Next came the two-minute warning, then one. The Mi-8 Hip shuddered and vibrated as the pilot pulled back on the stick, banking hard left, throwing his passengers violently against each other as he brought the helicopter round, pointing in the direction from which they had just flown. Pulling back on the controls again, he brought the Mi-8 to a hover as the crewman in the back pulled the door open. A blast of air whipped around the cabin, and the eight Spetsnaz operators stood up. Two went forward, pushing eight packs out of the aircraft to land on the ground below. The lead man then launched himself from the helicopter, dropped a metre to the ground as the pilot kept the helicopter from landing on the deck, holding it in a steady hover. The first man to drop ran, hunched down. Then, at twenty metres’ distance, he threw himself to the ground, his assault rifle up into his shoulder, ready in case they had been discovered. He heard the grass rustle to his left as one of his colleagues joined him, followed by five more.
The team leader took one last look around the cabin, making sure nothing had been left behind. He signalled the crewman then leapt out to join his team. The cockpit of the MI-8, seeming to dip down, was, within seconds of the last man leaving, moving, the pilot powering the helicopter, flying it forwards and up in one swift movement.
The team of eight men then just lay in place, adjusting senses, particularly their hearing, to the environment they were now in. They had been dropped in a clearing, a meadow, west of a path, the Wittekindsweg, that ran along the southern edge of the lengthy Wiehengebirge, north of Rodinghausen. It was twenty minutes before the team leader felt it safe to move, and he led his men to the edge of the meadow. They waited again until a red light, no more than 100 metres away, flashed four times. The leader responded twice with his own red-screened torch and relaxed a little when the other party returned two flashes. His men spread out to provide cover as a shadowy figure ran to join them.
“Gregor?” asked the shadowy figure.
“Who else?”
“I thought I recognised the squashed nose.”
They both laughed quietly as they gripped each other’s shoulders.
“All clear, Andrei?” Gregor, the team leader, asked as they crouched down.
“Yes, I’ve been here for three hours. Nothing. How about you?”
“No problems. We came in with two Rooks. They’ve been attacking a few enemy positions, and the helicopter slipped through their lines as the British were keeping their heads down. We came in nice and low. The pilot knew what he was doing, although he scared the shit out of me at times.”
“I’ve not heard any alerts going off around here.”
“Good. Have you found a good route for us?”
“Of course. Couldn’t depend on you to find your own way.” His grin stood out in the dark.
“Vadim,” he then hissed, and another Spetsnaz soldier joined them. “This is Vadim. Meet Gregor, our contact and guide.” The two men shook hands.
Andrei pulled a map out of a pocket in his black waterproof jacket and unfolded it. Then, taking a cape from a small rucksack on his back, he pulled it over their heads as the three men crouched down together, heads touching as Gregor played a smaller white torch over the map.
“We go north for about two and a half kilometres; then east for about 500 metres. The first part is a dip between two pieces of high ground. We just need to stay in the treeline. When we hit the northern edge, we follow it round towards the east, and the British unit is about 500 metres away.”
“What have they got?”
“Standard comms vehicles, but the company defending it has those boxy-looking armoured vehicles.”
“Saxons?”
“They’re the ones.”
“Size?”
“I’m pretty certain it’s a Brigade Headquarters.”
“Good,” added Vadim. “That will be the one controlling the battalions defending the river and the troops further back.”
Andrei looked at his notebook. “15th Brigade. It’s a reservist unit. We need to go. Lead on, Gregor.”
Andrei packed the cape away as the rest of the group were briefed. They were less than two kilometres as the crow flies from their objective, but had about a three-kilometre march ahead of them. All they had to do was move silently, ensure they were undetected, and then strike the enemy hard. This was just one small mission, part of a much larger operation right across the NATO front. The aim was to stun the enemy, blind them, and confuse them. Two thousand Spetsnaz soldiers, operating in teams from as few as four men to as large as twenty, would be a thorn in NATO’s side from as far north as Bremen and south to Kassel. A few teams had been flown in by helicopter, the sparse number of NATO troops along the front line making it easier than anticipated. Others were parachuted close to their targets, but far enough away to ensure stealth. Many teams had been in West Germany for the past two months; sharing homes or other accommodation with sleepers that had been living in the West for anything up to twenty years. A small core of GRU assets had been living in West Berlin and West Germany since the Cold War began almost immediately after the end of the Second World War.
After just over two kilometres of threading their way through the trees, the team arrived at an empty building. Two Special Forces soldiers approached the small farmhouse, waiting for thirty minutes as they watched the main entrance but, after no sign of movement, they moved in closer, peering discreetly through windows, the blinds purposefully left open, no sign of life visible. The sergeant signalled to his comrade, and they moved to the front door. As had been agreed, the door was unlocked, and they entered slowly. After a quick check of the rooms downstairs and upstairs, clearing all the rooms and wardrobes, or anywhere someone could be secreted, they were satisfied the property was empty.
The sergeant sent Stepan to fetch the rest of the detachment. Within ten minutes, two of the nine men were on sentry duty outside while the remainder sorted through the supplies and equipment that had been placed there by one of the GRU agents who had come across four weeks earlier as a member of the crew on an Aeroflot aircraft. The supplies had been smuggled across the border in one of the thousands of lorries that transited between East and West Germany. The driver, also a GRU operative, coordinated with the agent, Gregor, and the supplies were deposited in the farmhouse that belonged to yet another Spetsnaz sleeper. The cache contained additional ammunition, two RPG-16s, a Strela-2 shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile, landmines and plastic explosives.
The sleeper wouldn’t be in attendance: another task had been assigned to him in order to keep the pressure on the already overburdened NATO forces.
“Yulian, Dmitry, sort the mines out. Ilia, Marat, I want a patrol out to 100 metres.”
Acknowledging their orders, two men went to pick up a handful of small landmines that would be placed at strategic points around the building. On their return to this location to restock with ammunition and supplies, should they need them, the detonated mines would alert them to the location being compromised. The two other Spetsnaz operators would complete a 360-degree circuit of the building.
On their return, and with the mines prepared and armed, the lieutenant ordered his men to move.
After consulting the map one last time, the detachment commander was satisfied it would take them no more than two hours to get to the site where they would find their target.