Malenkov was already running back down the corridor towards him. His clothes were torn, and there were cuts right across his face and torso. Behind him, Orlena and Nikita.
'Andrei's dead,' said Malenkov, his voice sombre. 'He went over some kind of tripwire, and set off a bomb. Killed him instantly.' He was panting and out of breath, and blood was trickling down the side of the skin. 'The rest of us are lucky to be alive.'
'This place is a bloody death trap,' said Ivan, his voice tensing.
'You think there are more of them out there?' said Matt, looking towards Malenkov.
'How the hell do I know?' answered Malenkov. 'At least six including the one who shot at us earlier. And the place could be stuffed with traps and bombs.'
'Snipers, tripwires,' said Ivan looking towards Matt. 'Room-to-room combat. It's a Russian speciality. Remember Stalingrad?'
Matt paused. 'You think we can blow the place now?'
Ivan nodded. "We've got the kit back at the tunnel. Hold this room, then destroy the rest of the building with firebombs.'
'OK,' said Matt quickly. 'Let's do it. Fight our way through this place, and the whole fucking lot of us are going to be buried here.'
From the back of the room, Matt could see Orlena stepping forwards. Dust was covering her hair, turning it from black to a whitish grey. And the force of the blast had nicked her left arm, cutting open a small wound. 'No,' she said firmly. 'First we search the place, then we blast it.'
Matt clenched his fists together. In the regiment, he'd taught himself lots of techniques for controlling his anger. As the Ruperts flung ridiculous commands at him, he knew all about taking deep breaths, counting to ten, and biting his tongue as he tried to get on with shooting the enemy rather than his own commanders.
But I've never been told to risk my life by a woman before.
'Search it be damned,' he said, his voice rising. 'We're two men down already, and the whole place is booby-trapped. We're facing a hidden enemy, and we haven't even got a map of the building. It's fucking suicide.'
He watched Orlena closely, but not a single muscle on her face twitched. 'I said we search it,' she repeated coldly.
Matt took a step closer, leaning angrily into her face. 'The job was to destroy the compound,' he shouted. 'So we'll destroy the place, and get the hell out of here.'
Orlena tossed a lock of dusty hair away from her face, and glanced back up at Matt. 'As I might have said once already, I pay the bills, so I give the orders. We search the place,
then
destroy it.'
'What have they got here?' asked Ivan. 'What are we looking for that's so important?'
Orlena kept her eyes trained on Matt. 'Like I told you, it manufactures counterfeit pharmaceuticals. And I need to make sure all the formulas have been destroyed.'
'So how come it's rigged up like the Pentagon?' growled Ivan. He looked towards Malenkov. 'What's in here, Sergei? What are they hiding?'
The Ukrainian shrugged. 'I'm getting paid to fight, not to ask questions,' he replied, his tone guarded. 'So as long I'm on my feet, and I've got a gun in my hand, I'll fight.'
Orlena looked towards Matt, then Ivan. 'If you're running away, so be it. I can't stop you. But I'll tell the Firm you got scared and flunked out of the job. And I'll let them take the appropriate action.'
Matt tossed a gun into Orlena's hand. 'Nobody's damn well scared. But we're two bloody men down already,' he barked, 'so you've just been drafted as the reinforcements.'
TWELVE
Matt could feel his fingers tightening on the trigger of his gun. His skin was warm and sticky, and the metal of the weapon was already wet. He moved carefully forwards, making sure he had checked each inch of ground before taking every step.
There's no way of telling where the next trap is.
Where he was standing, one passage led right, the other left. It was already twenty-five minutes past midnight, he realised. They were about halfway through their safe hour, and the job not half done.
The odds are against us and so is the clock.
'Here's the plan,' whispered Matt, looking back towards Ivan and Malenkov. 'Ivan and I will take the left side; Sergei, you cover the right. We clear this place room by room and we shoot on sight.' He paused, looking back at Orlena. 'You follow me, but keep ten paces behind us.'
'Just try not to damage anything,' she said sharply.
Matt grimaced. 'We'll worry about that if we're still alive. We're soldiers, not removal men.'
He looked ahead. The admin block split into two passages, both of them about ten yards long. His passage led to what looked like a storeroom, the other to a series of small offices and laboratories. Malenkov and Nikita started crawling rightwards, while he and Ivan went left. Orlena was bringing up the rear. It was pitch black, and Matt was using a torch to inch his way forward. The smell of the explosion was still thick and sulphurous in the air, and the blood of the last guard to die was seeping out across the floor in front of him.
'What are we looking for?' hissed Matt, looking back towards Orlena.
'Computers,' she said. 'You see one, make sure you don't shoot it up.'
A noise. Matt couldn't be certain where it was coming from, but he sensed the unmistakable sound of a man breathing. Ten yards away, maybe fifteen, inside one of the two small rooms that led off the corridor. The acoustics along the narrow passageway made every faint whispering sound reflect back on itself. In the background, the flames still rising from the factory were sending waves of hot air across the building.
Still, no doubts.
There is a man out there somewhere.
If we had known we were going to get into this kind of battle we would have brought stun grenades, thought Matt.
Matt signalled to Ivan. To flush him out of the room where he was hiding, they were going to have to work as a pair. Matt crouched down low, kneeling close to the concrete surface, while Ivan stood behind him, his gun cocked and ready. A shot splintered through the night air. Matt could feel some dust spitting out from the concrete wall, then hitting the floor. He stopped. Behind him, Ivan had loosed off a volley of fire in the direction of the first door. Matt stopped at the second, crouching on the ground. Ivan was increasing his rate of fire, peppering the first door with bullets. Fuck the computers, Matt thought.
He unhooked his gun, checked the cartridge, then started firing into the second room. The computers might get damaged, but Orlena could worry about that: it wasn't part of the original mission, so she couldn't complain now. Even though the kickback from the gun was light, it was still bruising the shoulder that was already hurting from the last fall. But the weapon was solid and easy to handle. After two magazines were spent, the door fell with a crash to the ground.
It didn't matter now which room the man was in.
Either way, he should be dead.
'Move in,' shouted Matt. 'Move in.'
He pulled himself up, rushing at the room ahead of him. It measured five foot by ten, its walls made from bare concrete blocks. His gun held high, he squeezed his finger down tight on the trigger of the AN-49 ready to fire: he could feel his nerve endings jamming against the hot steel of the gun. As soon as he entered the room, he threw his back against the wall, taking a moment to survey the scene. One man was standing ten feet ahead of him. In an instant, Matt raised the gun to his eyes, fired once, then twice. The first bullet blew apart his skull, the second tore into his chest.
Matt ran across the room, kneeling to check the man was dead. His finger was still twitching, as he clung on desperately to the last embers of life. Maybe thirty, Matt judged, with soft features and dressed in jeans and a black sweatshirt. Matt took one step forward, put the gun to the side of the man's head, and fired a single bullet into his brain.
This one's not standing up again.
'Room cleared,' he shouted.
Ivan and Orlena appeared in the doorway. 'Nobody in my room,' said Ivan, his voice breathless. 'This must have been the guy that was shooting at us.'
In the distance Matt could hear the sound of gunfire echoing down the corridor. He started running back towards the corridor Malenkov was clearing, his feet pounding against the concrete. Turning sharply left, he dived to the ground as he hit the corridor. A bullet had just struck the wall behind him, and Malenkov had taken up his gun, standing at the centre of the corridor and sending covering fire into the room beyond.
'Help the bastard, help the bastard,' shouted Malenkov.
Matt could see Nikita on the floor in front of him. He was lying across the centre of the corridor. Blood was seeping from his leg, pouring from the open wound. Matt didn't want to look too closely, but he could see the man had taken more than a single shot: the bullets had shredded the femoral artery running through the thigh, causing massive haemorrhaging and blood loss. Matt grabbed Nikita's shoulders and started dragging him back. He could see the man wince with pain as he slid along the floor.
'Matinka, matinka,'
he was muttering through strained and fading vocal cords.
He wants his mum, realised Matt.
'How many men ahead?' Matt shouted to Malenkov.
'One, maybe two, can't tell,' shouted Malenkov.
'Drop back,' yelled Matt.
With a round of rapid fire into the doorway above, Malenkov retreated, throwing himself backwards. His breath was short, and his eyes were sagging: he'd taken a cut on his forehead, and the blood was mixing into the sweat on his hair. 'These guys are even tougher than we thought,' he said.
Matt looked down at Nikita, then across at Ivan. 'Can we do anything for him?'
Ivan was already kneeling next to the man. Ivan had taken the shirt from his back, and had tried to wrap it around the wound. 'I think the bleeding is internal as well as external,' he muttered. 'Unless we can get him to a hospital in the next hour, he's finished.'
'Then we put him out of his misery,' snapped Matt. He checked his watch. Thirty-three minutes past midnight. The clock was ticking away on them. Reinforcements could be here in twenty-five minutes.
And then we are all dead.
He looked first at Ivan, then at Malenkov. 'Anyone disagree?'
Both men shook their heads, their expressions sombre. Matt pointed to the gun in Orlena's hand. 'You do it,' he said quietly. 'One bullet to the head, make it quick for him.'
Matt knew it was a challenge. He couldn't be certain, but he doubted Orlena had ever killed a man before. He could tell from the way she was fingering the trigger of her gun, looking down at the man as if she was wondering where the bullet should go. But there was no fear in her eyes, no sign that the horror of robbing another human being of their life had affected her. This was merely a technical exercise, a task to be understood, then accomplished.
'Don't look in his eyes,' said Matt.
The blood was still flowing from Nikita's leg, even where Ivan had tried to bandage it. His head had rolled to one side, and saliva was drooling from his mouth.
'Matinka, matinka,'
he croaked.
She looked at his eyes, then placed the barrel of her AN-49 gently to the centre of his forehead, squeezing the trigger. The bullet smashed through the man's skull, draining him of what little life remained in just a few seconds. His split-open head slumped to the side.
Once she gets a taste for it, she's going to be a natural.
Malenkov knelt down, kissing the boy on his bloodstained cheek. He wiped the sweat from his own brow, looking back up. The more battle-hardened a soldier was, Matt reflected, the more troubled he was by every needless and pointless death: you see one or two men die, you can take it, but when you see dozens it starts to tear away at your soul.
'This wasn't what we were asked to do,' he said angrily, rising to his feet again. 'I hired three boys, three good boys.' He looked hard at Orlena, the blood rising in his cheeks. 'I told them it would be dangerous. But not that they had little chance of getting out alive.'
'You were paid, they were paid,' said Orlena, spitting the words from her mouth.
'OK,' shouted Matt. 'Let's deal with those fuckers up ahead, before the rest of us get shot.'
They were sheltering at the back of the corridor now, taking cover behind the curve of the corner. That kept them out of the line of the sniper fire from the room ahead. Matt was keeping his AN-49 trained on the door to stop the enemy from rushing them, while Malenkov was protecting their rear.
'There's two, I reckon,' said Malenkov, pointing towards the doorway. 'No more.'
'Any windows?' asked Ivan.
'Two at the back,' said Malenkov.
'They'll be guarding them for sure,' said Matt. 'Anyone tries to come through a window, they'll get shot to shreds.'
'Diversion,' said Malenkov. 'One man puts bombs through the windows, the other men move in.'
Matt nodded. It was ten yards up to the guarded room. To get round the back was thirty yards. The plan wasn't going to get any prizes for sophistication. Put a bomb down, get their attention, then shoot them in the back. It was rough and simple and nasty. But it could work.
'Right,' said Matt firmly. 'Ivan, you do the bombing. Sergei and I will attack.'
Ivan disappeared. There were ten petrol bombs left at the top of the tunnel, and he would need two. In total he had to cover two hundred yards there and back. So far as they knew, the compound had been cleared of snipers in the watchtowers, but unless you made a proper search you couldn't be sure. Ivan would have to move carefully to make sure he didn't get a bullet in the back.
'Give me six minutes,' Ivan had told Matt. Two to get back to the tunnel, two to come back to the admin block, and one for ignition. The other minute was for faffing around and admiring the view.
Matt checked his watch again, the tension rising within him each time he did so. Midnight thirty-nine. By the time Ivan bombed them, they would have just fifteen minutes to clear the room and get out of here. The strain was starting to tell: his nerves were fraying and it was harder and harder to hold his concentration at the peak levels needed for room-to-room combat.
'Ready?' he said, looking across at Malenkov.
The Ukrainian nodded. 'You shoot high, I'll shoot low. That way we cover the room.'
'Fine,' said Matt. He turned towards Orlena. 'You stay here, and guard our rear. You see or hear anything, you shoot.'
Matt looked forward. Another sixty seconds before the bombs blew. If there were two men in there, he reckoned they were lying in wait. And if just one of them had an AK-47, he could kill them all.
If they're patient, they'll think they can take us down. They've got three of us already.
Ten seconds. Matt could feel the sweat pouring off his back. It was more than a year since he'd been in close combat, and he could no longer be certain his reactions were as sharp as they had once been. A mistake, a mistimed shot or a delayed response, and I'll be buried here.
One second.
Matt steadied himself, tightening up the muscles in his ankles, making himself ready to spring forward.
Nothing.
He looked first at Malenkov, then up along the corridor. Somewhere, he could hear a scratching movement, as if there were rats moving around.
Christ, where's Ivan?
Five more seconds ticked past. The sweat was growing on Matt's palms, and he could feel the blood pumping through his veins.
Get on with it, man.
The explosion rocked through the air. Matt could see a blinding flash of light bursting out from beneath the door, followed by the din of a detonation, so loud he could feel his eardrums cracking open. Instinctively, he flinched, backed away, then looked up again. A wave of heat was rolling down the corridor, and the door had been flung open. A familiar scent was hanging in the air.
The smell of petroleum and soap.
'Go,' he shouted, and he sprang forward in a smooth arc across the floor. He had ten yards to cover without getting shot. His AN-49 was gripped hard to his stomach, the barrel pointing forward. His head was bowed down low, and his eyes fixed on the door in front of him. He ran, then pushed, shoving the door aside, and directing his fire into the room.