Tundra (25 page)

‘Sir.’ Another man strode over and handed Aleksandrov a folded slip of notepaper. ‘This was attached to him.’

They’d hit the station eight minutes earlier, fast and hard, compensating with speed for the inevitable warning of their arrival that had been broadcast by the noise of the Mi-26 helicopter. Ten men, each equipped with AN-94 assault rifles fitted with grenade launchers. Aleksandrov had studied and memorised the floor plan of Yarkovsky Station during the flight, and went in through the front door with four of his men, dispatching two to the vehicle hangar and the other five to the rear of the main complex on either side.

Eight minutes later, the complex was secured.

Apart from the bound man in the entrance hall, who seemed to have rolled some way down the passage judging by the thin trail of blood on the floor, and three corpses, one in the deep-freeze room and one twisted on the floor near the entrance and one inside the generator shed, there was nobody there.

The Ural truck listed on the station’s inventory of vehicles was gone, as were three Arctic Cat sleds.

As his men carried the trussed captive through the open doorway, the door itself having been smashed off its hinges in the assault, Aleksandrov read the note.

He read it a second time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

He took out his phone handset.

‘Tsarev.’ The General answered before the end of the first ring.

Aleksandrov debriefed quickly. He read out the note, verbatim.

At the other end, the General deliberated in silence for five seconds. Then he gave his orders.

‘Understood, sir,’ said Aleksandrov.

He emerged from the station into a storm of white, the snow whipped into a swirling funnel by the spin of the colossal helicopter’s eight rotor blades. The trussed man, Ryan Montrose if the note was to be believed, had already been carried into the rear. Ducking beneath the air current produced by the rotor, Aleksandrov made his way to the Mi-26 and climbed up into the cargo bay. Its vast, warehouse-like space was ridiculously large for the twelve men it had ferried to the station, but the helicopter had been the vehicle which both was most immediately available and had the required flying range.

Plus, the cargo bay carried a GAZ Vodnik, a high-mobility infantry vehicle mounted with a KPVT heavy machine gun that was capable of traversing the extreme terrain of the Siberian far north.

Inside the bay Aleksandrov’s men had become individuals once more, their gas masks discarded. He summoned Nikitin, his lieutenant, with a flick of his fingers. Over the roar of the engine and the staccato
thwup
of the rotor he shouted: ‘A change of plan. You’re in charge. You’ll go north-west with the chopper.’

Aleksandrov gave his orders, as General Tsarev had relayed his.

Nikitin had served with Aleksandrov long enough that he felt confident to express his opinions. ‘Sir, wouldn’t it be more appropriate for
you
to lead the assault to the north-west? Politically, I mean?’

‘No. You can handle the mechanics of the operation, no question. The political angle lies in the other direction, with the fugitives. I feel it in my gut.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Nikitin was already beckoning behind him. ‘Guys, let’s move the truck out.’

Aleksandrov hopped out and stood back and watched as the GAZ Vodnik was steered down the ramp.

*

E
ight twenty-two p.m. in Yakutsk.

The time seared itself on Lenilko’s memory for the remainder of his life. All the clocks in his office were of the analogue variety. Digital might afford more accuracy, but Lenilko never got the same sense of immediacy, of reality, from a sequence of four numbers bisected by a colon as he did from the almost grand sweep of hands round a dial.

The phone rang and he picked it up and General Tsarev said: ‘The station is secured. My men found three bodies, two of them shot dead recently, the other frozen and locked away and possibly a suicide. One man remained, alive, tied up. Otherwise... they’ve gone.’

The mid-afternoon greyness beyond the windows pressed in on Lenilko.

Tsarev continued, ‘You told me it was a containable situation. One that a rapid intervention at Yarkovsky Station would put an end to.’

Lenilko said: ‘Yes.’

‘It seems there are complications. My group commander found a note on the surviving man. It said the terrorist activity was centred on an abandoned research site ninety Ks from the station. The note urged immediate action to prevent the extraction of nuclear material from the site.’

Lenilko closed his eyes.

As if Tsarev had somehow detected the action, he remained silent until Lenilko cracked his lids a fraction.

‘What did you tell our President?’

‘I told him precisely what I told you, General. That there was a terrorist cell operating at Yarkovsky Station, that my usual line of command had potentially been compromised, and that the station needed to be quarantined and its personnel terminated with immediate effect.’

Tsarev said, his words almost hidden behind the rasp in his damaged voice, ‘I acted on the direct instructions of our President. I had no option, as a senior member of the military, other than to obey. As such I am legally blameless.
Morally
, however... there lies the problem. I put in motion a course of action which may well turn out to be part of a spectacular bungle, one which could put nuclear warheads into the hands of a group of people who will use them against us, or against the United States, or Europe, without compunction.’

This time Lenilko didn’t reply.

‘I’ve notified the President’s office,’ Tsarev went on. ‘Also the Chief of the General Staff, and the Director of the FSB. This is beyond any favour I owed you, Semyon Vladimirovich. This is too big.’

Lenilko watched the flakes of snow strike the pane of the window and slide, misshapen and spent, down its length.

‘Your silence suggests to me that you held something back. That you’ve been dealing with a situation that should have been escalated to your superiors long ago, that you’re not equipped to handle. I get the feeling, Semyon Vladimirovich, that you’re out of your depth. And that you know it, and something – pride, ambition, whatever it is – has blinded you to the magnitude of what you’ve been facing.’

Lenilko’s mouth worked, but no words came.

‘I’ll tell you what I’ve ordered, since this is the end of your involvement in this crisis and you won’t be receiving any further information,’ said Tsarev. ‘As you know, I sent twelve men to the station. I’ve instructed their leader to divide the group, to despatch the helicopter to the location of the Tupolev while a smaller force pursues the fugitives from the station. A larger detail is being scrambled elsewhere to help secure the Tupolev, but my men are closest and therefore have the best chance of salvaging the situation.’

Lenilko rose to his feet, distantly surprised that his legs were able to support him. The phone at his ear, he approached the window, gazed at the toy store across the square.

Games.
He’d been playing games, and Tsarev was right, he’d known it all the time.

The General said, his harsh voice a degree softer: ‘This is the end of our association. I can’t help you from now on, can’t afford to have anything more to do with you. But for what it’s worth, Semyon Vladimirovich – and I know it’s scant comfort – I believe I understand your motivations. I know all about ambition, and the power it can exert. I also believe you were driven not only by a desire for personal glory, but by the genuine conviction that you were doing the right thing for Russia.’

Lenilko’s throat worked desperately to force words past the dryness. Tsarev was going to end the call at any moment, and Lenilko couldn’t endure the humiliation of saying nothing in response. He didn’t know quite what he was going to say until after the words had left his mouth.

‘Thank you, General. For everything.’

‘May God be with you, Semyon Vladimirovich.’

The line went dead.

Even before Lenilko turned to the door, he heard the alarmed voices of his staff outside, the heavy footsteps as they approached.

T
he wind scoured the ground at a forty-five-degree slant, propelling sheets of snow across the Ural-4320 so that it felt as if the vehicle was about to be engulfed.

They had been on the move for thirty minutes, Haglund at the wheel, Purkiss and Budian beside him in the cab. Avner hadn’t looked happy about being asked to climb into the rear, but he’d followed Clement up. Also in the rear compartment were three of the snowmobiles and four Ruger rifles with spare ammunition, which Haglund had retrieved from the arms storeroom just before they’d set out.

The truck had a maximum speed of seventy-five kilometres per hour. On a straight road, they could reach Saburov-Kennedy Station in less than two hours. Given the terrain ahead, and assuming it was traversable at all, they were more likely to take twice as long as that.

Haglund said, ‘You’ve considered, of course, that Saburov-Kennedy Station may have been notified about us. That it’ll be assumed that’s where we’re heading, and the staff at the station will have been instructed to detain us the moment we arrive.’

‘Yes, I’ve considered it.’ Purkiss saw the ground rise ahead of them, the flatness of the tundra around Yarkovsky Station starting to give way to more uneven terrain. ‘But I don’t think they’ll do that. They’ll want to keep this whole thing under wraps for as long as possible. They’ll come after us, and try and stop us before we get there. They know what vehicles we’ve got at our disposal, and they’ll be confident they can reach us first.’

It was remotely possible, Purkiss thought, that the troops wouldn’t pursue them. That they’d read Purkiss’s note, and would focus all their attention on the
Nekropolis
and the activity there. But although they’d almost certainly investigate the lead Purkiss had given them – he was relying on it – there was little chance they’d allow Purkiss and the others to get away.

While they were making final preparations to board the truck, Clement had said in Purkiss’s ear, raising her voice above the wind: ‘A left field question, but what if we stay put? Explain to them about Montrose, offer to help them in any way we can.’

‘Because they may come in with all guns blazing. We might not get a word in.’

She nodded immediately.

Haglund lapsed into silence once more. Seated between him and Purkiss, Budian stared straight ahead through the windscreen. Some of the dullness had left her eyes, but her expression remained slack.

Purkiss ran the possibilities through his mind, finding the flaws in each plan as soon as he formulated it. They were unlikely to outrun the troops at their back, however much of a head start they had. Even more unlikely was the notion that they’d stand a chance in the event of a firefight, four lay people and one intelligence agent against an unknown number of
Spetsnaz
soldiers.

No. Their only hope of success, of survival, lay in an entirely different approach. One involving that most ancient of tactics: deception.

The idea that was growing in Purkiss mind would, he knew, be opposed by the others. They’d regard it as counterintuitive, as outlandish, as grossly irresponsible. So he’d have to keep them in the dark about it as long as possible, until it was too late for them to prevent it.

But he’d need Haglund’s cooperation.

Purkiss said, ‘Stop the truck.’

*

‘N
o chance.’

‘It’s our
only
chance.’ Purkiss looked his watch. ‘Forty-five minutes we’ve been on the go. Assume we had half an hour’s head start, which is optimistic to say the least. That puts us an hour and fifteen minutes ahead of them, at best. But we haven’t even hit the really rough terrain yet. And we don’t know what sort of transport they’re using. They could have something with tracks, which will give them a huge advantage over us. I’m assuming they’re not after us by air, because they would have found us by now. But they might have called in air support from Yakutsk. If we hit some insurpassable obstacle, we’ll be sitting ducks.’

They sat alone in the cab of the truck, Purkiss and Haglund. After Haglund had pulled to a halt, his normally impassive face creased in surprise, Purkiss had jumped down into the cold and tugged on Budian’s arm –
I need to talk to Gunnar alone
– and bundled her into the back. Avner and Clement had peered out.

‘Don’t ask questions,’ Purkiss said. ‘Sit tight. We’ll be on the move again in a moment.’ He slammed the door on Avner’s cry of protest.

Back in the cab, he’d told Haglund his plan.

Now the engineer said, ‘The others won’t cope. They’ll slow us all down.’

‘Clement will be all right. Avner, Budian... we’ll have to be robust with them.’ Purkiss glanced down through his window. The blown snow was already beginning to bank up against the wheels of the truck. ‘Come on, Haglund. We have to do this. Time’s slipping away.’

Haglund stared through the windscreen, the muscles of his closed jaws working. He’d kept the engine running, and he reached down and released the handbrake.

‘Okay. We do it.’

*

T
he ground swept inexorably upwards, the landscape pitted with gnarled tree trunks and outcroppings of rock, visible in silhouette against the white of the snowfall. The cloud cover above was almost total, blanking out all starlight.

Twenty minutes had passed since they’d set off again, and Purkiss hadn’t yet seen what he was looking for. He leaned towards Haglund and peered at the Ural’s dashboard. They’d covered sixty-nine kilometres, and their speed had slowed to 45 kph, the truck’s tyres slipping occasionally on stretches of ice, the unevenness of the ground requiring Haglund to weave around pits and protrusions rather than allowing him to maintain a straight course.

Haglund geared down as the truck rocked over a particularly erratic series of dips when Purkiss said: ‘Wait a moment. Over there.’

He pointed through Haglund’s window to an indistinct strip of darkness, forty or fifty metres to their left.