There was someone in black beside me, one of the QRF. Boltshears appeared in his hands. Two seconds later he had chopped through the soft metal guards around the padlock. I slid the bolt back, padlock and all, and dragged the doors open. The little garage was occupied by a beige-coloured van with the logo WEST END ANTIQUES painted in an elegant rainbow shape across its back doors.
Shit! I thought. Either Barrakuda was lying or he boo bed on the number.
The guy from the QRF was more on the ball. He jumped forward, tried the doors, found they were locked, pushed his way between the right-hand side of the van and the brick wall, shone a torch through the driver's window and shouted, "It's here!"
I was alongside him in an instant. There, in the back of the van, glinted a single, big, black object: Orange, with its two components united. From one corner, wires led to a red box just inside the rear doors.
My breath had gone. I hit my press el and croaked, "Red leader, we've found it. In Number Three garage. Locked inside a van.
"DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" snapped a deep voice I didn't know.
"ATO here. We're on our way. Leave everything alone. Get clear of the site."
We pushed back along the side of the van, trying not to rock it. In the doorway I looked up at the back of Markham Court, convinced that someone must have eyes on the site. More black clad guys were hovering in the mews, hanging back from the target in uncharacteristic fashion. Their instincts were the same as mine to go in and smash the timing device immediately. My watch said 1:13: we were within eight minutes of detonation.
But they'd heard the ATO tell them to keep their distance, and they were wondering what the hell to do. It wasn't in our nature or training to run away and in any case, there didn't seem much point. If the thing was about to go off, we'd never get far enough to make any difference.
What we did was to hustle back as far as the main road and tuck ourselves round the front of the apartment block, out of line of sight from the open garage doors. I tried to say something to the QRF guy, but words didn't come, my heart was pumping that fast.
This is fucking ridiculous! I thought. You get round the corner when you're cracking off an ordinary explosion. If this thing goes, we'll all be vapour and the building will simply vanish.
There wasn't long to wait or worry. Within seconds a van came screaming down the street. Its tyres squealed as it scorched round the corner into the mews and slid to a halt in front of the garage. Out jumped two men clad in white over-suits from head to toe, like astronauts. Each carried a heavy-looking hold-all full of kit.
"ATO on target," the deep voice reported.
"Stand by."
The lock on the van's rear doors held them up for all of five seconds. They flung the doors open and both leant in, on top of the live device, backs to us, reaching forward with their gloved hands. Fifty yards off, in full view, I stood transfixed, holding my breath. If it goes, I kept thinking, will I see the flash in the final split-second of life, or will the shock wave be too fast even for that?
The suspense was excruciating. I felt the whole world must be standing still, that everyone on earth had stopped breathing, like me. Mentally, I took off my hat to the two guys at the back of the van. By God they've got balls, I thought.
Then, after an incredibly short space of time, one of them stood up, turned round and raised both arms in triumph, as if he'd scored a goal. At the same moment I heard the deep voice say, "Device made safe. Repeat: device made safe."
I suppose I felt relief I must have. But I don't remember it now. All I can recall is getting a sudden and intensely vivid mental image of the wretched sister device, Apple, sitting there in its hollowed-out niche beneath the Kremlin wall.
SEVENTEEN.
On the plane to Moscow I had the unpleasant feeling that I'd gone back to the beginning and that the whole nightmare was about to start again. Flight number, departure time, type of aircraft, even the cabin crew all were the same as on our recce trip.
Only I had changed. Instead of looking forward to a new experience and a bit of a lark, I was being driven by a personal compulsion at least as powerful as the jet engines thrusting us through the sky.
The morning papers carried no hint of the previous day's events: the media, thank God, had apparently not had a sniff of the drama in Markham Court and Mews. If they'd picked it up, they'd have had one hell of a story: LIVE NUCLEAR DEVICE DISCOVERED IN STOLEN VAN .. . GUN-BATTLE LEAVES TWO.
CHECHENS DEAD IN FLAT... SAS MAN LOSES FINGERS IN GROZNY.
TORTURE.
Wretched Toad! Word came up from the Services' hospital in London that surgeons had had to amputate the remains of both little fingers and the third finger on his left hand. When the Shark's men had realised that he was the one with knowledge of the bomb, they'd started in on him with bolt-shears, one joint at a time. But, tough little sod that he was, he'd given nothing away.
Pavarotti, who wasn't seriously hurt, confirmed that he'd shown outstanding courage.
According to the headlines, international tension had eased.
Even so, there were only about a dozen passengers on the 767.
Feeling the need to relax, I got two miniatures of Haig off the drinks trolley, along with a can of soda water, and downed the lot in a few minutes. The Scotch helped to lull my anxiety, and when I stretched out across three seats with a blanket over my head I soon fell asleep, and stayed unconscious for most of the flight.
The arrival hall at Sheremetyevo was as dim and dire as ever, but so few people were coming in that Immigration proved relatively painless. Beyond the Customs, in contrast, the taxi drivers swarmed even more voraciously than usual. Hardened to their methods, I stood still until I spotted a short man waiting at the back of the sc rum He had an open, friendly face, a neatly trimmed red beard, and was wearing a peaked, dark-blue cap.
Instead of screaming at me, he was smiling.
I pushed through the mob and said, "OK. Let's go.
Outside, the cold bit, and I was surprised to see a dusting of snow on the ground. My guide led the way to a clean-looking grey Zhigudi and held one of the back doors open for me.
"Thanks," I said.
"But I'll come in front."
I settled in the passenger seat and asked, "What's your name?"
"Sergei."
"You speak English?"
"Some." He gave a deprecating grin.
"City centre?"
"No. I want to go to Balashika."
"Balashika!" He sounded amazed.
"Balashika first. Then city centre. Then back to Balashika.
How much will all that cost?"
"Dollars?"
I nodded. As he pulled out on to the highway, I could see his mind ticking up figures.
"One hundred fifty."
"I'll give you two hundred."
"Khorosho!"
He drove fast but well, not taking risks, but watching all the time for openings in the traffic, and taking short-cuts to avoid the blocks at major intersections. When I praised his navigation, he answered in quite fluent English. We chit-chatted about this and that, and when I asked how old he was, he suddenly, with a flourish and a big grin, whipped off his cap to reveal that he was almost completely bald.
"Feefty!" he exclaimed. I refrained from saying that without his hat he bore a strong resemblance to Lenin, but I felt that if I had, he wouldn't have given a damn.
He took the outer ring-road, round the north perimeter of the city. Out in the country there seemed to be more snow, and although the main road was clear, the ground was uniformly white.
As we approached Balashika I felt my anxiety building. I hadn't quite worked out how I was going to handle my re-entry into the camp. The time was 6:30 p.m." and the chances were that the team would be back indoors for the night.
Taxis weren't allowed inside the barracks, so I asked Sergei to wait outside the gate. Luckily the guy on the baffler recognised me, and even greeted me cheekily as Stank Old Man.
I ran up the steps of the barrack block in some trepidation, but again I was in luck. The guys had eaten supper early and gone out again to run a night exercise. Only the two scalies were in residence. I had a word with them, and said I'd be back later.
Then it was just a matter of collecting basic essentials from the caving kit: wire ladder, head-torch and bolt cutters, plus a towel, sweater and spare padlocks from my own locker.
In fifteen minutes we were heading back into town, down the all-too-familiar Shosse Entusiastov, past the scene of the fatal ambush. As we went by, I twisted to my left in an attempt to pinpoint the spot. Yes there was the wooden hut the Mafia had used as a decoy GAl station.
Going against the flow of traffic, we reached the centre of Moscow in thirty-five minutes. Sergei must have been curious about what I was doing, but he had the sense or the good manners not to enquire. I asked him to head for Sofleskaya Quay, and got him to drop me a hundred metres short of the churchyard gateway, at a point where an alleyway ran back between two houses.
"Half an hour, back here," I said.
"Is good." He peered at his watch.
"Now seven-thirty. Back eight o'clock?"
"Tochno. See you then."
I was confident he'd return, because so far I'd paid him nothing, and I liked him the more for not having demanded the first instalment of his fee at half-time.
I walked a few steps down the alleyway and waited till I heard the car move off. Then I came back on to the embankment and hurried to the gateway.
Now, early in the evening, lights were on all over the convent building. Scarcely had I entered the yard when two women came walking towards me; but they passed without giving me a look, and a couple of seconds later I was safe in the pitch blackness of the old stable.
The bolt-cutters gave me sickening thoughts of Toad, but they did their work in a trice. I lifted the cover of the shaft, secured the top wires of the caving ladder round the hinges, and threw the rest of it down. Because of the wires, I couldn't close the cover while I was underground, but that was a risk I had to take.
Down in the tunnel the smell was exactly as I remembered it: damp, slime, decay. Of course I was scared but in my experience the best way to hold fear at bay is to keep moving, so I hurried forward towards the river, anxious to discover if the water level was up or down. It was up. It was within three or four inches of the arched roof. Jesus! I should have brought a mask and dry-suit.
Too late now. At the top of the slope I stripped off my clothes and left them in a heap on top of my shoes. Then, with the headlamp back on and the bolt-cutters in my right hand, I waded into the black flood.
The water was cold as ice. I gasped as it reached my crotch, but strode forward hard in an attempt to keep my blood moving.
Quickly my whole body became submersed. I made paddling movements with my hands to speed my progress. Soon I was up to my neck, then up to my chin. Down came the roof, down, down. I reached the point at which, with the top of my head touching the bricks, my mouth was under water and my nose just entering it. From now on the only way I could breathe was by tilting my head back and turning my face upwards in the narrow airspace. To do that I had to push the headlamp on to the back of my head so that it didn't foul the roof.
I took a deep breath, ducked under and drove forward, five steps, ten. Desperate for oxygen, I came up in that peculiar attitude, hit the roof with the headlamp, pushed it back, gasped in a breath and inadvertently got half a mouthful of filthy liquid.
When I choked explosively, all the grot flew upwards and came back down in my face. The setback left me gasping. For a few seconds I fought panic. Keep still! I told myself. Get yourself together.
With my mouth shut, I took in some air through my nose.
Then to my dismay I realised that in going for the headlamp I'd dropped the shears. I felt around with my bare feet. No contact.
Had I moved forward a short distance while struggling for air? I shuffled back a few inches and felt around again. Still nothing.
The cold was getting to me. I could feel my legs starting to go numb. If you piss about here any longer, you're going to get cramp and bloody drown yourself, I thought. Leave the damned things. You can manage without them.
I waded on. Then, after one more stop for air, the water level began to drop. My head came clear: once again I could walk and breathe normally.
I came out of the flood shuddering, adjusted the lamp with shaking hands, and ran naked the last few yards to the site.
Everything was as we'd left it. Scrabbling with chilled fingers, I dug away some of the spoil under which we'd buried Apple, until I came to the co-ax cables leading down from the SCR. I remembered how carefully Toad had connected them up, tightening nuts with his special spanners. Now I took hold of one in both hands and gave a big wrench. The cable held. I cleared more of it, right down to its junction with the black case, and heaved again, so hard that the whole device shifted, and pieces of spoil tumbled down the front of the heap.
Again I was on the verge of panic. Nothing on earth would persuade me to go back and search for the bolt-cutters again.
One last effort: a colossal jerk, and away the cable came, so suddenly that I hurtled back into the far wall of the tunnel, grazing my right shoulder.
I stood shaking, more from fright now than from cold. At least the effort of struggling with the cable had warmed me up.
"Right, you fucker," I said out loud to the bomb.
"That's you knackered."
Into the water again. This time the same breathing technique got me through without swallowing any sludge. By sod's law, I expected to tread on the bolt-cutters, now that I no longer needed them, but I missed them again. Back at my clothes, I looked at my watch and found I had ten minutes to make the rendezvous. I towelled off furiously, got dressed, stuffed the sodden towel into my day-sack and hauled myself up the ladder, pausing with my head out the top of the shaft to make sure that everything was clear. Finally I slipped two new padlocks into position, wrapped the old ones in the towel, and crept out of the courtyard into the street.
The wide embankment was clear of cars and pedestrians. I nipped across the road, threw the old locks into the river, and hurried back to the far pavement. I was still walking towards the mouth of the alleyway when Sergei's car came towards me; but by then I was a safe distance from the church.
All the way back to Balashika I was uncomfortably aware that I stank like a sewer rat. But Sergei made no comment, and when I paid him off at the barrack gate I gave him twenty dollars over the odds, so that he went off in high good humour.
My own schedule was tight, but possible. The lads were still out on their night exercise, so there was no need for explanations. My first date with Anna had gone down the tubes; but under our new arrangement she had agreed to pick me up at 8:45, 50 I just had time for a shower. One hell of a shower it had.
to be, too. I washed my hair twice to get rid of the smell, and as I scoured myself all over, I felt my spirits lifting.
The worst part of the evening was over. What lay ahead I wasn't sure, but at least there was a promise of some action and excitement.
Comfortable in clean clothes, I again left word with the scalies and headed for the guardroom. I'd asked Anna not to drive in, in case any of the lads saw her and started taking the piss, and I found her sitting outside at the wheel of her little blue Fiat. As I climbed into the passenger seat I got a kiss on the cheek and a waft of heady scent not the cheap rubbish that the slappers at the hotel had been doused in, but something sophisticated and Western. In the dim light I couldn't see exactly what she was wearing, except that it was a trouser suit. She had a big fur coat thrown back off her shoulders, over the seat.
"Great to see you!" I went.
"Great of you to come. Where are we going?"
"A restaurant called the Taiga." She turned and gave me a peculiar look, not quite mocking, but definitely amused.
"That's not your kind of tiger, by the way." She spelled the word out and said, "It means the forest in Siberia, the wild forest. The restaurant's only a small place. No tourists ever go there. But it has proper Russian food."
"Sounds good," I said.
"In fact, it sounds tremendous. I haven't eaten all day."
"Well," she said, as she zipped through the gears, 'tell me the story.