The fearsome-looking craft maintained a slow speed, heading straight for them. The pilots became visible and the noise of its engines grew louder. When it was less than fifty metres away it ceased its forward movement and began a slow turn, kicking up a cloud of snow from the ground. The trees caught in the down-draught shook violently.
Bits of ice dislodged from branches struck the car, startling Vasily. The Russian was white with fear. He knew only too well the penalties for being caught working for foreign intelligence services. While Stratton and Jason had a chance of living if they were captured, he had none. The only uncertainty would be the method of his death. His captors would keep him painfully alive far beyond the point where he would beg them to let him take his own life if they would only give him the chance, which they would not.
The Haze turned until it was showing them its rear and then held its position. The rear doors, like an egg cut vertically down the middle, opened like a lobster’s claw. Several men in fatigues stood inside the opening looking at them. The barrel of a machine gun attached to a frame bolted to the side of the craft protruded from the door, pointing directly at the vehicle.
Vasily could bear it no longer. Something snapped inside of him. He shouldered open the car’s door in a bid to climb out.
Stratton reached to grab him. ‘No, Vasily!’
But Vasily’s weight was already taking him out the door. He took his foot off the brake and clutch and the car shunted forward a few feet before the engine stalled. Stratton was pulled across the seat as he tried to hold on to the man. He couldn’t.
Vasily fell onto the icy ground, slipped as he tried to stand, then quickly regained his footing and began to run. He was hardly past the back of the car when the door gunner opened up with a couple of staccato bursts of fire. Several rounds struck the car, puncturing it violently, passing through it like knives through icing. Glass exploded over the two men who flattened themselves against their seats.
Vasily arched his back in a violent spasm as the bullets smashed through his body. He staggered on for several paces before falling dead onto the icy road.
Stratton and Jason lay still across their seats, waiting for the next burst that would surely finish them. But it did not come. The noise of the helicopter’s engines remained the same, as if it was just hovering above them, waiting for something.
Stratton raised his head enough to look over the dashboard and through the cracked windshield. The helicopter was descending onto the road where the trees on either side had given way to low hedges. Snow and ice spiralled around the craft. The door gunner remained vigilant, not taking his eyes off the car.
They were as good as behind bars. Stratton practically accepted it. He couldn’t see a way out of this one. It was better than being dead, at least. They were British subjects and, even if it could be proved who they worked for, there was always a chance they might one day be freed.
As the heavy beast’s wheels touched the road and it jolted to stability, men stepped down out of its dark belly and walked towards the car. They wore heavily camouflaged cold-weather fatigues, their battle harnesses and pouches stuffed with equipment and spare ammunition. They carried assault rifles in their gloved hands, wore machine pistols in black leather holsters strapped to their thighs. Stratton put up his hands as they approached, glancing in the cracked rear-view mirror at the scientist who had followed his lead. Jason looked pale with fear, his earlier chirpiness wiped away without trace.
The Russian soldiers strode confidently towards the car, their breath steaming, some wearing woollen hats against the cold. The one out in front who had short spiky blond hair wore a pair of black wraparound sunglasses. When he arrived at the vehicle he went to the front passenger window to peer inside at Stratton. He said something in Russian to his men who had surrounded the car. One of them murmured something, a couple of them chuckled in response. Another soldier kneeled by Vasily to inspect him and reported the obvious statistic.
The one with the sunglasses opened Stratton’s door and said something to the Englishman in a calm voice. Stratton got the gist of the command and climbed out.
When he got to his feet the soldier shouldered his rifle on its sling and searched Stratton’s clothes and body from neck to toe. When he had finished he was holding Stratton’s passport in his hand. He harshly grabbed the side of Stratton’s coat and used his grip on it to turn him around, pushing him against the car. Another soldier had done the same with Jason, who turned to face the car from the other side. Their wallets, passports and air tickets lay between them on its roof. The first soldier said something to Stratton and touched his watch. Stratton removed it and placed it with his possessions. Jason did the same. Another soldier pulled their small packs from the back and inspected the contents. They put everything into the packs and one of the soldiers held on to them.
Two of the men searched the car. Methodically. They looked under floor mats, through the rubbish and down the back of the seats. Beneath them. Then one slashed them with a knife. Stratton took every opportunity to assess the men and their equipment. They were certainly not ordinary soldiers. Spetsnaz, he suspected. Each was powerful-looking and well equipped. They slung their weapons rather than leaving them resting against the side of the car or on the ground, a small but significant indication of their professionalism. They had a calm confidence. Russian Spetsnaz had a habit of including martial arts as part of their regular training and it showed in these men’s faces. All appeared to have had their noses broken. Any two of them would have been a fair match for Jason and Stratton. They numbered eight.
The helicopter’s engines continued to turn over noisily but the soldiers didn’t appear to be in any hurry. One of them held a conversation over a radio. The apparent leader, the one with the wraparound sunglasses, unceremoniously pulled Stratton away from the car and pushed him in the direction of the helicopter. Another yanked Jason in the same direction. They didn’t even bother to tie their prisoners’ hands. It was as if they wanted the Englishmen to try something foolish.
As the others walked away, one of the soldiers took a phosphorous grenade from a pouch, pulled the pin, tossed it into the back of the car among the bottles of vodka and then followed his comrades. The grenade popped loudly and the car burst into flames.
Stratton didn’t look back as the vehicle burned. He knew precisely what had happened. The operative studied the rear entrance of the chopper as they approached it. It was dark inside the narrow cabin. The unshaven door gunner squatted by the machine gun and watched the two strangers. The gun was loaded with a belt of shiny ammunition that snaked into a feeder box attached to its side. Empty bullet casings littered the floor around the gunner’s feet. He grinned, his teeth stained brown from tobacco smoke.
Stratton followed the lead soldier up the ramp and into the dimly lit cabin. In the rear section several metal war chests sat along the sides, a couple open to reveal weaponry and items of personal equipment. In the front half of the cabin basic nylon hammock seats were fixed down the sides. Opened ration boxes lay strewn about, along with empty tins and wrappings. The place certainly lacked a woman’s touch.
A man sat in one of the seats, reading a file. He wore the same fatigues as the others but no weapon harness, only a pistol in a leather holster on a belt around his waist. He looked older than the rest of them. He gazed up at Stratton as they came in. A soldier took hold of the Englishman and placed him to one side of the opening, positioning him precisely as if he was a shop-window mannequin. Jason was treated the same way.
When the last soldier was aboard, the one with the sunglasses leaned close to the man sitting down and said something into his ear. The manner in which the older man acted confirmed Stratton’s suspicion. He was their real leader, all right. The soldier wearing the sunglasses acknowledged something the man said and walked away to lean into the cockpit and chat briefly with the pilots.
Moments later the chopper’s engines increased their revs and the heavy craft rocked from side to side as the rotors took the strain of its weight. It gradually disconnected from the earth and began to rise. A few metres off the ground the Haze tilted down at the front and lumbered forward, groaning an imaginary complaint. With the rear doors open the biting wind twisted into the back, pulling at Stratton and Jason’s clothing. Stratton took hold of the bulkhead frame to steady himself while Jason, out of reach of anything else, put a hand on the operative’s shoulder.
The leader put down his file, got to his feet looking as if he’d been inconvenienced and made his way towards the two Englishmen. The rest of the soldiers, other than the door gunner, congregated in the front portion of the helicopter, some taking seats, some rummaging through the rations for a snack. All watched to see what their boss was going to do.
The Russian officer eyed Jason and Stratton with disdain. Mansfield removed his hand from Stratton’s shoulder and stood upright.
The Russian was short compared with the rest of his men, standing a few inches below Stratton’s eye-line. His red hair was cropped, his sullen eyes grey and like the others it appeared he’d had his nose broken. More than once. ‘What are your names?’ he shouted above the noise of the engines and the beating rotors.
‘Mark Davidson,’ Stratton answered, equally loudly, the name on his false passport.
‘Derek Waverly,’ Jason shouted.
The Russian simply stared into the eyes of each man as he answered.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘We’re British engineers,’ Stratton said. He doubted that the Russians knew who they really worked for and why they were there. But these soldiers obviously suspected the two Englishmen of something. If they were guilty by their association with Vasily, killing the spy had not been the smartest course of action. The man would probably have revealed everything within hours. But they clearly didn’t care about that. The men’s cover stories as engineers wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny, anyway. They could be looking at the inside of a Russian prison for quite some time. Years, in fact. Stratton wondered what London’s reaction would be. Their release would depend on their value. On the scale of things Stratton didn’t think that he was worth much at all. And Jason not a great deal more. At the end of the day, Mansfield was a scientist and Stratton a common or garden special-forces operative. Both of them were easily replaceable. He thought of his house and envisaged the lads breaking in to clear out the perishables and cover the rest in dust sheets. It would be a long time before he saw his crockpot again. Funny how the simple things in life seemed so much more important at times like this.
The officer smiled thinly on hearing Stratton’s pathetic explanation. He looked over at his subordinate in the sunglasses and gave him a nod. The blond-haired guy gestured to another soldier. The two approached the Englishmen. They grabbed hold of them firmly, pulled them harshly into the centre of the cabin and placed them side by side with their backs to the rear opening, the edge only a few feet away.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what you are doing here?’ the leader asked loudly.
Stratton wondered how far the Russian was prepared to go with this intimidation technique. He could think of two possible options: one was to come up with a plausible explanation to appease the man, at least until the next level of interrogators took over back at the military establishment, wherever that was. The other was simply to keep quiet and call the Russian’s bluff. The problem was that he couldn’t think of a story good enough to cover the first option. And the second one didn’t feel right. It was never a good idea to call someone’s bluff when your own life was at stake.
‘Don’t doubt my threat,’ the Russian warned, as if he was reading Stratton’s thoughts. ‘I have the authority to deal with petty spies like you. In any way I see fit.’
Stratton doubted the claim. It would be unwise to give a field officer that much autonomy. But he seemed confident enough.
The officer nodded to his men.They responded instantly, turning Stratton and Jason around and shoving them to within a few inches of the edge of the opening. The wind whipped more violently at their clothes but neither of them could feel the bitter cold at that moment. The operative was surprised to discover that they were already several thousand feet above the ground. The patchwork steppe was white as far as the eye could see, spotted with black blotches of woodland and the scars made by roads. The squatting door gunner to Stratton’s right was looking up at him, still wearing a grin.
Turbulence suddenly buffeted the craft. Those standing splayed their feet to maintain balance. Stratton automatically reached out but he had nothing to grab. The craft’s erratic movements calmed a little and he regained his balance with the help of the soldier holding him from behind. This was not a lot of fun.
‘I will ask you one more time,’ the Russian officer shouted close to their ears. He motioned to his soldiers who leaned the Englishmen further out of the back, their toes right on the edge now. If the Russians let go they would plummet. ‘Why are you in my country?’
‘I don’t think he’s bluffing,’ Jason shouted.
Behind them the Russian officer smiled at the comment.
Stratton’s mind raced to find a solution but there was none to hand. Turbulence hit the craft once again.
Stratton’s lack of response was not helping Jason’s growing concern one bit. ‘If you kill us you’ll be making a big mistake!’ the scientist shouted in desperation, suddenly convinced that the Russians intended to murder them.
The officer also found that comment amusing. ‘I really don’t give a damn who you are or what you’re doing here. I spent many years in England. I hate you people. You have become soft! You no longer know how to rule, yet you continue to play your little games. Your day has come to an end . . . yours in particular.’