Robert Harris - Archangel

A moment later, Arsenyev came through. 'Feliks, listen.' His tone was strained. 'I've been trying to reach you. You've heard the news?'

'I've heard the news.

'Unbelievable! You've talked to the others? You must move quickly.

'Yes, I've talked to them, and I mean to say, what is this, colonel?' Suvorin had to put his finger into his other ear and shout into the receiver. 'What's going on? I've landed in the middle of nowhere and I'm looking out of the window here at three cut-throats loading a snow plough with enough firepower to take out a battalion of NATO -'

'Feliks,' said Arsenyev, 'it's out of our hands.'

'So what is this? Now we are supposed to take our orders from the MVD?'

'They're not MVD,' said Arsenyev quietly. 'They're Special Forces in MVD uniforms.'

'Spetsnaz?' Suvorin put his hand to his head. Spetsnaz. Commandos. Alpha Brigade. Killers. 'Who decided to turn them loose?'

As if he didn't know.

Arsenyev said, 'Guess.'

'And was His Excellency drunk as usual? Or was this a rare interlude of sobriety?'

'Have a care, major!' Arsenyev's voice was sharp.

The snow plough's heavy diesel cracked into life. The revving engine shook the double glass, briefly obliterating Arsenyev's voice. Big yellow headlights turned and flashed through the snow then began moving ponderously across the runway towards Suvorin.

'So what are my orders exactly?'

'To proceed as you think fit, using all force necessary.

'All force necessary to achieve what?'

'Whatever you think fit.'

'Which is what?'

'That's for you to decide. I'm relying on you, major. I'm allowing you complete operational freedom -'

Oh but he was a wily one, wasn't he? The wiliest. A real survivor. Suvorin lost his temper.

'So how many are we supposed to kill then, colonel? One man is it? Two? Three?'

Arsenyev was shocked. He was profoundly disturbed. If the tape of the call was ever played back - which it would be; the following day - his expression would be obvious for all to hear. 'Nobody said anything about killing, major! Has anyone there said such a thing? Have I?'

'No, you haven't,' said Suvorin, finding within himself a depth of sarcasm and bitterness he didn't know he possessed, 'so obviously whatever happens is my responsibility alone. I haven't been guided by my superior officers in any way. And neither, I am sure, has the exemplary Major Kretov!'

Arsenyev started to say something but his voice was drowned out by the roar of the engine being revved again. The snow plough was nearly up against the window now. Its blade rose and fell like a guillotine. Suvorin could see Kretov in the driver's seat, passing his finger across his throat. The horn sounded. Suvorin waved at him irritably and turned his back.

'Say again, colonel.'

But the line was dead and all attempts to reconnect it failed. And that was the sound that Suvorin afterwards could never quite get out of his ears, as he sat squashed in the jumpseat of the snow plough, bouncing into the forest: the cold, implacable buzz of a number unobtainable.

THE SNOW HAD eased and it was much colder - it must have been minus three or four. Kelso pulled up his hood and set off as fast as he could towards the edge of the clearing. Ahead of him through the trees his paper trail of yellow markers blossomed every fifty yards in the snowy undergrowth like winter flowers.

Getting out of the cabin had not been easy. When he had told the Russian they needed to go back to their car - 'only to collect some more equipment, comrade,' he had added, quickly - he had received a look of such glinting suspicion he had almost quailed. But somehow he held the other man's gaze and eventually, after a final, searching glance, he was given a brief nod of permission. And even then O'Brian had lingered - 'you know, we could do with one more shot from over here ...' - until Kelso had grabbed him hard by the elbow and steered him towards the door. The Russian watched them go, puffing on his pipe.

Kelso could hear O'Brian, breathing hard, stumbling after him, but he didn't stop to let him catch up until they were out of sight of the hut.

O'Brian said, 'You got the notebook?'

Kelso patted the front of his jacket. 'In here.'

'Oh, nice work,' said O'Brian. He performed a little victory shuffle in the snow. 'Jesus, this is a story, isn't it? This is a hell of a story.'

'A hell of a story,' repeated Kelso, but all he wanted was to get away. He resumed his walk, but more urgently now, his legs aching with the effort of pushing through the snow.

They came out on to the track and there was the Toyota, a hundred yards away, wrapped in a wet, white layer more than an inch deep, thicker towards the rear where the wind was blowing from, and as they came closer they could see that the surface was beginning to crystalise to ice. It was still tilting forwards, its back tyres almost clear of the snow, and it took them a while to locate all the damage. The Russian had fired three bullets into the car. One had blown off the lock on the back door. Another had opened up the driver's side. A third had gone through the hood into the engine, presumably to silence the alarm.

'That crazy sonofabitch,' said O'Brian, staring at the ugly holes. 'This is a forty-thousand-dollar vehicle -'

He squeezed behind the steering wheel, put the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing. Not even a click.

'No wonder he didn't mind if we came back to the car,' said Kelso, quietly. 'He knew we weren't going anywhere.'

O'Brian had started looking worried again. He struggled out of the front seat and sank deep into the drift. He waded round to the back, lifted the rear door and blew out a long sigh of relief, his breath condensing in the cold air.

'Well, it doesn't look as though he's damaged the Inmarsat, thank Christ. That's something.' He glanced around, frowning.

Kelso said, 'Now what?'

O'Brian muttered, 'Trees.'

'Trees?'

'Yeah. The satellite's not straight above our heads, remember? She's over the equator. This far north, that means you need to keep the dish at a real low angle to send a signal. Trees, if they're close up - they, ah, well, they kind of get in the way.' He turned to Kelso, and Kelso could have murdered us then: killed him just for the nervous, sheepish grin on his big handsome, stupid face. 'We're gonna need a space, Fluke. Sorry.'

A space?

Yeah. A space. They would have to return to the clearing.

O'BRIAN insisted they took the rest of the equipment back with them. That, after all, was what Kelso had told the Russian they were going to do, and they didn't want to make him suspicious, did they? Besides, no way was O'Brian going to leave over a hundred-grand's-worth of electronic gear sitting in a shot-up Toyota in the middle of nowhere. He wasn't going to let it out of his sight.

And so they struggled back along the track, O'Brian in the lead carrying the Inmarsat and the heavier of the big cases, with the Toyota's battery, wrapped in a black plastic sheet, jammed under his arm. Kelso had the camera case and the lap-top editing machine and he did his best to keep up, but it was heavy going. His arms ached. The snow sucked at him. Soon, O'Brian had turned into the forest and was out of sight, while Kelso had to keep stopping to transfer the damned bloody swine of an edit case from one hand to the other. He sweated and cursed. On his way back through the trees he stumbled over a hidden root and dropped to his knees.

By the time he reached the clearing, O'Brian already had the satellite dish connected to the battery and was trying to twist it into the right direction. The trajectory of the antenna pointed directly at the snowy tops of some big firs, about fifty yards away, and he was hunched over it, his jaw working with anxiety, holding the compass in one hand, pressing switches with the other. The snow had almost stopped and there was faint blueness to the freezing air. Behind him, framed against the shadows of the trees, was the grey wooden cabin utterly still, deserted apparently, apart from the thread of smoke rising from its narrow iron chimney.