Battlefield 3: The Russian

Bootleg bullets with a weak charge. Why should they use this American crap anyway? Paliov’s obsession with disguise. Never mind the weapons, just get the intel right.

He glanced at the ejected mag and the rounds. Solomon had scored a cross on the nose of each bullet. He was using JHP rounds for maximum damage. Dima’s hope was that no shots would be fired today.

‘Let’s do it.’

They took a cab, an Opel with several different coloured panels. The interior stank of sweat and the driver’s lunch. Solomon sat, arms folded, sullen as a teenager forced to take out the trash.

‘If we were CIA we’d have our own car and our own driver,’ he said, in his perfect American English. ‘And our own radio net.’

‘Maybe you chose the wrong side.’

He said nothing, as if he was thinking the same.

‘Look on the bright side.’ Dima tapped his chest. ‘At least we get to keep these polo shirts with the logo. And the chinos.’ He slapped Solomon’s thigh.

‘Yeah, courtesy of the souk, run up by a kid cross-legged at a sewing machine who should be at school. They look about as American as falafel.’

‘Khalaji won’t notice. He’s a physicist.’

‘He’s been in America once. You haven’t.’

Dima gave him a reproachful look. Solomon’s attitude had nearly got him flung out of his fast-tracked Spetsnaz training. From day one he’d been marked down as trouble. Always awkward, always challenging his tutors, always a better idea of his own. They complained to Dima, to Paliov, and then to Dima some more. Dima could only blame himself. Solomon was his find, plucked by him from the blasted slopes above Kandahar in the dying days of Russia’s futile occupation. He had been part of the great diaspora of youth who flocked to Afghanistan to help defeat the Evil Empire. Dima, operating undercover, spotted the boy’s potential and turned him. His calm, his discipline, his amazing facility with languages, and his ruthlessness were precious assets. The GRU needed him, Russia needed him, Dima insisted. Okay, they said. When his two years are up, he’s on your watch. This was Solomon’s first assignment and Dima was having doubts.

They left the cab a few blocks from the hotel, took a walk past it, found the bomb site parking lot. Just the short distance through the sticky smog had already drenched him in sweat. There was no sign of the Peugeot, but he spotted a small bar opposite. As if pulled by a magnetic force, Dima headed straight for it, slammed a five dollar bill on the counter and ordered a double.

‘What are you having?’

Solomon lurked by the doorway.

‘Just water.’

‘You have any vices at all?’

Solomon gave him a blank glare that seemed to say, ‘Does it look like it?’, and again Dima felt uneasy.

On a shelf above the bar was a small black and white TV. An image of Gorbachev, released from house arrest, but neutered, humiliated. The great hope — now hopeless as the Soviet Union crumbled around him, the revolution he had started careering out of control. Where would it end? All Dima could envisage was chaos. Hardly the great socialist dream he had promised Solomon he was signing up for.

‘Maybe Khalaji will help put us back on top.’ Dima tapped the bulge under his jacket. ‘Think about it: portable nuclear capability.’

Dima’s irony was lost on Solomon. For the first time that day, the boy’s eyes lit up. The idea had caught his imagination as it had fired up Paliov and the rest of their masters back in Moscow. Dima slapped down another five dollar bill and ordered the same again.

He’d warned Paliov there’d be a problem, and now, as the Peugeot came into view, he saw what it was. Coming slowly up the street, it almost ground to a halt as a wheel hit one of the many potholes. The car was more than fully laden.

‘Fuck. He’s got his whole family in there.’

There was a fresh scrape all down the side, exposing bright metal, and the offside end of the front bumper was bent forward as if it had got entangled with another vehicle. The car swerved erratically before bottoming as it mounted the curb.

‘Wait,’ Dima hissed at Solomon, who was starting to cross the street. ‘We need to check if he’s being followed.’

That second vodka didn’t feel so great now.

From the other side of the road they could see Khalaji at the wheel, his wife beside him, heads twisting round, looking, panicking.

That’s Plan A out of the window, thought Dima. What the hell was Plan B?

Nothing else came up the street behind them. Dima and Solomon walked towards the car. As soon as Khalaji saw them he leapt out. A wiry man, his shirt collar way too big for his scrawny neck.

‘Hi, hi. Over here!’

This guy has no idea! Dima motioned to him to cool it, get back in the Peugeot. As they got nearer they could see the back seat was full of children.

Dima felt the contents of his stomach rearrange themselves.

‘We’ll have to kill them,’ said Solomon. ‘Sedate him first. Then get them out of the car. He’ll never know what happened.’

Another fucking fiasco. Blame Paliov as he might, in the end Dima knew it was his own fault for agreeing to the mission. It just wasn’t in his nature to say no — especially these days with all the old guarantees of employment being torn up.

Khalaji was back in the car, window down, eyes bulging with expectation. One of the children in the back was wailing.

‘Mr Khalaji, I’m Dave,’ said Dima.

‘Dave. .’ repeated Khalaji, frowning, as if he was trying out the name. ‘The message said Dean.’

Shit, thought Dima. What had they agreed? Dave, Dean, Dima, not a lot of difference. He felt his head clouding. Maybe the vodka hadn’t been such a good idea. Or maybe he should have had a third.

The wife leaned across her husband, frowned at Dima from under her veil, snapped at Khalaji in Farsi. ‘I can smell liquor on his breath.’

Suddenly Solomon was at Dima’s side, edging him away from the car window, wearing a broad grin like he had never seen on his face before.

‘Hey folks, how y’all doin’ today? My name’s Dean and we’ll be taking you from here on to your destination. Ma’am, if you’d step out of the car please, and your little ones.’

If there was anymore to Solomon’s sales patter Dima wasn’t going to hear it, nor were the Khalajis, because what happened next rendered their feeble cover story redundant. A pair of new but dusty Chevy Suburbans swung into view and slewed to a halt in the middle of the street. Eight doors swung open and eight Caucasian men in T- shirts, shorts and shades stepped out, all armed. Four covered, four approached. Two of those covering took aim at Dima. Khalaji’s wife screamed so loud Dima’s ears sang.

Solomon was no longer at his side. At the first sign of trouble he had made himself invisible among the parked vehicles.

‘Hands in the air, cowboy,’ one of the shaded ones shouted, repeating the order in Arabic for good measure. Dima fumbled for his 45, aimed, squeezed, missed, aimed again — and it jammed. A fraction of a second later and the gun was gone from his hand — which was now spurting blood. The Yank had shot it clean out of his grip. Dima dropped to the ground as the Americans got to the other side of the car, opening the doors, reaching in and scooping up the Khalaji family into the bosom of democracy. Dima cursed Paliov for his stupid, ill-planned, under- resourced missions, he cursed the 45, the one or two too many vodkas and pretty much everything else about his shitty life so far.

A flicker of movement between a parked Datsun and a Mercedes — Solomon, behind the cars, choosing a position. And from under the Peugeot he saw one of the Americans inching towards him round the car, taking no chances. With his good right hand, Dima wrestled the Beretta from the left pocket of his chinos and fired at one of