Tim Stevens - Ratcatcher

Dobrynin and Leok dragged the stumbling Englishman across the gravel towards the hangar, Venedikt following behind. They hadn’t bothered hooding the man this time. Instead of going with them all the way into the hangar, Venedikt veered off down the slope towards the wall which separated them from the field beyond. Bobbing in the field were dots of torchlight.

He made his way to the shed door that served as a ladder and climbed to the top of the wall. He cupped his hands round his mouth and called, long and loud. One of the lights detached itself from the invisible string, began heading toward him. It was Raskov.

‘No sign, sir.’

‘There are trees over there.’

‘Yes. We’ve looked. Ditches, too, a network of them, which you can’t see so well from here. If he’s lying low in one of them it could take us forever.’

After a moment’s pondering Venedikt came to a decision. ‘All right. Tattar’s operational, I’ll send him over to help. You bring one of the men and get ready to leave for the boat. The rest stay here and continue the search.’

‘If we don’t find him in time…’ Raskov’s tone wasn’t defeatist, just curious.

‘We have to find him, but if it’s not before…. the event , it won’t be disastrous. There’s no cell phone reception, so he won’t be able to summon help. If he has taken cover he’ll have to stay there, he can’t risk an open dash across the fields with four men looking for him, especially as it’ll be getting light soon. Find him if we can, but as long as we can keep him pinned down until we’ve done what we’re going to do, it’ll be enough.’

His men had rolled open the doors of the hangar and inside Venedikt looked at his watch. Six forty-five. He itched to be at the location early, but recognised that the longer they were in the air, the greater the risk of their attracting unwanted attention. The Black Hawk had fuel enough for eight hundred kilometres of flight, plus the auxiliary tank. Eight hundred kilometres was nearly ten times the distance they would be travelling, especially now that the journey was going to be one way only.

Once again he was inwardly proud of his decisiveness. He strode over to the door of the helicopter. In the cabin the Englishman, Fallon, was seated on one of the benches, trying to keep his head from lolling. Lyuba was securing his feet together once more. She glanced up at his face. Venedikt saw in her eyes a hate so keen it almost made him grimace. A woman betrayed, if not exactly spurned.

Leok was seated in the pilot’s seat, Dobrynin standing by Lyuba, awaiting instructions. Venedikt made sure he looked each of them in the face in turn.

‘We go now.’

As they took their positions and a crackle of tension and excitement began to connect them in its web, he grabbed each one by the shoulder and squeezed.

His people. Together they were going to change history.

Through the lid of the coffin — Purkiss couldn’t help thinking of it as such — the words were indistinct. He knew from the heavy creak above him that someone was sitting on the seat above him. His face was inches from the wood. Claustrophobia began to grip him and he smothered it.

Something was pushing beneath him. After a moment he realised it was the movement of the fuselage below. He gained a sense of directional motion as the helicopter rolled forward, had an impression even of a change in the timbre of the sounds penetrating the box he was in, as the chopper emerged from the hangar into the expanse of the early morning. For want of something more productive to do he checked the phone. Still no signal.

Another noise began to seep through, one accompanied by a tactile dimension. A rhythmic sweeping thud was followed in each beat by a gentle but distinct shake in the body of the helicopter. The rotor was starting up.

The throb of the blades gathered pace until a steady state was reached. Then there was the pressing of the base of the cavity he was lying in against his side, as the machine began to rise and they became airborne.

Seven oh three.

The reporter had to raise her voice against the background surge, enthusiasm infecting her tone as she delivered more platitudes.

A real sense of camaraderie…

A feeling that the past is being let go…

This momentous day will be imprinted on our memories for years to come…

The Jacobin heard, yet didn’t hear. He was staring at the sky, where the shape, black against the lightening ceiling of cloud, was rising, buoyed by the thrumming of its rotors.

He pulled over quickly beside a hedge, killed the engine to get rid of the exhaust fumes. He peered upwards. The helicopter had stopped ascending and hung, raptor-like, before swinging away to the north.

He’d thought he would be too late. In a sense he was, because the helicopter had taken off before he’d got there. But didn’t that suggest Purkiss himself had failed to stop it? The Jacobin reached for his phone, into which he’d copied the web address of the tracking site. No internet connection.

A car was emerging in the distance through the gates of the airfield. It stopped beyond the gates and a man got out and closed them behind the car. The Jacobin started the engine of his car again. It wouldn’t do to be noticed sitting in a stationary vehicle this close to the airfield. Nor would it be a good idea to turn round immediately and drive away, in sight of the car. The Jacobin continued along the road that ran past the airfield.

As he approached the other car, which was heading towards him, he glanced at its occupants, as one would naturally do when passing another vehicle on such an empty road. Three of them. Although none was familiar, he recognised the type. Kuznetsov’s people, soldiers by background, grim faced. They wouldn’t recognise him, had never met him before. No sign of Purkiss in the car. They would be the backup, the Jacobin assumed. The crew who were to meet the chopper out at sea.

To follow them, even at a distance, would invite suspicion, and if they turned on him the odds were hardly in his favour, not just numerically. He punched the address of a location he knew on the coast into the car’s satellite navigation system. It directed him to continue the way he was heading. The Jacobin put his foot down, glancing every now and again at the display on his phone.

Through the windows of the cabin the sky was changing almost perceptibly to slate. Below, a light ground fog blurred the details of the fields and the sparse network of roads between them. The weather didn’t matter greatly, Venedikt reflected. The handshake would take place in anything short of a hurricane.

He sat on the bench facing Fallon, forcing himself not to prowl about the cabin. Dobrynin was leaning into the cockpit and asking something of Leok and Lyuba, the pilot and co-pilot. Dobrynin was as excited, as moved as he was, Venedikt knew. He was simply more reserved in his personality and therefore didn’t let it show.

Two missiles would have been ideal, one as backup for the other. The finances wouldn’t have been a problem. The haul from the hijacking of the bank vans would have stretched to a second one. Availability was the stumbling block, as the arms dealer had told him. The missile was one of the most sought-after pieces of weaponry in the world, and therefore the most closely guarded. Still, one would be enough.

The dealer had given Venedikt a choice of warhead. After consultation with Dobrynin he had gone for the Penetration/Blast/Fragmentation warhead rather than the High Explosive Anti-Tank round. There was no armour to be penetrated, and the PBF had bunker-busting capability and in terms of destructive power over a wider area it was the surer option. The War Memorial would be destroyed, of course. Had it not been for the context, Venedikt would have baulked at this. But the symbolic power of such an outrage… it was almost as important that the Memorial fall as that the President be sacrificed.