ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (28 page)

She had experienced problems with this back in
Scotland, holding the weapon with sound suppressor in one hand and the torch in
the other before finding what Pc Pell had called ‘her girlie solution’, resting
the suppressor on her other forearm whilst holding the penlight cack-handed.

Trying to remember all she had been taught she checked
each of the ground floor rooms, but all appeared in order, the signs of a
search were not evident. Keeping to the edge of the stairs to minimise the risk
of creaking floorboards she made her way upstairs. The first bedroom was
Caroline’s, and Patricia had to put the pen light between her teeth in order to
turn its handle before resuming her stance. The penlight revealed an unmade yet
empty bed with the sketchpad lying open upon it.

It wasn’t what Patricia had expected to find and she
remained motionless for a second with a bemused expression on her face before
entering the room and kneeling to check under the bed. She didn’t know what she
expected to find but she didn’t know where the hell else her pilot could be. No
USAF pilots were hiding beneath the springs and she stood, the light from the
penlight illuminating the sketchpad as she did so and Patricia did a double
take. There was a full length nude study of the Russian girl, impressive in its
capturing of Svetlana’s features and of the expression on her face, it was also
extremely graphic, the pose was obviously post coital but Patricia’s attention
was snatched away from it as the distant barking sounded once more. Stepping to
the window she opened the curtains to see that their neighbours lights were on,
which in itself was a very unusual event for a farm at this time of night, but
also there were the headlights of at least three vehicles beside the building
too.

She left Caroline’s room at a dead run, turning along
the corridor to the back of the house and racing for Svetlana’s room. She
didn’t slow when she reached it, just barged the door open before stumbling to
halt inside. Svetlana and Caroline were together on the bed, their faces turned
towards her in alarm before the tangle of naked limbs hurriedly unravelled.
Patricia ignored the nudity and the confirmation of a relationship she had only
suspected a few minutes before on seeing the sketch pad, her pilot was ashen
faced and seemed to be trying to find the right words but Patricia no time

“The militia are searching all the farms…get dressed!”
Caroline opened her mouth to speak but closed it again as she realised what she
was about to say was as inane as it was futile. Svetlana was already moving,
pulling on underwear and jeans, so Caroline followed suit.

The commotion had roused the elderly couple who had
appeared on the landing outside their room and Patricia managed to make them
understand that they could not switch on the lights and that herself and the
other two young women were leaving, she then retrieved the satellite phone from
its hiding place in the orchard, sending a brief sitrep before placing it in a
rucksack.

Although their few belongings had been kept packed for
a quick exit should it be necessary, it still took several minutes for them to
gather downstairs. Caroline removed the laptop from its hiding place and
replaced it with a bottle of good vodka, as an excuse for the hiding places
existence if a search should discover it. Svetlana came down last, having
ensured that there were the odd items left in the bedrooms and bathroom that
would reinforce the farmers story that a niece and her friends from Moscow had
been staying, but had decided it was safe now to return to Moscow, and had left
the previous day. She kissed first the wife and then the farmer, wishing them
well and promising to visit once the war was finished. For her part, the
farmer’s wife hugged and kissed all three before shooing them out into the
darkness with a prayer for their safe journey.

Svetlana took from Patricia the Beretta and also the
lead, walking point as they headed back the way the American had come. She set
a fast pace that had them breathing hard by the time they reached the van and
the, by now, extremely anxious driver.

Once they were concealed within, their contact pulled
on a pair of PNGs and off they moved, back towards the forest, but only for a
few hundred yards. In the dark confines within the van they were alarmed at the
sudden stop the van made, followed by its reversing fast and then turning
sharply. The smooth surface of the road gave way to ruts and holes as the
contact backed into a field and concealed the van behind a high hedgerow before
switching off the engine.

The Russian and the USAF aircrew had no way of seeing
out of the vehicle and could only sit in the darkness with beating hearts. At
first they could hear nothing at all, just the sound of their own breathing,
but then came sound of engines and the clank of tracks on the road surface.

A pair of BMP-1 fighting vehicles passed by the field
without stopping and then came a third BMP leading a convoy of three trucks,
which also drove by without stopping or slowing.

Further down the road the leading pair turned off the
road, demolishing a section of fence and driving across the crops so
laboriously planted and tended by the farmer and his wife, to take up positions
where they could intercept anyone fleeing from the farmhouse.

After a few minutes
their contact left the van to listen, but apparently satisfied that there were
no more militia following on he returned to the cab and the journey
resumed.   

Arkansas Valley, Nebraska, USA.

An apologetic marine lieutenant shook
Henry Shaw into wakefulness, but at least he had the decency to have a mug of
java in his hand.

There was no contact yet between the Red
Army and the forces charged with denying them easy access to the autobahns, and
neither
Equalizer
nor
Guillotine
had reached critical mass. Henry would need his
strength and wits about him when that happened. Accordingly he had taken the
opportunity to return to his bunk after the President, under protest, had been
ushered off to bed by his doctor for a minimum four hours sleep. The
Presidents’ blood pressure was sky high prompting an immediate ban on coffee,
and the prescribing of beta blocking drugs. The doctor was an admiral and didn’t
give a damn that his patient was the leader of the free world. He had left his
private practice and put on the uniform again to replace his predecessor,
killed in Washington DC like so many thousands of others. The President had
tried charm and bullying, all to no avail in his attempts to get the physician
to leave him alone.

In the end, when the coffee embargo had
been declared the President had asked the admiral outright why he was so
persistent in making his life difficult.

After a moment the admiral had answered.

“Perhaps I’m just pissed because I voted
for the other guy last time around, or maybe I just think your wife is too nice
a lady to be a widow….but to get back to the business at hand Mr President, if
I see you with coffee one more time I will dump the entire stock down the John,
and throw whichever guy or gal who gave it to you in the brig.”

Concerns in the shelter were naturally
for the President’s health and welfare, but becoming collateral damage in the caffeine
conflict was truly alarming for some of the dedicated worshippers of the little
brown bean.

The mug in his hand was at least an
assurance that the Java tap had not been turned off in the intervening hours.

“Mr Jones is waiting for you in the conference
room, sir.”

Henry straightened up, rubbed his eyes
and ran a hand over his chin. There were the first signs that he should shave
again at the first opportunity before the heads of the bristles that were just
beginning to appear had a chance to develop into a five o’clock shadow.

General Shaw had never had the good
fortune, or looks, that had early bristles looking ‘cool’ on him, they always
appeared more disreputable than ‘designer’.

Terry Jones looked up at the electronic
buzzing that heralded the arrival of the United States Marine Corps top soldier
.
“Good morning Mr Jones.” Henry mumbled, a
portable electric shaver restoring order for the time being.

“Pardon me but a chin follicle massacre
was required.”

He silenced the device with a flick of a
switch on its side and ran fingertips over his lower face, inspecting the
results.

“I remember the very first flop house
hotel I stayed at.” Henry said conversationally.

“On my first ever weekend pass from
Parris Island I caught a bus over to Beaufort where I could get gloriously
drunk and sleep it off in peace. The landlady pushed the register over the desk
for me to complete and asked if I had a good memory for faces
?...
well
I naturally asked her why and she replied…”

“There’s no shaving mirror.” Terry finished
the story for him.

Henry laughed. “Oh, I see you stayed
there too?”

Terry
was smiling back, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

“No, I was never in the service and I
think our lives have taken us on pretty different courses General, and that
doesn’t make for too much common ground, shared experiences or mutual friends.”
His look was steely, and the crocodile smile remained.

Henry seated himself opposite, to all
intents unaware that the CIA Directors remark was anything but a casual
observation.

“There was Scott, I liked that young
man.”

Terry Jones did not reply immediately,
his eyes remained unblinkingly on Henry.

“Yes, indeed.” He eventually allowed.
“There was Scott Tafler.”

“So what is occurring now that could not
wait until the Presidents next briefing?” Henry asked.

Terry at last looked away and used a
remote to switch on the plasma screen at the foot of the long table.

There was a segment of a cable news
programme regarding Argentina’s claims to have responded to an attack on one of
their maritime patrols by sinking a pair of surfaced submarines.

Henry didn’t dog the news channels,
despite them often bearing bad tidings well before the intelligence services
got wind that there was even a problem.

Scraps of uniform and a short length of
hose had been recovered from the surface of the ocean and were displayed for
the cameras. The hose bore stencilled Cyrillic lettering and the uniform items
had been identified as being of Russian and Chinese manufacture
.
“This footage is from the Argentinian aircrafts
cameras.” Said Terry as the item drew to a close.

It was a very grainy
view, made worse by the weather conditions and low
altitude; two hundred feet below the cameras minimum focus height.

Terry pressed ‘Freeze Frame’, capturing
the blurry shapes of the
Tuan
and the
Admiral
Potemkin
in the harsh magnesium glare
of the aircrafts dropped flares. The Chinese Kilo was dwarfed by the bulk of
the Russian submarine.

Terry opened a folder and passed over a
clutch of still captures from the footage, digitally enhanced and showing the
STREAM rig clearly joining the vessels in
a replenishment
at sea operation.

“Well I’ll be…” Henry shook his head
incredulously. “Ingenious little fuckers, aren’t they?”

Terry flipped across a fourth enhanced
still and Henry was silent for several minutes as he studied it.

“If you’d just shown me the first three I
would have said it was a long range hunting party, but what is this submersible
doing here…do they have a sub down somewhere down that way?”

Henry then looked up and glanced around
as if realising for the first time that the two of them were alone. He turned
the photograph over and saw its point of origin was Naval Intelligence, not the
CIA.

He looked up at Terry, noting the stare
and that cold half smile had returned.

The CIA was briefing the military on
something the military were already aware of, and furthermore it would be aired
by the navy in a few hours’ time for the President with Henry present.

“You want to tell me what this is all
about? Why am I really here Mr Jones?”

“Well, that is indeed the sixty four
thousand dollar question isn’t it?” Terry said. “What
are
you
doing here, General?”

Henry stood, looking across the table at
Terry.

“Well I’m not playing mind games with a
spook when I could be sleeping, that’s for sure and certain, Jones.”

He crossed the room to the door but
before he could turn the handle Terry Jones spoke again.

“I liked Scott too, and if I had been in
London last week I sure as hell would have been present when his killers were
picked up…so I have to ask you Henry, what was it that you were doing that
night which was so all fired important that you stayed away, huh?”

General Henry Shaw paused momentarily,
looking at the CIA Director and returning his stare before turning the handle
and departing.