The Kremlin Device

FOUR

We had the weekend clear for our own preparation, then on Monday morning we set off for Heathrow myself, Whinger and Rick. Obviously the commander and second in command had to go, and we selected Rick as a third partly because he was one of our signallers he and Pete Pascoe were level when it came to radio work but mainly because he was our best linguist. He had an incredible knack of picking up languages informally, learning wherever he went: already he spoke French and German, and Russian seemed to be giving him no problems.

In the event, our flight was delayed for nearly three hours by technical problems one aircraft went tits-up on the runway, and another had to be brought into service with the result that the whole day seemed to disappear, and dusk was already settling on the land by the time British Airways' flight 262 began its descent into Sheremetyevo.

In the distance and far below us on the starboard side of the plane, I saw lights glowing in the dark, and as we came closer I realised I could see the whole of Moscow enclosed within a single ring of illumination.

"Look at that," I said to Whinger.

"Ten million people inside that circle. Can you imagine it?"

"Yeah, and a couple of well-placed nukes would finish most of the bastards."

"Come on," I laughed.

"They're our friends now.

But there wasn't much sign of that when we landed. We were travelling on civilian passports made out in our own names, and so had to go through Immigration along with everyone else. The hall was hot and dimly lit. Everything looked dirty and dilapidated walls, doors, lights, the local staff Worst of all was the ceiling, close over our heads, which looked as if someone had nailed ten thousand copper saucepans to it, rims downward.

"Jesus!" I said quietly.

"This is worse than Africa."

For forty minutes we sweated shoulder-to-shoulder with passengers from other flights, shuffling forward like snails in queues that stretched towards the booths manned by the immigration officials. As we inched closer, I saw that the lady we were heading for could have walked straight off the set of a James Bond movie: grey uniform with lieutenant's bars on the shoulders, a mane of long, straight streaky blonde hair and hal finch false eyelashes.

Finally reaching her booth, I summoned up my best Russian and said, "Dobriye ve cher

She glared at me, glared at my passport, glared at her video monitor and punched my details into her computer terminal, then shoved my documents back across the shelf without a word. It was definitely the wrong time of the month for her.

"Friendly lot," Whinger observed as he came through behind me.

"Roll on the fucking Customs!"

To our surprise, they gave us no trouble. We took the green channel and nobody even looked in our direction. On the far side of the screen a swarm of taxi-drivers engulfed us, all shouting and trying to snatch our luggage; but through the middle of them came Sasha, dressed in civvies and smiling as he shouldered the mob aside. I recognised his shirt as one of the pair we'd bought in Hereford.

He greeted us warmly and led us out to a battered grey saloon which he'd parked on the pavement. We put our hold-alls into the boot and climbed aboard, myself in the front, the other guys in the back. Because the hinges had worked loose, it took three slams to make my door shut securely.

"I am sorry," Sasha said as he drove off "You are in Intourist Hotel."

"What's wrong with that?"

He let go of the wheel to spread his hands.

"Not nice. We wanted the Moskva, but no rooms.

"Oh, well. It's only two nights." To change the subject I asked, "What sort of a car is this?"

"It is Volga. Old, old. I would like to buy new one, something good. But that would be too dangerous. And why? Because the Mafia would take it. One day, in a traffic jam, my mother is driving it, she sees two gun-machines in her ears, this side and that side.

"Give me the keys." Finish."

"Can't the police do anything?"

"Police!" He shot me a hopeless look.

"They are worst. They are cowards. And anyway, half of them are paid by Mafia."

The highway into town was wide but rough: four lanes in each direction, treacherously pitted with dips and potholes. I realised that when Sasha had described the Russian roads as diabolical he hadn't been exaggerating. We were really getting thrown around and this on one of the main thoroughfares. We were also being overtaken on both sides simultaneously: anybody with a reasonably fast foreign car was weaving in and out of the traffic like a lunatic.

Set back on either side of the road were terrible, drab tower blocks of flats, nine or ten storeys tall. Closer to the road, oldfashioned hoardings carried advertisements, many for Western products. When I spotted some familiar red and yellow colours and slowly picked out the Cyrillic letters for McDonald's I couldn't help grinning at my own linguistic prowess.

It took us fifty minutes to reach the city centre, the traffic thickening all the time. I noticed several good-looking older buildings, mostly pale yellow with green copper roofs, but the general run of architecture was abysmal. Then, as we were crawling downhill along another broad street, Sasha pointed ahead and announced, "There is Kremlin."

I peered out through the relatively clean area of the windscreen and saw in the distance a red star glowing on top of a steeply pointed tower. Only that one corner of the citadel was in sight, but even so my neck prickled. Here was the centre of Russian power, the focal point of a vast country, the power-base that had dominated world politics for all our lifetimes. If ever there was to be a breakdown of relations between Russia and the West, this was where it would start.

A moment later Sasha pulled the car over in front of a tall, faceless, modern high-rise building on the right-hand side of the road, and parked end-on to the kerb.

"Hotel Intourist," he announced.

"I help you check in."

Outside the entrance a few rough-looking young men were standing around, all smoking; they were hard to see clearly, but whenever the glow of a cigarette lit up a face, I didn't like the look of it. They could have been taxi-drivers, yet their presence seemed vaguely threatening.

The little glass-walled lobby was full of security men half a dozen overweight, slovenly guys with pistols in holsters. The women staffing the reception desk were wearing bright red tunics pin-striped with white a cheerful touch which wasn't matched by any warmth of greeting. One of them gave us forms to complete and moved off towards her office without a word, carrying our passports.

"When do we get them back?" I asked.

"Tomorrow."

Her lack of common civility pissed me off I can't believe all the women in Moscow are having their periods right now, I thought. Then I heard Sasha saying, "Programme for tomorrow: eight-thirty, I collect you and drive to Balashika for inspection of camp. OK?"

I nodded.

"Four o'clock, visit to British Embassy. Meeting with Charge d'Affaires. Also meet your interpreter and liaison officer. At Embassy, same time."

"Fine."

I thanked him for collecting us, and he was gone.

Our rooms were on the fifteenth floor 1512, 1513 and 1514.

We went up in the lift, sharing it with a couple of overweight Yanks, a man and a woman, obviously on vacation.

"Been to the Kremlin yet?" the man asked in a southern accent.

I shook my head.

"Only just arrived."

"One helluva monument, that place. Sure is. How long are you guys here for?"

"Couple of days."

A quick inspection revealed that all our rooms were the same: small, hot and stuffy, without air-conditioning, and with only the small upper section of the windows op enable In the tiny bathrooms the tiles were cracked and yellowing, the grout between them black with grime. As Sasha had warned us, there were no plugs in the baths or basins… and suddenly fuck it — I realised I'd left mine behind. I took a quick look round the bedroom for signs of hidden microphones, and although I couldn't see anything I felt sure they were there. We'd already agreed that there'd be no shop talk in the hotel.

"Grotsville," exclaimed Rick as he emerged into the passage.

"You said it. Have you got your money on you? Don't leave it in there, whatever you do."

"Got it." He slapped his bum-bag which he had pulled round to the front, over his stomach.

"You look like that fat git we came up with."

"Spasibo, mate."

"Let's stretch our legs," Whinger suggested.

"Eyeball the Kremlin."

That seemed like a good plan. It was already 9:45 local time, but only 6:45 by our biological clocks, and since we'd eaten on the plane we didn't feel any need for food. Besides, I knew that the British Embassy was somewhere close by, just across the Moscow River from the Kremlin, and I reckoned we might as well suss it out, as I was going to have to report there regularly during our operation.

On our way down in the lift Rick suddenly started shitting himself with laughter.

"What's so bloody amusing?" Whinger said irritably.

"Some cunt left a menu from one of the restaurants in my room. The stuff on offer is incredible."

"Like what?"

'"Needles in meat sauce", for one. Then there was "frog's paws in paste"."

"That's frog's legs in batter," Whinger told him.

"I know but think of it…"

It was a fine evening for a stroll: the sky was clear and the air cool. Out on the pavement, we elbowed through the sc rum of taxi drivers and walked down the slope towards Red Square. The street was so wide and the traffic was moving so fast that the subway seemed the best way to cross. We went down some steps into a concrete tunnel, past young people bus king and old women begging, and up the other side. A minute later we were walking uphill on another short, broad thoroughfare and emerging on to the huge open expanse of Red Square.

"Never realised it was cobbled," said Whinger.

"Nor that it was so big."

It gave me a strange feeling to be looking at buildings I'd seen a thousand times in pictures. As a young soldier, during my early years in the army, I'd spent hours in classrooms doing recognition training, staring at black-and-white slides of Soviet tanks and missiles until we could pick out T54s, T64s and T72s in our sleep and name all the main types of ICBM. The place all these weapons were photographed most often was Red Square, during big parades on the anniversary of the 1917 revolution and suchlike so now the buildings in the background were like echoes from the past.

Rick's mind was moving on the same lines.

"Think of all the military hardware that's rolled along here," he said.

On our right the low, squat hulk of Lenin's mausoleum sat hunched against the wall of the Kremlin. Wherever a light was shining on the wall, we could see it was made of dark red brick.

"Funny there aren't any guards on the mausoleum," said Whinger.

"You'd expect there to be some official presence. Isn't it a national shrine?"

"Not any more," Rick told him.

"I read on the Internet that they're arguing about what to do with the old bugger. The diehards are all for keeping him, but a lot of people want him out."

"Burning'd be too good for that bastard," said Whinger bitterly, surprising me with the anger in his voice.

"If anyone sent the Russian government a bill demanding compensation for all the misery he and his bloody ideas have caused, this country'd be bankrupt for the next thousand years.

"That's why they're not paying the Regiment anything for our job here," I said.

"All the funds are coming from the States or the

UK."

Ahead of us in the distance rose the multi-coloured onion domes of St. Basil's Cathedral, some striped horizontally, some vertically, some segmented like the skins of pineapples. Even I, ignorant as I am about church architecture, sensed that there was something wild and barbaric in those amazing shapes and colours.

"What about that German kid who landed a light plane here?" said Whinger.

"Some feat, that. I bet it made them cut about a bit. The Russkies must have been fairly shitting themselves when they found out how easily he'd got through their de fences without the aircraft even being called."

"Rust, his name was," I said.

"Mathias Rust. He landed up the slope." I pointed ahead.

"That means he must have come in from that direction, towards us. Didn't the cheeky bugger get a job at some travel agency in Moscow, once he'd come out of gaol? I think so. It just shows how times change."

Soon we were walking down the gentle hill past St. Basil's. At the bottom we found a bridge over the river, and decided to cross to the other side, so we'd be able to look back across the water and get a view of the Kremlin. We cleared the steps on the far bank, and had just started walking, the river on our right, when Rick said quietly, "We've got a tail."

"Sure?" I asked.

"Pretty much. He's been with us at least since the bottom of the square."

"Keep walking, then. When we get to that bench, we'll sit down and see what he does."

On the embankment a hundred yards in front, a metal bench faced out over the water. When we reached it, I sat on one end, took off a shoe and proceeded to shake out imaginary bits of grit.

Up on Red Square there had been plenty of people wandering about. Down here by the river the wide road was deserted, and our follower stood out like a spare prick.

"He's stopped," Rick announced.

"He's leaning over the wall."

"Let's tip the bastard in," said Whinger.

"It could be someone Sasha's laid on to keep an eye on us, Rick suggested.

"Hardly," I said.

"I don't think he'd do that. More likely a common-or-garden mugger. He could have mates waiting up ahead, though. He may be trying to push us towards them. We'd better sort him."

Whinger agreed so we strolled forward, slower than before, then suddenly turned and began walking fast towards our pursuer. He'd started after us again, and it seemed to take him a moment to realise what was happening. Then he also turned round and began to scuttle off By now we were running, and we were on to him in a flash.

Whinger and I each went for an arm and grabbed him, bringing him to a rapid halt. We couldn't see him too clearly in the lamplight, but he looked a swarthy lad of twenty-odd, with a bit of a ragged beard, wearing a check shirt and a thin jacket of some dark material. He was angry, but also scared.

"What the hell d'you think you're doing?" I snapped.

He let fly a stream of Russian, of which I understood not a word. Rick said something in Russian, and he spat out an answer. Then he started to struggle, and for a moment I was afraid he was going to scream to attract attention. I got my handkerchief rumpled in a ball, to stuff in his mouth if he opened it any wider, but already Rick was frisking him, and in seconds came up with a nasty, slim-bladed knife which he held in front of the guy's face.

That made his eyeballs rotate and quietened him nicely.

"Into the river," I said, and Rick flipped the weapon over the wall. We heard the splash as it hit the water.

"No mobile phone or radio?"

Rick shook his head.

"No wallet or money either."

"In that case he's probably after ours."

Suddenly I remembered one of the unofficial phrases Valentina had taught us. Valite otsyuda!" told him, and indicated the direction he could go back the way we'd come.

He got the message, no problem. As we released him, he shook himself like a dog and set off without a word. I saw that he had a bit of a limp, dipping slightly on his right leg. We watched until he had disappeared up the steps by the bridge, then we carried on along the river.

"What did he say, Rick?"

"Just that he was out for a walk."

"Like hell he was.

Rick was the most observant member of our party. He had a terrific knack of noticing any small object or incident that was out of line, and his memory for faces was phenomenal: even a year or more after an event he'd remember a person's appearance. Sometimes it took him a minute or two to place them, but then the setting and date would come back. I'm sure his skill derived partly from all the surveillance work he'd done in Northern Ireland, and often it stood us in good stead.

"Where did he pick us up?" I asked.

"Was he outside the hotel?"

Rick shook his head.

"I don't think so. He must have been hanging around on Red Square."

Away to our right, across the river, the floodlit Kremlin was a magnificent sight, but we were feeling too unsettled by the incident to appreciate it fully.

"I can see three possible explanations," I said.

"One, he was after our money. Two, Sasha detailed him to check where we went. Three, he was a Mafia dicker. I don't like any of them. If he was just a mugger, it goes to show how dodgy this place is. If Sasha sent him, it means we're not trusted. If he's Mafia, it means we may have been rumbled already."

I was getting jumpy. I remembered how the Colombians had had dickers posted at all the airports, photographing people as they arrived off the planes. Someone had told me that the secret police got hold of the flight manifests, and that by using computers they were able to match up passengers with pictures, so they could keep tabs on every single visitor to the country.

We walked on, until we became aware of a handsome, old style building set back from the road behind a courtyard on our left, and flanked by two matching outliers, evidently part of the complex. Beside the gate, in a grey pillbox, were two Russian guards in uniform, chatting, smoking, looking bored and not paying attention. Behind them, further in, was a stone gatehouse containing a guy in a red jumper who sat at a desk behind a glass screen.

"Bet that's a Brit," I said.

"He's a bit more alert. He'll be controlling the electronic gates and the phones."

"Look on the roof," said Rick, 'left-hand corner. There's an infra-red light. They must have good security systems."

We crossed the street towards the gates, where a brass plaque announced that the building was the British Embassy. The discovery made me feel a little better: at least we'd carried out one small but useful research task.

We recrossed the river by the next bridge, watching our rear all the way, and returned to base along the north side of the Kremlin, past the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where a perpetual gas flame burned out of a horizontal slab, and a cloak made of bronze lay folded over a plinth. We paid our respects and walked on.

Then, only a minute or two away from the hotel, we were nearly caught up in a violent incident. Fifty yards ahead, facing us, a single car was parked against the kerb. Suddenly a grey van hurtled past us from behind. Tyres screeched as it scorched to a halt inches in front of the car, blocking any take-off From the van burst four figures in uniform militiamen, by the look of them. They ran at the car, ripped the doors open and dragged out the driver and passengers.

In seconds the three guys from the car were spreadeagled over their own vehicle, taking heavy punishment from batons. Then one of the uniformed men stood back in the road and fired a couple of short bursts from his sub-machine gun, aiming into the air over the river. His purpose seemed to be to scare the shit out of the targets and I wondered where the bullets were landing in this huge city. As if to emphasise what he thought of his victims, another militiaman ran in and swung his boot, delivering a fierce kick to one of the huddled bodies, catching the man in the small of the back, whereupon he sank to the ground with a groan.

My instinct was to back off as fast as possible. Whinger evidently felt the same, and hissed in my ear, "Keep walking!"

This was nothing to do with us, and we definitely didn't want to get involved. So we crossed to the far pavement and kept going.

The last we saw, one of the three had been dragged into the van and driven off, leaving the others slumped in the gutter by their vehicle.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Whinger muttered.

"Were they the cops, or hooligans pretending to be cops?"

"I bet those were some of the guys we're going to have to train," said Rick cheerfully.

The brawl had made me yet more edgy, and for the last few hundred yards to the hotel, we speeded up. The approach was thronged by hangers-around, but as far as we could see the crowd didn't include our friend who'd lost his knife. Still, I was relieved when we'd pushed through and were back inside.

By now it was nearly 11:00 p.m." and Whinger spoke for all of us when he said, "Let's get a pint, for Christ's sake."

We'd already spotted a bar on the third floor, so we took the lift up. Whinger stepped out first on to the landing, and he was hardly through the door before I heard him go, "Phworrhh!

Firekin ell!"

"What is it?" I rushed out and instantly saw: leaning against the wall was the most blatant hooker I'd ever set eyes on — fishnet stockings, black leather skirt nine inches long, white blouse open to the navel, blazing scarlet lipstick, hair a dark, coppery colour she was never born with. As we passed within a couple of feet of her she let out a long jet of cigarette smoke through pursed lips and gave us a cool, arrogant stare of appraisal.

"Jesus!" Whinger muttered as we turned along a corridor.

"How was that for an old slag? She could be quite a looker if she wasn't so plastered in make-up."

"Rather you than me, mate," I said.

"Wait a minute, though.

You're not exactly strapped for choice."

The entrance to the bar was ahead of us, at the end of the landing; in front of the doorway lurked three more women, all peroxide blondes, all smoking. We pushed past them into a dark cavern thudding with a disco beat and headed for the bar on our right.

"Pivo, pozhaluista," I said, trying out two of my best words.

"Tn."

"Three beers?" said the barman in good-sounding English.

I nodded, and he pulled three tall glasses of Heineken, the only brand on offer. The beer was OK, but it cost the equivalent of k3 apiece.

As our eyes became accustomed to the dim light, we realised that the whole room was heaving with hookers, all dressed in minimalist kit. Two were dancing with each other under strobe lights on a small circular floor in the centre; the rest were sitting at tables or standing against the walls, gyrating in time with the beat. A quick head-count put the total at sixteen. The three other men present were paying them no attention whatsoever.

Soon it was clear that Rick had spotted someone he fancied. I saw him getting eye contact, and his gaze kept wandering off across the room.

"Bloody hell!" he muttered.

"There's going to be some crack when the rest of the lads get here." Then he said, "Look at that, too."

Above my head and behind me, on a high shelf in the corner, sat a television set. I turned to look at it, and saw a guy, with his bare arse to the camera, humping a woman, going at her hammer and tongs.

When I turned back, the two girls had left the dance floor and their place had been taken by a single, pasty-faced man. The guy, who looked to be in his twenties, was pissed out of his mind. He could still just about stand upright, but he staggered whenever he tried to walk. Lurching, faltering, tripping over his own feet, he seemed oblivious to his surroundings, but at the same time hell-bent on staging a grotesque solo dance.

Only when he started a strip-tease did he become too much for the management. Two security heavies hustled in and took him away.

We had another round of beers, watched the hookers vainly circulating, and then decided to get our heads down. At least, Whinger and I did. Rick said he was staying on for one more round.

"Watch yourself," Whinger told him.

"This place is hopping with Aids."

"How d'you know?"

"I can smell it."

Out in the corridor we were accosted by yet another pair of tarts, one dark, one fair. The blonde came straight for me, stopped a foot away and said, "We go to the bedroom."

It was a statement, not a question. I twisted a smile into position and said, "No thanks. I'm happy."

"I make you more happy." She moved even closer and ran her fingers down my chest.

"It's OK." I gestured towards Whinger.

"I'm with a friend."

"All four go to the bedroom." She pointed at her companion.

The blonde was slim and quite pretty, with a good set of tits on her, but the dark girl was a nightmare, flat chested, and with a complexion like the surface of the moon. I shook my head, pushed past them and made it to the lift.

Safe inside my room so I thought I had a shower and stretched out on the bed to watch CNN news.

The next thing I knew, the phone was ringing. The light and the TV were still on. I looked at my watch: 1:30.

I picked up the receiver.

"Meester Sharp?" It was a woman s voice.

"I think you are lonely."

"Am I hell!" I spluttered.

"Get lost. Valite otsuda!"

I slammed the phone down, switched everything off and lay down again.

Fifteen storeys below, traffic was still surging along Tverskaya. Opposite my window, huge, bright neon advertisements for Panasonic and Technics blazed on the top of another high-rise building. What a place, I thought. What a shit-heap: overrun by commercialism, yet scruflV as hell. Nowhere else in the world had I ever known such unpleasant vibrations: nowhere had I sensed so clearly that if I got into trouble, nobody would help or protect me. When the rest of the team came out, we were going to have to take care.

Back in Hereford Valentina had told us all about babushkas literally grannies the old ladies who do menial jobs like sweeping the streets, shovelling snow and sitting at desks on the landings of big hotels. Sasha had mentioned how they also run little kiosk shops and sell illicit vodka to soldiers.

Whinger and I clocked our first specimen when we went down for breakfast: eighteen stone if she was a pound, with eyes set too close together in a huge pudding of a face, and a stack of violet-tinted grey hair piled six or eight inches above her head.

On the wall behind her was a notice half in English, half Russian: CONTINENTAL ZAVTRAK: 50 ROUBLES, and the babushka's function was to intercept people on their way to the dining room and take the number of their room, so that she could make sure no one sneaked in twice or let somebody else in on their ticket.

Breakfast was self-service: rolls, bread, butter, jam, cheese and so on. There were sachets of instant coffee, tea-bags and a big samovar of boiling water with a tap that spat on your fingers when you turned it. We helped ourselves and went to sit at a table in the outer room. The little packets of butter were Finnish, the redcurrantjam German; the local bread was dry and papery, and the cheese, presumably home-made too, tasted of nothing.

But I wasn't in critical mood. I'd slept pretty well, it was a fine morning, and I was looking forward to seeing the camp.

Whinger was also in good nick. He too had had a midnight call, but he'd sensibly seen it off Then in came Rick, face pale, T-shirt on back-to-front.

"Rough night? What time did you hit the pit?"

"Dunno," he mumbled.

"Had a couple more drinks."

"Don't try bullshitting us," I warned.

"I know what you were hanging around for."

He leered.

"Don't tell me you… Bloody hell! Which one was it?"

"That little blonde in the corner." He blushed scarlet, then said, "Wait a minute."

He put two sachets of sugar into his black tea and got a couple of mouthfuls down him. Then he said, "Natasha, she's called."

Whinger went, "You bastard! How much did she take you for?"

"Nothing."

'What? Come on.

"Honest. She wants help."

"I should think she bloody well does after you've been through her a few times."

"It's not that. It's her sister."

Whinger and I looked at each other. Then Rick began to explain.

Natasha's home was in Rostov-on-Don, a thousand miles south of Moscow, he said. She was eighteen, a student, and supposed to be starting her autumn term at university. But like hundreds of other provincial girls she'd done a runner and come to the capital to earn some money and make a better life for herself. And along with all the rest, she'd fallen into the clutches of the Mafia.

"The point is, she's shit-scared," Rick went on.

"They all are.

They have to hand over half their earnings. If they don't pay, they're liable to have their faces carved up."

"Is that what's happened to the sister?"

"Not yet. But she's deep in it. Irma, she's called. She went to New York on the job, with a friend, but both of them got caught up in a money-laundering racket run by the Mafia. Apparently it's got a hold on the States like a tick in a dog's arse."

"So what was this slag doing?" Whinger asked.

"Something in a restaurant. There's drug money pouring through: she has to bank it and make out phoney bills for meals that nobody's eaten. Last week the friend got murdered, and now Irma thinks she's for it too."

"And what is the great, all-shagging, all-conquering hero supposed to do about it?" Whinger shot a steely look across the table.

Rick scrubbed his eyes.

"Natasha wants me to rescue her sister."

"Fucking roll on!" Whinger cried in alarm, so loud that a Japanese couple at the next table jumped in their seats.

"Who does she think you are?"

"Part of a film company. Don't worry I stuck to the cover.

It's just that, because I'm a Brit and have dollars, she thinks I can whip across to America, sort the Mafia and bring her little sister safely home."

"What did you tell her?" I pushed back my chair.

"How did you get rid of her?"

"I haven't yet. She's still there."

"Where?"

"In the bed."

"Bloody hell! For Christ's sake, Rick she's nothing but a whore. Otherwise she wouldn't be in a dump like this."

"No, no," he protested.

"She's a really nice kid."

"What did she do to you?" Whinger asked sarcastically.

"She emptied your head as well as your balls."

Sasha was in the foyer at 8:30, still in civilian clothes, evidently not wanting to show any military presence in the hotel. Leaving the others, I got up, greeted him and walked him over into the area near the ground-floor bar, where a few tables and chairs were so widely scattered round the large atrium that I felt sure they couldn't be covered by microphones.

"These girls," I began.

"The ones that hang around the hotel.

What basis are they on?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I mean, are they employed by the hotel, or what?"

"No, no Mafia. All Mafia. You have a problem?"

"Just that Rick laid one of them last night."

"Does he not pay her? She is angry?"

"No she's OK."

"And he doesn't tell her who he is?"

"No, no.

"In such case, not to worry."

"All right, then. One other thing…" I described the incidents on the embankment first our own little set-to, then the heavy hit.

Immediately Sasha was apologetic.

"This man nothing to do with me," he insisted.

"Nothing." From the way he reacted, I knew he was telling the truth.

"No sweat," I said.

"We didn't lose anything. As long as the wrong people don't know we're here."

He shook his head.

"It was only small thief Teepical Moscow.

Zheordie, I am sorry.

"In that case, forget it. But what about the bust?"

"Probably this was Omon. They get information of criminals in the car. Maybe they hear them on their radio."

"Their methods aren't exactly subtle."

He shrugged.

"Moscow is very violent place."

"Well, we're all in one piece so far. Idyomr He smiled, like he always did when I hit a Russian word accurately, and said, "Let's go.

I piled into the front passenger seat of his car, the other two got in the back. As Sasha pulled into the traffic, he announced, "One more dead."

"Who? Where?"

"On radio news this morning. The boss of Russavto, big car import, shot dead in his Mercedes. Or maybe roasted. They found the car burning on Komsomolskaya Square."

"Mafia?" I asked.

"Of course."

"What did he do to annoy them?"

"Refuse to pay money — just how I told you.

"The women in the hotel," I said.

"How do they get in there? I mean, is the hotel supporting them?"

"I tell you, all Mafia-controlled."

"Yes but d'you mean the hotel or the girls?"

"Both."

I looked round at Rick and said, "You'd better watch yourself, mate. You don't want to fuck this whole job just because of one hooker. You could end up floating down the Moscow River."

We were heading out of town towards the east. The traffic going our way wasn't too bad, but the incoming stream was diabolical: crossing after crossing gridlocked, drivers hooting.

When I remarked on it, Sasha said, "Moscow traffic goes to collapse. It is impossible."

After I'd asked about the make of a car in front of us, he was quick to point out others.

"That is big-engine Volga. This is tenth-model Lada. This is Zhigudi." Then he added contemptuously, "Nobody want Russian cars." What he coveted, I could see, was a BMW or a Mercedes, a few of which nosed through the rush-hour crawl, sleek and well-polished.

As we drew away from a set of lights, he said, "Now we are on Shosse Entusiastov." He turned to me with a grin.

"All revolutionaries who must go to prison use this street!" He saw me looking puzzled and went on, "Why? Because in Communist era all people sentenced to gaol passed along this highway to the gulags. They never return! Nobody return! The street goes to Siberia."

Our journey took less than an hour, and as we drove the morning began to brighten: the air was quite warm, and as the cloud thinned we started getting glimpses of blue sky. After a scatter of new high-rise blocks on the outskirts of the city, we passed under the ring-road whose lights we'd seen from the air, and suddenly Moscow was at an end. The land here was dead flat; enormous fields stretched away on either side, apparently uncultivated, covered in rough grass, punctuated with tussocks a couple of feet high. Then, on our right, we started passing a forest which exactly matched my expectations of Russia: tall, slender silver birches with bark mottled white and grey rising among dark green pines, giving a pleasantly open texture to the wood.

I was admiring the trees when I realised that a uniformed man had walked out into the road ahead and was flagging us down with a black-and-white baton.

"What's the matter?" I asked quickly.

"It is nothing." Sasha sounded unmoved.

"Only GAl, the traffic police, making checks."

He pulled in to the verge, and the cop came to the window. He wore a grey uniform with a thin red stripe down the seam of the trousers. Sasha wound down his window and started to give the policeman a bollocking. Even I could understand what he was saying: that he was an army officer on an important mission and had no time to piss about. But the cop gave him as good as he got, and after a minute Sasha gave a sigh.

"Isvinite. He demands my documents. One minute, please."

Muttering under his breath, Sasha leant across me to extract an envelope from the dashboard pocket, got out of the car and followed the man into the flat-topped concrete hut at the side of the highway. Waiting, we had time to take in the decrepit surroundings: the road's edge churned up, rutted mud beyond the tarmac, heaps of rusting metal lying about, broken drainpipes dumped in a heap.

"What it is," said Whinger thoughtfully, 'is the size of this godforsaken country. At home everything's neat and tidy because we have so little space. Here there's millions and millions of fucking acres, and it doesn't matter if you scatter rubbish about."

Five minutes later Sasha returned, sliding papers back into his folder.

"Forged documents," he said as he started up.

"Always they are looking for forged licences. People sell them for fifty dollars."

"Are these the regular police, then?"

"No GAl only traffic."

We drove on. Soon I saw a large sign which I could read easily: BAIASHIKA. Behind it, set back from the road and running parallel with it, was a wall of concrete sections topped by coils of barbed wire. The solid part of the barrier was about two metres tall, so that it effectively blocked the view of everything beyond.

"Here is the camp," Sasha announced.

"Very big."

Certainly the wall ran for miles. On and on it went, broken at one point by a single-track railway line, but even there baffles of concrete slabs set at angles made it impossible to see inside.

At last Sasha slowed and we drew up at what was obviously the main entrance: a double gateway with sliding barriers of heavy metal bars forged in squares, and flat-roofed guard rooms on either side. The roadway was pitted, the buildings badly finished, the wall cracked where it was propped by pillars. Twisting round in my seat, I glanced at Whinger and saw that his reaction was the same as mine: the place had an instantly depressing atmosphere.

When I look back on that day, I realise that from the start I had a feeling of foreboding about our whole operation. There was no friction of any kind indeed, our hosts were friendly and welcoming but the squalor of the barrack blocks and the primitive nature of the training facilities made me dread spending two months in such surroundings. Get a grip, Geordie, I kept telling myself What matters is the training. You can put up with anything for eight or nine weeks.

As soon as we were inside the camp, Sasha disappeared briefly and came back dressed in DPM fatigues, without badges of rank, but with the emblem of a tiger's head on his left lapel.

On duty, we soon saw, his manner changed: he became sharper, more efficient and that gave me confidence. He introduced us to a couple of fellow officers who seemed good enough guys, with a positive, open approach but they spoke hardly any English, and at this first meeting their names didn't stick.

It was Sasha who showed us round and explained the facilities. I said nothing as we toured the camp, because in the Regiment you work with whatever assets you've got, and don't start criticising others when they are doing their best. But I couldn't help noticing that most of what we saw was way out of date: again and again I was reminded of conditions when I'd joined the army nearly twenty years before.

The camp had its good points, one of which was space.

Beyond the drill squares, the barrack blocks and other buildings, the land ran straight out into ranges and training areas. Several thousand acres were taken in by the surrounding wall, which struck away through the forest at the back and disappeared out of sight. You could drive or even walk to the various ranges without leaving the base's perimeter.

At the Killing House, our hosts put on a demonstration of hostage rescue no doubt in return for the one we'd given Sasha at home.

As Sasha warned me, their building was nothing but a hollow square formed out of old lorry tyres filled with sand and cement and stacked on each other to make walls about eight feet high.

Because the room had no roof and was open to the elements, we had a good view down into it from our vantage point on the observation tower. As at Hereford, the guards either side of the prisoner were represented by figure targets, much the same as our own, but the hostage between them, far from being a live human being, was only a dummy.

When the assault went down, the explosive charge failed to blow the barricaded door first time, and when the assaulters opened up with their sub-machine guns, instead of firing a couple of short bursts, they sprayed the inside of the house with dozens of rounds. The entire exercise was marked by a lack of precision. There was also a worrying lack of emphasis on safety.

The assaulters had no flame-proof clothing like our black gear, only standard DPMs and as the day warmed up I saw several guys remove the heavy Kevlar plates from the fronts and backs of their flak-jackets. Without the plates the jackets would stop secondary impacts like ricochets, but not live rounds. And whereas at home we always have a fully equipped ambulance standing by, manned by two paramedics, the Russians had nothing but an ancient meat-wagon, with jack-shit kit on board and only two squad dies in control.

Sasha seemed amazed when I told him that the SAS had only ever lost one man in the Killing House. Plenty of guys had broken arms and legs when they fell off buildings while abseiling, but in the Killing House itself only one man had died; he'd been shot in the femoral artery and had bled to death in seconds.

"Reelly!" Sasha seemed impressed.

"We lose one or two men a year.

I almost said, "I'm not surprised," but bit it back and made a mental note that safety instruction was going to be at the top of our agenda when the team came out.

Another fundamental decision was about food. For lunch, we were taken to a canteen and ate with the rank and file. The menu was exactly as Sasha had described it in the pub in England: shchi, cabbage soup with lumps of gristle floating in it, black and white bread. The soup was OK if you avoided the gristle, but I could see Whinger's eyeballs rotating.

As soon as we were on our own outside, I said, "We're going to get fucking hungry here."

My spirits sank even lower when we saw what we were being offered for accommodation: the ground floor of a three-storey block which was standing empty and looked as if it hadn't been used in years. There was no shortage of space a dozen rooms of reasonable size led off either side of a central corridor but the building itself was in a disgusting state, with plaster coming away from the concrete-block walls, dirty cream paint flaking off, and yellowing newspapers strewn about the bare cement floors. The security was shite, as well: no locks on the doors, and several window panes broken.

Sasha saw the way my mind was working and said, "We get it cleaned up. No bother."

"Yes, please and some means of securing the doors. We're going to want beds, too."

"How many?"

"Eight no, better make it ten." I adjusted my estimate as I counted in the scalies.

As we left to return to the city, we took a short drive round the town of Balashika and that depressed us even more. The road verges were sheets of dried mud, flanked by blocks of flats made from hideous yellow brick, with badly fitting windows and cracks gaping in the walls. We looked in vain for shops — and as for a pub, the idea that one might exist in such a place seemed like a bad joke.

We were driving against the tide of traffic once more, and in less than an hour we were alongside the river, passing the spot where the knife had gone over the wall and pulling up outside the gates of the British Embassy.

Sasha, who had changed back into his civvies, glanced at his watch and announced with satisfaction, "Three hours fifty eight

The security guards had been briefed to expect us. The first two Russians checked our documents. The inner post was manned by a Brit, as I'd predicted. He spoke a few words into his radio, then directed Sasha to drive on across the courtyard and round the left-hand side of the main building. Behind the inner post was another open space with an attractive garden, a hard tennis court and, across the back, a low two-storey building which had obviously once been the stable block belonging to the main house. A forest-green Range Rover was parked in one corner with a small, shiny blue Fiat beside it.

By the time we arrived at the front door a man was already standing outside a tall guy, probably in his early forties, with a shock of thick, grey hair springing forward over his forehead and a bushy moustache to match. He was wearing a white shirt and a navy tie with diagonal stripes that no doubt indicated some fancy school or regiment.

"Sergeant Major Sharp?" He came over and shook hands with a firm grip.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm David Allway, Charge d'Affaires."

"Hello," I said.

"This is Major Ivanov Sasha who's looking after us."

Sasha shook hands and gave a deferential nod in place of a salute. Then I introduced Whinger and Rick.

Allway swept a hand at his forelock, which instantly flopped back into its former position, smiled at everyone and said, "Your liaison officer's here already."

"Great," I said.

"What's his name?"

"Her name…" he paused, smiling again, 'is Colonel Gerasimova. She's waiting in the office. Let's go in."

"Just a second," I said.

"A colonel.. Is she army?"

"No she's from the FSB, a section of the former KGB. On formal occasions they still like to use KGB ranks."

Ah, Jesus, I thought. This is all we need.

If I don't remember much about Allway's office, it's because I was so startled by the appearance and manner of our interpreter. She was dark, with short, straight hair, and very slim — 'lithe' would be a better word, because her movements were quick and elegant. She was wearing a smart suit of cornflower blue linen with a cream-coloured shirt underneath. After so much squalor outside, she was like a vision. When we entered the room she was sitting down, talking to a red-headed secretary, but when she stood up to greet us, I saw she was nearly as tall as me. Her face caught everyone's eyes as we came in: it was a bit too long and narrow to be classically beautiful, but there was something striking about it, especially her big, dark eyes.

"Sergeant Major Sharp? I'm Anna Nikolayevna. Welcome to Moscow!"

"Thanks." I took her hand gently. Her English pronunciation was perfect no trace of an accent and it was refreshing to hear her sound British, rather than American, as most Russians do when speaking English. She smelled pretty good, too: I was getting traces of some scent that I knew but couldn't quite place.

In a few moments we were all sitting at a rectangular table and the secretary was getting a brew on. Aliway sat at one end, on my left, Anna opposite me. She sat back in her chair with her arms folded, very composed, very still, as she listened.

Allway was courteous, brisk and efficient: without any faffing about, he went straight into confirming the details of our schedule.

"You arrive all together next Saturday… the eighth," he said, checking a sheet of notes.

"That's right."

"Transport is by R.A.F C-130, which will fly direct into the strip at Balashika. Arrival at 0030 local time."

"Correct."

"The aircraft will depart as soon as unloading's finished."

"Correct. It's going to refuel in Berlin on the way here, so that it can turn straight round and be gone in the dark."

"Good. Now your personnel."

He began to run through the list of names he had them all correct and at the end I said, "I take it you have secure satellite com ms with the

UK?"

"Of course. I'll give you a list of numbers in a minute. You can call me direct from Hereford and from Balashika, when you get there."

I looked across the table.

"Colonel?"

"Please call me Anna."

"Anna, then. Can you explain what our official status is going to be? I mean, what basis will we be here on?"

Her face, which had been set rather hard, softened into a smile.

"Don't worry. It's all above board. You'll be here as guests of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior, jointly."

"Does anyone outside the armed forces know we're coming?"

"No. There has been no official announcement. Our aim is to protect you from possible interference by criminal elements."

"You mean the Mafia?"

She nodded.

"They would hardly welcome the idea of foreign experts coming to train the new unit.~ "So it's important that we don't get seen or recognised coming and going, or outside the camp?"

"Precisely."

"In that case, what about transport? One or two of us are going to have to liaise with the Embassy. I imagine we'll be coming in and out."

"That's no problem. We'll make a couple of civilian cars available. The only thing is, you'll need driving licences. If you give me your names and details, I'll arrange that."

"Thanks. What if we get stopped by the traffic police?"

"The GAl? There will be no difficulty, provided your documents are in order. We'll fix you up with whatever you need for each vehicle licence, insurance and so on. And I shall give you a number to ring in case any problem arises.

"What about your own involvement? Will you be available in the camp?"

"Of course!" She gave another brief smile.

"At your service."

"Will you sit in on training sessions?"

"I don't know about sitting. I'm planning to take part pretty actively."

"Great. We're going to need you."

The meeting went so smoothly that it lasted only half an hour.

Soon after 4:30, Allway was ushering us out into the courtyard, where a gardener was sweeping up leaves.

"Your English is fantastic," I told Anna as she was departing.

"Where did you learn it so well?"

"I give you three guesses.

"University?"

"Well partly. But really in London. I worked for two years at the Intourist main office in Piccadilly."

"Ah! When were you there?"

"Early eighties. Eighty-two to — three."

A sudden thought came to me.

"No chance of your having supper with us tonight?"

"I'm sorry." She gave a little shake of her head.

"I have a date already."

"Oh well I just thought you could fill us in on background."

"When you're over again, maybe."

"Definitely. I'll look forward to that."

She made for the Fiat, shoe-horned herself neatly into the driving seat and set off "Well," said Aliway.

"So far, so good."

"Yes thanks."

I'd been looking at the old stables at the back of the yard, and they'd given me an idea.

"There's one other thing…"

"Yes?"

"The security on our accommodation block is…" I was on the point of saying it was shite, but ended up saying, 'dodgy. What I mean is, I wonder is there a secure room here in the Embassy that we could use for storage? A garage or something?"

AlIway looked up and said, "What would you want to store?"

"Maybe some of our com ms equipment. On these team tasks we generally have some fairly sensitive kit with us."

"Well as it happens, we've just cleared out part of the cellar, over there." He pointed into one corner.

"It's a bit rough really just a garage.

"As long as it can be locked up..

"Oh yes it's got a steel door. I'll get the key and show you.

He disappeared into the office, came out again, and took us across to a steep ramp leading down to an up-and-over door.

"Ideal," I said after a quick look. The cellar had no windows or other exit and, considering that it was below ground level, it felt remarkably dry.

"This'll be perfect."

"OK then." Allway grinned.

"I'll do my best to keep it empty for you. People and things around here have a habit of expanding to fill any space that becomes available."

We thanked him again and set off to tab back over the bridge to the hotel.

"I give you lift," said Sasha, pointing to his car.

"Thanks," I told him, 'but I'd rather walk."

"Then I say goodbye."

"We'll see you on Sunday morning. And thanks for all you've done for us.

"It is nothing."

With smiles all round, he got into his car and drove off As soon as we were clear of the Embassy gates I said to Whinger, "Anna. Former KGB, for sure. She must have been spying in London. Most of the Russians in England were on the KGB payroll. Certainly most of the diplomats were spies."

Whinger didn't argue.

"Nice try, Geordie," he said.

"What d'you mean?"

"Your eyes were all over her like a rash."

"Piss off, mate," I told him. But secretly I was annoyed with myself for having let my interest show.

Having scored a point, Whinger was relentless.

"On yer bike," he said with a sneer.

"Come again?"

"She's a dyke."

"Could be," I agreed.

"But I don't care what she is. I'm keeping this on a professional basis."