Ninety minutes later found them skirting the edge of a small complex, the patrol moving more slowly the closer they got to the target. Signalling his men to halt, he was sure that the British brigade headquarters was close.
They lined up along a shallow embankment, just inside the trees, keeping their heads down while some military trucks drove along the road in the centre of the complex. There was silence once the last vehicles left the compound, somewhere to the north. The Soviet EW unit that had been tracking the radio transmissions of NATO headquarters’ scattered across West Germany had done well in identifying this particular headquarters. Someone had been careless, too loose with their communications, allowing the Soviet army to find them.
Gregor signalled his team forward, and the group passed from tree to tree, dropping down the gentle slope, keeping their eyes peeled now, looking for signs of sentries.
Lieutenant Gregor Antonovich dropped to one knee, signalling back to his men to do the same, although the order was not needed: the second in the file had been watching the point man closely. They could now hear the generators running, needed to power the lights and the vast array of communications equipment required by a brigade headquarters to control its subordinate units and keep in touch with higher command. The sound could never be completely muffled, even using dips in the ground or other vehicles to try and mask it. The throb of the motors could be heard for some distance.
Gregor’s men lined up and split into two teams of four. Andrei would remain there and cover their withdrawal.
“Let’s go,” uttered Gregor, and the men moved forward silently. Gregor’s eyes darted everywhere, looking for a sentry, or sentries. They will have at least a dozen men on guard at any one time, he thought. His PSS pistol moved from side to side as he edged around one of the buildings. Three hundred metres away, across an open piece of ground, he could see at least six single-storey buildings interspersed amongst an array of trees. He picked out at least two of the ugly Saxon vehicles facing him and could hear at least a couple of generators.
To his left, 200 metres away, was another building, the one he would make for. He signalled to Yulian, Dmitry and Marat to follow him, and ran at a crouch towards the single-storey building.
Halfway across, he was suddenly dazzled by the lights of the Saxons opposite, holding up his left hand to shield his eyes as more and more headlight beams banished the darkness. He saw a different sort of light, a flash from amongst the trees, as he was spun round, the sound of a heavy machine quickly following. Two more bullets thudded into his body as he dropped to the ground, his pistol falling from his lifeless fingers. One Spetsnaz soldier managed to fire a burst as he too went down, but it was all over. All eight men were killed, some struck by a dozen or more bullets, such was the ferocity of the fire launched at them.
Andrei look on disbelievingly. Then he gathered his senses and sprinted up the shallow bank, running smack into a British patrol that was closing the trap that had been set for the unsuspecting Soviet Special Forces. Three GRU agents, under scrutiny for the last three weeks, had been caught in the last two days, but they had continued to operate, on pain of death, leaving Soviet high command convinced all was well.
Chapter 31
The SAS trooper eased himself forwards on his elbows until he was ten metres from the sleeping sentry. It would be difficult to take this one out. Not because he was alert; on the contrary, he was sitting on the rear step of a Zil-131 box-body vehicle, his feet on the ground with his forehead slowly dropping towards his knees. When his helmetless head got to a point where he would topple forwards, or sideways, his body would rear up and, still asleep, the young soldier would again rest the back of his head against the door that was situated above the steps. Then, the process would start all over again.
The trooper rose up and moved quietly across the open ground until he was alongside the main body of the vehicle. Edging along the flat side of the truck, he reached the back end seconds before the soldier would again go through his familiar routine. As the man’s head dropped, Trooper Glover made his move. He whipped around the corner at speed and, as the soldier’s head reared up, as he anticipated it would, wrapped his left arm around the man’s face, clamping his mouth with his hand, jerking the soldier’s head around to the left sharply before he forced the knife deep into the man’s exposed neck. Slicing backwards through the jugular, the blood gushing out as he hugged the man’s head tight into his chest, pulling the struggling body around to the side of the truck where Trooper Mathers’ joined him in subduing and ensuring the death of the Soviet guard. They dragged the soldier’s body across to the trees while their two companions kept watch. Now they could move deeper into the camp, the inner confines of the headquarters of the Soviet 20th Guards Army. They knew it was an Army headquarters by its sheer size.
After hiding the body as best they could, placing his body in the centre of a clump of shrubs, the four soldiers continued with their probe of the headquarters. This particular box-body was of no importance, so they needed to move deeper into the complex. The four soldiers moved slowly and quietly. Their Bergen’s were hidden, to be picked up on the extraction route. The four SAS troopers wore only their belt kit, but still carried a bag of explosives each, to take out any key pieces of equipment they came across.
They passed two further box-bodied vehicles, all on Ural-375 chassis, before coming across the major assembly area they were looking for: Galenberg Park. At the south-eastern edge of Bad Nenndorf, the outskirts in this part of the town was scattered with trees. With the liberal use of camouflage, it made an ideal vehicle park. All vehicles were covered in netting and ranged from UAZ-469 jeeps, UAZ-452s, Gaz-66s and a mix of other utility vehicles — in particular, one with a tropospheric scatter array. There were also a number of armoured command vehicles, such as ACRVs, MTLBs and BMP command vehicles from the four divisions of the army units, plus all the supporting elements that came under the command of a Soviet Army. They weren’t sure where the main area of operations was housed, but they had enough here to make a start. The four men were amazed at the lack of security; such was the confidence of the Soviet Army.
Time was against them though. It was time to split, choose a number of comms vehicles, or other high-value targets, attach the explosives, meet up again, and then disappear as silently as they had arrived.
The Lynx Mark 9 quivered as a gust of wind whipped across the rotor blades, jolting the passengers in the rear. The pilot fought with the controls as the wind was funnelled in between the high ground of Buckeberge to his left and the Deister and Suntel to his right. On top of that, he was flying low, almost at treetop height, with only the light of a pale moon to guide him. Flying in a straight line was near impossible but, if he didn’t, he would fly his helicopter into the trees that towered above him to his left as they climbed the slopes of the Buckeberge. Keeping low and close to the treeline may be risky but, if they flew down the centre of the valley, closer to the Autobahn, Soviet troops scattered all around the valley floor would spot them. He had no doubt they would have a mixture of ZSUs, SA-13s, and SA-6s and their associated radars would be intermittently searching for any aircraft that could threaten the soldiers on the ground. At this very moment, on the opposite side of the valley, four Harriers were conducting harassing attacks as a distraction. Behind Zulu-One, three other helicopters had followed their leader along the same route. Zulu-One’s passengers, a team of eight men from 2RRF, had two missions to perform, critical to the success of the forthcoming attack by the NORTHAG forces.