Andy McNab - Battlefield 3 - The Russian

Dima climbed up to the flight deck, the equivalent of two storeys up from the hold. He put on a spare headset and watched over the shoulders of the pilots as they pressed on into the moonless dark. The low cloud and fine rain almost killed what little visibility there was. The instruments kept them out of trouble, nosing the machine over sudden tall trees and power-lines.

‘Still reading quake tremors. It’s going to be a mess down there,’ said Yergin the co-pilot, waving a printout. ‘Keep your tin hat on.’ He grinned.

‘How long do you need to hold position over the compound to drop the Go Team?’

‘They get moving, I reckon three minutes max.’

‘You pay good attention to our recce report or you won’t know what they’ll have pointing up at you.’

‘Don’t worry: the force is with me.’ Yergin swished the air with an imaginary light sabre. ‘Get ready. LZ in two.’

14

Near Bazargan, Northern Iran

The rotors swatted the air above as they prepared to disembark the Peykans — Dima, Kroll and Vladimir in the lead car, Zirak and Gregorin in the second. The cars were facing to the rear. As soon as the doors opened and the ramp dropped Dima reversed in a neat arc and accelerated away, night goggles on, no headlights, at least until they were clear of the site and on a public road. They didn’t wait to watch the Mil pull away but they heard it all right, and hoped that Kaffarov’s captors in the next valley didn’t.

‘Welcome to Iran. We hope you have a pleasant stay,’ said Dima. Vladimir was awake now, lounging on the rear seat. Kroll looked more comfortable now he was back on terra firma. ‘And a bloody short one,’ he added. ‘I want to be back for lunch.’

It was three a.m., but they were pumping enough adrenalin to keep them awake for a week. Once he’d got the measure of the Peykan, Dima put on more speed. He almost lost it on a blind bend when a tanker came the other way, with its huge headlights blazing. Its driver couldn’t see them until the last moment, and they couldn’t see much but the sudden whiteness, followed by an almighty roar. Taking up almost the whole of the winding, uneven road, it brushed past them with inches to spare. Dima was relieved to find the brakes had been uprated with an anti-lock system, which enabled them to slew to a halt at the only place they could stop without tipping over the edge.

‘Quite responsive,’ said Kroll. ‘I wish my wife was as quick.’

‘She is, as it happens,’ said Vladimir.

‘ Yes, ’ said Zirak on the radio. ‘ And unlike the gorilla, she sends flowers after.’

Dima smiled to himself. Despite all the danger, his mistrust of Paliov and the sheer insanity of the mission, he was back where he belonged, leading a team of the best to the very limits of their abilities. There was nothing so bonding as knowing you might all be about to die together — that and a good wife joke.

They went through a small village: a cluster of dozing houses with no evidence of occupation save for a single prayer mat on a washing line. It appeared deserted, yet there was no sign of damage from the quake. A sound, somewhere between a bark and a howl, issued across the cool night air.

‘Jackal,’ said Kroll.

‘Or your wife again.’

Leaving the LZ behind them in the distance, the road climbed out of the valley and did a hairpin left into the next one. Kroll examined the hills with a night sight. ‘Got it. Fuck me, it looks a lot smaller in the flesh.’

‘Yeah, like your dick,’ came the reply from the back.

‘The walls are still up. Doesn’t look like the tremors have had any impact’

The road forked where a drive curved up to the main gate. They slowed as they passed, taking in what they could in the gloom.

‘Tempting to just go and ring the bell — could be a lot simpler.’

‘Yeah, and get your head blown off.’

Two hundred metres beyond the drive Dima slowed to a halt, waiting for the second car to catch up. Once its lights were in view he carried on at a crawl until he found the track to the right that he’d seen on his friend Darwish’s pictures. The track was deeply rutted and the car bottomed after a hundred metres. The cypress trees made a good screen. Dima opened his door.

‘Okay guys: let’s get kitted up.’

The air was damp, and pungent with the aroma of the cypresses. A mountain grouse, surprised by the unexpected visitors, shot into the air from near their feet with a furious clatter of wings, but otherwise there were no sounds, no wind. Vladimir took the rope kit and helped himself to a Dragunov. One of the reasons he was on Dima’s must-have list was his climbing skill. As a boy of nine he had escaped from a juvenile detention centre down a four-storey wall. A few years later he was making frequent visits to his girlfriend’s second floor bedroom, scaling the outside of the block where she lived while her father waited on guard, oblivious, in the hallway. ‘Like Dracula,’ he said, grinning with his remaining teeth.

They walked in single file towards the point in the wall that Dima had chosen. They couldn’t see any cameras but it was possible they were concealed. Where he had identified a bend in the wall on the pictures, he reasoned there should be a blind spot.

The walls were ten metres higher than even Kroll had estimated, but Vladimir wasn’t fazed. With the rope attached to his belt and the guys at the bottom feeding it out in case of kinks, he started up the wall at such a pace that it looked like he had suckers on his hands.

‘Nice,’ said Kroll. ‘Like Spiderman with balls.’

Vladimir disappeared from view, obscured by the trees close to the wall. Two minutes later he was down again, having fixed the rope to a rampart by tying loops round it and then using snail links to join the loops.

‘It’s a bit busy in there. You better look.’

Dima climbed the wall using the rope. What had he been expecting? A deserted open area, a few vehicles, not much happening. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Since the last satellite pictures he had seen, taken only four hours before, the place had been transformed into a hive of activity. Three large trucks were parked facing the gate, each with its tailgate dropped. There must have been fifty men down there, all very young, looking like they had just been turfed out of the trucks and were waiting to be told what to do next. There were another twenty in semi-military uniforms, carrying a mixture of shotguns and rifles. Far from being the secluded hideaway of Al Bashir, this looked more like an improvised HQ. The wall he was secured to had deteriorated. There was no walkway. He was unlikely to be disturbed by a patrol, nor were there any cameras that he could make out. He pulled on the rope — the signal for the others to join him. It was pointless attempting to mount any assault themselves with those numbers below, he thought. But he also realised that the Go Team making a fast rope descent would be a disaster — unless all those below with arms were seriously distracted. There was just about enough room for the nuke team to land their Mil, but only once the personnel had been cleared.

Kroll peered down at the crowd and sighed. ‘Why does life have to be so complicated?’

Vladimir was by his side, reaching down to give Zirak a hand. ‘It’s what makes it interesting.’

This was why Dima had wanted Vladimir along. He thrived on unpredictability; he lived for it. Dima scanned the crowd below, trying to read what was happening. Someone in uniform prodded an older man with his AK. If these were recruits they weren’t exactly being welcomed. Coerced, more like. Where was Kaffarov? They would have to contain these men before they could mount a search. And clearing an area for Shenk’s chopper was another problem.