The Kremlin Device

FIFTEEN

It was at 11:30 the next morning that things suddenly started to move. Sasha and I had both made secure OPs, buried under piles of pine boughs about 400 metres apart. Once I'd left him with a good view down to the front of the villa, I moved on round and found a site that commanded not only the summerhouse but also the exit road. There, lulled by an intoxicating smell of fresh resin, I'd crawled into my sleeping bag for warmth, and dozed off for the last hour before dawn.

We'd put our covert radios on listening watch, and agreed that from 0700 we'd come up on the air to compare notes on the hour and half-hour unless we wanted to alert each other at any other time, in which case we'd give a double jab on the press el

At first we hadn't much to report. Sasha told me that a couple more cars drove up to the villa, and one went down. Work started on the fence. I couldn't see the site, but when I heard an old tractor spluttering up and down and men chatting quite close behind me, to my right, I thanked my stars that we hadn't cut the wire.

Once again the weather was fine, but I sensed a change coming. Soon after dawn the sky began to haze over and the air moistened, as if snow was on the way. My priority task was to get video footage of the villa and send it back to Kars, so that the guys would have extra information to back up the satellite imagery and could start working out their assault plan. Now I reckoned I'd better go pretty soon, before the landscape got blotted out.

Breakfast consisted of slimy, cold lasagne which came out of its foil bag tasting of mud, and cold water that tasted of plastic.

With that feast down my neck I slipped out of my hide, taking my 203 with spare mags in my pouches, but leaving my bergen, to give myself greater mobility.

The mountainside was so broken by gullies, rocky outcrops and stands of trees that I found it easy to keep in dead ground, hidden from the wire above me on one side, and the villa below on the other. Not that I didn't keep a sharp lookout: before I crossed any open space I scanned repeatedly with my binos in case sentries were posted on vantage points.

I filmed the helipad on my way past, hoping that shots of the .50 mounted on its tripod would give an idea of scale, and came out on a high point above Sasha's LIJP. Lying face-down on a rock under some trees, I got good footage of the house, first the front, then the western side with its underground door — making sure I kept each take long enough for members of the QRF to spot detail. I zoomed in for close-uy shots of the security cameras and IR devices, then filmed the road going down towards the barracks and the gate. I contemplated going down and taking in the barracks as well, but decided that any extra information I might gain wouldn't be worth the risks involved. My gut feeling told me it was the villa and the summerhouse that we were going to assault. With any luck we wouldn't need to go near the barracks: we'd just block the road to anyone trying to come uphill.

By 9:00 a.m. I was back in my own OP, having filmed the summerhouse as well. My scramble around the mountainside had got me well warmed up and my fingers were nimble when it came to down-loading information from the camera into my lap-top and sending it up via the Satcom to the squadron at Kars.

Within five minutes Bill Chandler came on air to say that the quality of the pictures was excellent. He also confirmed that Orange was still transmitting from the same site, and that we had definite permission to exfil via the Russian Caucasus.

It wasn't until 11:20 that things started to happen. I got a sudden tsch, tsch in my earpiece, and there was Sasha, fired up.

"Beeg development!" he went.

"I have seen your men.

"Our lads?"

"Yes. They came from lower house into upper house."

"Out of the basement entrance?"

"Yes. Four guards bring them."

"How did they look?"

"Bad. Zheordie, I am afraid they are smashed up.

"What did you see?"

"The big man, Pavarotti his eyes are black. The small one has clothes on his hands."

"Clothes? Bandages?"

"Bandages. Yes."

"Where did the guards take them, Sasha?"

"Inside the house. Upstairs."

"The ground-floor entrance main door?"

"Yes."

"OK. Thanks. Keep watching."

I went straight through to Kars and relayed Sasha's information. Anger ran through me as I lay under my heap of pine branches. My first thought was to take the pressure off our guys by creating a diversion. A 203 grenade into one of the villa's windows would stir things up, all right. Sasha and I could drop quite a few of the home team if they came running out of the house. But a premature attack by just the two of us could well panic the Chechens and make them top their prisoners.

I spoke to Bill again and suggested what I'd been thinking.

"No go, Geordie," he replied.

"For Christ's sake take it easy.

It's great to know the guys are there, but until we've got the bomb secure, the plan must hold. They have to stick it out, and so have you.

Fuck them all, I thought savagely as I switched off. When it comes to the crunch, all senior ruperts are unfeeling bastards who don't give a stuff about losing guys.

I lay there feeling furious, but not for long.

The next development was almost worse. Shortly before 12:00 I became aware of a drone, faint at first but rapidly growing louder. Chopper, I thought. Then I caught the fluttering beat of a rotor, and a few moments later the thing came swishing and roaring so low overhead that its down draught made the roof of my OP thrash about, and I had to seize hold of some branches to stop them being blown away.

For perhaps a minute the roar persisted, as the pilot came in to land on the helipad. Then he shut his engine down and the noise fell away to a dying whine.

Sasha was already on the air.

"Zheordie helicopter in."

"Yeah. Did you see what sort?"

"Small civilian, passenger aircraft. Three to four persons. I knew Sasha couldn't see the pad from where he was, but he would get a look at the incoming party if the people walked the few yards down to the villa.

"They'll probably come down to the house," I told him.

"Stay on the air and let me know."

"Prinyato."

A couple of minutes later he said, "Now they are coming.

Three men. I think one is Akula. I recognise… Yes, definitely this is Shark."

"What are they doing?"

"They are coming to the door. Door opens in front. Inside house now. Zheordie?"

"Yes?"

"I notice something. When they were five metres distant, door open avtomaticheskii. And why? Some persons inside are watching with cameras.

"That's right. They've got closed-circuit TV. I filmed the cameras.

My mind was racing. Had the prisoners been taken upstairs for another session of interrogation, this time by Shark himself?

Had he brought some ace torturer with him, or maybe a nuclear expert, to find out the truth about the bomb?

I reported the arrival of the chopper to Bill Chandler.

"It could be set to lift our guys out," I warned him.

"Or the bomb. Is there any way the Yanks can track a helicopter if it takes off from here?"

"I'll ask," he said.

"I'll pass the message through. You'll tell us if it does move.

"Of course. What about binning the HALO and bringing the QRF in earlier by chopper?"

"Not a chance." Bill was adamant.

"We still don't have clearance to fly in Russian airspace. Besides, we need the element of surprise. Our information from Colonel Gerasimova in Moscow is that the defence force is bigger than you think.

There's a bigger barracks down the valley with a hundred or more in it. Plus any local guys they can muster."

"Is that right?"

"Yep. And listen, Geordie, the colonel's done us another favour. She got on to Kelsen, the firm of Finnish architects who built the villa, and faxed us the plans."

"Oh, great!" I said.

"There's a basement floor," Bill went on.

"That's got gym, games room, sauna, showers and so on. Then, below that, there's another floor, a kind of sub-basement, marked "Storage". That tallies well with the pictures you sent."

"Tochno," I went, thinking of Sasha with his eyes on the building and unconsciously slipping into Russian.

"Exactly.

That's where they brought our guys out of, that lower door. I reckon that's where they're being kept. When the assault goes in, we're going to need to hit that door first. Wait a minute, though. There must be some internal access from the store area to the upper floor. Isn't anything marked on the plan a staircase or a lift?"

"There's a lift-shaft, yes."

"Maybe the lift's knackered. Or maybe it hasn't been installed yet. Plan round taking out that lower door, anyway.

Shortly before 12:30 Sasha buzzed me up again. Toad and Pavarotti had been taken back underground, looking even worse than before. Pay was walking with a limp, and there was blood showing through the bandages on Toad's hands.

Bastards! I said to myself Just wait till we get in among them.

Bill Chandler had already told me, "No hostages." Now, after what Sasha had seen, I was going to feel no compunction about taking out everyone in the villa.

The sun never came out that day. The haze of cloud thickened steadily, and early in the afternoon snow began to fall. My problem was exhaustion. I fought it as hard as I could, but I know that I nodded off several times and when I suddenly came to, just before 3:00 p.m." I couldn't remember where I was.

Then, as I moved, snow slid off the flap of my sleeping bag and on to my face. I rolled over on to my front and looked out. Snow was falling hard a real blizzard, fine flakes slanting in towards me from my right front. The weather was coming from the south-west, from the high mountains.

When I scanned the summerhouse through my binoculars, I saw that a white blanket of snow lay unmarked all round it.

Nothing doing there.

I knew that the helicopter hadn't taken off: for one thing, I'd have heard it go; for another, it would never fly in this weather.

So Shark must still be in residence. Little did he realise that his time was rapidly running out.

Or was it? A new fear began to needle me. If this weather kept up, with its heavy cloud cover, the HALO jump might have to be postponed. Snow on the ground wouldn't matter — in fact it would make the DZ show up all the better, white in the middle of the black wood but snow clouds in the air were another matter. I'd better report the conditions to the FMB.

When I tried to go through to Kars, my anxiety rose a notch.

No response. I suspected the blizzard was to blame, and that the snow was blocking contact with the satellite. Comms are notoriously fickle. They go up and down, and often there seems no reason. I fiddled with the dish aerial, turning it this way and that, and then moved out of my lair on to a more prominent site.

Still no contact. I tried again and again, to no avail.

Lying on my front, I realised how the snow was blotting out every sound. Work on the fence, which had been proceeding intermittently, seemed to have stopped completely, and a heavy silence lay over the compound.

Then I heard a noise of an engine, labouring up the hill from the barrack area. Presently it came into view a mid-grey, square-bodied truck with big snow tyres, weaving slightly as it slithered over the snow. The driver swung up on to the flat area outside the summerhouse, crunched into reverse and backed to within two or three yards of the doors.

He and another man jumped out, and one of them opened the truck's rear door to release a third. All were wearing dark green overalls and brown fur caps with ear-flaps tied up over the crowns. The driver produced some keys, unlocked the doors of the shed and slid them back. A minute later, out came all three, lugging, between them, one of the components of Orange.

Snow or no snow, there was no chance of me making a mistake the men were only sixty metres from me, and through the glasses I could see those orange markings perfectly. The sight set my adrenalin racing. Again I had to fight down my instinct to make a direct intervention. A 203 grenade into the front of the van would rearrange Akula's plans pretty swiftly.

But, again, that might mean the end for Pay and Toad.

The three men went back in and brought out the second half. I snatched up the Satcom receiver and switched on. Nothing.

Again nothing.

Shit! The bomb was about to disappear, and I couldn't report it.

The men locked the shed, slammed the doors of their truck and climbed aboard. I watched helplessly as the driver started up and drove off downhill, nosing his way carefully through the bends. By now the snow was falling so fast that, even as I watched, the vehicle's tracks were becoming blurred. In a few minutes they'd be obliterated altogether.

In spite of my anxiety, I realised that what had happened carried one small advantage: now, if the HALO drop did come in as planned, Sasha wouldn't see the bomb, and wouldn't know anything about it.

The next hour was one of the most miserable I'd ever known.

I spent it shitting bricks that the head-shed might call off the free-fall. They might decide to leave Sasha and me to try and spring the prisoners. I could just hear Bill saying, "Make your own way out as best you can." Fucking thanks, I thought. I kept reasoning, No, they can't do that they'd be four guys down rather than two. But for all my wishful thinking I couldn't be sure.

As the snow kept floating down in a dense pall, I speculated about where the bomb might be heading. Back to Moscow, I felt certain. What if the Chechens used it to threaten the Russian government, just as the Americans had been planning to do?

What an irony that would be.

I convinced myself that the blizzard was going to continue all day and all night, and that Akula's men had come up to move the bomb while they still could, before everyone got snowed in.

At last the snowflakes began to thin, and the sky lightened as the storm moved on towards the north-east. I waited till I could see a patch of blue sky among the clouds, then tried the Satcom again.

This time, thank God, the call went straight through.

"Bill," I exclaimed.

"They've moved the fucker!"

"I know. Where the hell have you been?"

"Nowhere," I told him.

"The com ms went down in a snowstorm.

"I see. Well, the device has been on the move."

"I was trying to tell you that. Some guys came and carried off the components in a truck. Bill how far's Grozny from here?"

"Fifty ks. That's where it's gone. The Yanks have tracked it that far."

"The damned thing'll be airborne by now," I said.

"If it's gone off the air again it means it's inside a plane. What do we do?"

"Wait one.

I held on, hearing nothing but a roar of static. Then Bill came back and said, "We're going ahead with the drop, weather permitting. We're just waiting for the latest forecast."

"The sky's clearing here," I told him.

"It's bloody cold, too."

"OK, Geordie. I'll come back to you in a minute."

I waited tensely, longing for the hit to be over and done with.

"Let's just grab our guys," I said to myself, 'and get out of this arse hole of a place."

Then Bill came through again. The forecast was good: clear skies behind the storm, and a hard frost. The plan remained on.

What was more, they'd decided to advance the drop by half an hour, moving it to the original time of 1900. The two Chinooks were on their way to Nalchik, and would sit there waiting to hop over the mountain as soon as they were summoned.

"We passed all your data to the R.A.F," Bill said.

"They've done an appreciation and decided to approach you from the north, down the slope. They don't fancy coming up the valley an dover the compound entrance."

At 5:30 I gave my press el a double jab and said, "OK, Sasha. I'm on the move. We're off to the DZ. I'll come round and pick you up. Stay still till I reach you.

"I wait."

Stars blazed overhead, and even though the moon hadn't risen yet the night was alarmingly bright, the snow reflecting all the remaining light from the frosty sky. This white blanket was something we hadn't planned for: the patterns on my DPMs were clearly visible, and I could have done with a snow overall.

Moving cautiously, and keeping to bare rock ridges as much as possible so that I didn't leave a continous trail, I worked my way round to the helipad. Sure enough, the chopper was still on the ground an Alouette, painted some light colour, its rotor blades drooping under a three-inch load of snow. If it remained in position there'd be nowhere for a Chinook to land. No matter the hostage recovery team could fast-rope down while the aircraft hovered. Then, if we couldn't shift the Alouette, we might have to exfil from the DZ in the forest.

I found Sasha ready to move. Instead of heading out to the left, in the direction of the DZ, we put in a bit of a detour and made our way straight up to the top fence, which was still unfinished After watching for a couple of minutes we climbed the wire at a point where the wind had blown the snow off a rocky spine, leaving no tracks on the inside. The outside was a different matter. We landed in what turned out to be a gully, filled with snow to a depth of a couple of feet, and we couldn't help churmng up the surface as we floundered out of the drift. I snatched up a pine branch and frisked it back and forth behind us, levelling the surface as best I could; but the moonlight was so bright that a trail still showed.

There was no time to mess about. Clear of the fence, we turned left, to the west, through the forest, and again followed the contour. Navigation was simple: I knew that if we held our height, we'd come out on the farm track that led up from the valley to the high hay field

Except when we brushed into tree branches, our progress was utterly silent: the dry snow lay like six inches of the softest powder, and our boots made not the slightest sound as they pushed through it.

We reached the track at 6:40 and stopped to listen. Twenty minutes in hand. Suddenly, into the silence, floated a wolf chorus, coming from much farther off than the howling the night before. Turning to look behind me, I saw that the moon had appeared over the eastern horizon, enormous and pale. For maybe a minute the distant, eerie wailing rose and fell. Then it died away.

We moved downhill until we came to the junction and the path that led to the hay field It crossed my mind that perhaps, for maximum security, we should continue to push our way through the trees, rather than use the track. But then I thought, To hell with it. There's nobody about. Let's just get there.

By 6:50 we were on the edge of the field, which glowed brilliant white in the moonlight.

"They'll see this, all right, when they jump," I whispered.

Sasha nodded. I saw him swallow, and sensed that he was just as hepped up as I was.

"I've told them this is the forming-up point, by the old wagon," I said quietly.

"You stay here, just in case anyone's been following us up. Keep back against that tree-trunk, in the shadow. As soon as I've collected everyone I'll bring them over.

OK?"

"Da, da." Sasha nodded vigorously, then said, "Good luck!"

I punched him on the arm and moved away, skirting the edge of the field to keep in shadow. At 6:55 I stopped to wait, halfway up the long side, and stared to the south-east, way out among those millions of stars. I knew the Here would be coming on the same path we'd used, flying at 28,000 feet. I also knew that I'd never see it or even hear it. All the same, I couldn't help searching for it in that phenomenal sky. I imagined the tailgate descending, the red warning lights, the guys lined up, three abreast, packed tightly together and laden with all their gear, toddling towards the lip at the back of the cabin floor with good old Pat Newman overseeing.

A minute to go. Maybe the plane was late. No the S-F air crews could hack it to the second. In that case, the Here must be almost overhead.

I walked out a few metres into the field and stood in the open, feeling very exposed. Twenty seconds to run… ten… five, four, three, two, one. P Hour.

Now where were they?

I found I was holding my breath, and had to make a conscious effort to relax. Were the lads on their way? It was almost impossible to believe that twenty bodies were hurtling down towards me at terminal velocity, a thousand feet every five seconds. Twenty-four thousand feet in two minutes. Then the chutes would deploy at 4,000 feet.

I counted the seconds, staring upwards, with the Firefly in my right hand. Then at last I heard the magic sound I'd been waiting for: the sudden, rattling, snapping flutter of a chute breaking out.

It came from high in front of me, and was quickly followed by another, and another, four, five.. then several all at once.

Holding the Firefly above my head, I punched the rubber button on the base and saw a brilliant flash bounce off the snow.

In the enormous silence of the mountains the thin electronic whine of the unit building up to its next discharge sounded like a jet engine. Flash went the light again and then suddenly in my earpiece there was Pat Newman's voice saying, "OK, Geordie, I've got you. Close it down. I'm coming in."

A moment later I saw the angular black shapes of the parachutes gliding across the stars like a formation of giant bats.

In the last few seconds I heard the rush of air spilling from the canopies: then suddenly men in pairs were touching down all round me.

Brilliant! I thought but at that instant, away to my left, a dog began to bark hysterically. The noise was coming from inside the trees, just beyond the old hay cart. Ijabbed my press el switch twice and listened for Sasha to come up on the air.

Nothing.

I jabbed again. The dog was still barking. One of the incoming figures had disengaged from its partner and was coming towards me. I recognised Pat from his rolling walk.

"Get in! Get in!" I hissed.

"That bloody dog."

Even as I was talking the barking ceased.

The lads didn't need telling. Pat had briefed them already, and in any case their instincts and training made them head straight for the dark edge of the pines, dragging their chutes behind them.

In the shadows, Pat had a quick head count.

"We're OK," he said.

"We're on. What's the crack?"

"Not sure. See that old wagon on the edge of the field? I left Sasha there. That's our forming-up area. It sounded as though he had a contact. Wait one."

Two more jabs on the press el Still no answer. All round me there was a general scrabbling and scrunching as people rolled up their chutes, and a rattle of working parts as they readied their weapons.

"Whatever's happened, we've got to go that way," I told Pat.

"OK," he said quickly.

"Us two'll move up and check it out." In the lead, I advanced with my 203 at the ready, every sense on full alert, with Pat ten metres behind me. Our boots, cushioned by the snow, were making no sound, but I knew we'd show up as black silhouettes every time we passed an open area.

At the corner of the field I stopped to scan with the kite-sight.

Nothing moved, and I'd just started again when my earpiece hissed twice.

"Sasha?"

"Where are you?"

"Same place."

"What happened?"

"One man came after."

"Where's he gone?"

"I keen him."

"What about the dog?"

"I keen dog also."

"OK. We're closing on you now.

"Prinyato."

"The guys can come up," I told Pat.

"There's a cache here for the chutes.

While the rest of the lads came up I moved on, and was right beside Sasha before I saw him, standing against the trunk of a big pine. The snow on the track beside him was spattered with black-looking stains, which I realised must be blood.

"You OK?"

"Sure."

"What happened?"

"I am waiting here. The man comes past. I shoot him with knife gun.

"Where's the body?"

"Here." Sasha pointed behind him at a dark heap beside the tree.

"And the dog?"

"Same place. Knife also."

"Was it that German Shepherd that came along the perimeter wire last night?"

"I think."

I turned to Pat and said, "No point in trying to hide the bodies.

We need to get in and out fast before anyone comes looking. But there's a well here we can dump the chutes in."

"OK," said Pat.

"Let's go."

We bundled the chutes down the old water tank, threw snow over the cover and hustled on.

I went as fast as I dared, trying to combine speed of advance with maximum alertness. The snow helped by deadening our footsteps, but all the way I was thinking that the surface of the field behind us must look as though a football match had taken place.

We came to the wire at the point where Sasha and I had lain to observe the baffler.

"This is it," I told Pat.

"Once we're over, we'll be on target in less than a minute."

"We need to tell base we're on our objective," he whispered.

"They'll get the Chinooks airborne right away."

"OK."

I waited as he quickly set up his Satcom and reported his position.

How long would it have taken for the sentry to make a normal circuit of the fence? How soon would his failure to return be noticed? We had a few minutes yet.

With the set back in Pat's bergen, we went up to climb the wire. Over the fence and hidden in the trees again, we held a quick 0-group.

"Now that the device has gone," Pat began, 'that's knocked out one of our objectives. The summerhouse is no longer relevant. Forget that.

"I've designated three parties. Party A to block the road, Party B to assault the villa, Party C to watch the helipad and prevent any take-off "Our objective is to rescue the hostages. But no one else gets out of that building alive. OK?"

He got a few grunts for answer, and went on, "I've briefed the parties already, Geordie. But for your benefit, Party C consists of two men these two." He pointed, but in the dark I couldn't recognise faces.

"Party A, the road, is these three. Two gym pis and a sixty-six. That leaves fifteen, counting Sasha. I want to leave two back somewhere to act as sniper-observers. That makes thirteen for the house assault..

Pat had got everything well worked out. I knew he'd laid out plans of the villa, using mine tape, on the floor of the hangar in Kars, and that the team had walked through each phase of the assault. His plan was to keep away from the front of the house altogether, so that we didn't trigger the alarm systems. A basement group would approach from the side and tape a demolition charge to the cellar door. The rear party would do the same to three ground-floor windows at the back.

Split-second timing was essential: the assault had to crack off from both sides simultaneously, and in that first instant one of the snipers would put a 203 grenade through the front door to increase the confusion.

As our ERV, Pat designated the helipad.

We moved out in single file, again at tactical spacing, in an anti-clockwise circle round the target. First stop was the helipad, where we dropped off Party C in good positions among rock bluffs that commanded the pad only thirty metres below them.

Next we worked down until we could see the back of the house.

Lights were on in most of the windows, but curtains or blinds had been drawn. Some fifty metres above the building we left the main assault group (which included Pat) crouching in the trees.

Round at the side I dropped off the basement group, to wait while I took Party A down to the point I had earmarked on the road. Then I hustled back up, glancing at my watch. The time was just before 8:30.

On the covert radio link I reported to Pat: "All groups in position."

"Roger," he went.

"The assault will go down in figures three minutes. Move on to target at one minute before zero.

By now the moon was well up, its light filtering through the fir branches. Beside me was Paul Anderson, an EMOE specialist, who was going to blow the door. As we crouched there, waiting, I realised that our breath was steaming in the air.

For the past couple of hours I'd been so absorbed that I hadn't noticed the cold.

"Two minutes," came Pat's voice.

I was hoping to hell the raid would give us some clue about where the bomb had been taken. Maybe we'd find messages, papers, tapes..

Suddenly Jim Taylor, leader of Party A, came on the air.

"Stand by," he said.

"There's a vehicle coming up the road at high revs. What do we do? Hit it?"

"Roger," Pat answered instantly.

"Take it out. Other groups, close on target now!"

We burst out of the trees and ran towards the basement door.

In seconds Paul had taped a line of det cord straight down the middle. We stood back, flattening ourselves against the wall.

"Thirty seconds," came Pat's voice. But before he could carry on the countdown the howl of an electronic alarm broke out from the front of the villa and wound up to a scream. At almost the same instant a brilliant flash split the night, and the thump of a 66 rocket exploding thundered up the mountainside, followed by the rattle of machine guns as Party A engaged the car.

"Go! Go! Go!" Pat screamed.

I turned my head away as Paul closed his clacker.

BOOM!

The door split in half and we pushed through the gap. As I went in I heard more rounds going down in the road-block.

The space inside was full of smoke or dust. Clouds of the stuff caught our torch beams and made it hard to see what there was in the room. Answer nothing. Bare concrete block walls, bare cement floor, the room empty.

Another door at the back, steel, locked. It took Paul only seconds to make up another charge. Again we stood to one side.

BANG! In the confined space, the shock buffeted us.

The second door swung open. Dust problems again. But this time through the haze I saw tubular steel storage shelves along one wall. On the floor at the foot of them was a long, dark heap.

As my torch beam came on to it, part of the heap moved.

"Pay!" I yelled.

"Keep still! You're OK."

In a flash I was kneeling in front of him. He and Toad were lying on their sides, head to head, their hands, behind backs, cuffed to the feet of the metal shelving. At first glance I thought Toad was dead his eyes were shut and his face was white as chalk. When I put a hand on his cheek he felt as cold as a corpse.

But at the touch his eyelids flickered.

One of the lads had bolt-cutters in his belt kit.

"Give us a light while I cut these fucking chains!" I shouted. I needn't have yelled, because a torch came on right beside me but my adrenalin was up and running.

"OK," Paul said calmly, holding the light.

Leaning over, I saw that Toad's hands were covered with filthy bandages, and that blood had seeped out of them and on to the floor. A couple of crunching snips cut though the chain and released him. Another severed the link between his cuffs. As his hands came free he gave a groan and tried to straighten his arms, but otherwise made no movement.

Pay wasn't in quite such a bad way. He, too, felt cold as death, and his face was a mess, but when I released his hands he brought his arms to the front of his body and curled up like a child.

I hit my press el switch and called, "Pat?"

There was a moment's pause. Then, as he answered, his voice was almost drowned by a burst of small-arms fire.

"We've found the hostages," I went.

"In the basement. We're going to evacuate them into the trees."

"Roger," he answered.

"Carry on, and call in the choppers.

We're clearing the upper floors.

"Hypothermia," Paul was saying.

"Both of them are in a bad way.

Mentally, I was torn in two. One half of me wanted to stay with my injured mates and see them to safety. The other was burning to get up into the villa in search of Shark and grill him about where he'd sent the bomb.

I glanced round. Apart from me, there were five guys in the group: four to carry each casualty and one to cover them.

"Get them out under the trees to start with," I said.

"I'm going upstairs. See you in a minute."

In the far corner of the store-room was a wooden door. A burst from the 203 shot hell out of the lock, and I ran up a bare concrete staircase; knowing that I should wait for back-up but driven on by pure aggression.

Another locked door, another burst.

I erupted into a large and brilliantly lit open area the recreation floor, with a sauna room, exercise machines and a fair-sized pool, a small swimming pool or a king-size jacuzzi.

There was pale wood everywhere, on the floor, the walls and the doors of the sauna and the cubicles. The change in temperature was phenomenal: in one step I'd gone from zero to tropical.

Somebody had been in the pool until a few seconds before.

The water was still moving, and a trail of wet foot marks led to one of the cubicles. The door was closed, but beneath it I could see a pair of feet.

Rounds were still going down on the upper floors. Then a heavy explosion crashed off "Come out!" I yelled.

"Get out of there!"

I stood off a few feet with my weapon levelled.

"Come out or I shoot."

The door opened. Out came a man in a white to welling bath robe. From his long, narrow face I knew instantly that this was Akula. His black hair was slicked down with water and his eyes were wide open with fright or surprise. His movements were quite slow and perfectly controlled.

He said something in Russian, or possibly in Chechnyan. I didn't understand it and barked back, "Speak English, you bastard. I know you can.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"Never mind that. I want to know where you've sent the bomb."

"The bomb? What bomb? I don't understand."

His right hand was moving up towards a pocket at waist height on the front of his robe.

"Keep still!" I shouted.

"Hands up."

He raised them reluctantly.

I went forward and jabbed the muzzle of the 203 into his breastbone so hard that he crashed down on his arse.

"Get your hands above your head!" I shouted.

He lay on his back, arms up, while I felt in the pockets of his robe. My fingers closed on a small pistol. I brought it out, glanced briefly at it, and saw that it was covered in gold engraving. I slipped it in my pocket and repeated my question, standing over him with the 203 pointing down at his chest.

"Listen," I said.

"I know who you are. You are Akula, the Shark. What have you done with the device?"

"I tell you, I have no device."

"Don't fucking lie to me!" I shouted.

"Or I'll blow your bloody head off' That seemed to change his mind.

"You are too late," he said.

"The device is not here."

"I know. I'm asking where you've sent it."

"You are American, yes?" There was a hint of mockery in his voice, of condescension.

"It doesn't matter what I am.

"Well you should send message to British Government."

"Yes?"

"Tell them, release the Chechen men they have arrested."

"What Chechen men?"

"Twelve persons.

"What have they done?"

"Nothing. But the police arrested them. Unless they are free, London will be sorry.

"What are you saying?"

"Only that. London will regret."

"You mean you've sent the bomb to London?"

I was so hyped up by the thought that Orange was going to be used against us that, without any conscious decision, I fired a burst into the floor beside the Shark's right leg, then another that hit him in the thigh. As the rounds struck, he gave a convulsive jerk, then began to writhe around on his side, blood flowing out fast over the birch floor.

All at once there was a commotion at the far end of the room.

A door flew open. As I looked in that direction, Akula tried to take advantage of the diversion and began dragging himself away along the edge of the pool. In a split-second I took in the fact that the newcomer was Sasha, who dashed in with his Gepard levelled. Before I could move or speak he'd opened up with three short bursts. The first missed, but the second caught the Shark full in the flank. As he rocked on his hands and knees, the third raked him again and toppled him sideways into the pool.

Behind me, from the changing cubicle he'd been in, came a sudden noise and movement and the door flew open. Out burst a young blonde woman, stark naked, holding a pistol in her right hand.

Before she could pull the trigger, Sasha cut her down with a burst into her back from point-blank range.

He was on a total high, uncontrollably violent, half mad. He fired two more bursts into the ceiling, splintering the planks, and rushed up to me with a triumphant roar of "ZHEORDIE! WE KEELL THEM ALL!"

With a couple of bounds he reached the edge of the pool. The man's body was half-floating, face-down in the water, feet on the bottom. Blood had flooded out all round it, staining the water, dark red close in, paler farther out.

"Akula in the water!" Sasha shouted.

"Breelliant! We make him kneel! We make him swim!" Again he let drive a burst into the body, causing it to bob violently up and down.

Men came pounding into the room. Our guys. One, two, three.

"Out!" yelled one of them.

"The place is on fire. Gotta go downwards."

"Here!" I pointed towards the door.

All five of us flew down the concrete stairs and through the wooden door. The inner store-room was empty. The hostages had gone.

Outside, the impact of frosty air cooled all of us down. I realised I'd been on just as vicious a high as Sasha.

As we drew away from the building and up the hill, we could see flames raging inside the ground-floor windows. Then a great tongue of fire burst out of the roof. Out of breath, I got down — on one knee, jabbed my press el and called, "Pat?"

"Yes?"

"Geordie here. I'm east of the building. Where are you?"

"Straight above the villa. The Chinooks are coming in."

"Great. Is there a medic on board?"

"Should be. I asked for one."

"The hostages are in a bad way.

"OK. RV on the helipad, soonest."

"Roger."

We started through the trees, but we'd only gone a few yards when another explosion burst out above us. I heard later that the guys in Party C saw somebody sneak up into the cockpit of the Alouette, so they put a 66 rocket into its fuel tank.

The fireball lit up the trees all around. By the time we reached the scene the chopper was blazing from end to end. There was no chance of shifting the wreck quickly.

Over the radio I heard Pat call the Chinook captain and redirect him to the LZ in the forest.

By now some of our guys had wrapped Pay and Toad in space blankets and sleeping bags and lashed them into nylon stretchers. There followed a desperate struggle, as relays of us carried them along the rough mountainside, bundled them over the wire and lugged them away through the forest.

Towards the end we could hear the Chinooks circling. Then rounds began to go down behind us and bullets came cracking through the trees.

By the time we reached the edge of the field we were sweating like pigs. One man, in the lead, ran out and shone a torch to bring the first Chinook in. At the same moment I heard Pat calling the second to put down an air strike

"Into the trees!" he was shouting.

"One hundred metres west of the LZ. One hundred metres and farther."

The air was full of the heavy, thudding beat of big rotors.

Through that came the violent racket of a chain-gun, putting down rounds at an incredible speed, making a noise almost like a chainsaw.

The next thing I knew, one chopper was coming in. The pilot put his nose down right on the torch. A storm of snow was thrashed into the air by the down draught We ran through it with our burdens, straight up the lowered ramp. Within seconds everyone was on board and counted, and we were lifting away.

Kneeling between the casualties, I got my back to Toad and shouted, "Pay. It's me Geordie."

When he answered, "Where've you fucking well been, you old bastard?" I knew he was well switched on.

"Pay," I said.

"What did they do to Toad?"

"Bolt cutters," he replied.

"One finger at a time."

"Ah, Jesus! How many's he lost?"

"Dunno. Four maybe."

"Bloody hell. Listen, what did he tell them about the device?"

"Nothing.

"Is that right?"

"Absolutely nothing. Toad was bloody brilliant."

"So they don't know about Apple?"

"Not a whisper."

"Thank God for that."