Overkill (56 page)

‘Not my idea,’ Richter replied, ‘but the DST thought it was worth doing.’

‘It was, and it was well done.’ Modin’s smile vanished, and he leant forward. ‘You must realize,’ he said, ‘that I am a patriot, not a traitor. I have
provided you with information about this matter only because I believe the plan to be ill-conceived and, as I have already said, I actually want it to fail.’ Modin stopped, apparently trying
to come to a decision. He opened his briefcase again, tore a scrap of paper from a notebook and scribbled on it. Then he handed the scrap to Richter; on it was a single Russian word –
Krutaya
.

‘What’s this?’ Richter asked.

‘That,’ Modin said, ‘is all I can do for you, Mr Beatty, without placing my own life in even more danger than it is already. You will need to work out for yourself why that
word is important. But,’ he leaned forward again, ‘you will need to act quickly, and you will need to work with the Americans. Remember, you must work with the Americans.’

Richter looked at him, and tucked the scrap of paper into his wallet. ‘This word is to do with Operation
Podstava
, I assume?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Modin replied. ‘It is central to it, but that is all I will say. I have not, and I will not, tell you anything that I believe would harm Russian interests.’

‘General,’ Richter said quietly, ‘I haven’t asked you about anything else.’

‘I know, and I thank you. When we reach London, we will proceed immediately to the Embassy, and I will have to compose a priority message to Minister Trushenko advising him of the seizure
of the London weapon and the discovery of the plot. I will have no choice in this matter – that is my duty, and I will have to obey.’ Richter nodded, and Modin looked over at him.
‘You disabled the mobile telephone cells in this area?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Richter replied.

‘I would suggest,’ Modin said, ‘that you remove the cards from all the telephones we are carrying, and so disable them. If you don’t, there is nothing to stop me making a
call direct to Moscow as soon as we land in Britain to alert Minister Trushenko. A cellular telephone would be secure enough to permit that. If you do that,’ Modin continued, ‘then I
can delay sending the message until we reach the London Embassy because I will have to use secure communications. However, Bykov will certainly suggest driving south and sending it from our Paris
Embassy.’

‘I can probably arrange for the DST to escort your vehicles to Calais and insist on your departure from French soil,’ Richter said.

‘That would be a sensible move,’ Modin replied. ‘That is the first point. The second matter is more difficult to assess. I cannot predict what effect my message to Minister
Trushenko will have,’ he continued. ‘I explained before that I tried to stop this scheme and I failed. Whether your discovery of the plan at the eleventh hour will be sufficient to stop
it I do not know. My guess is that it won’t, and that Minister Trushenko will simply implement it slightly sooner than he originally intended.’

Richter was starting to feel cold, despite the sunshine. ‘Even with the British nuclear deterrent in place, and no weapon positioned in London, he would still go ahead?’

‘Probably,’ Modin replied. ‘You must realize that Dmitri Trushenko has dedicated the last four years of his life to Operation
Podstava
, and he will not willingly see the
plan fail. He is a driven man, Mr Beatty, and driven men are dangerous. I think he will go ahead because it is his plan, and his plan might still work. It might still work,’ he added,
‘because Europe is Europe and Britain is Britain. Whatever your European Parliament might say, and despite the Channel Tunnel, Britain is still an island and it is possible – or
Minister Trushenko might believe it is possible – that Britain would not intervene if Russian forces invaded Europe.’

Richter digested this for a moment. ‘You said there were three things, General. What is the third?’

Modin looked at him. ‘Really, it’s another aspect of the same thing,’ he said. ‘You haven’t asked all the right questions, Mr Beatty, and there is one answer that
you really do need. You know about the American devices, and you know about the neutron weapons in Europe, but you haven’t asked about how the plan was to be initiated, about how Minister
Trushenko was going to convince the nations of Western Europe to agree to our demands.’

‘Go on,’ Richter said.

‘In the final stage of
Podstava
statements will be issued to all Western European governments. These will specify what we want, but Minister Trushenko didn’t seriously expect
that just telling the governments would be enough. So he’s planned a demonstration first.’ Modin waved his hand in irritation. ‘I tried to stop that too, or at least get it moved
somewhere else, and I failed in that as well. I wanted him to detonate it in a desert or somewhere where there would be little or no loss of life, but he over-ruled me. Trushenko wanted a location
that was sufficiently far from major centres of population to avoid a catastrophic death toll, which might provoke an immediate nuclear response from either the French or the British in
retaliation. But he also wanted a significant loss of life, to prove his serious intent, and he also wanted a really spectacular demonstration of the power of the strategic neutron bomb.’

Richter’s mouth was going dry. ‘Where is it?’ he asked. ‘Where is the demonstration?’

‘Gibraltar,’ Modin replied. ‘A Russian freighter – the
Anton Kirov
– has already arrived there with “engine trouble”. The crew is almost entirely
Spetsnaz
, and the ship’s hold contains a neutron bomb with a calculated yield of seven megatons, sufficient to reduce a large proportion of the “Rock” to rubble and
certainly sufficient to kill every living thing in Gibraltar as well as most of the populations of La Linea and Algeciras. The
Spetsnaz
have orders to defend the ship and its cargo with
their lives. The weapon is scheduled to be unloaded at Gibraltar tomorrow and positioned in a local warehouse, but it can be detonated while still aboard the ship.’

Modin passed a hand over his brow. ‘I cannot be certain, Mr Beatty, but I think that within hours or perhaps even minutes of my message reaching Moscow, Minister Trushenko will detonate
that weapon by signal from the satellite.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s now seven in the evening. My guess is that you have no more than twelve hours to stop Gibraltar from being
blown off the face of the Earth.’

Wednesday
The Walnut Room, the Kremlin, Krasnaya ploshchad, Moscow

The Russian President looked across at Yuri Baratov, Chairman of the SVR. ‘Find Minister Trushenko,’ he growled. ‘Immediately.’ Baratov said
nothing but stood up, nodded respectfully towards the head of the table and left the room. The President looked, in a somewhat hostile manner, down the table and Sokolov could feel himself start to
tremble.

‘General Sokolov,’ the President said, ‘in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I am prepared to accept that neither you nor General Modin were aware that this
Operation
Podstava
was not official government policy. However,’ he added, ‘if any such evidence is subsequently found, well – I need hardly dwell upon the
consequences.’ He bestowed a wintry smile upon the old man. ‘Now,’ the President went on, ‘we have to formulate a course of action to recover the situation. Yevgeni, what
are your recommendations?’

Yevgeni Ryzhkov, Vice-President of the Supreme Soviet, glanced round the table. ‘We have, Comrade President, only two options, as far as I can see. The first option is to make a clean
breast of it. Contact the White House on the hot-line and explain that the whole thing was an unauthorized venture, which we will stop as soon as we are able to do so.’

The President looked unconvinced. ‘From what Ambassador Karasin has told me,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure that the Americans will accept that. And even if they accept that
what we’re saying is true, that does not mean that they will stand down their forces.’

‘And what is the other option?’ Anatoli Lomonosov asked.

‘As the Americans would say,’ Ryzhkov replied with a shrug, ‘we go with the flow. We implement
Podstava
.’

Autoroute A26, vicinity of Couvron-et-Aumencourt, France

Richter jumped out of the Transit van as soon as Modin stopped speaking, and took Colin Dekker and Colonel Lacomte off to a secluded section of the rest area. He told them
what Modin had said, and what they had to do. Dekker contacted Hereford on a secure circuit using Lacomte’s comprehensive communications equipment and explained the situation. Immediately,
operational control passed from him to the major in charge of the duty troop. Dekker was told to await further orders, but to begin formulating plans for an assault on the Russian ship.

This seemed to Richter a somewhat pointless exercise, as they knew nothing about the number of the freighter’s crew, or the vessel’s size, type, or even location at Gibraltar, and
Modin wasn’t much help when Richter went back to the van to ask him. He thought the crew numbered about twenty-five, but all he knew for certain was that they were all – apart from the
captain and perhaps one or two other ship’s officers –
Spetsnaz
personnel. However, Colin Dekker dutifully sat down with Trooper Brown at a picnic table and started work.

Ten minutes later, Trooper Jones told them that Hereford had activated the three remaining four-man SAS patrol units from the duty troop, and that they would be flown by helicopter from Hereford
to Northolt, the RAF airfield located a few miles north of Heathrow airport in north-west London. They would then fly to France by a C–130 Hercules transport aircraft from the Special Forces
Flight of 47 Squadron, Royal Air Force, departing Northolt no later than nineteen hundred hours local time – seven in the evening. Permission was sought by the RAF, and immediately granted by
Lacomte, for the Hercules to land at Reims, the closest airport to their position on the autoroute.

Lacomte raised the French Minister of the Interior at home and, using a scrambled circuit, explained the new development and what he proposed to do. When he had received the Minister’s
approval, he instructed his Headquarters to make the necessary arrangements for the Hercules’ arrival at Reims, which would include briefing the French area radar units on the unscheduled
flight. He also told his staff to organize a
carte blanche
clearance for the C–130 to depart from Reims that evening and route directly to Gibraltar. ‘No delays, no re-routes, no
exceptions,’ he said. ‘If you get any objections from anyone – and I do mean anyone – refer them immediately to the Minister of the Interior himself.’

‘What about the Spanish authorities?’ Richter asked.

‘The Minister will make sure they won’t give you any problems. At least, not if they still want anyone to be alive in Algeciras tomorrow night.’

Richter spent half an hour in the back of Lacomte’s Renault talking to FOE on a secure circuit. First he briefed the duty officer on the day’s events, then waited while he arranged a
conference call which brought in Simpson and the Intelligence Director. Then they discussed the bomb at Gibraltar, and what they were going to need.

‘I don’t know what time the Herky-bird will get there,’ Richter said, ‘so we need Gibraltar airfield kept open until further notice. We’ll need accommodation of
some sort there – HMS
Rooke
, the Naval base, would do nicely. We’ll need transport from the airfield to
Rooke
for twenty people, including the Hercules crew. At
Rooke
, we’ll need a conference room or similar as soon as we get there to conduct the final briefings and then, depending on where the freighter is moored, dories or inflatables or
something to get us out to the ship. If it’s not at anchor they won’t be necessary, but we do need to know as soon as possible, so can you drag the Gibraltar harbour master out of
whatever bar he’s in and ask him.’

‘Is that it?’ Simpson asked.

‘No,’ Richter said. ‘We’re sitting here by a French autoroute with a Russian nuclear weapon in the back of a lorry, and there are two things I want sorted out. That
weapon, according to General Modin, is identical in most respects to the one in the hold of the freighter at Gibraltar. I want someone to come out here and show me how to disarm the bloody thing,
so I know what colour wire to cut tomorrow morning.’

‘We’re way ahead of you,’ said Simpson. ‘We’ve had a team from Aldermaston on standby since you went to France. They’re on their way out to you
now.’

‘Good. What’s their ETA?’

‘About seven thirty tonight, French time. They’re coming by road, because of the X-ray gear and other equipment they’re bringing.’

Richter thought for a moment. ‘Then you’re going to have to organize another aircraft to get me down to Gibraltar,’ he said. ‘The SAS will be leaving Northolt at seven,
which means arrival at Reims about half an hour later, which is actually eight thirty French time, and my guess is they’ll just pick up the SAS guys here and head south. I doubt if the
Aldermaston boffins can crack the system, and explain it to me in words of one syllable, in much less than two or three hours.’

‘Wait,’ said Simpson, and Richter could hear murmurs as he consulted with someone.

‘Right,’ he said, coming back on to the line. ‘We’ll have an RAF Tornado fly into Reims and wait there until you’re ready to go. You can fly down in the
navigator’s seat.’

‘What about Diplomatic Clearance?’ the Intelligence Director said. ‘Technically, we’ll need—’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Simpson snapped, irritation evident in his tone. ‘Richter can get the DST to sort that out from the French end – right?’

‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ Richter said. ‘Lacomte has the ear of the Minister on this, for obvious reasons. If I’m flying in a Tornado,’ he added,
‘you’ll have to provide the RAF with my measurements for the flying suit – it has to be reasonably tight-fitting.’

‘Right. You said two things,’ Simpson said. ‘What’s the second?’