‘We’ll keep the vehicle link open. You’ll have the satcom. You’ll need to keep Hereford briefed on progress. Get a frequency for the Herc and talk to the pilot.’
I looked round, and asked, ‘Anything else?’, but everybody seemed to have been struck dumb. ‘Okay, then,’ I said. ‘Let’s raise the Kremlin on the satcom.’
The call went through without a hitch.
‘We found the stuff,’ I told the Ops Officer. ‘Forty-five warheads.’
‘Christ! How big?’
‘Six-inch diameter. Six feet long.’
‘Weight?’
‘About seventy-five pounds, something like that.’
There was a short pause. Evidently he was doing calculations. ‘Under two tons in all, then,’ he went. ‘Okay. The Herc’s standing by.’
‘Does it have permission to land?’
‘Negative. It’s coming anyway.’
‘What’s its estimated flying time?’
‘One hour twenty to an LZ overhead at Ichembo.’
‘In that case, it wants to take off soonest.’
‘Where’s your present location?’
‘Just north of the town. But listen. The cache is in an old training area. There’s nowhere to land round here. The terrain’s very uneven, all low hills and reentrants. We’re going to bus the stuff out to the LZ we gave you. The Mall. Okay?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I have that.’ He read off the coordinates we’d passed him. ‘But wait a minute. You can’t handle stuff like that without protective clothing.’
‘It’s okay,’ I lied. ‘We’ve nicked some gear off the Russian mercenaries who came out on a recce.’
‘You sure? Can’t you wait till the Herc comes in? They’ve got spare suits for all you guys on board.’
‘Not a chance. There’s a rebel column on its way up from the south to grab the warheads. If we hang around here, the odds are we’ll get into a big fire-fight. It’s touch and go whether we can swag the stuff away quick enough as it is. We haven’t the fire-power to hold anyone off for long.’
‘Well, it’s your decision. What are your timings?’
‘Half an hour to load. Half an hour to drive back to the Mall. One hour from now, we’ll be on the LZ.’
‘Roger. I’ll pass that to the captain of the aircraft. Have you marked the strip?’
‘Not yet. We’ll need to get some smoke going. The strip runs east and west, and we’ll have smoke going at both ends. Wind state zero. Ground temperature around thirty-six. Wait one.’ I did another calculation in my head, and added, ‘Better allow another twenty minutes. Make it ninety minutes from now to the LZ overhead.’
‘Roger. I confirm ninety minutes. And take it easy.’
Dave Alton was a sound enough guy, but the poor bugger could have no idea of the true situation. I expect he had visions of our lads lining up on the edge of the runway, all nice and clean, like a rugby team before kick-off, to receive their poncy new NBC suits from the head loadie before they tackled the cache all together and drove in convoy to the Mall.
I switched off the set and looked round the anxious faces. ‘That’s it, then,’ I said.
‘What about the chopper?’ Phil asked.
‘Torch it.’
‘What, now?’
‘Why not? White phos into the cockpit.’
Phil wasn’t the man to miss an opportunity like that. He dived into the back of the mother wagon, came out with a white phosphorus grenade, ran the fifty metres to the Hind and tossed his little bomb through the pilot’s open door. Moments later there was a hefty crump! Dense white smoke erupted from doors and windows, followed by brilliant sparklets of flame shooting out in all directions. In another couple of seconds the front half of the aircraft was in flames.
‘Okay guys, let’s do it. And good luck.’
FIFTEEN
We tied the two Russians together with their hands behind them, hoisted them on to the front seat and jammed them in between myself and Jason. Then I started up and rolled the heavy truck forward. Black smoke from the burning Hind was billowing over the track, and I crawled through it in second gear until we reached the main drag. There I turned left, accelerating out through the wilderness.
‘Number twenty-one,’ I told Jason. ‘Keep your eyes skinned for a sign. That’s the branch we need.’
‘Yassir,’ he went, and I knew that if anybody could find the way, he would.
Soon, however, I began to be alarmed by the distance we were travelling. In the chopper, the journey had felt like nothing; in the lumbering seven-ton truck, the pitted dirt road seemed to stretch for ever.
Minutes flicked away. Five had gone before we reached the first junction. There, four minor tracks converged on the main route, but only one signpost was still standing: it pointed vaguely to the left and said ‘12’. Ours, I knew, would be to the right.
‘Is there a sign?’ I shouted above the noise of the engine. ‘Number twenty-one?’
‘Nyet,’ went Rasputin, but he nodded to the right.
Three more minutes brought us to the next junction. This time the markers were intact: Routes 16 and 18 went off to the left, 17 and 19 to the right.
‘Next crossroads,’ I told Jason. ‘It should have six side tracks.’
It was already 1342 when we reached the key junction: twelve minutes gone. I retained a mental picture of the intersection from flying over it, and I recognised it the moment I saw it from the ground. But where the hell were the sign posts? Not one survived.
On our right we had three possibilities. Without hesitation, Jason pointed to the first track, and said, ‘This one.’
‘Okay?’ I asked.
Rasputin nodded. I changed down into second, hauled the wheel over and accelerated up the overgrown dirt road.
Sweat was pouring down my face and torso. The cab of the truck was an oven on wheels, and the four of us were crammed tight together. Luckily I’d had the foresight to load up two full water-bottles. I got Jason to unscrew the cap of one and hand it to me. After I’d drunk, I unhooked the mike of the inter-vehicle radio from the dash, and called, ‘Green One. How’re you doing?’
‘Green Two.’ It was Stringer’s voice. ‘We’re in the OP with a good view of the road junction. Well cammed up.’
‘Roger. Nothing showing yet?’
‘Negative.’
‘What’s the range to the junction?’
‘About seven fifty.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘Approaching the cache. Wait out.’
I probably sounded quite cool, but in fact I was shitting bricks that we were on the wrong road and were going to have to turn back, wasting more time. The terrain looked too flat. Then at last we reached the beginning of a deep gully, and I recognised the ravine with big, smooth boulders along its flanks. At the point where the sides closed in, we came to a wooden pole-barrier carrying one of the blue-and-white danger signs. I didn’t even slow down to look at it, but drove straight through. Under the impact of our bullbar the flimsy pole exploded. Pieces flew into the air and landed among the rocks.
The time was 1347.
‘Nearly there,’ I said, half to myself, half to Jason. ‘But Jesus! It’s going to take twenty minutes just to get back as far as the OP.’
My stomach contracted as the battered grey doors of the cache came into sight. I pulled up opposite them, switched off, and said, ‘Okay, Jason. We’ll both get out. You cover these two while I separate them.’
I opened the driver’s door and slid to the ground.
‘Out!’ I told the two Russians.
They both began shifting and wriggling along the seat towards me. It had been awkward enough getting them in. I’d foreseen that getting them out was going to be worse, and I was expecting them both to tumble on to the deck before they got themselves sorted.