Overkill (62 page)

‘I suppose there’s no point in taking shelter anywhere?’ Ross asked.

‘Not,’ Richter said, ‘unless you’re a sodding fast swimmer and can make it around to the other side of the Punta de Europa in about ten minutes. Even then I
wouldn’t want to guarantee you wouldn’t fry. This baby –’ he pointed into the chest ‘– was designed to turn the Rock into the sort of stuff you put in
egg-timers.’

‘Ah,’ Ross said.

Richter referred again to Dewar’s notes and picked up the wire-cutters. He took his gloves off, checked the wire colour coding, identified and located each of the seven wires that
controlled the anti-handling device, and took a deep breath. ‘Here we go,’ he said.

Razdolnoye, Krym (Crimea)

Trushenko walked briskly out of the bedroom and into the lounge where the dying embers of the fire still glowed. He snapped on the light, sat down at the table and opened
up his laptop computer. He plugged in the data cable, and attached the other end to his mobile telephone, then switched on the computer and waited patiently while the start-up programs loaded.

Anton Kirov

Richter’s hands were sweating. He wiped them on a napkin, and picked up the wire-cutters again. ‘Would you read out the sequence of wires for me?’ he
asked. ‘And hold the paper so I can see the list as well.’

‘Right,’ said Ross. ‘First – yellow with a green stripe.’ The cutters were sharp, and the wire parted easily. ‘Second – plain blue.’ The last wire
was red, and when Richter cut it, Ross heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Sorry,’ Richter said. ‘That didn’t disarm the weapon. That just made sure I wouldn’t get blown to pieces trying.’

‘What?’

‘That was only the anti-handling device,’ Richter said, undoing the butterfly nuts. He lifted off the aluminium plate and put it to one side, where hopefully nobody would tread on
it. Ross and the two troopers peered into the box. ‘This,’ Richter said, pointing, ‘is the bomb.’

Razdolnoye, Krym (Crimea)

‘That’s it,’ Dmitri Trushenko muttered, watching the screen. Through his mobile telephone, the laptop had logged into the mainframe computer nearly
fifteen hundred miles away. His identity and password had been accepted, and it only remained to select the weapon and initiate the firing sequence.

Anton Kirov

Richter traced the wires attached to the trigger, and carefully snipped off all the ties securing them, taking extreme care not to damage the wires themselves. Freeing the
wire ties would mean he could place the trigger on the floor outside the bomb chest. Assuming he got it out, of course. He took out the socket set and assembled the ratchet handle with the Allen
key in the end, and carefully inserted it in the head of the first of the six bolts holding the trigger assembly in place. He steadied the ratchet with one hand and started to pull with the
other.

‘Stop!’ Ross shouted. ‘You’re turning it the wrong way.’

Richter stopped and looked at him over the open chest. ‘They’re left-hand threads.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’

Dewar hadn’t been exaggerating about the torque needed to undo them. Richter could feel his chest tightening with the effort, and stopped. ‘Here,’ he said to one of the
troopers. ‘You’re a bloody sight stronger than I am. You do it.’

‘Me?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell you exactly what you have to do.’

The trooper took the ratchet, pulled apparently quite gently, and the first bolt began to turn.

‘Good,’ Richter said. ‘I’ll unscrew it the rest of the way. Now undo the bolt diagonally opposite to that one.’ With the full force of the trooper’s
impressive shoulders behind the ratchet, the first four bolts shifted easily. ‘Now,’ Richter said, ‘we come to the tricky bit.’

‘Yes?’

‘There are now only two bolts holding the trigger in place. We have to remove those, but we must hold the trigger steady. If it moves sideways, it could detonate the weapon.’

‘Understood.’

The trooper inserted the Allen key in the fifth bolt head. Richter wrapped his hands around the trigger and nodded. The trooper pulled, and the bolt gave. ‘Don’t unscrew it
yet,’ Richter said. ‘First loosen the last one.’

The trooper repeated the process, then unscrewed each bolt a half-turn at a time, until they were only finger-tight. ‘Right,’ Richter said, and took a firm grip on the trigger.
‘Take both of them out, all the way.’ The trooper bent forward and began to unscrew the last bolts.

Razdolnoye, Krym (Crimea)

Trushenko’s face was set with concentration as he identified the device he wished to trigger and entered the first authorization code. As a fail-safe, two
authorization codes had to be entered before any weapon could be activated, and the mainframe computer requested the second immediately after acceptance of the first.

Trushenko looked at the screen and paused for a few seconds. He thought about Gibraltar – a place he had never visited – and of the unsuspecting thousands of people there, sleeping,
working, making love or whatever. People he had never known, and now would never know. Then he thought about
Podstava
, and the triumph that would inevitably follow its implementation.

‘You can’t,’ he muttered, ‘make an omelette without breaking eggs.’ Trushenko referred back to his book and carefully entered the second authorization code. Then he
logged off and switched off his laptop computer. The system had been exhaustively tested, and Trushenko knew that detonation of the weapon would take place in less than ninety seconds.

Anton Kirov

The trooper pulled the last bolt clear, and Richter rotated the trigger assembly very slightly, just to ensure that it hadn’t got stuck in position. ‘Nobody
say anything, nobody move.’ As Richter began, millimetre by millimetre, to ease the trigger out of the bomb casing, Ross pointed silently at the back of the assembly. An orange light had just
illuminated. Richter glanced at the Cyrillic script below it. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said. ‘That’s the start of the detonation sequence. Someone’s activated the
weapon.’

The trigger unit seemed longer and heavier than the one in the London weapon, but Richter knew it wasn’t. He moved faster, and the unit was almost halfway out when the red light
illuminated.

‘What’s that?’ Ross asked, his voice hoarse with fear.

‘Preparation for firing,’ Richter said. The green light came on the instant Richter pulled the trigger clear of the casing, and with a metallic clang the four recessed bolts slammed
into the fully extended position. The force was so great that he dropped the trigger, but it fell harmlessly beside the bomb casing.

‘If anyone,’ Richter said, slumping down beside the bomb, ‘wants to change their trousers now, that’s fine by me.’

Gibraltar Harbour

On the Mole, chaos reigned. The noise of the small arms’ fire and stun grenades had echoed round the harbour, and the Ministry of Defence police, two fire engines
and an ambulance were in attendance. So, too, were the crews of most of the other vessels moored along the North Mole. Three of Ross’s troopers were standing in line abreast, a silent threat,
their sub-machineguns pointed in the general direction of the crowd. An MoD police inspector was standing in front of one of the troopers, making a lot of noise and demanding to see identity cards,
weapon permits and authorizations, but nobody was actually listening to him.

Ross and Richter walked down the gangway. Colin Dekker was waiting for them at the bottom, sitting on a bollard.

‘SITREP?’ Ross asked.

‘We lost Carter,’ Dekker said, standing up. ‘He took a head shot from the Russian on the bow when we boarded. Flemming was hit at the same time, but his vest saved him –
he’s walking wounded. We’ve got five other injured troopers, all minor.’

Colin Dekker looked at Richter. ‘Is it done?’

‘Yes,’ Richter said. ‘It’s done.’

Thursday
Gibraltar Harbour

Richter sat on a pile of wooden boxes on the North Mole and called London on his mobile telephone. Simpson was asleep on a camp bed in his office, but was in on the
conference call within two minutes. Richter felt bone-weary, and it showed in his voice. ‘The Gibraltar weapon is disarmed,’ he reported.

‘Any casualties on our side?’ Simpson asked.

‘Yes. One dead and half a dozen minor injuries. The opposition,’ he added, ‘came off rather worse than that.’

‘I’m sorry about this,’ Simpson said, after a pause, ‘but we need you back here as soon as possible. We have another problem.’

‘What problem?’ Richter asked.

‘Not over an open line,’ Simpson said. ‘Your friendly RAF pilot is waiting for you at the airfield – we got him out of bed half an hour ago. Get back here as quickly as
possible. There’ll be a car waiting for you at Northolt, and you can come into the building at the back, through the secure garage.’

‘Colin,’ Richter said, putting the phone in his pocket, ‘I have to go.’

‘OK,’ Dekker said. ‘Come and do the Fan Dance next time there’s a Selection.’

Richter smiled at him and shook his hand. ‘Not, if I can help it,’ he said.

Reilly was waiting at the airfield when Richter got there ten minutes later, and he had the Tornado airborne fifteen minutes after that. They landed at Northolt fifty-three minutes later.
Richter climbed into the waiting Rover, still wearing the g-suit, leaned back in the seat, and closed his eyes.

Camp David, Maryland

The President was dozing in the leather armchair in the corner of the bunker when the message came through. ‘Mr President,’ the Army colonel shook him gently
by the shoulder.

‘What is it?’ The grey-haired man was instantly awake.

‘A secure telex message from CIA London, sir.’ The Colonel handed over the flimsy. ‘Yesterday the British intercepted a nuclear weapon in transit through France which was
intended for positioning in London, and about an hour ago they also located and disarmed another weapon in Gibraltar Harbour, aboard a Russian freighter.’

‘Did they now?’ the President said, scanning the paper quickly.

‘Perhaps more importantly, sir, an attempt was made to detonate the Gibraltar weapon by remote control, presumably by the Kremlin. The trigger was actuated as the British were removing it
from the weapon.’ The colonel shook his head at the President’s unspoken question. ‘No, sir. No casualties – it was an electro-mechanical trigger.’

The President stood. ‘Inform the Vice-President and the Joint Chiefs,’ he said, ‘and everyone else on the Command Net. Then locate Ambassador Karasin and tell him I want to
speak with him.’ The President paused and smiled grimly. ‘And then,’ he concluded, ‘I’ll have a little chat with the Kremlin and see what they have to say about all
this.’

Hammersmith, London

Simpson’s office was large enough to include a small conference table, and when Richter got there Simpson was sitting at the head of it, the Intelligence Director to
his right and a long-haired, bespectacled man wearing jeans and a CALTECH T-shirt, and who looked faintly familiar to Richter, on his left. The only vacant chair was at the end of the table, facing
Simpson. Richter had changed out of the g-suit in his office, where he kept some spare clothes. ‘Do you know James Baker?’ Simpson asked, by way of introduction.

‘I think I’ve seen you around the place,’ Richter said, stood up and shook his hand.

‘Probably. They usually keep me locked up in the basement.’

‘Of course,’ Richter said. ‘You’re one of our computer experts.’

Baker grinned at him. ‘They normally call me the computer nerd.’

‘Well done,’ Simpson said, ‘in France and Gibraltar. Both were handled very competently.’

‘You can thank the SAS for that,’ Richter said. ‘I was really only along for the ride.’

‘If you say so. Right, that was the past; now we have to look to the future. I’ve asked Baker along because I hope he’ll be able to help, but first things first. We will be
re-routing the London weapon as you suggested. It should be in place within four or five days.’ The Intelligence Director looked disapproving. ‘Second, the word Modin insisted you
remember –
Krutaya
. We’ve run it through our database, or rather Baker has, and we came up with nothing, or almost nothing. We tried SIS, MI5 and GCHQ – all negative. A
tame source in CIA London tried it through the CIA, DIA and NSA systems with the same result. It’s not a code-word that we know about, and it isn’t the real name, or the work-name, of
any known Russian operative.’

Richter interrupted him. ‘You said we had almost nothing on it. What did you find?’

‘The only
Krutaya
listed was in the gazetteer,’ said Simpson. ‘It’s a small settlement in the Komi district of Russia, at the southern end of the Timanskiy Kryazh.
It’s virtually at the end of a road that leads to another settlement called Voy Vozh but goes nowhere after that.’ He was looking absurdly pleased with himself.

‘Yes?’ Richter said, encouragingly.

Simpson was determined to spin it out. ‘We checked the BID (CIS) and found nothing, and we checked with JARIC at Brampton. No major developments, nothing of apparent military interest.
Apart from what appear to be new telephone cables and some renovation work on a couple of buildings, nothing of any interest appears to have happened in the past year or two – or perhaps for
the last two hundred years – at Krutaya.’

‘Simpson, stop grinning like a Cheshire cat,’ Richter said. ‘Stop telling me what you haven’t found, and tell me what you have found.’

‘Where do you think Krutaya is near?’

‘I seem to have forgotten to bring my pocket atlas of the world with me,’ Richter said. ‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Ukhta,’ said Simpson triumphantly.

Richter sat in silence for a moment. The name rang a distant bell, but he couldn’t place it. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That means nothing to me. Give me a clue.’

He seemed to have spoilt Simpson’s moment. ‘Your memory’s going, Richter. What about Sosnogorsk?’