Nina, Tova and Kagan scurried for cover — but Eddie hared into the open, running across the taxiway. ‘Eddie!’ Nina yelled, stopping. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Giving ’em a warm welcome!’ he shouted.
A glance back. The two men in the 4x4 had seen him, the bounding jeep changing direction to intercept. He adjusted his own course; he needed the vehicle to pass close to the bunker—
The passenger’s AK thudded. Eddie heard bullets sear past him, little puffs of snow marking their impacts on the frozen ground. He reached the edge of the concrete and dropped flat on the grass, scrambling around to bring up his own rifle.
The gunman fired again, a three-round burst this time chipping the taxiway only feet from the Englishman. He flinched, then raised his head and took aim. With only three bullets left, he had to make them all count…
He pulled the trigger.
The shot crazed the jeep’s windscreen. The driver made a rapid stop, the 4x4 slithering on the snow to end up almost side-on to Eddie. Both men scrambled out to take cover behind the unarmoured vehicle.
Just as Eddie had hoped.
He switched his aim — to the gas tanks along the bunker’s side, about fifty feet from the stationary UAZ. He aligned the sights on a valve on the nearest tank, held his breath to steady the rifle — and fired.
The shot clanged off the tank just below the valve. The sights were slightly off. Eddie muttered a curse, raising the gun to compensate — just as the two soldiers opened fire.
This time, their aim was much better.
‘Shit!’ Eddie gasped, dropping his head as bullets smacked against the concrete. The shooting stopped, but he knew they had not given up — they would be switching their rifles from burst-fire to single-shot mode for greater accuracy.
He raised his head again, lining up the sights on the tank for his final shot. In the corner of his vision, he saw one of the soldiers taking aim…
He took the shot.
The acetylene tank blew apart, the shockwave throwing the soldiers to the ground. A fireball roared out from the side of the bunker. Both Russians felt the hellish heat sweep over them, and simultaneously made the same wordless decision to jump up and run as quickly as they could away from its source.
Eddie was also back on his feet — running for the UAZ, the front end of which was now adorned by spots of flame where its paint had caught light. He waved for the others to join him. ‘Anyone order a taxi?’ he shouted.
Nina led the others out from behind the bunker, giving the blaze around the remaining acetylene tanks a very wide berth. ‘I am so never putting you in charge of any barbecues,’ she said as she reached the jeep. Her husband, already in the driving seat, grinned.
Tova gave the UAZ an unhappy look as she helped Kagan aboard. ‘But it is on fire!’
‘Second-hand cars’ve always got something wrong with ’em,’ said Eddie. He put the jeep into gear and made a sharp turn to head away from the bunker. ‘Okay, where are we going?’
Kagan was thinking out loud. ‘We will never reach the commander to explain the truth — he has issued orders for us to be shot on sight. The orders can only be countermanded from above… I need to speak to my superiors in Moscow,’ he announced, now focused. Nina started to take out her phone, but he shook his head. ‘All the cell towers in the area will have been shut down when the base was put on alert. I need a secure line.’
‘Where can we find one?’ she asked.
‘The main communications centre — but we will never get to it alive. Or…’ He pointed off to one side. ‘Or there!’
Nina looked round — and did a double-take when she saw what he was indicating. ‘On a plane?’
Standing on one of the taxiways was the silver bulk of a Tu-95MS Bear bomber, the thrum of its eight massive propellers at idle the source of the droning rumble. Ladders led up into its long fuselage, a couple of small trucks waiting nearby. ‘It’s got a radio link?’ Eddie asked.
Kagan nodded. ‘There is an emergency frequency that will connect me to the Kremlin — my superiors can order the base commander to arrest Slavin. It will take only a few minutes.’
‘If we even have a few minutes,’ said Nina in alarm, seeing several other jeeps charging across the great expanse of the airbase.
‘Better than nowt,’ Eddie told her, swinging the UAZ on to the grass to head for the bomber. In the wing mirror, he saw figures piling out of the bunker’s elevator. ‘Shit! Slavin and his lads just got to the surface.’
‘Keep down,’ Kagan warned. They all hunched lower. A few shots cracked after them, but none hit.
‘We’re out of range,’ Nina said in relief.
Eddie dampened her mood. ‘We won’t be for long,’ he warned, glancing back at the pursuing vehicles.
Kagan checked his gun’s magazine. ‘I only have seventeen bullets. It will not be enough to hold them off.’
‘We need more guns…’ Eddie looked again at the Bear. They were approaching the huge bomber from behind — and he saw windows at the very end of the fuselage beneath the tail, a turret mounted below it.
A turret from which jutted the long black barrels of two AM-23 autocannons.
‘And we’ve got more guns,’ he concluded.
‘Where?’ Nina asked, not seeing any in the UAZ.
‘There.’ He pointed at the turret.
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Nope!’ One of the ladders led into the tailgunner’s compartment. He looked under the wings. Pylons were loaded with sleek grey shapes: the Bear was fully armed with Kh-101 cruise missiles. He hoped the cannons were combat-ready too. ‘Nina, Tova — go up the front ladder and get Kagan to the radio. I’ll hold ’em off with the guns.’
Kagan shot him a sharp look. ‘You are going to kill Russian soldiers?’
‘No, just scare ’em — unless they’re stupid enough to keep coming!’
He brought the smouldering UAZ on to the taxiway, the jeep bouncing hard over the edge of the concrete. Two men with thick parkas over grubby overalls were working on the landing gear. They looked round in surprise as the 4x4 skidded to a halt, then hurriedly backed away as Kagan pointed his gun at them. He limped for the steep metal steps leading into the forward fuselage, Nina and Tova going with him.
Eddie, meanwhile, clattered up the aft ladder. A confused face peered down through the hatch at him, asking a question in Russian.
The Englishman reached the top and replied with a punch. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, pulling himself up into the cramped compartment and dropping the dazed airman out of the opening. The fall was about twelve feet; the man hit the runway hard and yelled in pain, but no bones were broken. ‘If I were you, I’d shift your arse!’
He turned to survey his surroundings. The tailgunner’s station was cut off from the rest of the bomber’s interior, a lonely, claustrophobic and noisy eyrie whose sole saving grace on the Bear’s long patrols would be a spectacular vista beyond its panoramic windows. The current view of the flat and bleak expanse of Engels was less inspiring, but Eddie was more concerned with targets than scenery. The incoming jeeps were barrelling down the taxiway towards the Tu-95.
He squeezed into the gunner’s seat. ‘Think in Russian,’ he said to himself as he looked over the instrument panel. The controls all had Cyrillic labels, but he didn’t need to be a linguist to work out the function of the red button on the handgrips beneath the swivelling gunsight mount. The twin cannons were currently pointed skywards in their failsafe position; he rectified that by the crude but effective method of flicking every switch he could see until the guns lowered with a hydraulic whine.