Therefore we'd have to go in tandem, strapped together under one canopy. As it happened, at that time I was one of only three tandem masters in the Regiment. Where the other two were, I didn't know, but I decided to try it on the head-shed, anyway.
They remembered Samashki in Hereford, all right.
"Jesus!"
said Dick Trafford, the ops officer.
"That's where the Russian army murdered more than a hundred people. Burnt the houses. It was tactically pointless just a show of strength. It became one of the most notorious incidents in the war."
"Listen," I said.
"I've had an idea about the recce .. ." I explained what I'd been thinking, and added, "I want to volunteer for the job. We can get down to it much quicker from here than you can from there. Why don't we do it?"
"OK," said Dick cautiously, 'but who's Sasha?"
"Major Ivanov, commander of Tiger Force, big operational experience in this region."
"It's possible," Dick agreed.
"I'll check it out and let you know." Then he added, "We've made one bit of progress. The Turks have cleared us to use Kars as our FMB."
"Brilliant."
I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, then went back on the Satcom to Hereford. This time I got the CO, and outlined my scheme.
"The recce party needs to include a Russian," I emphasised.
"If we bump into anyone on the ground and can't communicate, we're buggered. The ideal guy's Sasha Ivanov, our contact here. He's a hundred percent on side, and I've got to know him pretty well."
The CO must have already been discussing my idea with Dick, because he agreed at once.
"Don't get carried away, though," he warned.
"Has the squadron left yet?"
"No they're going in about an hour. You'd better have a word with Pat Newman. He's right here."
Pat Newman, leader of the HALO team, was an old mate.
"Hi, Geordie!" he said.
"Stirring it up again, I hear."
"Just a bit. Great to hear you, Pat. Listen. I've been looking at the map. The best way to hack this is for me and my Russian colleague Sasha to meet you at Kars. I'm going to need a full patrol kit and a tandem rig. Can you make sure it's all brought out?"
"Don't worry," he said.
"I know the score. I've been fully briefed. Your kit'll be on board. Just tell the SQMS what you want."
"OK, then. Put me over, please."
The squadron quartermaster sergeant was Larry Tompkins, another good friend.
"Listen, Larry," I said, 'can you get your finger out?"
"Might be able to. Why?"
I ran through a list of what we needed: tandem rig chute, two free-fall suits, two oxygen sets working off one cylinder, harness and clips for attaching Sasha to me, GPS, Satcom phone, camcorder and lap-top computer for videoing the site, kite-sight, binos.. . "And Larry," I ended, 'those suits. Medium will do for me, but the guy I'm taking in's a big lad. Six one at least, and broad with it. We need a large for him."
"Got it," said Larry.
"We're pulling the stuff out already."
"Thanks."
I went back to Pat and asked, "How about timings?"
"Depart Lyneham 0530 .. ." I could tell he was doing calculations on a sheet of paper a habit of his.
"Six hours thirty to Cyprus. Akrotiri at 1200 that's 1500 local. Ninety minutes to change crews and refuel. Take off for Kars 1630 local. Two hours twenty, approx. Into Kars by 1900 local."
"So if Sasha can get me and him to Kars by then, the recce can go down tonight?"
"Yes it'll have to."
"And the squadron assault the night after."
"Exactly."
Back in the kitchen, I found the kettle had boiled dry and heated up to a fearsome degree over the gas burner. When I wrapped a cloth round the handle it gave off a smell of singeing, and the first gush of fresh water exploded into steam when it hit the base.
One or two of the other lads were starting to come round.
Whinger blundered into the kitchen, scrubbing at his eyes and muttering, "Fucking phone it's never stopped all night."
As if to back up his complaint the local line rang. It was Anna, spitting with rage. She'd only just got the message I'd left the night before. Her people were useless, she said, idle and stupid.
Now how could she help me?
The older you get, the more cynical you become. I couldn't help wondering if she was really that furious or was she acting up a bit? Had she got my message hours earlier and deliberately done nothing about it?
Whatever the truth, she caught up fast. I'd barely finished outlining events when she said, "If it's Samashki, it's certainly one of the Gaidar brothers you're dealing with. You know the big man who was shot in the apartment?"
"Of course."
"That was Aslan, so-called Keet, the Whale. His second brother, Usman, calls himself Akula, the Shark. He's been building a big house for himself down there near Grozny, a kind of fortified palace, in the mountains. That's the Gaidars' home territory. The three of them are the Chechen Mafia."
"Who's the third?"
"The young one, Supyan, calls himself Barrakuda. That hardly needs translating."
"Are there pictures of this place at Samashki? Any air shots?"
"The FSB have some, but they're poor quality. The Chechens tend to shoot at any aircraft that comes over. And anyway, the pictures are out of date."
"You mean the house is still being built?"
"The house is complete, but there's still work in progress on the perimeter fences and some of the outbuildings."
"Listen," I said.
"We're going to hit that place provided we can confirm the hostages have been taken there. Can you bring over any information you've got about it the pictures, exact location?"
"With pleasure. But I can tell you the location anyway. It's one kilo metre north of the River Sunzha, half-way between Samashki and the next village, Sernovodsk."
"Say those names again."
As she spelled them out, I scribbled them down in the notebook tied to the phone for message-taking.
"Thanks, Anna. How soon can you get here?"
"In an hour?"
"Terrific. Do you have any photos of this fellow Shark?"
"Certainly. There were some on the disk I gave you. But I can bring you prints as well."
Already the Satcom was ringing again.
"Geordie," went Tony.
"It's still there. Hasn't moved."
"Can you give me the co-ordinates?"
"Sure. Coming up.
I took down his figures.
"I know where that is," I said. Parroting Anna I added, "One kilo metre north of the River Sunzha, half-way between Samashki and Sernovodsk."
"I'll be damned!" Tony exclaimed.
"How in hell did you know that?"
"A little bird called Anna told me. Seriously, any chance of satellite imagery on the site?"
"I knew you'd want that. I started to check out orbits. It's looking good. We'll have a satellite in the right place two hours from now. Also I got a met report for the Caucasus area, and the weather's fine: frost in the night, clear sky, no wind gonna be a beautiful day. We should get some great pictures for you. I'll fax them just as soon as I can."
The last person I had to convince was Sasha.
"Very big search, just for two persons," he said doubtfully when he came into camp.
"Typical of the Regiment," I told him.
"They don't like losing people. They'll go to any lengths to get them back."
As to my suggestion of his own involvement in the recce, he didn't hesitate: as soon as he knew I was going with him, he was delighted to come.
"The point is," I said, 'can you get us down there for insertion tonight? What I want to do is join up with the squadron at Kars here." I put my finger on the map.
"Hare!" he exclaimed, aspirating the initial letter.
"But that is in Turoktsiya."
"Turkey."
"Yes, Turkey."
"We need to be there by five tonight. Earlier if we can."
"Timing no problem," Sasha said confidently.
"It is three-hour flight, not more. Plane also no problem. We get small military jet. The difficulty is diplomats. Do they give permission to enter Turkish airspace?" He spread his hands and stuck out his lower lip.
"Maybe Anna can help on that."
"No!" He bridled.
"I arrange it through my own bosses."
"Think you can manage it?"
"Zheordie for you I arrange anything: even to become beautiful!"
When Anna swept in at 7:30 she brought good mug-shots of Usman Gaidar, aka Akula, the Shark a mean-looking fellow, in his forties, with short, dark hair, heavy eyebrows, lean, hollow cheeks and a prominent jaw. In the photos his teeth and gums seemed to protrude, pushing his lips out hence his name, maybe? Anna said the man was obsessive about protecting himself, and kept a private army of at least a hundred men to guard him.
She'd also brought telephoto pictures of the house he'd been building a tall, pale building with a steeply pointed roof, set into the side of a hill.
"It looks Scandinavian," I said.
"You're right." Anna turned the picture round on the table so that it faced her way.
"It was designed by Finnish architects. No expense spared. Marble floors at ground level. Fitness room and sauna lined with birch wood in the basement. Whole building airconditioned. Bullet-proof windows. It's not confirmed, but we have heard that he's building a nuclear shelter in the grounds by drilling into rock in the side of the mountain and lining the cavity with concrete and steel."
I came within a micro-second of making some stupid joke about getting a nuclear device for his nuclear shelter, but pulled myself up just in time and said instead, "The satellite imagery should show that, if the site's still fairly raw.
When the pictures came over from the States, through the Satcom and our secure computer, they proved brilliantly sharp, and a perfect supplement to the telephoto shots. What the satellite revealed most clearly was the layout of the house and its de fences The building stood on a forested hillside inside a perimeter fence, roughly square, with sides some 400 metres long. The line of the fence showed as a pale gash through the trees, as did the single road running up to the house from a cluster of other buildings on the bottom edge of the compound.