of a narrow pass leading through the foothills. It was a two-mile hike, but would be easy meat, and a necessary move. Intelligence briefs had told them this was a likely line of approach by motorised forces. Such was the lie of the land, even a squirrel would find it difficult to move without being seen.

The leader of the three-man team, a stocky Para Regiment veteran named Mike Wilson, lowered his binoculars and rubbed his eyes. Then he eased himself backwards a few inches off the brow of the hollow towards Jocko Wardle and ‘Hunt’ Wallis, his two colleagues, who were asleep. He nudged them awake with his foot without taking his eyes off the landscape before him, and waited while they stirred and opened their eyes, moving only to reach for their weapons.

‘Ten minutes to go,’ he told them quietly. ‘Clean up.’ It was something none of them needed telling, to check the ground where they had been lying, but repeated procedure was the way to do things right. Even the tiniest scrap of personal litter — a wrapping, a piece of foil, a button — would reveal their passage and tell anyone looking that they had been here. And in this relatively barren landscape, if that happened, they would be unlikely to survive for long.

Wilson checked his own kit. When he was satisfied everything was in its place and tied down tight, he slid to the front of the O.P. and began scanning the terrain in front of him for signs of movement.

There was nothing. But he felt uneasy all the same. It was too quiet.

He paused only to scratch at an itch in the top of his arm.