Stand-To

CHAPTER 1

The picture was that of a city, as it would be seen from a thousand feet in the air on a clear spring day. From the shadows cast by buildings and weight of traffic in evidence it could be supposed that the time was just before the working day began. It was a large city, with its old and new buildings hinting at commerce, history and possibly a seat of government.

A wide river flowed through its centre and river traffic was evident. Bridges spanned the river; tunnels crossed beneath it and together carried roads, tracks or pedestrians. Tiny figures showed people going about their business. One could only suppose at the mood of the drivers of vehicles that moved at a slow crawl.

The picture centred over a section where vehicles disappeared into a tunnel beneath the river to reappear upon its opposite bank.

Intensely bright spears of fire eight hundred metres long suddenly spouted from each tunnel mouth before being eclipsed by a rapidly expanding flower of flame emerging from the centre of the river between both tunnel mouths. A blast wave travelling at the speed of sound preceded the awful bloom, it shredded the tall symbols of commerce, levelled the markers of history.

A cyrillic word in orange letters began to blink in the top right corner of the picture at the instant the scene froze. A window appeared and overlapped the left side of the picture listing the estimated bounds of destruction and numbers of dead and injured. The vision of Armageddon disappeared as a disc was ejected and placed into an envelope bearing the cities name and was then filed in an attaché case amongst other discs in their separate envelopes. Each envelope bore a different name and there were one hundred names.

At 20,000 feet above Manchuria an Aeroflot flight with only four passengers aboard flies toward the capital of the People’s Republic of China, all four wear western style business suits although the bearing of one of these passengers suggests he is most at home in uniform.

Serge Alontov, Colonel General of Spetznaz Forces, currently inactive, switched off his laptop and ensured none of the discs had come loose from their envelopes before locking and putting aside his attached case. He had come a long way since his first fire fight as a young lieutenant in the Dasht-e-Margow Mountains of Afghanistan. That war had been the first crack in the mighty armour of Soviet communism that the majority of the world had witnessed.

For years NATO had encamped itself in the then 'West Germany' facing the combined forces of the Warsaw Pact known as the Red Army. It is historical fact that NATO had been greatly outnumbered on land, sea and air but the West had striven to maintain a status quo in arms by fielding ever more technically superior equipment, quality versus quantity. Had the Soviet Union remained reliant on its winning formula of weight of numbers instead of bankrupting itself attempting to match the West's technology, then Alontov knew with all his being that the Red Army would have triumphed because after all at a sixty to one advantage in armour, quantity has a quality all of its own.

Alontov was a patriot from a long line of loyal patriotic soldiers of the state whether Czarist or post-revolutionary, both his grandfathers had fought in the great patriotic war against Nazi Germany. His maternal grandfather had first battled Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109s from the open cockpit of a WW1 era biplane in the opening days of Germanys 'Operation Barbarosa' and barely escaped with his life. Later in the war he had risen to command a squadron of Yak-1 fighters before disappearing forever over the vast forest reaches of the Ukraine with two Fw 190s on his tail and thick oily smoke streaming from beneath his faltering engines cowling.

Alontov's paternal grandfather had been more fortunate, and young Serge had sat silently in awe on the floor near the log fire as his grandfather, and not so young old comrades retold one another of their journey from Moscow to Berlin, the battles fought and friends lost along the way.

Young Serge never tired of listening to those tales on the long winter nights as the old warriors drank their vodka.

Alontov turned his head to regard his travelling companions, ten years from conception, a germ of an idea with no hope of official sanction to this, the eve of the rebirth of the Soviet Union. The four of them would seal the bargain made with their one-time bitter enemies and rivals for communist domination of the planet. None of the passengers would ever claim to be true communists; it was the regime rather than the politics that brought their Mother Russia its greatness. Corrupt, inept and flawed leadership that lacked foresight had brought the downfall of their beloved country from its place as equal first with America in the world order, to the humiliation of begging for hand-outs from those same Americans in order to feed its people. All that would change very soon now, from Alaska on the continental United States, to the English Channel and from the North Cape of Norway as far south as Gibraltar would become the new Soviet Union. If the Europeans needed persuading then the British Isles would be left a glowing cinder in the North Sea for a hundred years by way of example.

Alontov glanced along the aisle as the elder of the four; Anatoly Peridenko came into view. Making his way from the cabin crew station where he had been doing his lecherous best to persuade a striking blonde from St Petersburg of the career advantages in visiting his dacha. Peridenko ignored his own seat and sat down unbidden beside Alontov. Serge resisted the urge to lean slightly away from his fellow countryman; the former KGB chief had the knack of making one want to wash by the mere act of entering the same room. Alontov was no guileless romantic with fluff still on his chin, as a professional soldier he accepted that whenever possible his job was to engage his countries enemies without warning, but he would not shirk from the frontal assault against a prepared defence if the situation demanded it. Peridenko on the other hand was the archetypal 'snake in the grass', he would never contemplate confronting an enemy face to face, and it would always be from behind as they slept and then only after he had persuaded them he was a friend. Peridenko half turned in the seat to regard Alontov, he was aware of the others distaste of him but it mattered to him not a jot; as long as he was respected then he cared nothing for the emotions that engendered that respect.

"Have you had chance to study the latest intelligence predictions?" Alontov sighed to himself before replying

"Anatoly Peridenko, history itself gave coinage to the phrase 'a plan never survives first contact with the enemy'. You expend valuable time and resources attempting to guess at the West's moves on Day plus 9 when we have not yet gathered all the required pieces for our own opening gambit. I would much rather those same resources concentrate greater effort on assuring Day 1 happens as planned and less time gazing into teacups willing the future to appear.". Without any sign of concern over the censure Peridenko pressed the seat button to summon a flight attendant before replying. "Provided the assets we are certain of and the Chinese act as promised, the West and Asiatic governments will be too stunned and afraid to coordinate an effective response". He inclined his head away to admire the form of the approaching blonde attendant

"Do you think she is a natural blonde Serge?" he mused without expecting any reply.

A gentle wind, moving through the branches of tall Pine trees, has a way of making people relax. If the experience could be had on prescription, pharmaceutical companies would go out of business. Abroad this night in the heavily forested blocks at the western side of Sennybridge training area in Wales, are groups of men with no time nor inclination to stop to hug the rough trunks or otherwise ‘find themselves’.

Moving very slowly along a firebreak between tall pine trees are one such group, six figures well spread out and burdened down with full fighting order webbing and Bergen’s on their backs. Apart from the rear man who held an LSW, Light Support Weapon, the remainder was armed with SA80 assault rifles. Two more figures are knelt off to the side of their line of march, watching the proceedings through small light intensifiers. Although one wears the same two-tone camouflage cream on exposed skin surfaces and DPM, disruptive pattern material, combat jacket, trousers and boots. His only burdens are the tactical radio on his back, night sight and the white armbands that denote 'Umpire' on tactical exercises and a DS, 'Director of Students', on training courses in the British Army. The six soldiers he is 'Dee Essing' are all would-be infantry section commanders from various infantry regiments undergoing eighteen weeks of organised discomfort, physical and mental pressure, plus good old-fashioned general embuggerance to sort out the leaders from the led. In 'soldier speak' this course is known as 'Junior Brecon', viewed with trepidation by those yet to undergo it and pride by those who pass it and describe themselves as 'Brecon trained' to lesser martial mortals. Company Sergeant Major Colin Probert was accompanied by a young man clad in a camouflage uniform of a different style. Senior Lieutenant of Paratroops Nikoli Bordenko was his given name and title, although he was called something very different by the Brits, was quite enjoying his attachment to the British Army’s School of Infantry. In all, thirty soldiers, sailors and airmen from his homeland were at this moment ‘seeing how the other half lived’, with NATO armies. Nikoli considered himself fortunate to have been chosen, although ideally he would have preferred an American facility. Should that have transpired he would have found some way of visiting California and discover if it were true that residents of that State lived at the beach, were independently wealthy, wore only revealing designer clothes in the dubbed versions of ‘The OC’ he had once watched with interest. As it was, the local Welsh girls may have lacked suntans and Ferrari’s but their natural looks and sense of fun had charmed his trousers off, in fact all his clothes off, on two occasions thus far. Outings to the unpronounceable Tafarn-y-Cwm Inn and Abercamlais Arms would have been more memorable had he not imbibed quite so much of the local ale.

The dark eyed, good-looking Russian Paratrooper with his lilting accent had proved to be a magnet to the local girls.

Nikoli had become known by all the instructors and staff as ‘The Fanny Magnet from Moscow’ which quickly became more simply ‘Fanny M’.

CSM Probert checked that the radio was on 'whisper' mode, adjusted the hands-free ‘mike’ in front of his mouth and depressed the harness switch on his chest.

"You there, Oz?" tucked in to a tall patch of ferns Stevie Osgood the only other Coldstream Guardsman amongst the instructors of the School of Infantry, was 'DS' for tonight's opposition. Thirty-seven would-be platoon sergeants undergoing 'Senior Brecon' dug into the hard rocky ground a few hundred yards from the military road junction known as Dixie's Corner.

"No, I'm getting a BJ down the town… 'Course I'm here". Colin grinned into the mike, "They should be hitting the first trip flare in the next 5 minutes". Earlier Oz had supervised the placement of several trip flares along the planned route Colin's recce patrol would take. Normally the placement of trip flares so far out from a position would only be done for planned ambushes on likely approaches, but the ambushers would manually trigger those. This morning however it was to see if the students were switched on. They were expected to find the first wire stretched across the firebreak where it met a track, but Oz had not attached a flare pot to it, the flare was on the end of a second trip wire placed 12" behind and 6" lower than the first.

The lead man held his SA80 rifle by the pistol grip with the stock resting on his left arm, which was extended and a long thin twig grasped lightly between his middle and forefingers near the thick end. He moved slowly forwards moving his left arm side to side. If a trip wire were laid across his path even obliquely then he would feel the twig touch against it. At that point the patrol would stop and very quietly take up prone firing positions covering assigned arcs whilst the patrol commander decided how best to proceed, follow the wire to the flare pot and make it safe with a matchstick through the safety pin aperture? Or merely have another patrol member and the lead man hold a rifle by its muzzle and butt lengthways a couple of inches above the wire whilst the patrol high stepped over in safety to take up all round defence on the far side. If the young lance corporal leading tonight's reconnaissance, or 'recce' patrol had his 'sneaky head' on then he would check for anything untoward on the far side of the wire. If he didn't then it was going to get very noisy pretty bleeding swiftly thought Colin because the first man over would step directly onto the second trip wire.

On detecting the trip wire the lead man stopped and raised his rifle one handed up and away from his body in a signal to 'Stop', the man behind repeated the signal and added 'Down' with his other. The signal passed man to man until quietly groaning under their 70lb loads they sank to the ground facing outwards with Tail-End-Charlie covering the '6'. Colin cannot help but grin maliciously, when he was a recruit the dress for recce's was very different, combat cap, elastic bands around legs and sleeves preventing baggy clothes brushing against undergrowth. No webbing or bulky equipment, just a toggle rope around the waist to assist in crossing obstacles and a couple of spare 'mags' in separate breast pockets. It made for ease of movement until one day someone woke up to the fact that in a manoeuvre war there was no guarantee that your unit would still be were you left it. By the time you got back they could be miles away and you could be behind enemy lines. These days you take all of your kit, ammunition, rations, spare clothing, luxuries and essentials. Brecon teaches "Survive out of your smock, fight out of your webbing and administrate from your Bergen". In the voluminous pockets of the soldiers camouflage smocks are carried as much food as possible navigation aids, along with tobacco tin size first aid and escape kits. Every soldier on the course had enough experience of field cuisine to be carrying their own supply of curry powder about their person, to inject flavour into an otherwise bland, though nutritious fare.

Wives and industrious bachelors had sown black knicker elastic onto smocks and trousers, facilitating the easy addition of foliage to ones attempted invisibility act. Those more competent with needle and thread also had sown into their trouser and boot seams, short sections of hacksaw blades to facilitate escape and evasion. Ironic how these men’s chances of survival could stand or fall on the simple ability to master a so-called ‘girlie’ skill.

Webbing contains ammunition, smoke and fragmentation grenades (inside of pouches rather than Hollywood style) and water. A ‘Noddy suit’ or Nuclear Biological and Chemical warfare suit, plus a respirator are attached. Also within the pouches were small folding solid fuel stoves with fuel ‘tabs’, storm matches, cleaning kits and folding entrenching tools. The soldiers here also wore old privately acquired’58 pattern ‘bum rolls’ clipped to their PLCE webbing, containing a poncho for shelter and ‘bungee cords’, (the elasticated hooks used to attach recalcitrant children to the roof racks of cars) small ground spikes and a narrow folding, privately acquired saw. It is far quieter to saw away foliage for camouflage and branches for construction, than to noisily hack away with issue machetes and pangas. Avoiding unwanted attention equals living longer.

Most also wore non-regulation fighting knives, because the Army does not have any regulation ones in the inventory to issue anyway, in varying positions of preference. The main use being that of construction and the cutting of turf for camouflage, rather than hand-to-hand combat. Should it come to hand to hand most would choose the folding picks and shovels as far more suited to close-in mayhem than Mr Bowies famous invention. However, despite all man’s inventions, all his high tech machines of war, the only guaranteed, quiet way, to take out a sentry was still a sharp, narrow bladed object, piercing the throat just above or below the Adams Apple. So knives are still carried. Furthermore, until tanks or aircraft carriers are built that can tippy-toe unobtrusively up behind an alert man to deliver that blow, the infantrymen will continue to train in how it is done.

The knives also contained within their handles, small compasses, and lines for snares and fishing plus hooks. Illegal Dexedrine pep pills, antibiotics, water purification, or ‘puri tabs’ and fire lighting flints. The Bergen holds spare clothing, sock’s, an arctic standard sleeping bag, Gore-Tex ‘bivi’ bag, foam sleeping mat, washing and shaving kit and extra rations for up to three days are in the main body of the Bergen. Detachable side pouches with individual carrying straps hold a claymore mine, extra water, a trip flare and picquet stakes (which also doubled as corner posts for the soldiers’ shelter). More rifle ammunition, ‘Shermulee’ para-illumination tubes, spare batteries for electrical kit and an IPK, Individual Protection Kit, for constructing overhead protection in trenches. Had a mortar section been attached to these troops then an additional load of 81mm mortar rounds would have been crammed in adding to their loads. When it 'goes tits up', the 'shit-hits-the-fan' or 'it all goes pear shaped', (soldier speak for a Bad Day in anyone’s language), the squaddies hit the Bergen’s quick release buckles, grab the side pouches, abandoning the luxuries, and fight. If it’s not possible to later retrieve their main packs then that’s just tough.

The man with the 'command appointment' for the patrol was a good-looking Scot from 1st Battalion Scots Guards. So impressed were his platoon and company commanders back home at his battalion that after barely 18 months as a L/Cpl, Andy Cameron had kissed his wife of six months on the lips and hopped aboard a Brecon bound 4 tonner. He'd told her he'd ring each Friday unless out in the 'Ulu', any place that civilisation wasn't, in soldier' terms. Cameron had breezed his battalion's five-week Pre- Brecon 'toughener', designed to bring his fitness level up and ensure he could read a map amongst other infantry skills. Thus far Cameron had done quite well on this course and CSM Probert had his fingers crossed he wouldn't get cocky.

Colin Probert watched closely as he joined the lead man. Cameron was smart enough to know it for what it was and didn't waste time pissing about. From a smock pocket he produced a small canister and Colin heard a brief hiss of compressed air followed by some cautious movements by Cameron and then the Patrol was up and continuing on its way. Colin and Nikoli moved up and quickly scanned the ground; Cameron had used a can of 'Crazy String', squirted along the track so that the string had draped itself over both trip wires. With the positions of the wires indicated it had taken moments to discover the first was a dummy and cut both wires after disarming the pot on the second. Of the many maxims’ that Brecon spawned, the patrol members had displayed two aplenty.

‘Sod the manual, if it works … do it’ and

‘If its practical… wear it’.

If the non-issue additions to their personal kit had been examined then a third would have been apparent,

‘Anyone can be uncomfortable’.

Colin made a few notes on his 'crit sheet' before stuffing it into his smock, Nikoli smiled in approval at the embryo leaders methods and both men followed on behind the patrol.

Close to Tower Bridge is an area beloved of filmmakers the world over. The old Victorian era warehouses and narrow cobbled streets provide the perfect setting for Dickensian dramas and period pieces. The area had become quite run down after the chief occupants, brewers for the most, moved on to more modern premises in the 70’s. During the Yuppie years of the mid 80's the warehouses came into vogue as trendy residences for the rich and architects had made a bundle converting them. As is often the case in London the 'rich' live close by to the 'not so rich'. The area known as Shad Thames is just a short distance across Tooley Street from one such region.

Jubi Asejoke had come to the UK from Africa at the age of seven with his parents on a visitor’s visa for an alleged family wedding. The Asejoke's had left Heathrow Airport and dropped out of official sight for eight years until Asejoke senior had been caught attempting to transfer £12,000 from someone else's account to another he had set up under a bogus name. His son had stolen the chequebook and bankcard he was using in a street robbery the day before. Somehow the righteous indignation poured out by Asejoke (Snr) to the two uniformed 'Bobbies' who had first blocked his way out of the bank had fallen on deaf ears. He had been taken to a side office whilst bank staff brought them the evidence of the attempted fraud that had prompted them to call the Police. Mr Asejoke changed tack and swore to them on the lives of his wife and children that as a good Muslim he would never commit the sin of fraud. Both Constables were unmoved by the outpourings of religious fervour and so he had played the trump card that worked so well before against the white middle class citizenry of modern day England … he accused them in a loud voice of being Racists and implored whoever may have been listening beyond the closed office door to rescue him. It had worked for him before, but then he had not previously tried it on Police Officers who had heard it used too often. Mr and Mrs Asejoke found themselves on a flight back to whence they had come eight years before. The Unemployment Benefits office ceased issuing Giro payments to the twelve names the Asejoke's had been claiming under and it seized the detached house, contents, and two Mercedes saloons the Asejoke's had acquired without ever having done a day’s work in England.

Jubi had attended a state school in Camberwell where street cred was everything amongst his peers; academic excellence scored no marks. Jubi preferred to be called by his 'tag', Striker, he was into car crime by eleven, burglary by twelve and had used a knife to commit his first mugging a week before his thirteenth birthday. In a school of 'Bad boys' striving to be badder than anyone else Jubi had reasoned that by impaling his 50 year old Geography teachers right hand to her desks top with a hunting knife he would be respected by his peers. Jubi had avoided arrest until the day he stabbed Elizabeth Reynolds, and as such the bleeding hearts and social workers convinced a barely caring Crown Prosecution Service that Jubi was a victim of a society that had failed him. Jubi had openly mocked the Magistrates as they gave him Community Service to perform as atonement. The miserly sum awarded Mrs Reynolds by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board had been as insulting as the two fingers waved in her face by Jubi as he had left the courtroom to join his entourage beyond its doors at Camberwell Youth Court. Elizabeth Reynolds never regained full use of the hand and was forced to leave the teaching profession. Not only was she unable to face loud aggressive young people in classrooms anymore, she grew increasingly afraid to leave her home. Unemployed and unable to gain fresh employment Elizabeth's savings dwindled away. She would die of an overdose after her home was repossessed two years later.

Jubi wasn't home when the law caught up with his parents. The Police attempted to compensate for the courts failings and had marked young Jubi's card for him, and they go out of their way to ruin the days of the Jubi's of this world.

Since the court case Jubi was stopped and searched increasingly by officers who showed inventiveness in their grounds for doing so. One day Jubi had a bag containing ten rocks of crack hidden in his underpants, £180 from the sale of rocks at school that morning and a mobile phone he had stolen by means of a mugging the previous week were also on him. He had a girl with him and was feeling good until the Police carrier pulled up alongside him. When the Territorial Support Group officers told him to turn out his pockets he felt he was being slighted in front of the girl he wanted to impress. School mates and others he knew were nearby and watching the proceedings with interest. Jubi felt their eyes on him and indignation welled, he felt he deserved respect without ever having to show it to others. These officers were 'dissing him' and in order to regain face he lashed out with the fourth item he should not have had, another hunting knife.

Jubi appeared in court the next day charged with 'Peewits', Possession with Intent to Supply Class A Drugs, Possession of a Point or Blade, Assault with Intent and for good measure, breaching his Community Service Order of which he had not worked off a single hour. Jubi felt hard done by and his posture showed it, his lip was swollen where it had been split and his right bicep was heavily bruised from the baton strike that caused him to drop the knife. At 15 he was as big as most 18 year olds, he was the one who usually did the hitting and being on the receiving end was an unfamiliar experience. An officer had caught him by the wrist of his knife arm with one gloved fist and followed up with the other a fraction of a second later punching him squarely in the mouth. Almost simultaneously the snap of an 'Asp' extending had preceded the solid blow to his upper arm by a second officer wielding it. The arresting officer was sat at the back of the Court and took great satisfaction in knowing that by the time Jubi returned on bail for his second appearance he would have been identified by the mobile phones owner and further charged with the knifepoint robbery of it.

However, Jubi wasn't in Court a week later, the dealer he worked for wanted £500 from him, not excuses. The Police were set to put him away in Feltham Young Offenders Institute, so he did a runner. Two days later the Police who a few hours’ later carried out a S.18 search under PACE, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act arrested his Father. They had done the same after Jubi's arrest but PACE had only allowed them access to Jubi's bedroom, now though they had the run of the house and the fraudulent activities of the parents became apparent. Mrs Asejoke joined her husband in custody at Southwark Police Station.

On this March morning Jubi was in Shad Thames looking for the opportunity to steal. Ideally he wanted an expensive car, he knew someone who would 'ring it', change its identity, he would be able to pay off 'Jasper' the £500 plus the 'interest' he knew Jasper would levy and regain the street cred he had lost. If the chance presented itself to have some rich white pussy he'd take that too.

Jubi was behind a wheelie bin he had rolled next to the automatic doors of an underground garage. It was a Sunday morning and he was banking on late party goers returning. Directly across the road was another garage entrance and Jubi thought himself quite the wily criminal, it doubled his chances of getting into a garage before the automatic door closed behind the car it had admitted. After a number of false starts, where cars had approached but driven on by, a gleaming silver BMW Z5 Roadster stopped at the entrance beside the wheelie bin and Jubi heard the garage door roll up. Once the car entered so did Jubi, keeping low and scuttling out of sight, he saw the Roadster driver in profile as it headed toward the ramp leading to the sub level. The face framed by the shining rich auburn locks was beautiful, well made up and spoke of money and privilege to Jubi, and he resented it. It never occurred to him that what she had may have been earned by someone who had studied and in turn put that learning to good use, but as it happens that was not entirely the case.

Svetlana Vorsoff steered the car into the sub-basement bay that corresponded to the number she had been given by email, locked the car and after setting its alarm she unobtrusively assured herself she was unobserved and crouched, reaching under the car below the driver’s door. From his hiding place beneath an expensive Shogun 4x4 Jubi heard a faint metallic 'thunk' as the small box Svetlana had held attached itself to the underside by a magnet. Jubi watched with lustful eyes as Svetlana straightened, from head to toe she was elegantly and expensively clothed but it was the figure beneath the designer form hugging little black dress that held his interest. He allowed a fantasy to distract him in which he could see her naked and sweating beneath him, begging him to let her be his whore whilst in the throes of yet another orgasm he'd provided. So lost in this vision was Jubi that the sound of another cars engine starting made him jump, and he could only watch as the object of that fantasy drove away in another car.

Turning back into Tooley Street Svetlana drove east keeping conscientiously five miles above the speed limit. Police out at this hour would have an eye out for those motorists who had too much to drink. The school she had attended after being recruited from University in Moscow had taught many things about the west, some were common sense whilst others required an adjustment in thinking. Putting yourself in the place of those you wished to avoid or deceive was a fairly easy task; she had not had any alcohol that night but had no wish drawing attention to herself. A drink driver would be driving both far too fast and erratically or determinedly sticking to the speed limit knowing they were 'over the top'. Svetlana chose the middle ground and turned left driving through the Rotherhithe tunnel beneath the river Thames. The old narrow tunnel would make for a very tight schedule for whatever was planned by her masters, cameras in the tunnel were their precisely for the purpose of spotting traffic related problems and the Metropolitan Police Traffic Division would have a motorcycle on scene within minutes. As she drove up the incline into North London she checked for notices warning motorists of planned works, as with the Southern approach to the tunnel there were no notice boards in evidence.

Back in the private residents’ car park Jubi had found the Roadsters car keys inside the magnetized box the girl had planted. He was jubilant that he did not need to 'barrel' the ignition. His only regret was that the time of day meant he could not drive to his school and strut about in front of the others. He would have spun a story about buying it, hinting at drug money. Jubi wanted a car like this, a 'gangsta' rap record in the charts, a girl pop star in his bed, automatic weapons and several 'bitches' earning him regular money, just your everyday teenage dream.

Arriving at her Kensington flat Svetlana powered up her computer and selected a classical music CD that she placed in the drive before carefully removing her hand made Italian shoes and unpeeling like a second skin the Emilio Pucci sheath dress to stand naked but for sheer black hold-up stockings.

The dress, like her looks, was a tool of her trade. Lingerie would have been visible through the £2000 garment and spoilt the desired effect had she been stopped by the police.

As the music began sounding through the speakers either side of her PCs base unit, Svetlana leaned across the keyboard and carefully placed fingers over three separate keys, and paused, letting the music flow forth. If anyone else had been present they would have observed an exquisitely formed young woman in her mid-twenties, clad only in stockings and whose tan lines and full Brazilian showed a preference for G-strings as beach wear. The gleam of Chinese gold at her nether region where a stud pierced a particularly sensitive item, and a pair of tattooed dogs paws on her right buttock gave hint of a somewhat kinky vein running beneath that chic and elegant surface.

Apparently overtaken by the strains of Bizet’s Farandole from ‘L’Arlesienne’ and frozen in some Pre Raphaelesque pose, Svetlana closed her eyes as she listened. Thirty-nine seconds into the piece she depressed all three keys simultaneously before logging online. With the anti-tamper software thus neutralised and therefore no chance of the powerful electromagnets incorporated in the speakers from being activated and frying the hard drive, the auburn locks bouncing on her shoulders and tattooed buttocks as she strode elegantly on thick piled carpets through the flat to the shower.

Half an hour later and dressed in a Terry robe, Svetlana towelled her hair whilst checking her email. She quickly decided she had no use for a penis extension, was unlikely to ever buy Viagra online and the ambiguously entitled’re:- what you said', from YngTeenGrl@biffmedeep.com was undoubtedly trash mail. She consigned those emails to the 'waste bin'. The remaining two messages were from work colleagues at the bank who had no idea what ‘Christina Carlisle’s’ real job, or name, was. She read the gossip from one, pressing 'send' on a suitable response and accepted a party invitation from the second. Ejecting Mozart she replaced it with a disc containing a high encryption program that enabled messages to be encoded using a high tech version of the 'pre chip age' one-time pads. Messages could not be composed for later transmission; a hidden signal was transmitted over the Internet identifying the particular code settings in use to the receiving station. Non-standard hardware within the machine prevented the same settings being used twice. Typing quickly she confirmed collection of the car from the short stay car park at Manchester’s Ringway Airport and receipt of a large aluminium suitcase from a seaman in Liverpool. She did not add that she had been unable to lift it into the car without his assistance though. Finally she added the result of the reconnaissance.

Tired after many hours’ driving Svetlana logged off and after concealing the disc she retired to bed.

Whilst the remainder of the planet acknowledged the dangers of smoking, that particular message had not yet reached the halls of power in such places as the People’s Republic of China. A blue grey layer of cigarette smoke hung above the dimly lit room’s occupants, it undulated like a liquid surface, reacting to the movements of the occupants and temperature changes. Smoke hazed the interior; sunlight streaming through the narrow floor to ceiling windows was highlighted by the smoke and almost gave the setting a solemn Cathedral like atmosphere, almost.

Colonel General Serge Alontov waited until the expert on current Western European political trends and his interpreter had finished his presentation and regained their seats before standing himself. Bowing first to Premier Chiu at the head of the long table he addressed the gathering in excellent, though slightly accented Mandarin. “Comrades, past conflicts in interests had a negative effect on the ambitions of our two countries in spreading true communism to the world. In effect, the West was able to relax somewhat when we two were at our most powerful militarily. They knew that the threat we posed was negated by we ourselves. They knew that whilst the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Socialist Republic held cocked guns to one another’s temples over our back garden’s fence, we could not afford to look away and extend our own front lawns”. There were some smiles at the analogy and others nodded sagely, he paused for a moment before continuing

“And what has happened since that threat passed?” with a raised questioning eyebrow he regarded the Politburo members before answering his own question. “They have fallen over themselves in the rush to sell us refrigerators and pop videos. Their own armed forces, which had steadfastly held themselves ready to fight a war of attrition, a war the like of which the world had never seen before, were abandoned”. He nodded to a technician and a huge digital screen at the far end of the room lit up.

“The Arms reduction treaty between what was the Russian Federation after devolvement of the Warsaw Pact, and the West, have little bearing on today”. On the screen, footage was shown of NATO army’s tanks being destroyed in front of Russian military observers. Lines of United States tactical and strategic warplanes in the Nevada desert, laid out in rows to enable counting by Russian surveillance satellites. US Navy ‘Boomers’, the ballistic missile submarines being stripped of offensive hardware and mothballed, or decommissioned. “They have dispensed with all but the minimum of protection, and in that they are begrudging. The British Army of the Rhine, for example, its disbanded regular unit’s equipment was to be used in upgrading poorly equipped reservist forces of their own country. Instead it was sold to third world countries. Not content with that, their Territorial Army armoured units were stripped of what little armour they did possess, none of it heavy and also sold. These units were re-equipped with ‘Multi-role combat vehicles’. In reality, Jeeps with a machine gun stuck on them, gentlemen!” The laughter that statement provoked was derisory.

“The minefields and tank traps we both laid at the border of East and Western Europe has gone. NATOs nearest tactical nuclear weapon to that border is in the county of Wiltshire in England. There are no more warriors in the West’s governments. America’s president is a drunken playboy in the pay of big business concerns. The premier of France is financially corrupt; the Italian is obsessed with teenage prostitutes and Britain’s premier, who felt himself too good to wear his countries uniform as a young man, does not shirk at sending those that do wear it into harm’s way, in order to play at being a world statesman”. Alontov spat out that last word with contempt. Although the NATO army’s had always been ‘the enemy’ he empathised with their servicemen and respected their abilities, to do otherwise would have been foolish. He had spent an enjoyable two years as a military attaché to the embassy in London in the mid 1980’s. The British Army had described itself then, with some justification, as the best-trained and worst equipped army in the world. Posing as a tourist he had at times visited pubs frequented by soldiers, sailors and airmen of that country, in main the fighting core of which, with their varying levels of education, joined willingly from the council estates of the United Kingdom. All had been committed to holding the line, whilst not prepared to wager on the outcome had the Red Army rolled westward.

A later assignment to the United States, on that occasion as an ‘illegal’, had given him a similar opinion of that nations fighting men and women. Louder and more brash than their cousins ‘across the pond’, as they termed the Atlantic Ocean. They had nonetheless convinced him that a war against a NATO back then, would have been a hard fight.

“Comrades, moving into position now are one hundred, small, tactical thermonuclear weapons. Although too small to be ‘city killers’ those that are targeted against such will tear the hearts out of them. If you will turn your attention back to the screen you will observe the effects of one device against the city of San Francisco in the United States of America”.

When formulating their plans it had been decided that as ‘A picture paints a thousand words’ a high tech demonstration would assist in swaying the sceptics.

“For operational security purposes each scenario, including the one you are about to view, have been hidden in plain sight within a seeming innocent computer game demo, so please bear with us. The effects and end result are scientifically correct… but I think we can promise that the game will not be available in the shops by Christmas.” He added with a wry smile.

A number of independent computer game designers had been first examined for feasibility purposes and then dismissed. Eventually a young effervescent redhead had been the final choice. Anatoly Peridenko, former KGB head under the final government of the old CCCP, was in charge of security for the project and found her at Caltech. After her graduation from that noted centre of learning she had been hired by a front company and brought to Moscow. Alicia O’Connor gave lie to the myth of all ‘shed heads’ being Geeks. From her flashing green fourth generation Irish American eyes to the tip of her toes she looked out of place at a workstation. Alicia had thought she was employed by an embryo Russian game company attempting to crack the virtual reality game market. There had been nothing to cause her to question her employer’s motives in wanting only what were in effect 100 doomsday scenes of technically correct real life locations. She had been convinced by handlers that they were necessary in generating interest by financial backers in order to obtain the funds needed to produce an ass kicking game product. Posing as the ‘Silent partners’, Alontov and Peridenko had been present in the bogus boardroom when she had presented the completed project. On that occasion the city had been Sydney, Australia. The two conspirators had looked at one another as the end credits scrolled up on the screen. Scepticism had been present in both pairs of eyes, which was until the vivacious Miss O’Connor had taken the floor.

“Too flashy” Serge had said in flawless English. Alicia had given him a considering glance before asking

“Too flashy for whom, exactly?” He considered the security aspects of his reply before deciding it was a minimal risk.

“Our intended financiers are Chinese”.

She had shrugged and stated.

“Don’t you think it would appeal to their sense of the dramatic?” Peridenko had burst out with a guffaw of laughter, soon joined by Serge despite himself. All he could think of were the wasted months on this project because this pretty, young American ‘beach bunny’ thought inscrutable Oriental’s could be dramatic! Thinking back to that day Alontov could clearly remember the lovely Miss O’Connor sitting totally unfazed by these two men laughing at her best efforts.

Both men had calmed down enough to dab handkerchiefs at eyes damp with mirth when she then stated quite simply

“Those guys probably invented the theatre, they sure as fuck invented gunpowder and fireworks… .of course they know dramatic”. Both men had frozen in place; two pairs of eyes fixed on her smugly smiling face.

Sold to the guys in the black hats!

Here in the Politburo offices, Miss O’Connor's handiwork began with the approach to the planet from behind earth’s moon. It was not to Alontov’s down to earth soldiers taste but it was not for his benefit anyway. Skimming the Moon’s surface the viewer approached the Earth at dazzling speed. The largely blue planet filled the screen before the viewers were plunged through clouds and there before them lay the Californian coastline with the entrance to San Francisco Bay rapidly approaching at its centre. Swooping under the Golden Gate Bridge, passing over the carrier USS John F Kennedy as she steamed toward her waiting escorts and the Pacific Ocean, her flight deck bare of the combat aircraft, which would fly on once she, was at sea. A Coast Guard cutter escorting her on the way out of the bay.

The viewers were sped East past Marina and Fort Manson. A hard right turn South over Fisherman’s Wharf actually had at least one elderly Politburo member grasps at the table’s edge for support. Alontov saw the head of Marshal Lo Chang, commander of the People’s Liberation Army turn to regard him with the ghost of a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth, and a look that said it all.

“Is this showmanship really necessary?”.

Alontov canted his head slightly to one side shrugging a resigned “Yeah, well” by way of apology.

Over-flying the city, the viewers were swept southwards with Nob Hill and Union Square close by their flight path.

Serge had to allow that the quality of the virtual scenery was awesome. Pedestrians and traffic cast their own shadows, light reflected from windows and pools and smog tinged the horizon a light tinge of brown. A CNN ‘eye in the sky’ helicopter and SFPDs ‘Sky One’ hovered above some drama unfolding on the ground. Even birds took to the air in fright at their approach.

The Minister for Cultural Affairs nudged his neighbour, pointing to the left of the screen and exclaiming animatedly that a distant relative lived just over there, in China Town and with that an alarm bell rang inside Alontov’s head. He berated himself for not spotting that potentially damaging item. During the choosing of a scenario to convince the Chinese the effectiveness of their plan, they had overlooked the presence of that large enclave, housing as it did the numerous Chinese residents of that city. He noticed several politburo heads turn to regard him with suspicion; he could almost read their thoughts,

“Are the Russians subconsciously indicating the ease with which they would kill Chinese?” However, the die was cast and Serge determined to cross that particular hurdle in all good time, there was nothing he could do about it now. The viewers were now approaching Route 101 and the course adjusted to follow the raised Highway toward San Francisco International. Small shapes of aircraft, taking off and landing, grew larger and more defined as the scene raced southwards. The complex, spaghetti-like elevated junction with Route 280 flashed beneath, followed by the off ramp to Bayview. On passing the hill which was Bayview Park the view ahead suddenly shot skywards, passing back through the clouds but decelerating rapidly and emulating a craft performing an Immelman turn, the view rotated sickeningly to the left until facing back earthwards. Dropping once more through the clouds the viewer’s found themselves heading directly for the northbound traffic lanes on the Highway. Vehicles could be clearly seen travelling at their varied speeds, some changing lanes. The viewers all came to realise that they appeared to be approaching one vehicle singled out from the remainder, a bright red pickup truck. When it was close enough that the bed of the truck almost filled the screen, everyone in the room could clearly see a large aluminium suitcase with a large, ostentatiously obvious ‘Ban the Bomb’ sticker upon it, the pickup then dropped away as the view seemingly gained altitude. Keeping the pick-up in the centre of the screen the viewers reached and maintained an altitude comparable with 1000ft ’. The red pickup continued upon its journey for several miles, with it the viewers retraced their steps back past the Route 280 junction. The red vehicle motored on. Passing between the impressive San Francisco Hospital and Potrero Hill it swung west and appeared to be aiming for the off ramp at Dubose and Mission when the two-kiloton device in a Cobalt sleeve to produce a ‘dirty’ explosion, detonated.

Every person in the room, including the Russians who had all seen this scenario and others several times before, reacted to the light which flash covered the screen. No digital simulation could hope to imitate even the effect of an ordinary common or garden flash bulb, certainly not the instantaneous photonic release of a hundred suns. However, the talented O’Connor had created enough of a pixel whiteout, and then its reversal, revealing a convincing enough nuclear fireball to have all comers jump in their seats. Expanding to approximately 700m in diameter it would have attained, briefly, a temperature of about 10,000,000’ centigrade, it would flash vaporise all metal and of course flesh to a distance of 1000 ft. As far away as 16^th and Valencia to the south, and north to Market and Van Ness every single brick, steel girder, vehicle, man, woman and child would either vanish in a cloud of heat and ions or as pulverised dust, to be sucked up into the atmosphere and scattered as highly irradiated particles downwind. Iron and steel for a further 300m would simply melt in place. On screen the effects decreased progressively with distance, but a mile away in Buena Vista Park, real sunbathers would have received instantaneous first-degree burns. It would be explained later, to those who did not already know, that such a bomb would only expend about 33 % of its energy in radiated heat.

The remaining energy expenditure would be in heavy Gamma ray, Alpha and Beta ray radiation to a lesser degree but the bulk would be heat-generated blast.

A frighteningly realistic simulation of the first had played out in about one second of virtual real-time onscreen. However, the hammer blow dealt the city by the 670 mile an hour blast wave charged with debris made even the soldiers amongst the audience blanche. As far away as City Hall, state of the art earthquake proof buildings were shown torn asunder by an element not catered for in their design. Lesser structures were simply erased from the face of the planet, the materials of their make-up joining the hail of near-supersonic shrapnel. The images of the Bell Jet Ranger helicopters of San Francisco Police Department and CNN had at first become tiny twins of the nuclear fireball. Every single item in their construction, from fuel to the very aluminium of their airframes reached flash point in 0.0018 of a second. Just 0.087 of a second later they were swatted from existence by the blast wave.

After Ms O’Connor had completed her contract, more orthodox programmers using United States census details and fifty years of data from atomic testing completed the project. It would not have been secure to request O’Connor to add the damage assessment features to her program.

Now, as the Politburo studied the computer-generated projection of a runaway firestorm completing the destruction of a very sizeable portion of San Francisco, a dropdown window spelt out the estimated butchers bill. The view increased in elevation to a height that encompassed the scene of the city from the south ramp of the Golden Gate to San Francisco International.

Premier Chiu swung away from the screen. The other members caught the movement and all eyes were back on Serge. Sat the other side of the table from him, Peridenko was studying his hands with deliberation, knowing that the most audacious part of their proposed plan was to be revealed. Would the Chinese go for it?

“Comrade Colonel General” began the premier “You preceded this display by stating the devices were moving into position, one hundred devices?”

Serge nodded in answer.

“From where have these toys come from?” Premier Chiu asked, pausing before pointing a finger at the Russian soldier.

“Surely the Americans are not so easily hoodwinked. Yeltsin handed over the complete inventory for inspection like a scolded child surrendering his catapult to a grown-up?” Chiu finished with a note of censure in his tone.

A door opened at the end of the room and an aide quietly approached Peridenko and whispered in his ear. Whatever had been said caused the man’s face to harden.

Svetlana awoke at 9.30am after just three hours’ sleep and lay looking at the ceiling. Alyssa, her neighbour from above, had a new boyfriend and from the noise both Alyssa and the bed were making the honeymoon stage had not yet palled. With an exasperated huff she swung from the bed, electing to go to the paper shop before they began experimenting with the chandelier and power tools. Pulling on jeans and tee shirt, she ran a brush through her long hair, slipped on a pair of old trainers and headed out the door.

Half an hour later with a still warm loaf of bread under one arm, Sunday tabloids under the other, and a warm croissant gripped between her teeth, she let herself back in. Walking along the hallway past the living room, she kicked off her loose trainers and headed for the kitchen. The bass thumping from above indicated Alyssa and stud probably now doing it to heavy rock. Oh well, she thought, at least someone is getting some. It was a bright sunny day and she wondered if there would be an early spring.

It was at that point she saw the shadow.

In the kitchen, out of sight of the hallway, probably backed right up to the draining board, a man stood very still, obviously unaware that the sunlight streaming through the window had cast a long shadow on the terracotta tile floor.

Svetlana’s first thought was that it was a burglar and he would definitely have heard her enter through the front door. But the noise from upstairs and thick carpet would have masked her approach. Slowly she crouched and put her shopping on the hallway carpet. She would get out of the flat and call the police. From where she was crouched she could see her mobile on the kitchen table. Damn! Her other neighbours could all be having a lazy Sunday lie in, she would have to go for the phone box at the end of the street. She rose up and turning headed with quick strides for the front door. She was passing the open living room door when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye; there was a second man. Fear injected adrenaline into her system and like a startled deer she was mid-way through the motions of leaping the last few feet to the door, when she was body checked from the side and sent crashing into the wall. Her head cracked painfully against the plaster causing bile to rise up in her throat as she fell heavily with rough hands grabbing at her arms. A hand gathered a fistful of her long hair and yanked her head painfully back, she could feel a man’s whiskers scratch the soft skin at the back of her neck, his breath hot against her skin. She could feel the shadow man approach at a run by the vibrations from the floor. I‘m going to be raped, she thought. She would have no chance at all when the second man got to them. Desperation powered her right elbow and she drove it back into the ribs of the man half laying on her. A rib cracked, causing the man on her back to gasp, his right leg spasmed and lifted from the floor catching and tripping his companion. Grabbing at coats and jackets hung from hooks in an attempt to prevent a fall; the second man hit the floor heavily, pulling the coat rack and its screws from the wall with a splintering sound and a curse. The pain from the cracked rib caused the first man to rise slightly, instinctively moving away from the limb that had caused the damage. It was a small opening but she went for it, fingers nails digging into the carpet, pulling her body from under him, bare feet slipping and scrabbling against the carpet, trying to gain purchase. She was up! A sob escaped her throat as she grabbed for the door handle, pulled it open a foot, two feet, and a spark of hope lit in her heart. A hand closed around her mouth from behind, yanking her back. A foot crashed into the door, tearing the handle from her grasp and slamming it shut. An arm encircled her slim waist and then she was being lifted and spun. Svetlana’s feet left the floor; she managed to put both arms out, trying to break her fall as the floor rushed up at her. The air rushed from her lungs with an audible “Ooof”, her arms were roughly twisted back up between her shoulder blades. She could see the two men just climbing to their feet, faces ugly, both sets of eyes on her. There had been a third man, three men in her home waiting for her. She opened her mouth to speak when she was silenced by a female voice; the third intruder was a woman? A single command directed at her from the woman pinning her arms

“Zat cnees!”

The fact she had been addressed in her native tongue stunned her, these people knew she was Russian; her cover was blown, unless these burglars or rapists were in the habit of telling Londoners to shut their mouths in a foreign tongue, which was hardly likely. Her tee shirt was ripped off; she heard a crackling sound, a whiff of ozone and her arms were released, a split second later something was jabbed into her back. Her body spasmed as pain exploded in her brain and darkness swallowed her consciousness.

The sandwich was of the mass produced variety, made and packed by minimum wage hands. Scott Tafler took a bite and considered the fare critically. It seemed to him that the enthusiasm of the catering worker who produced this titbit had transferred itself by paranormal means to the handiwork, bland and uninteresting.

The reason he was spending his Sunday here instead of with his wife and three children was quite simply September 11^th 2001. His organisation had been found wanting, he reckoned this was entirely due to the lack of ‘Humint’, spies if you will and an over reliance on technology. Just as a B1-B bomber could not fix bayonets and dig out infantry from foxholes and caves, nor too could a surveillance satellite stand at a bar with a drink in hand ear-wigging the conversation between two munitions workers in China.

It would take years to replace the networks laid off after the cold war and introduce new ones in different theatres, not previously thought a threat.

Scott had nothing to do with that aspect; his job was to plough through paper reports and emails to try to catch any third party human intelligence that may come their way. It was a form of ‘catch up’ and trying to cover all the bases at one time until new networks were set up.

Munching automatically, he was scanning a report from the Los Angeles FBI office. A software geek, a ‘Gamer’ geek, which was even worse, had returned from Moscow after six months work. The interviewed geek stated that the Russians hoped to enter the computer game market with Chinese funding. Scott paused; the Chinese had been ripping off American copyrights for years. All software was fair game to them. The PRC was attempting to boost its own challenge in the all world markets. Why should they assist a competitor? In the PRC, the will of the regime controlled every aspect of trade with the rest of the world. Picking up his telephone he dialled home and asked his wife for her younger brothers’ number. He too was a geek but he worked for a very major software company. Half an hour after speaking with him he replaced the telephone and made a note to telephone Washington next day, to get Commerce’s spin on this. Turning back to the report he next dialled a number shown, left a message on Miss O’Connor's answer phone and moved on to the next report.

The cold awoke her; with a start she realised she was lying on her stomach on a cold, white ceramic surface, spread eagle and naked. Her face was flushed and then it came to her that she was laying on an incline, her head lower than her feet. There was pain and soreness between her shoulder blades where the stun gun had been jabbed.

“Vashi ruki zavyazhenniye” a soft, almost sensual female voice informed her that she was bound. Svetlana was struggling to find some reason for her predicament, were these British Intelligence or some other countries agents? Were they her own and this was some test? In a shaky voice, in English and with fear quite unfeigned, she asked

“Who are you, what do you want?” The woman hushed her as if soothing a child,

“Shsss, babushka, shsss”; but the hand that traced its way softly up the inside of her calf was most un-parental.

If this was calculated to make her feel vulnerable, it had succeeded. Her body tensed as the hand reached her inner thigh and continued unerringly toward her womanhood. A door banged open, the sound echoed and the hand ceased its journey. Wherever it was that she had been taken seemed to be some large building, she thought that it lacked furniture or fittings because of the hollow sound. She tried to turn her head more in order to see but there was only the same white material that formed the side of wherever she was imprisoned. By raising her head she could make out the straps that held her appeared to be made of rubber. The echoing footsteps of several people approached and the woman’s hand traced circles around her buttocks, slipping between the cheeks and tracing a line along her spine to her neck. Svetlana’s stomach knotted but the fingers caused an involuntary tremor to pass through her. A male voice sniggered from somewhere behind her and a voice, rich Irish brogue asked the question of a third party

“Do we get to watch Irina convert her to dykehood and then have a go ourselves?” They were trying to scare her, Svetlana reasoned, would the English do that, surely they would just bust her door in and show a warrant later? There were unwritten rules in the spy game, ‘You don’t hurt ours and we won’t hurt yours’. A very cultured English voice answered the Irishman,

“Alas time is too short Eamon, and besides which the lovely lady already enjoys both genders with equal relish, do you not, Miss Carlisle”. The voice then spoke to the woman who was still out of Svetlana’s view.

“Leave her alone Irina, we have work to do. If she survives you can have her then, if of course you still want her of course, which is not likely”. Svetlana felt the woman rise and move away as the sound of heavy containers being moved closer filled the building. Her nerve was going and she spoke loudly, as much to steady herself as to ask the question.

“What is it you want, I don’t know you, just tell me?” A green garden hose was lowered into her porcelain prison, coming to rest at the bottom about two feet beyond and perhaps six inches lower than the level of her head. The English voice addressed her,

“You are Svetlana Vorsoff, born in Bryausk, August 21, 1986. Your Mother, Katyana, died in an auto accident a year later. Your Father was a shift supervisor in Bryausk steel works until badly burned in an accident. You entered Moscow State University for Economics. Your tutor, Doctor Ebinov, states you studied hard under him in both the classroom and in his bed. Your Father drank himself to death in your second year at University. You have no other kin. Elena Torneski recruited you initially as a Sparrow but you did not take to the work, or so she reported. Was this because of sexual jealousy on her part Svetlana?” She felt herself begin to colour. The British could not know this, but if it were her own people then why was this being done to her, was it a test she again thought?

The voice continued.

“Who do you think we are Svetlana, Irina and I. Hmm?” he paused “Who do you think these other gentlemen are, although I doubt even their own Mothers would call them ‘Gentlemen’?”

Svetlana decided that if they were British she was blown already. If she were under test she would let nothing bring doubt about her ability. She did not need to put on an act for the fear that was evident in her voice when she shouted back at him

“I don’t know who or what you are talking about, are you crazy, are you all mad?” She jumped as a something struck the surface with a metallic ring and clanged to a halt at the bottom beside the open end of the hose. It was she saw, a rusted metal bolt, about 1” thick and 6” long. A clear liquid began to dribble from the hose. Like a living thing it sought out tiny depressions in the surface as it snaked forward. Did they intend on drowning her? As it touched the rusted surface of the bolt she caught the smell of acrid fumes. Realisation hit her even as the cultured voice began to explain

“Once upon a time they reconditioned engines here, dipped them in acid in this very vat in fact” His calm, matter of fact voice added to the rising terror that was threatening to take total control of her. Her limbs started to shake uncontrollably as the flow of acid increased. She screamed aloud as her arms were seized and she felt a sharp pain in first one hand and then the other. The hands released her and withdrew. Her hands, then wrists grew numb until she could no longer feel them, the numbness slowly climbed her outstretched arms.

“We shouldn’t want you to pass out with shock, we have too many questions to be answered yet. Of course it does mean you will have to witness yourself dissolve away. I imagine it will be quite, quite bizarre to witness your own fingers blacken and burn, then the flesh fall away, to watch it happen as you are slowly burnt away, inch by inch?”

Svetlana screamed aloud and her bladder released. She was sobbing.

“What do you want… please?” She heard him step down beside her and her body jerked as his hand stroked her hair

“We are inquisitors, Irina and I. We had a phone call that these other Gentlemen had expected to collect a car. A car and a suitcase that you were supposed to deliver, where are they Svetlana, and who is the black boy who helped you take them, is he your lover Svetlana, your bit of rough sport, hmm?”.

Tears flowed down her cheeks as she shook her head.

“You are wrong, I delivered the car, exactly as instructed, I don’t know any black boy”. The hand stopped its caress “You are not so stupid as to believe there was no surveillance on the car, no CCTV, or are you that stupid?” he paused for a moment. ”Can it be you graduated the University and the school merely on your ability to fuck your tutors”. The crude term sounded out of place in the public school diction of this man, he leant closer, whispering in her ear.

“There is no one to help you, no little black knight riding to the rescue “. He paused to survey her.

“Ah, the delicious possibilities my dear, we could seal all your entrances and dip you twice, once in this acid and then into water. When we find the little black knight we can reunite you… I don’t think he will want you though, after all, you will be as black as he is by then” he leant closer again. “Yesli vi he kotitye oseet masky, uzhasov meste litsa ne dveegaytyes i otuedhayte pravilno, maya malenkaya lastochka”. Unless you wish to wear a horror mask for a face, be still and answer truthfully little sparrow.

Since the urgent contact from the Irish militant group, who were somewhat miffed at finding an empty bay in the car park, Major Constantine Bedonavich, deputy military attaché at the embassy of the Russian Federation to the Court of St James, had been busy. He was not party to the greater scheme of things, he followed instructions without questioning their origins. This matter was one of delivering to the Irish contact a car and suitcase, just one of varied tasks he was expected to oversee.

Routine security reviews of Svetlana’s integrity were gone over twice. Taped conversations re-examined and CCTV footage from the private car park scrutinised. He was concerned that one of his assets was under question; he was very concerned that Peridenko’s people were interrogating that asset.

Whatever operation had been compromised had to have been an important one but there was nothing to indicate Svetlana was guilty of any collusion. Clearly, an opportunist thief had taken the car.

He had another asset in the British National Crime Intelligence Service, NCIS, working to identify the thief. Another, a specialist in surreptitious hacking was endeavouring to utilise the cars built in ‘Tracker’ anti-theft system without alerting the authorities. Constantine’s job description involved skulduggery but he thought himself a decent man. The pair who had turned up with Moscow Centrals authority had not waited for the initial investigation findings, they had immediately taken it upon themselves that the girl was guilty and the truth would be extracted. He had received information about the pair that caused him to shudder in distaste. Glancing once more at the results before him he opened a safe in the floor, extracting a 9mm Glock pistol.

Locking his office he hurried for his car. Time was no doubt short, if in fact it had not already run out for the girl.

He would of course need to first clear himself of any British or American surveillance.

The level of acid was now only about one inch from reaching the nearest digit of Svetlana’s left hand. She was in fact being pulled in four different directs by the rubber bindings on her wrists and ankles, as close to immobile as any struggling person could be. Her screams were unnoticed by any person outside of the derelict industrial unit. She could not see any of her tormentors but could feel their presence.

Raised, angry voices filtered through to her brain. The one she thought of as ‘Oxford accent’ stood and shouted in an angry torrent until the sound of an automatic pistol being cocked made him pause.

“Cut her loose and then stand with your friends, where I can see you” A man’s voice ordered in accented English, obviously for the benefit of the Irishman and Co.

She heard the words and felt hope emerge. There was a pause followed by the soft click of a safety catch being thumbed off.

“DO IT!” A shuffle of feet followed the shouted instruction in its very threatening tone, and she felt the bindings on her ankles tugged as fingers sought to untie them.

Major Bedonavich crouched into a gun fighters stance, the pistol aimed and his finger taking up the first pressure on the trigger. “Wrists first, if you please!” he hissed in warning.

Her ankle bindings were let go and Svetlana realised that had her ankles been freed first she would have been catapulted face first into the acid by the wrist’s rubber straps.

With a snort of frustration Oxford accent released her wrists and then her ankles and Svetlana scrabbled backwards frantically until clear of the acid vat, still sobbing and attempting to cover her nakedness with her hands.

On the far side of the vat stood three men in their twenties wearing jeans. A woman of about thirty with striking Slavic features, and a tall man in his late thirties. The pin stripe suit and a British Regimental tie looked out of place worn under the rubber apron, boots and heavy rubber gauntlet’s he also wore.

All had their hands ostentatiously in plain view and were looking at some point behind her. She turned as the controller she had never seen before was transferring a handgun to his left hand in order to finish the removal of his suit jacket. The gun was still carefully pointed in the direction of her tormentors as he held out the jacket to the side of his body. She still had wits enough left to avoid coming between the man and the group, going around behind him she took the jacket, draping it over her shoulders. Her body was still trembling. At his feet lay an AKM-74 assault rifle, from its extra pistol grip below the stock she knew it to be of a Rumanian pattern.

“We are leaving now” he addressed the group as a whole. “You two… ” he directed at the woman and the svelte male. “Be at the house in two hours’”.

Anger was replacing the fear and humiliation Svetlana had felt, “Wait, please” she asked Constantine in a weak voice. She looked very docile as she padded barefoot around the vat towards the group. Lessons never previously put into practice were now about to be.

Constantine gestured at the younger men with the Glock to move away, and bumping into one of several large blue containers bearing Hazchem warnings, they duly did as instructed.

Svetlana was looking at the ground as she approached the man and woman; the jacket held closed in front. ‘Distract and Disarm’ was the phrase in her mind but to the man with the cultured accent her humble demeanour made him guess at whether she was now in his thrall, thoroughly dominated.

Svetlana stopped just in front of him; she released the jacket which tumbled to the factory floor with her still meekly looking down. Her right hand moved up and across to cup her left breast, finger and thumb squeezed the nipple. The man’s eyes started to widen in gloating satisfaction when the hand released the breast and lashed, backhand, upwards and out. He had a split second to jerk back his head but his face was not the target. The full blow failed to connect but the end joint of her middle finger struck against his Adams apple and his throat immediately began to constrict as he staggered backwards fighting for air, hands going to the injured area. His back peddling feet struck a protruding metal machinery bracket and he fell, gasping and turning blue.

Distracted and taken unawares the woman turned, mouth opening, to follow her partners’ stricken passage when Svetlana spun and in a fluid movement grabbed her by the shoulders and drove her right knee into her groin. Women also have delicate equipment in that region, and it hurt like hell, leaving the woman doubled up on the floor with hands between her legs.

Retrieving the jacket, Svetlana folded it over one arm and strode away naked without a backward glance.

Constantine picked up the assault rifle in his free hand and backed up until he judged he was beyond effective range of the group before turning to follow the girl.

At the large hangar-like doors at the end of the building another jean-clad male was just sitting up from where he had been sprawled, blood pouring from a broken nose and a scalp wound. He was just groping about for the AKM 74 he had been holding at the time he had encountered the angry Russian major. It had been this man who had shoulder charged Svetlana in her hallway. Through the veil of pain he gaped as he saw Svetlana, a naked goddess with waist length auburn tresses but otherwise devoid of body hair from the neck down, striding purposefully toward him. He blinked to clear his eyes.

Her foot lashed out at his face, the heel connected and he was again unconscious.

Twenty paces behind the girl Constantine witnessed her final expression of anger and chuckled as he put away the handgun and unloaded the AKM which he dropped on the man’s still form.

He thought his day a lot more pleasant than it had started out.

A fairly nondescript patch of scrub and stunted trees was home to some fairly nondescript wildlife but for one snake whose brief appearance centre stage had been the highlight of the late afternoon for twenty odd infantrymen and a dozen tankers whose homeland boasted nothing more deadly than Adders.

Four British Mk2E Challenger main battle tanks, four British Warrior armoured personnel carriers of RTR, 1^st Royal Tank Regiment, 3 RGJ, 3rd Battalion Royal Green Jackets, and four Americans from Fort Hood’s training centre with their ‘Humvee’had taken up temporary residency.

The armoured fighting vehicles, AFVs and support troops of the British 1^st Armoured Brigades tiny contribution to the US Army’s ‘Commanche Lance’ training exercise were now laagered up for the night. The tanks were spaced out at tactical bounds in the centre with the Infantry providing protection for them against other infantry who may be bent on causing them mischief. The days when the foot soldier was helpless against these behemoths had been and gone, it had gone full circle in fact.

In the First World War Germany produced its own tanks to counter Britain’s invention, against which the German infantry had no choice but to get out of the way. This is not to say that the first tanks were lords of the battlefield, far from it. The crews were more likely to become ineffective from the sweltering heat and exhaust gases their inefficient engines produced in abundance, and mechanical failure than a lucky enemy shell.

Tanks do not live long unaccompanied amongst enemy infantry since those days; they need their own ‘Grunts’ to keep away the nasty men with hand held anti-tank weapons.

With the American logistics train the Brits also had a small detachment of REME, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, or ‘Rough Engineering Made Easy’, to grateful customers. The RTR and RGJs Challengers and Warriors 1500hp and 550hp Perkins diesel engines were hardly compatible with anything in the Americans spares inventory.

Lt Tony McMarn, RGJ, was the platoon commander of the Green Jackets, Captain Hector Sinclair Obediah Wantage-Ferdoux, RTR, or ‘Obi Wan’ to the troops, commanded the four Challenger 2Es. On the Brits left were the two platoons and company HQ, company headquarters, of their 52^nd Infantry hosts with their ‘Bradley’ APCs, attached mortar and anti-tank sections. This was the infantry-heavy balance in their composite mechanised company.

Both men were studying maps on the engine deck of Hectors tank accompanied by Captain Daniel King, US Army of the Black Horse Cavalry, their liaison and mentor on all things American. Also, he had said with a smile

“To ensure you guys drive on the right and don’t go near the Whitehouse with matches again”.

When, a fortnight earlier, initial introductions had been made Hector had enthusiastically pumped Daniel’s hand as if trying to drag off his black skin, with a cheery,

“Call me ‘Heck’, damn glad to meet you Tone’. Daniel had been slightly taken aback.

“Tone?” was that a slur on his race or had he missed something?

Tony McMarn had seen the wary look in the cavalryman’s eyes. “Once upon a time a young Queen Victoria had enquired of a Lancer at a Ball. ‘And what exactly is the role of the Cavalry on the modern battlefield?’ The Lancer replied ‘Why Ma’am, it is simply to add tone to what would otherwise be … a vulgar brawl!’ All cavalrymen are ‘Tones’ to us, sir”. With that out of the way they had got on like a house on fire.

The other Americans of the liaison detachment, tagging along, as the Brits put it, where Master Sergeant Bart Kopak, PFC Angie Evans, driver, and Specialist Stu Jameson, the radio op.

It was the third day of the exercise and at present the Brits, and their US allies were supposed to be assisting a friendly country ward off the advances of that evil empire known so well to British servicemen, Fantasia. The American scenario had described the opposing forces as ‘Blue’ and ‘Green’ but this did not have the appropriate martial ring to the British squaddies,

“Sounds like chuffing Oxford and Cambridge boat crews having a ruck with the militant wing of the Tree Huggers” as one disgruntled Rifleman had put it. Heck proposed a name change at a local level for his ‘Toms’. Daniel objected,

“It’s our game and we will call them what we want”.

Heck had responded

“Unless you want a bunch of pissed off Toms retaking New York in the name of King George, I would humour them Tone”. So the enemy became ’Fantasian’s’ and the Toms were all smiles.

The term Toms had also been a puzzle to the Americans until Tony’s platoon sergeant had loaned a dog-eared copy of Rudyard Kipling's complete works to young Angie Evans. ‘Tommy Atkins’, the name he gave the common British soldier as a breed, had solved the puzzle.

The allied forces were at this point in the game dispersed along the ‘border’ with a tank heavy brigade in reserve until the Fantasian intentions became clear.

Both sides’ were probing with recce's, or recons as the Americans preferred to call them.

The Brits patch was a rather bare arsed region of real estate. Restrictions on ‘digging in’ had seemed an alien concept to the Brits, however at the initial exercise briefing the Riflemen had taken that piece of news with smiles. Every time a British infantryman stops in the field for longer than the time it takes for ‘a brew’, the squaddies term for tea, the picks and shovels come out and shallow ‘fire scrapes’ are started. If it should become a prolonged stop then these fire scrapes are extended to become two man trenches and then ‘shelter bays’ are added for protection from artillery and a dry place to sleep.

Digging-in is a way of life, but that does not mean it’s a popular activity.

With the entrenching tools being taboo items, good field craft had become the only solution. Heck deployed his pair of snipers to set up OPs, observation posts, on particularly bare arse features, and the Riflemen to those more conducive to invisibility.

Heck had returned from an ‘O Group’ at company headquarters with his American boss, a stocky mid-western captain with a drawl Heck ripped the piss out of at every opportunity.

“Y’all ok?” Captain Dave Gilham would enquire, “Well it was when I left it tied up by the boathouse. I can always ring Mrs Heck and check?”

He was now giving Tony a warning order for the nights patrolling when Heck’s radio op stuck his head out of the tanks turret with a headset in hand

“Boss, its India Three Three Delta… contact, grid 277,872 near as they can tell, bearing eleven zero zero mag, two Bradleys, lots of dust ‘n shit a few miles behind ‘em!” 33D were his snipers. If anyone were going to see enemy movement first it would be them with their powerful spotting telescope. Heck passed on the contact report to Company HQ and told Tony to hang-fire on the patrols before shouting out to everyone in the location.

“Stand To!”

It was welcomed with muttered “Ah, bollocks!” by those in various stages of feeding themselves as they ‘binned’ their ‘scoff’, and hurriedly got ready to have a serious word with the interlopers who’d ruined supper.

The fight was on.

Constantine parked his car in a plush residential street not far from the barracks that were home to the Kings Troop, Royal Horse Artillery. He looked across at Svetlana, her face was in shadow, unreadable and she stared straight ahead.

After a shower at her flat and a horrendous age drying her long hair she had stood unashamedly naked while he had examined her. With her hair held in her hands, bunched atop her head he had applied cream to the burns between her shoulder blades and the bruises in other areas. She had been completely unabashed, which is more than could be have been said for him. He had been divorced for over a year and had been acutely aware of Svetlana’s naked state. His taste in women was not for the big boned, broad faced, childbearing-hipped variety, so many of his countrymen sought. His wife had been a ballerina, slim and lovely, elfin-like beside him.

The poor, irregular pay had irked her. Their small state provided flat with second and third hand furniture was not the future she had envisaged at marriage. He had hoped that bringing her with him to London would have satisfied her. Better accommodation, more and regular pay, less drab surroundings. It seemed that it fuelled her dreams of a better life rather than solved their problems. She had embarked on an affair with a wealthy Russian entrepreneur with offices in London. They parted and six months ago she had become Mrs wealthy entrepreneur. He wished her well but missed her keenly.

Svetlana was stunning, slim waisted, drum tight flat stomach, full firm breasts and her skin two-toned by the tiny pale strips against her otherwise tanned skin. He had never seen a woman completely shaved down there before, and he had certainly never seen a pierced clitoris before either. In answer to his thick tongued queries, at least it sounded that way to him, and she replied that the piercing enhanced her already higher than average libido, ensuring multiple orgasms, and finally that she endured laser hair removal as pubic hair was not conducive to the underwear she wore, nodding toward a clothes stand of drying panties. A deeply blushing Constantine had looked across at the items on display and remarked that they weren’t underpants; they were pirate’s eye patches… .with gussets! Svetlana’s laughter had peeled throughout the flat.

Bodywork touched up; she had slipped into one of the aforementioned articles, which only served to worsen his heart rate. Constantine had escaped into the kitchen to make coffee and food for them both whilst she finished dressing. Her apparent recovery was remarkable after the experiences of earlier in the day. He could understand why the sparrow school had recruited her. ‘Sparrows’ were the young women used to bait the honey traps. There was a well-known term; ‘A hard-on knows no conscience’. In his opinion the Pope would have tossed his holy bible over his shoulder with a “Sod it, who believes this stuff anyway” and begun tearing off his robes 30 seconds after being confronted by even a fully clothed Svetlana. He could not understand though, why that department had let her go?

After exploring the cupboards and some industrious beating he had knocked up a pretty hefty Ham, onion and fresh tomato omelette by the time she appeared. She had looked about, inhaled the aroma of fresh coffee and said

“God, are you spoken for, sir?” he had turned to answer but her back was to him as she collected king sized Italian pottery plates from another cupboard.

“I was” he replied, “How about you?” making the table she’d replied that as he had access to her file he should know. He mentally rebuked himself, of course he knew. A windsurfing instructor on holiday in Crete, a ski instructor and her husband on another holiday, and the not infrequent one and two nighters picked up in singles bars, but nothing that could in any way be termed as a serious or lasting relationship.

“It doesn’t go with my real job, besides I intimidate all but the vain ones who only want a trophy fuck” her matter of fact way of speaking and use of that word in such a casual way had made him turn. She had her back turned again, sorting out napkins

“Before you say it sir, I didn’t succumb to the vain ones, on those occasions I was using them “. Napkins selected she had turned and flashed him a quick smile, laughter and mischief danced in her eyes “A girl has needs too you know”.

Constantine had laughed. The clock on the wall had brought him back to matters at hand. He had to meet Peridenko’s unsavoury pair in half an hour from then. He knew that it was unsafe to turn his back on them, not now. It had not been possible to arrange back up in so short a time.

The girl seemed recovered; she had shown she had guts so he had asked her.

“Ready?” she nodded and exited the car

The Russian’s were already waiting outside the council chambers when the Chinese politburo members began arriving. Today was a late start for them. They may leave all the lights burning throughout the night at the politburo. That was for the benefit of the peasantry, a con that they sat up all hours’ working for the greater good of the people. However, they did start the day earlier than most government’s.

The previous day had been a very long sitting. The council chamber doors locked and guarded. Food and refreshments had been brought in. Serge had watched the arguments flow to and fro between this faction and that. Tables had been thumped and voices raised. Eventually the Premier had halted the session, ordering everyone home to bed. Serge knew that the debating had continued in homes between the groups. It was far too sensitive to be spoken of by ‘phone, not even the members’ secure telephones.

When everyone was settled Marshal Lo Chang bowed low to the Premier and faced the Russian’s.

“I have spent most of the night discussing your proposed invasion plan with the Premier and Defence Minister Pong. Your point that surveillance satellites negate a classic, working up of arms and later deployment to jump off points is accepted fact. We had believed that only two things, deception, what you call a mastroika and a full nuclear pre-emptive strike could succeed. Your plan is daring, it has genius in its boldness, but we still have no counter for the American aircraft carrier groups”.

Peridenko stood, before speaking he nodded to an aide who distributed thin folders to all the committee members. “Comrades, I believe you are all familiar with the highly placed asset in America’s FBI which our intelligence service ran for many years” he paused whilst the interpreter translated for him. “His arrest has been another example of their failures. We have arrested and executed every single name upon the lists before you. American and IMF loans have provided regular, generous salaries to certain key workers. America believes the ‘Russian Mafia’ had circumvented large amounts, in fact they did, although not as much as we had them believe. An asset has for the last three years been altering, by means of a computer program, certain areas of interest to their surveillance satellites”. He nodded to the display screen technician; the screen came to life. “Behold, displacing 72,156 tons, I give you, quite literally, the People’s Liberation Army Navy nuclear powered aircraft carrier ‘Mao’”. The interpreter went into rapid-fire mode to deliver the coup de main.

Marshal Lo Chang was out of his seat swiftly. He approached too close to the screen to see clearly and stepped back a few paces. Removing his spectacles he first cleaned and then replaced them, eyes squinting as he peered at the display. Finally he looked at the Russians.

“Is this more computer generated wizardry?” He turned back to study the image, then turned back again “It is the Varyag, or the Admiral Gorshkov, yes?”

The Soviet navy had once had an expanding carrier arm. The Minsk, Leningrad, Novorossiysk, Kiev, Moskva and Admiral Kuznetsov, inferior in design to the American carriers and their engines oil fired. The USSR had three nuclear powered carriers under construction at the time of the regimes fall. Ul’yanovsk, Varyag and the Admiral Gorshkov. All the old carriers except the Kuznetsov had been scrapped. Ul’yanovsk was recycled before completion; her sisters had survived although partially built. India had made noises about buying the Gorshov and a Japanese hotelier voiced plans to convert Varyag into a hotel and casino.

Lo Chang stepped closer to Serge, not waiting for the Russian to answer.

“You completed one of them?” he asked excitedly.

Serge answered him.

“Marshal, this is no trickery, the vessel carries all of twelve Sukhoi Su-32FN fighter bombers, sixteen Su-27 and twelve Mig-29s, all naval variants and all carrier capable naturally, and of course air refuelling and airborne early warning airframes, plus helicopters.” After a pause to allow it to dawn on his audience what new horizons now availed themselves, he continued.

“This is a massive multi trillion Rouble investment that we hand to you, that you may chase the Americans from striking range of your borders. Not as they are now, but in six months’ time, when you have rolled up the Pacific and are sat on Australia’s doorstep. Close enough you can smell their ‘Barbie’s’ on the wind” Serge paused “There are risks, of course there are risks” he was passing along the backs of the politburo members chairs, forcing them to turn and face him.

“Only from a cold start, a standing start if you will… .on the heels of the devastating strikes delivered by terrorists groups, this weak, corrupt West we face now will be defeated. The West is chasing Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, they have few forces in place and no warning!” he returned to his seat. All eyes turned to the Premier who was nodding slowly. The Premier took a deep breath.

“A vote then, all for the plan” pausing he looked at each of the members

“Raise your hands”. His own was foremost, quickly followed by the Defence Minister and Marshal Lo Chang. After a minute there were only three dissenters, all three cast their eyes down at the table top in front of them. Ignoring them, the Premier stated.

“Carried”. He rose and approached Serge and Peridenko “My congratulations on an innovative plan comrade”.

Serge shook his head

“No Comrade Premier Chiu, this plan is the brainchild of one single man, our current Premier”.