“Fresh batteries?” asked Cropped Hair.
“Yes, I change them regularly. There’s been no interruption to the power.”
“Good.” Dark Hair topped his glass up again and offered the bottle to the two others who declined. “I want to see it tomorrow.”
“Of course. What will you need to take out?”
“Initially some explosives and enough weapons for the other six in our team that we are expecting, and of course ourselves. Can we store them here?”
“No, I have a shed on another site close by. We can use that.When are the rest of your team due?”
“We’re expecting them by midnight tomorrow. Any unusual activity seen in the local area?”
“No, Comrade, nothing. No additional troop movements or enhanced security. It can’t last though; the West must pick up the signals soon, providing something is going to happen on a much larger scale.”
“They don’t seem the slightest bit bothered by Hammer 84.”
“Should they be?”
“Who knows, Comrade, who knows,” Cropped Hair responded. “We’ll certainly know when we get our next set of instructions tomorrow.”
Chapter 18
Bradley hoisted his eighty-pound Bergen up higher, jumping it up so it would rest higher up onto his shoulders, pulling the straps tighter at the front, giving his hips a rest. Although he had added some additional sponge padding to the straps, secured with wide black tape, they still dug into his armpits, making them red raw.
It was two-thirty in the morning on the 3rd July. They had been in East Berlin since midday. He swallowed as he thought back to their fraught passage through Checkpoint Charlie. There had been a heated debate amongst the Grenztruppen der DDR officers on duty. They seemed reluctant to let the Section through, but eventually allowed them to pass.
Was he afraid? Yes he was, as was Jacko tabbing behind him on the narrow track that was taking them through the forest. They both knew that potentially they wouldn’t be going back. Should the situation between the Western governments and the Soviet Union deteriorate further and hostilities break out between the Warsaw Pact and NATO, he and Jacko had enough supplies to stay in the East for up to two weeks. Then their survival would be in their own hands; they would be dependent on their own skills to stay alive. Although trained in the use of covert OPs (observation posts) in Northern Ireland against the IRA during the height of the troubles over there, and in West Germany against KGB agents operating against the West, this was different. Recently, Bradley had been recalling the two-week survival course he had completed in the Bavarian mountains during a winter season two years ago. The instructors were from the British SAS, attached to the International Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol School based in Weingarten. He felt that all his training and operational experience would stand him in good stead. Unfortunately, Jacko was the weak link. There had not been enough time to get a partner for Bradley to Berlin in time, so the decision was to use Jacko, who had volunteered, because at least he was familiar with the East Berlin Sector.
Bradley lifted the image intensifier up to his eyes, the green shimmer helping him pick his way through the forest as they headed east. To his right, on the other side of the forest, a railway line ran parallel to them. Their destination was a copse on the other side of the autobahn that was just a few hundred metres ahead. It was at a point where the railway line crossed over the East German motorway. An OP there would give them a clear view of all rail traffic moving through the northern part of the city and vehicular traffic transiting the orbital motorway. The Range Rover had been well and truly hidden in a small forest that ran along the Hobrechtsfelder Chaussee. The hide had been recced earlier in the week. The vehicle had been driven into a dip, a gully, with thick foliage and trees lining either side. With a cam-net thrown over the top of it and some broken branches dragged from further afield, the vehicle would remain hidden, at least for a few days. Should the belligerent state of affairs between East and West diminish, they would be able to recover the vehicle and return to West Berlin and safety. If it all kicked off, they wouldn’t need it again as they would be hundreds of kilometres behind enemy lines, and would have a different task to perform. Once the MFS and Soviets started to search for them, knowing they hadn’t passed back through Checkpoint Charlie, it wouldn’t take them long to discover their transport.
Bradley heard a car passing up ahead, indicating they were getting close to the motorway. He stopped and turned towards Jacko, who nearly walked into the back of him, and whispered, “Ring up ahead. We’ll get to the edge, check it out and then straight across. OK?”
Jacko acknowledged the order and Bradley moved off again, the forest providing them with good cover right up to the edge of the motorway. Ten minutes later, they arrived at the verge. It was quiet. At that time in the morning, it would be quiet, unlike some of the motorways in the West that seemed to be used constantly. Bradley spent a moment getting his bearings. To their north-west was Bucher Strasse; to their south-east Hubertusdamm and the railway line; and ahead, north-east, the Berliner ring road.
Jacko came alongside him and Bradley whispered. “It’s quiet now. Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
They got up from their crouch, straining under the weight of their packs, and moved forward. Looking left and right for telltale vehicle lights, they stepped over the barrier, shuffled across the eastbound carriageway, over the central reservation, across the westbound carriageway and, within a matter of minutes, were out of sight, hidden in a small grove.
They followed the line of the autobahn south-east until they arrived at the site of the railway line where it crossed over the road, the Berlin ring road. Bradley knew exactly where he was going, having reconnoitred the location a week earlier, so they pressed on. A line of trees ran parallel to the railway line, on the north-west side of the embankment.
Bradley searched out the section he wanted: a mass of thick, three-metre high undergrowth that had swamped the embankment and grappled its way amongst the trees. “That’s where we’re headed for,” he hissed.
They edged their way towards the thickest centre of mass, Bradley looking about him with the image intensifier, picking out landmarks, making sure this was the exact spot. Satisfied, he hissed to Jacko again as he dropped his Bergen to the ground, “Keep watch.”
Bradley took a fairly hefty pack off the top of the Bergen, carrying it to the start of the undergrowth, and placed it on the ground. As he faced the mass in front of him, the railway line was directly behind and, below, the autobahn to his left. Picking up the pack again and crouching low, he pushed his way into the profusion of vegetation, quietly cursing as vicious barbs pierced and ripped into his exposed skin. Forcing his way in deeper and deeper, the pack held out in front, he finally got to where he needed to be. Lifting the pack upwards, he shoved it as high as possible into the thick carpet of stalks that criss-crossed overhead. Slowly unfolding, the pack opening inwards as he pushed higher, it unravelled into an igloo-like shape that gradually transformed the entangled undergrowth into a space that would be their home for the coming days. Bradley tweaked at the edges, bending the overhead shield, made up of a number of layers, into shape. The first was a thin layer of hessian, topped with a fine-mesh chicken wire; a waterproof layer on top of that; a further thin layer of hessian; and topped off with a cam-net. Now fully open, holding the foliage about them at bay, it would provide them with a dry and well hidden home, and in relative comfort while they carried out the mission assigned to them. He called to Jacko, and they dragged their Bergens inside, pushing them to the back, using them as a further barrier against the advancing undergrowth. They now had a space of about two metres long by one and a half metres wide. All they needed now was to get organized and unpack their equipment that had been packed in reverse order: last in, first out. Just the key items to start with. Lying side by side on the waterproof ground sheet, no lights to help them, they had gone through the drill many times — so many times that they could do it blindfold. In fact, that is exactly how they did practise.