Andy McNab - Battlefield 3 - The Russian

‘Sir, he’s dead.’

The Major looked up and frowned.

‘How do you know that Sergeant? He could be in an air pocket for all we know.’

Johnson smoothed out the plans. Blackburn knew exactly where Cole was, in the area between the pool and the room with the screens.

‘Sir, the collapse was comprehensive.’

He drew a circle with his finger all round the area of the pool.

The Major stared at the plans.

‘How come you got out then, soldier?’

He pointed at the two narrow lines that ran from the back of the bunker.

‘Seeing that my entry point had collapsed, Sir, I had already made my way to the rear, to this escape tunnel.’

‘And where was Lieutenant Cole?’

This is it, thought Blackburn. The answer that decides the rest of my life. Before, he had thought of himself as an honourable man. What, now, did that mean?

‘I don’t know, Sir. The whole thing was coming down, so I just got out.’

The Major rubbed his chin.

‘Well, I’m not gonna be writing his mother saying we left him there.’

He stared at the plans for a few more moments then looked back up at Blackburn.

‘I’m shipping you back to Spartacus. You’re pretty banged up, kid. They’ll take your report there.’

It was a long time since anyone had called him kid. It certainly hadn’t been in Cole’s vocabulary. He wanted to say out loud right then. Know what, Sir? Cole was a bastard and a bully and he was going to die one way or another . He was glad he didn’t. It wouldn’t have come out right.

He saw Campo coming towards them. Blackburn detached himself from the group forming around the Major. Campo just stared. No greeting, no brotherly thump on the back: just standing, looking at Blackburn like he’d seen a ghost.

‘Oh, man. This is too weird.’ Campo nodded at the remains of the chalet. ‘It was a real mess in there. And you walk right out.’

Blackburn felt he deserved an explanation, or part of one.

‘The tunnel out the back of the bunker. We saw it on the plan, remember?’

Campo shook his head.

‘Man you’re something else. Your radio goes dead. We hear some big rock fall. Cole goes in. You come out. .’

‘I was lucky. Guess you were too.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Campo, doubtfully.

They walked further away from the Major. Campo pulled out a flattened pack of cigarettes, shook one out, lit it, drew heavily and blew out a long plume of smoke.

‘And you didn’t see him at all?’

‘In the bunker? No, why?’

Campo shrugged.

‘Just askin’.’

Blackburn shook his head.

‘What?’

‘Because after Cole went in, I called for a sitrep and couldn’t raise him on the radio. .’

‘And? It was all coming down in there, you know, like a landslide.’

‘Well there was this thud, like a muffled shot, not like some shit falling or anything.’

‘I didn’t hear anything like that,’ said Blackburn.

Campo said nothing, but just kicked at the dirt with his boot.

So this is how it’s going to be, thought Blackburn. He had never felt so alone.

57

Tehran — Tabriz Highway, Northern Iran

‘We have a problem.’

‘Wow. What could that be like?’ Kroll’s cynicism was working overtime.

‘Darwish’s tone, the arrangement. Plus he called her Anara. Twice.’

‘He’s under a lot of stress.’

They both knew it was something else altogether. That he wasn’t the sort of man to make a careless mistake, let alone about a member of his own family. Maybe he was being watched so closely that all he could do was mispronounce his own daughter’s name — a slip so small that whoever was in the room with him wouldn’t notice, but which he knew Dima would pick up straight away. He hoped the bleariness was nerves, nothing worse. Had he put the phone down so he could receive instructions from his captors? It sounded like a trap — unsubtle, inelegant and typical of the way certain people operated. Exactly which people they couldn’t say, yet.

‘He said he’s taking her away — from an airstrip? Where to?’

‘Maybe to his family.’

‘They’re all either dead or still here. This doesn’t smell right.’’

‘Great,’ said Kroll as they pulled back on to the road. ‘And you’re going to want to rescue him.’

Amara stirred from her deep sleep. Her eyes opened, closed and opened again, suddenly widening as she focused on Dima’s face. Lit by nothing more than the car’s interior light he did look a bit like a ghost.

‘I thought you were dead.’

‘I’m indestructible.’

She frowned, puzzled, then flinched with pain.

‘Where are we?’

‘Not far from home. I spoke to your father. He’s expecting us.’

Now she was upright he nodded at the space beside her. Kroll came to a stop so Dima could climb into the back. For several minutes they drove on in silence. He glanced at Amara, her whole life turned upside down by them.

‘I’m sorry about Gazul. After all, he was your—.’

She held up a hand, took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then shook her head.

‘It was a mistake. Don’t ever tell my father I said this: he was right about him.’

‘You helped us so much — taking us to the chalet.’

She looked down.

‘Kristen’s dead, isn’t she?’

‘Sorry. Along with my two comrades.’

‘Such a strange job you have. I bet you don’t have a wife or family.’

There was a pause before he answered that one. ‘It’s better that way,’ he said, thinking of the life he had once imagined with Camille.

‘You know, in Iran for a young widow, it’s not good. Do you think I could find work in Moscow? I heard there’s plenty of work in Moscow for young women.’

‘Not the sort your father would approve of.’

‘You’re as bad as him. Now you see why I had to get away.’

58

Outside Tabriz

They stopped about half a kilometre away from the airstrip and parked behind a storage shed.

‘You stay with Amara in the vehicle,’ Dima said to Kroll. ‘While we check this out.’

Dima and Vladimir crossed a field of aubergines to the perimeter fence.

‘What do you reckon?’ Vladimir gave Dima the binoculars.

‘Can’t see Darwish — or anyone.’

There was a single hangar, a few sheds and amast with a windsock at the top, hanging limp in the static night air. Parked in front of a makeshift terminal were a couple of Fokker F-27s belonging to a small regional airline and a very clean Kamov Ka-266 helicopter with no markings.

‘Look at that. No ID of any kind.’

‘Nice people always have numbers on their choppers.’

‘Whoever they are they knew we were coming all right,’ said Vladimir. ‘But who told them? Darwish?’

‘Never.’

‘He was trying to warn us though.’

‘Well, who then?’

Dima had a ghost of a suspicion, buried at the back of his mind, which he kept to himself. He was still burying it when they were suddenly dazzled by an enormous spotlight from inside the hangar.

‘Shit!’

They sprinted back across the field towards the Land Cruiser. They were almost on it when they realised it was surrounded.

‘Drop your weapons. On the ground!’

Dima couldn’t think of a better idea so they first dropped the guns and then themselves. The road smelled faintly of oil and animal shit. He tried to get a glimpse of the two armed figures running towards them but they had face masks on.

‘Face down.’

One of them swung his boot against Dima’s temple as he rolled over trying to see the Land Cruiser. They pulled his hands behind his back and bound his wrists with zip cuffs.