The Kremlin Device

EIGHT

Through my sleep I heard a hammering on our door, and in burst Johnny, shouting, "Geordie, get up! There's a panic on.

For a moment I thought, Christ, the search has started already.

They're turning us out of bed. But at least they can't search the Embassy so sod them.

Across the room Whinger protested from under his pillow, and I groaned, "For fuck's sake what time is it?"

"Six-fifteen," said Johnny.

"It's Sasha. He's desperate to see you.

"Where is he?"

"Here. In the passage.

"Bring him in. Sasha!" I shouted, rolling out of bed.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Sasha appeared in his DPMs, writhing with embarrassment at having crashed into our preserve and finding me naked.

"Zheordie, I am sorry..

"Forget it. What's the problem?"

"We need your help."

"Now?"

"Immediately."

"Tell me, then."

I began pulling on clothes as Sasha spilled his story: how a 'beeg Mafia feesh', self-styled Keet, the Killer "Whale, who normally ruled the roost in Chechnya, had been sighted in Moscow. He and his two brothers, known as Akula (Shark) and Barrakuda, were the godfathers of the Chechen Mafia. Now Keet had been traced to an apartment which belonged to another known criminal in a new, sixteen-storey block in the suburb of Lianozovo, on the northern fringes of the city. His presence in the capital, reported by a tout, offered the authorities a rare chance of getting at him on their own ground.

Senior officers in Omon were anxious to take him out, but they were nervous of the firepower he commanded. Not only did he have a team of four bodyguards armed with sub-machine guns for close-protection; the apartment block in which he'd holed up was equipped with the latest security systems, including closed-circuit television, remote-controlled locks and so on. The whole block was under Mafia control, from the team running the security on the ground floor to the janitors who passed out information about people's comings and goings. In other words, any attempt to storm the building would inevitably end in a major gun battle, probably with a load of casualties, and certainly with more publicity than anyone wanted.

All this Sasha poured out in a rush.

"So I come here," he ended.

"And why? Because Omon ask, can the British experts of the SAS help?"

"Help? How?"

"Make the plan of attack. Give advice."

"Well.. it's not what we're here for."

"Zheordie, I know. But this is special problem."

Poor Sasha looked so anxious that I almost laughed. I turned to look at Whinger, who had come round far enough to prop himself on one elbow.

"Hear that, Whinge? They're needing assistance. What d'you reckon?"

"We could look at it. No harm taking a shufti."

Pavarotti, who was hanging into the room round the door, raised his eyebrows.

"For fuck's sake don't get involved," he said.

"Christ knows what it could lead to."

"What about the course?" I said.

"It's an EMOE day, isn't it?

You can sort them on that, Pay. Wait a minute, though. Sasha are you planning to use some of the students on this?"

"Konech no. You have teached them well."

"They're only half-trained at the minute… "All the same, it is best. We want to make attack quickly."

At the back of my mind I heard the voice of the CO in Hereford, warning me that on no account should we get involved with any live operation. And I heard myself solemnly promising that we'd steer well clear. Then I thought, Ah, bollocks! Easy to say that from a distance. Still, I'd told the boss we'd keep our hands clean… But I heard myself saying, "OK, we'll come."

With a big smile Sasha went, "Zdorovo! Breelliant!"

"How many guys d'you need?"

"You say.

"Two teams of four? That means Whinger, myself and six more. You choose them."

"I do that now. You and Vuinzha, please prepare immediately.

It is important you start planning."

"What about Anna? Does she know about this?"

"She's in control room already."

The time was 6:40 a.m.

Pavarotti had gone off to the washroom in disgust, and was shaving when I poked my head round the door.

"Sorry, mate," I told him, 'we're going to have a crack at it. You'll have to take charge of the course today."

"You're nuts, Geordie."

"I dunno. All good for international relations."

In the kitchen the lads already had a brew on, so Whinger and I got some tea and a piece of bread down us, picked up our personal weapons and a few bits and pieces, and were ready for the off.

Sasha had come in some different car, newer and more powerful than either of ours, with a driver in DPMs. We piled in and set off at speed through the dawn, first towards the city centre, then right-handed into the northern suburbs, crossing one main thoroughfare after another. In less than quarter of an hour we were pulling up at the gate of another barracks, where the sentry took one look at Sasha's card and whipped up the barrier pole. Next stop was a briefing room full of men in black Omon uniform, grouped round a large-scale plan spread out on a table.

At first I thought the guys from the course must have moved like shit off a shovel, because they were there ahead of us. Then I realised that Sasha had probably detailed them already, before speaking to us. I recognised Sergei Tri, Volodya, and one other.

As we entered there was a bit of muttering in Russian, and a few smiles were beamed in our direction.

Introductions to the top brass were perfunctory, but I cottoned on to the fact that the guy in charge, a major, was called Ivan a heavily built, swarthy fellow of about my age, with dense black hair cut short into a kind of point, like a little roof over his head, and mean, yellow eyes that put me in mind of a bear. He spoke some English, but didn't understand much of what I said.

Anna glided in, her normal, suave self, quite at home in a room full of men. Staring at her, I kept asking silently, What the hell were you doing with our computer, woman? But when she caught me looking at her she gave a terrific smile, and entered into the business of the day with infectious enthusiasm.

It seemed that Keet, the target, had been reported arriving at the block in the early hours of the morning, and had gone up in the lift to apartment number 128 on the twelfth floor. Omon's information was that a meeting between him and other godfathers was due to take place in the flat at nine that evening.

It seemed there'd been an argument over whether the security forces should go straight in, to make sure of arresting one man, or wait and hope to catch several.

To Whinger and myself the plan for seizing Keet seemed amateurish in the extreme. The proposal was for an assault group to drive up to the ground floor, shoot their way in through the main entrance, secure the lifts and staircases, and then blast their way into the flat.

"It's a fucking shambles," I muttered to Whinger.

"The guards on the door downstairs will raise the alarm with mobile phones or bleepers, and the villains will disappear from the flat like rats down holes before anyone gets near them. The assaulters'll end up killing half the people in the block; there'll be civilian casualties too, and a tidal wave of bad publicity."

When Ivan the Bear asked my opinion of the plan, I said tactfully, "I'm sure your basic idea's right, but maybe we can refine it a bit. Let's think this thing through."

Ivan told us that his men had the block under surveillance, and that armed guys were posted in cars along the boulevard leading to it. IfKeet did try to make a getaway they could always have a go at gunning him down. But his bullet-proof Mercedes might save him, and they didn't want to run any risk of losing him.

"Even so, you surely want to wait for tonight's meeting," I suggested.

"Even if he goes out somewhere during the day, he'll come back. To catch four or five of them together would be fantastic."

He agreed, and asked, "So what do you suggest?"

"Surprise is what you need," I told him.

"The element of surprise. It would be much better to come down on the apartment from above."

"From the roof?"

"Yes."

He nodded and said something in Russian, which Sasha translated as, "We land from helicopter."

"Too noisy." I shook my head.

"Too obvious. Everyone in the building would hear us coming. Immediately Keet and his party would know something was happening. They might go and hole up in other flats. You'd lose the advantage of surprise."

At Ivan's shoulder was a tall, cadaverous fellow with a thin, long, rather grey face, a big mouth and unusually red lips. If Ivan was a bear, this guy was a wolf. I wasn't sure of his status, but he seemed to be the second-in-command.

Although I couldn't understand many of his words I got the gist of them clearly enough: "For Christ's sake let's go in and shoot the bastards," he was saying.

"Let's not ponce about with these pissy British ideas..

Ivan, however, ignored him and asked me to carry on.

When we looked at a large-scale plan of the site we saw that it comprised not a single tower block, but two structures set at right-angles to each other in the shape of an L, only a few feet apart at the inner corner. I'd noticed several pairs of buildings with this plan as we had driven around town on other days.

Now Whinger and I had the same idea at the same moment.

"Cross from the other roof," he said.

"Exactly." I knew that in Hong Kong he'd practised this very technique with the fire brigade, laddering across from one highrise block to another and coming down on the target from above. Here, with the flat on the twelfth floor, five down from the roof, it would be child's play to abseil and come in through the windows, while another party stormed the door from the internal corridor.

I looked at Ivan and asked, "This other building. Is that Mafia as well, or is it clean?"

"No Mafia," Sasha answered.

"No guards on door."

I pointed at the plan.

"How wide is this gap between the buildings?"

Ivan gave an off-hand shrug and said, "I don't know."

"It's important."

"Maybe ten metres."

"No more?"

"Nyet."

"That's OK, isn't it?" I asked Whinger.

"Forty feet?"

"Piece of cake."

I felt my adrenalin levels rising rapidly, and, almost before I knew what I was doing, I was outlining a complete new action plan.

"Call them Block A and Block B," I began.

"Block A to the west, B just east of it. Keet's on the twelfth floor of Block A, facing west, right? We maintain surveillance on that block, as you're doing already, but to avoid arousing suspicion we keep well away from the entrance. Instead of a direct approach, two assault teams go up to the roof of Block B and ladder across to the roof of Block A. There we split. One party makes its way down the emergency stairs and comes out on the twelfth-floor corridor. The other abseils down the outside of the building.

When both parties are in position, we blow the internal door and the windows simultaneously, come in from both sides with stun grenades, and overpower everybody inside."

As Anna translated, I saw Ivan following my scenario with ever-growing incredulity.

"All this is possible?" he asked.

"Of course," I replied confidently but even as I did so I suddenly realised what I'd done. Carried away by my own excitement I'd been saying 'we' when I should have been saying 'you'.

Ivan was under fire from Wolf-face, but he shut him up again with an irritated wave, and showed that he hadn't missed the implication of my words with his next question: "So, you will lead the assault?"

"No, no. We can't. We're not authorised for anything like that. We're here purely on a training mission.

Ivan's dismay was painful to witness.

"Starshina," he pleaded, "Sergeant Major we very much need your help. We do not have your experience in assaults of this kind."

I looked at Whinger and saw that he was thinking the same as I was. If we did our hosts a good turn, it would ease our consciences. Besides, it would be a great gas to take part in an anti-Mafia hit. The idea was outrageous, of course the Regiment would never sanction it. But would the Regiment ever know about it? Not until afterwards, if at all provided we didn't say anything.

I looked at Whinger and said quietly, "What d'you reckon?"

"All right by me."

I turned back to Ivan and said, "Yestj. We'll help as much as we can. At least we can show you what to do."

This led to knuckle-crunching handshakes and big grins all round.

But my decision shifted the initiative to myself and Whinger and thereafter we had to make the running.

I'm bound to say that the Omon leaders pulled their fingers out: whatever we asked for they got, and fast.

The first things we needed were architectural plans of both apartment blocks. It looked as though the pair would be essentially the same, but we wanted to be sure. In particular, we needed to know the internal layout of the flat we were going to hit the disposition of its rooms, and details like which way the doors opened. As the buildings were only three years old it should have been easy to find drawings, but when somebody phoned the construction firm who'd put the flats up the people there began making difficulties, claiming that their computers were down, and that without them they couldn't produce plans. I heard a good bollocking go down the line, and that seemed to produce results.

"Half an hour," was the eventual answer.

"In that case," I said, 'let's do a drive-past. We need to get a look at the blocks. Somebody bring a video camera.

"Better not go dressed like this." Whinger pointed at his DPMs.

"Good point, Whinge."

A quartermaster figure produced sets of thin grey overalls which smelt of mothballs, and soon we were rolling northwards in two cars: my seW Ivan (who had a camera), Anna and the driver in one, Whinger, Sasha and the Wolf-man in the second.

"Tell him we don't want to get too close," I warned Anna.

"What d'you call too close?"

"Nothing under a couple of hundred metres, anyway.

By now it was fully light, and rush-hour traffic was pouring down the main arteries into the city centre. Heading outwards, we could move freely, and it was only five minutes or so before Ivan said something, pointing ahead and to the right.

"Those are the buildings," Anna translated.

"The target's in the left-hand one, as we're looking."

Two slender blocks rose out of a wasteland. They were made of pale-grey concrete, relieved by small square panels of sky blue ranged along the balcony-fronts on each of the sixteen floors. At ground level the entrances were imposing: on the end of each building was a grandiose porch with square pillars, under which cars could drive, and marble facings round the doors. Either side of the doorway into what we'd named Block A stood a guard in grey fatigues armed with a sub-machine gun.

Round the base of the buildings some attempt had been made to establish a garden or park: there were patches of grass and a few saplings had been planted, but further out much of the area was still bare earth, no doubt awaiting development. On the approach road leading to Block A numerous cars were parked end-on at forty-five degrees to the kerb, including a high proportion of Mercedes, BMWs and Audis.

The road to Block B came in from the far side and had far less transport sitting on it.

I glanced at Ivan and saw that he was already filming.

"Ask him to get close-up footage of the roof-line," I said and in response to Anna's request he tilted the camera upwards.

"Just to confirm," I said.

"The target's in this near block."

"Correct."

"And the apartment's facing this way?"

"Correct again."

"In fact we can see the windows now."

"Yes. The fifth floor down from the top."

I was looking for sniper vantage points, and immediately saw one: a third high-rise block of the same model, but with green panels rather than blue, maybe 200 metres away on our left.

"Can we drive back down the far side of Block B over there, behind it?"

"Not very well." Anna pointed.

"You see that long wall?

Behind that's a railway line and marshalling yards. There's no road in that area."

"What about those roofs just over the wall?"

"Those are railway offices."

"OK."

A kilo metre or so beyond the site we made a U-turn and came back for a second pass. Again I concentrated, fixing details in my mind. The run confirmed my earlier impression that a direct daylight approach from ground level would have been disastrous: there was no cover close to Block A's entrance, and a gun-battle would have led to many casualties.

Back in the Omon briefing room we found architectural drawings of Blocks A and B awaiting us. As Whinger and I went into a huddle over them, mugs of sweet black tea beside us, we had no difficulty coming up with a plan.

"When we were ready, I signalled to Ivan, and we began an informal presentation.

"I don't know if they want to make notes," I said to Anna, 'but maybe you'd suggest it."

Wolf-face let fly a few more disparaging remarks, but the others ignored him, and Ivan produced a notebook and pencil.

"Right," I said.

"First thing, the assault should go down at night, after last light. If the Mafia meeting's due to start at 2100, I suggest 2130."

I had to take it slowly, phrase by phrase, letting Anna translate in between. For a few exchanges the delays irritated me: then I realised that they were useful, as they gave everyone time to take in what I was saying.

"Next, there will be three assault parties, designated Red, Blue and Black. Red and Blue will enter Block B and cross on to the roof of Block A by ladder, as outlined. Red will deploy on the roof of Block A and prepare to abseil down the outside of the building. Blue will enter the building via the fire exit on the roof here then descend the fire stairs and position themselves to assault the apartment from the corridor.

"Black will deploy on the ground by vehicle. Their job will be to drive up to the front of Block A and secure the building by capturing or shooting the two guards we saw. Timing will be critical. They'll need to reach the door at the moment the assaults on the flat go in not before.

"If possible, we'll position sniper commentators in Block C the green block. From there they'll be able to observe the windows of the target flat and report movements. When everyone's deployed, we'll use EMOE to blow the door and at least one window from both sides of the flat and simultaneously.

The actions and timings of all three teams will be coordinated by radio.

"I'll be the leader of Red team.

"Whinger here will lead Blue team. Red and Blue will each consist of the leader and three men. Black team will be commanded by an officer nominated by Ivan. For com ms purposes, the snipers will be designated Green."

Ivan asked Anna a couple of questions in Russian, and she gave him answers herself Then she said, "He is afraid control will be difficult because of the language."

"I've thought of that. If we can have you at the command centre, there'll be no problem. You'll be able to translate and pass things on. The only English commands your colleagues need to understand will be the two I'll use at the end: "Stand by, stand by" and "Go! Go! Go!"

Anna immediately translated these. '"Stand by" is Orushiye k boyu," she said.

"That means literally "weapons ready". Go is posh ii. Easy!"

Ivan smiled briefly as he nodded his agreement.

I went on to emphasise that Whinger and I were not in the business of killing Russian citizens, whether Mafiosi or otherwise. All we would do was get the assault teams into position and blow the door and windows: it would be up to the Russians to clear the flat. Again, there was a murmur of agreement. I could see that Wolf-face was still ticking with irritation.

"Ask Ivan, please: what are his intentions? Is he aiming to capture Keet or kill him?"

As Anna translated, a faint smile spread over Ivan's face but it did not extend to his eyes. The only answer he gave was, "It depends."

"In any case," I went on, 'what we need immediately is a forward mounting base. Those railway sheds behind the wall any chance of your taking one over?"

Ivan sent a colleague to make a telephone call. I began going into the nitty-gritty: ladders, ropes, explosive charges, weapons, com ms I said that Whinger and I would carry pistols only, for self-defence in an extremity, but added that the Russian members of Red and Blue teams should take Gepards with short magazines as well as their pistols. The guys in the Black team should have silenced weapons, to whack the ground-floor guards with minimum disturbance.

Within a couple of minutes an answering call came back: inside the railway complex, it said, were the offices of a company operating steam trips in a joint venture with a Swiss tourist firm. The place had modern communications, and also a large, empty engine shed in which we could assemble our kit and lay on some quick training.

Once Ivan had nominated the men for each of the teams, we had only a few hours in which to sort them out. My three Nikolai Two, Igor and Misha were all built like brick shit houses and well versed in abseiing.

The railway office and shed turned out a big bonus. By midday Ivan had sent the normal staff home, taken the place over and set up a command post and control centre in the main office, with a dish aerial on the roof. The engine shed was high enough for us to put in some abseil practice: with ropes anchored to the steel girders under the roof, we had about fifteen feet clear below us.

Ivan's video showed quite a few possible anchor-points on the roof of Block B the tops of lift-shafts, ventilation pipes and so on and I foresaw no trouble there.

From our study of the architects' plans we knew that the flat had two bedrooms and a living room ranged along the southern balcony face, down which we'd be coming. On the other side, along the internal corridor, were the kitchen, hallway, separate lavatory, a bathroom and a big storage cupboard. To us on the outside and to the snipers positioned in Block C the s windows were the first four from the right-hand end on the twelfth floor. I named them Okno Odin, Okno Dva (Window One, Window Two) and so on, numbering from the right. One was the first bedroom, two the second, three was the top half of a door which opened inwards from the balcony into the sitting room, and four another window in the same room.

Ivan agreed that we should time the hit for 2130, in the hope of catching the big players in the sitting room. Therefore we decided to blow the window-door and go in that way.

Whinger, meanwhile, was sorting a route for his team to enter via the fire-escape door on the roof, and come down the emergency stairs to position themselves outside the flat entrance.

I tried to impress on Ivan how easy it would be to create a blue on-blue to have the Red and Blue teams firing at each other.

But in fact the layout of the flat gave us two natural territories in which to operate. For Red, the balcony team, the obvious field of fire was the sitting room; for Blue, entering from the corridor, the hallway would be the main theatre. We made it a fundamental rule that Red team members would only engage targets remaining in the sitting room and not fire at anyone running through into the hall. Blue would be free to fire into the hall or either of the bedrooms.

Of the three guys allotted to me, I was happy enough with Nikolai and Igor. The one who worried me was Misha, one of the relics of SOBR. Sasha had put him in my team because he'd done abseiling, but our experience so far suggested that he had a low IQ, and wasn't all that co-operative either.

No good worrying about that now.

I took the team through our sequence of actions again and again. We'd abseil down to the balcony, aiming to establish ourselves on it thirty seconds before the raid was due to go in.

We'd need to be extremely careful in our movements: not to clank our weapons against the metalwork of the balustrade, not to let a boot or elbow bump on a window. For the last few seconds we'd crouch against the wall of the flat, under the windows. As soon as I confirmed by radio that Whinger's team was in position, I'd call, "Stand by, stand by… Go!" then crack off the door charge and follow it instantly with a stun grenade.

Seeing the blank looks on their faces, I started to flap a bit. I knew what standard they'd reached, and it wasn't as high as we needed. A fully fledged SAS assaulter is so highly trained that his reactions are instantaneous. These guys were nowhere near that level. Nevertheless, since Igor was the sharpest of our team, I detailed him to be first into the room.

"The second the grenade blows, you're through." I told him via Anna.

"When you go in, stay on your feet and move to the left. None of this rolling around we've been practising.

"You other two, give him covering fire through the blown out window. Aim outwards into the corners of the room. Don't fire straight at the door into the hall, otherwise rounds may go through and hit your own guys coming from the other side."

When Igor protested about being first in, I told him he didn't need to worry. The godfathers inside would be deafened and blinded by the stun-grenade.

Suitable ladders took a bit of finding. There were some in the Omon stores but they were too short and heavy for our purpose.

It was Sasha who had the idea of borrowing better kit off the nearest branch of the fire service. They came up with an extending set of four three-metre sections, made from aluminium, well machined and snugly fitting. The overall length was eleven metres, and since the gap between the corners of the buildings showed on the architects' plans as nine metres, we would have a one-metre overlap at either end.

Once we'd held several practices at assembling the ladders and crossing gaps on them, we bound the ends with foam and masking tape to reduce the risk of making a noise, and handed them over to another team. These two guys, who appeared to be television technicians, drove to Block B and took the ladders up the fire stairs on to the roof, under the pretence of realigning the aerials.

By 4:00 everything was in hand. Omon had discovered an empty apartment on the thirteenth floor of Block C and installed a pair of snipers, armed with Dragunov 7.62mm rifles fitted with telescopic sights. Their brief was to watch for movements in the target flat with binoculars and report any change to the control room. When the assault went down, they were to engage anyone who tried to make a getaway by coming out of a window and escaping along a balcony.

At 4:30 Whinger and I got Sasha to drive us back to Balashika. Rather than handle Russian detonators and det cord of uncertain vintage, I wanted to pick up some of our own. At the base we found everything in order: the lads back from a good day in the open, and no further scares. We had time for a quick meal and a cup of tea.

As I sat down to eat I said to Whinger, "I don't think very many Mafiosi are going to come out of this alive."

By 5:15 we were back at the railway command centre for a final run-through of the plan. I made up my explosive charge for blowing the window a ring of det cord taped on to a sheet of expanded polystyrene about fifteen inches square, to which I'd fitted a short broom-handle and explained to my three how, once we reached the balcony, I'd apply the polystyrene gently and silently to the glass of the door, holding it out with the end of the handle, before I cracked off the charge.

I emphasised that, once we had launched the hit, we must go quickly through with it. If anyone saw us crossing between the buildings, for instance, it was possible that the alarm could be raised. Once we were established on the roof of Block B, we couldn't afford to hang about.

My big worry was the weather. All afternoon the wind had been getting up, and by 8:00 a gale was blowing and driving blasts of rain before it. In a way it was good, as the roar of the storm would cover any small noises we might make; but I also reckoned there'd be hellish turbulence around the edges of those tall buildings.

Everyone was nervous myself and Whinger no less than the students. As before all operations, our watches seemed to stop or at least slow down to a ridiclous crawl, the hands hardly moving.

The snipers came on the air with the occasional bit of news "Green One. Curtains being drawn in Window One.. Light switched on in Window Two' and by 8:05 all four windows had been curtained off. That suited us fine.

As we rehearsed the action sequences again and again, the only person who seemed unmoved was Anna.

It felt very strange to be dressing in Russian kit. Their flak jackets were heavier and stiffer than ours, and made us pretty clumsy. My helmet fitted my head inside but still felt very big.

Realising that it would be difficult to control my explosive charge on its panel while I was crossing on the ladder, I had Nikolai lash it flat to the small of my back, with the handle pointing up behind my head like a short antenna.

When I glanced across at Whinger I was amazed: he looked every inch a member of Omon, with his features hidden under a black rapist's mask, and only his eyes and mouth showing.

For the tenth time, it seemed, I checked all weapons and magazines.

At last it was time for the off We went out on foot into the cold, swirling wind through a gate in the railway compound wall, over the wasteland. The odd street lamp was burning in the distance, but the area we crossed was good and dark. With us we had one guy in civilian clothes, to range ahead as a scout and radio back a warning if he met anyone on the stairs. The covert com ms system was working well: in my earpiece I could hear the Black team lining itself up in the van they'd arranged for transport, and the occasional remark from a sniper. With the finger and thumb of my right hand I settled the throat mike more comfortably in position.

In the underground car-park of Block B we waited while our scout started climbing.

"Red and Blue at foot of stairs," I reported, and immediately Anna's voice answered, "Vas pony al Khorosho."

A few moments later the scout called to tell us that all was clear as far as floor five, so both teams went scuttling up. After another pause there, we took the next eleven flights straight, and arrived at the top panting.

Out in the open, the wind was formidable. There was no point in telling people to watch themselves. They wouldn't have heard me, anyway, and anybody with the slightest sense of selfpreservation wasn't going to start pissing about in a place like that.

All Moscow, it seemed, was spread out at our feet. Immediately below us the patches of wasteland were dark, but to the south blazed an immense galaxy of lights, and the main thoroughfares were like brilliantly illuminated rivers down which flowed endless streams of headlamps.

The ladders were lying where the pseudo-TV crew had left them, and we had no trouble locking the sections together. But when we tried to raise the whole length upright, the force of the gale nearly lifted two of us off our feet. Quickly I got a second rope round the top of the ladder and secured our ends to vertical standpipes. That way, we could exert enough friction to lower the whole bridge gently into position. Once it was down, we lashed the near end to a rail, in case it got blown overboard after we were across; even though the ladder was lightweight, it wouldn't have improved the health or temper of anyone it landed on after dropping sixteen storeys.

By now I was shitting bricks.

"Wish to fuck I'd never volunteered to lead," I said in Whinger's ear.

"I'll go if you like," he said good old bugger that he is.

"No, no. I'm fine really."

I was, too once I'd started.

"Khuyevo dyelo" I said to myself.

"Shit, shit, shit!" and then I was on my way.

With a safety rope round my waist and belayed on to the guy next in line, I crawled forward, each knee on one sharp-edged rung at a time, hands clutching the side-rails with a grip like a Scotsman's on a five-pound note. The ladder swayed horribly as gusts of wind hit me. I tried not to look down, but far below and away to my left I couldn't help catching glimpses of cars that looked like toys. Half-way across I decided it was better to keep my eyes shut.

Even without seeing I could tell how far I'd got from the bend in the ladder. It flexed most when I was in the middle. Russian ladder, I kept thinking. Russian aluminium. I hope to hell it doesn't break.

At last it began to stiffen again as I drew near to the far side. I opened my eyes and saw that I had only feet to go. A few more seconds and I was safe on the roof of Block B. As I scrambled on to the rough asphalt I was appalled to find that the ladder's overlap was more like a foot than a metre. The blocks were obviously slightly farther apart than the architects had prescribed. I watched, fascinated, as I saw the end of the ladder creeping in and out, and realised that the high buildings were swaying in the wind.

Igor came across next, and made it with no fuss. So did Nikolai, who hadn't even bothered with a safety rope. It was Misha who got into trouble. Exactly what happened, I'll never know. All the rest of us saw, as we crouched shoulder-to shoulder in the gale, was that he stopped half-way across the bridge. Whinger came up in my earpiece saying, "Blue got a hold-up. Oh, for fuck's sake…" and then, "Get on, yer twit."

Obviously Whinger didn't shout. Even if he could have been heard it would probably have been counter-productive, because in that situation, if someone loses his nerve, yelling only intensifies the fright. But seconds were ticking away. From exchanges on the radio I knew that Black team were starting their final approach to the front of the building. We couldn't afford to lose time.

Another dark figure started crawling out on to the ladder.

With a double weight on it, the aluminium sagged horribly. The second man reached the feet of the stationary Misha, who was frozen in a face-down attitude. The back-up guy began talking, first in a low voice, then louder. When bollockings had no effect, the newcomer turned physical. From the blurred movements it looked as though he had started thumping Misha with his fist on the backs of his knees.

Still there was no reaction.

The wind and rain were hitting our faces so hard that, even from close range, it was impossible to tell exactly what happened next. It looked to me as though the second guy had tried to crawl over Misha's prostrate body. He was right on top of him when there came a sudden eruption of movement. I saw a flurry of limbs, much faster than men crawling, as if the two were wrestling.

An instant later one of them was falling. Without a sound he dropped away into the dark.

Jesus! I thought. Too low for his chute. But of course he had no chute.

He went straight down, 150 feet on to concrete.

I grabbed the press el of my radio and hissed, "Red leader. Wehave a casualty. One guy's fallen."

"Roger," came Anna's unemotional voice. She said something else in Russian. Then, "Can you recover him?"

"Not a chance. He's gone right to the ground."

"Proceed, then."

"Roger."

The guy who'd survived the mid-ladder encounter reached us.

Not Misha. It was Volodya from the Blue team. Misha was written off Peering over the edge of the roof, I could just make out a little dark heap splat ted on the deck. At least the controllers knew what had happened. It was up to them whether or not they made any move to help him. I was pretty certain there'd be no point. No way could he have survived that impact, especially with the weight of the weapon on his back, the ammunition in his pouches and all his other gear. All I could think, selfishly, was, I hope to hell nobody saw him go past their window.

The rest of Blue team quickly came across, Whinger last. He gave me a strained look, but never said a word about the setback just a quick "Idyomr to his guys, and they were gone, round the end of the lift-housing to the point where the emergency stairs reached the roof.

I led the two surviving members of Red team along the roof to the far end and round the corner, until we were positioned above the target windows. There we quickly laid out our ropes. We found ideal anchor-points in the form of a strong metal rail that skirted the raised top of the lift shaft, and in a couple of minutes we were ready to descend.

"Red leader," I called.

"Can I have a sniper report on the windows? Are all curtains drawn?"

Anna instantly passed the request. I heard Green come in: "Da, da. Vsyo," and in a second I got, "Yes, all curtains closed."

My watch said 9:24. "Red leader," I reported.

"Starting descent now."

Abseiing down a building in the dark is never a picnic. Still less is it easy in a high wind. The longer your rope, the more you swing about, and the greater the danger of accidentally bumping against a window. But it was no good pissing about. I stuck my arse into space, walked backwards over the edge of the roof, and started down.

Luckily the shape of the building was kind to us. All the doors and windows were set back about a metre inside the balconies, so that as we came past each floor there was very little chance of any accidental contact with the inner wall of the building.

Inches at a time I tip-toed down the wall and dangled in space above the top half of the first balcony. On down past the metal rails. Sixteen done. Fifteen the same. Slowly on past fourteen.

My two guys were doing OK, to the right and left of me.

Between fourteen and thirteen a terrific gust of wind swung us so violently that all three of us bumped against each other.

Luckily the windows were closed and curtains drawn all the way down, courtesy of the wild night.

My boots touched the top rail of the twelfth-floor balcony. I eased myself down gently until my backside was on the rail, then got my feet on the floor of the balcony itself. I'd landed in front of Window Two. The greenish curtains were drawn tight, but light was shining out round the edges.

The second I was out of my ropes I turned to guide Igor in.

By 9:28 all three of us were in our prearranged positions: myself crouching beside the door, Nikolai on my right, Igor on my left. Even in the relative shelter of the balcony the wind was blustering loudly, and there was no need to keep my voice down when I reported in.

"Red leader, on target. Blue, report your state."

"Blue, preparing charge," came Whinger's voice.

"Wait out."

"Red, roger." My heart was going like a hammer. I imagined Whinger deftly taping a length of det cord down the centre of the door. I glanced either way at the dark, helmeted faces beside me and gave a reassuring twitch of my head. The lads had heard Whinger in their earpieces, but naturally hadn't understood what he said, so I made taping motions round our own doorway. Both got it, grinned back and nodded.

But I was wrong. Suddenly I heard Whinger say, "Blue. We have a problem. I can see through a glass panel in the fire-escape door. There are two guards sitting outside the apartment, in the corridor. Wait one."

I made an instant decision.

"Red. You'll have to drop them.

I'll use your shots as the signal to go."

"OK," said Whinger softly.

"Ready when you are.

"Red. Roger. Control is Black on schedule?"

"Da, da. Chyornii goto vi came Anna's voice. I could tell that the excitement was getting to her as well because for a moment she forgot to translate. Then she said, "Yes. Black ready."

"Red. Starting countdown now. Sixty, fifty, forty…" I imagined the Black team wagon speeding towards the Mafia entrance, silenced weapons at the ready. The gale was certainly going to help mask any noise they made.

"Twenty.. ten.

Jesus, I was thinking, I hope this goes our way, because we shouldn't be anywhere near here.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five… Stand by, stand by. GO!"

The hammer of rounds going down in the corridor came clearly through to us. With my charge held flat to the glassed upper half of the door, I knelt with my head tucked down, away from the blast, and squeezed my clacker.

BOOM! The blast made the inner wall shudder. I raised my head. The entire glass panel had vanished. Through the hole I lobbed a stun grenade and ducked again, eyes averted.

BANG! A sharper, louder explosion. I came upright again.

Pieces of glass were tinkling down. The lights in the room had gone out.

"Poshli!" I shouted at Igor.

"Go!"

In he went with a wild yell, head-first through the gap. I heard a thud as he hit the floor and scrabbling noises as he scuttled sideways. Then Nikolai was at the opening, hammering long bursts into the room with his Gepard. He was screaming obscenities too.

Hardly had he opened up when there came a second explosion as Whinger blew the door from the corridor. More rounds started going down inside the flat bursts of seven or eight. Too long to be properly selective.

Empty cases cascaded on to the floor of the balcony beside me. Nikolai threw down an empty magazine, smacked home a full one and continued to fire. For a moment I felt a bit of a prick, lying there against the safety of the wall while guys were risking their lives inside.

Then the bursts of fire died away. Single shots cracked out one, two, three, four. I knew what they meant: the assaulters were using their pistols to pop rounds into the heads of their victims, making certain they were dead.

One more single shot, then silence except for the wind.

"Boris!" I shouted.

"Yestj?"

"Da, da."

"Khorosho!"

I held in my press el and called, "Red to Blue all secure at your end?"

"Blue," came Whinger's voice.

"Affirmative. All inner rooms secure.

"Red. Roger. This side secure also. You can come on through."

Standing up, I walked in through the shattered window-door.

The air in the living room was hot as hell and thick with cigarette smoke, shot through with the sharp reek of cordite. Something had caught fire, ignited by the stun grenade. The blaze wasn't serious — just enough to give flickering illumination and light up the gory scene. The lights had gone down and for the time being I let it burn.

The Mafiosi must have been in conference round a rectangular table. Now, overturned chairs and five bodies lay all round it. Igor, crouched in the left-hand outer corner of the room, was still covering Nikolai as he scuffled round checking each one. The door into the hallway was closed, so I went straight over and called through it, "Whinge?"

"Yeah, yeah. We're here."

"OK. I'm opening up." I turned the handle and pulled, to find the door was locked. Peering down, I saw the key was in the lock, spun it and pulled the door towards me. The two teams — were safely reunited.

"Red leader to Control," I called.

"Target secure.

"Vas pony al went Anna.

"Roger."

"Piece of cake!" said Whinger.

"What's the Russian for that?"

"I don't know. How many have your guys taken out?"

"Four. The bodyguards. Two in the passage, two more watching TV in the end bedroom. We got them as they came out the door." He flashed his torch into the bedroom doorway, and I saw two bodies lying across each other on the floor.

"No casualties on your team?"

Whinger shook his head.

"The stupid bastards never got a round off The two outside were asleep on their chairs, and the others had left their main weapons in the hallway. There." He shone the beam on a little stack of sub-machine guns in a corner.

"Didn't even have time to draw their pistols."

I found myself shaking with reaction.

"Jesus!" I said.

"What happens now?"

After a hit of that kind in the UK, the assault teams would be instantly spirited away from the scene in a hostage reception van, and any prisoners would travel with them, to get the whole lot clear before any journalists or TV crew turned up. Then a quick reaction force would move in and take over. The most important guy in the aftermath would be the SOCO, the scene-of-crimes officer, from the police. Until he arrived, the key rule was that nothing must be touched or moved.

Not so in Moscow. Satisfied that all the villains were dead, Igor got up, walked over and kicked one of the bodies contemptuously, rolling it over.

"Stop!" I called, waving my hands about to tell him to lay off But that was the limit of my Russian, and he probably thought I was crazy.

Somebody found the electricity control panel. A trip switch had been thrown by the blasts, and once it was flipped back up enough of the lights went on for us to survey the wreckage.

It looked as though four of the sitting-room victims had been gunned down where they sat at the table. They were all flabby looking middle-aged men with bellies bulging out into their shirts and their sleeves rolled up. Their faces had probably never been pretty, and they certainly weren't now, because Nikolai had gone round and popped each one with a bullet through the head.

One had an eye out on a stall; another had spewed out half his teeth. Pools of blood were spreading over the pale carpet.

Their jackets, still hanging over the backs of their chairs, had been riddled by bullets. The fifth guy, a younger man in a dark blue polo shirt, had got half-way to the door before being dropped. On the right-hand wall, looking from the windows, water was dripping from the shattered remains of a glass fish tank and the wretched occupant was flapping its last in a puddle at the bottom. Another victim was an old tabby cat, which lay in a corner without a mark on it and seemed to have died of fright.

The table was covered with papers, evidently the subject of the meeting, and expensive-looking briefcases sat on the floor beside the chairs. The fire had started in a waste bin containing more paper, and I had no problem stamping it out. But I'd hardly finished when there was a commotion outside the door and in strode Ivan the Bear, with Sasha at his heels.

Ivan advanced towards me, grinning, and said something which Sasha translated as, "Breelliant! He congratulates you very much."

"Your guys did it." I gestured round.

"They were first class. Ochen khorosho."

Ivan accepted the praise with a nod and turned his attention to the bodies. Almost at once he gave an exclamation and began to talk at speed into a mobile phone.

"It is Keet the Whale," Sasha translated, pointing at the corpse of a huge man with close-cropped grey hair that lay on its back almost under the table. As he was speaking, Ivan bent down and unceremoniously ripped open the perforated, bloodstained shirt to reveal a foot-long tattoo of a whale's head and open jaws, tilted upwards towards the man's left shoulder. From the half open mouth the feet of a human being were protruding. By a horrible fluke one round had gone in almost exactly through the whale's eye, leaving a bloody hole.

With a jerk on one arm Ivan rolled the body over and kicked the shirt up round its head. There, between the shoulder blades, was a tattooed portrait of Stalin.

"Old Uncle Joe didn't save that bugger, did he?" Whinger was staring at the effigy, fascinated. Then, as he surveyed the scene, he added, "I like the delicate way they handle things round here, I must say.

Ivan brought out a pocket knife, slipped the blade inside one leg of Whale's trousers, at the ankle and slit the grey material open to half-way up the thigh. Then he pointed contemptuously and gave a short laugh.

"He has stars on the knees," Sasha translated.

"Like I told you. The sign he would never kneel."

It seemed that all the villains bar one were known to Ivan. By any standards it was a terrific coup for the security forces: five godfathers at one hit, plus four bodyguards and a haul of incriminating papers. Nor was that all. The two most fancy briefcases crocodile leather by Gucci, no less were closed with gold combination locks. Ivan picked one up, laid it on the table and started trying to open it. Frustrated, he called to Igor, who produced a small jemmy.

"Hey, wait!" I said, thinking of Toad and Pavarotti.

"That thing's worth a few grand. One of our guys will open it without wrecking it."

But Ivan wasn't in a mood to wait, and in a few seconds he'd burst both locks. When he lifted the lid, everybody who could see gave a gasp, because the case was packed solid with fifty dollar bills done up in little paper sleeves holding bunches of twenty notes: a thousand bucks a throw.

When you see cash in that kind of quantity, you realise how little space it takes up: I could have put ten grand in my hip pocket, no bother.

As if reading my thoughts Ivan plunged a hand into the case and brought out a fistful of bundles, holding them in my direction.

"Take," said Sasha.

"He wants you to have it."

"No, no." I waved it away.

"Yes, please. He inseest. He thinks like Russian soldiers you not being paid well. You need more."

Looking round under the table, Ivan spotted a far cheaper briefcase made of imitation black leather, with a flap closure and no locks. Having tipped the papers it contained on to the table,

he proceeded to stuff it with handfuls of fifty-dollar bills and thrust it at me.

From this point things became more and more surreal.

Somebody discovered bottles of special, high-octane vodka in the freezer compartment of the fridge, brought them out and began pouring slugs into short, squat glasses. Whinger and I declined, but as the icy spirit went down other people's throats in repeated doses, the volume of voices rose. While a minion collected up the papers from the table and stowed them away, Ivan himself carefully removed gold watches from three dead wrists and a couple of crocodile wallets from the jackets still on the chairs.

"Present to English friends!" he beamed, holding a watch out in my direction.

"No, for fuck's sake!" I exclaimed.

"Spasibo but keep them."

Then some of his guys arrived with body bags, and at last bundled the corpses out of sight.

Outside, in the corridor, there was a great commotion as other inhabitants of the block argued with the guards on the door, trying to get in and find out what had happened.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Whinger muttered.

"There's going to be a monster piss-up."

"We'd better sign off with Ivan."

"He's busy. Another day."

"OK."

I looked round for Sasha and beckoned him over.

"We need to get back to Balashika," I told him.

"Can someone give us a lift?"

"Konechno. I drive you."

"How many vodka shave you had?"

"Vodka? Nothing! Two only."

So it was that we pushed our way past the new guards on the door, through the crowd outside and into the lift. Downstairs there was a heavy military presence on the entrance to the block, but Sasha spirited us through it, found the car he'd been driving, and set off I felt plagued by guilt first by the thought that we should all have been in a formal debriefing session, recalling and recording every move of the raid; second by the knowledge that we had lost a man; and third by the fact that I was carrying a small fortune of ill-gotten gains in a Mafia briefcase.

"Misha," I said.

"He was dead?"

Sasha nodded.

"Absolutely. We found his body. How did he fall?"

"Just lost his nerve."

"It is a pity. But nichevo!" He smiled broadly.

"We have beeg victory. Like in football Arsenal nine, Tottenham Hotspot one!"

He gave a merry laugh and drummed his hands on the steering wheel. Then he added, "Only one problem."

"SXJhat's that?"

"Mafia bosses will be angry. For sure, they make counterattack."

"On Omon?"

"No, on government. The President, the Vice-President, the Minister of the Interior. Perhaps one of them will be their next target."