were recent recruits of the GRU or the KGB or one of the other ministries that could justify the expense of sending its best and brightest to the West. And Farrington James was a standard-issue preppie, with one of those patrician Boston names that looked like it had been written down the wrong way round. Who calls a kid Farrington, for fuck’s sake?
Dima had briefly auditioned him with the standard leading questions about China and Africa, until it became clear that James made Ronald Reagan look like a liberal. He was about to strike him off his target list when James introduced his fiancee, Camille. First Dima noticed her hands, fine porcelain-delicate, then her eyes, green-grey, with finely-drawn eyebrows and a smile which, when she beamed it at Dima, made him think that she had created it just for him.
Camille Betancourt was the only daughter of the Marquis de Betancourt, part of the flotsam that bobbed on the surface of French society for no good reason other than seven or nine generations earlier one of them had been given a plot of stolen land — and a title that had probably been snatched as well. What little Betancourt money was left over from the father’s monstrous gambling addiction went on keeping his daughter out of trouble and all polished up, in the hope she would snare a rich American like James.
And it had all been going so well. The Marquis toasted Farrington with the last of the family’s wine cellar. Dazzled by the father’s aristocratic charm as much as by the daughter’s beauty, Farrington proposed, but Camille, harbouring doubts about her boyfriend’s true sexual preferences as well as his politics, was taking her time to give him an answer. And then Dima arrived in her life.
Holy fuck, he thought, I’m really letting myself go tonight. Trudging through the ruins of Tehran, he realised that he hadn’t allowed his memories such free rein since giving up drinking ten years before. But for the first time in ten — no, twenty-five — years, he had a good reason to remember.
James had swanned into the banquet mainly for an opportunity to lecture the Russians on how Marxism was really Satanism for the twentieth century. Lost in the hyperbole of his own self-righteous pomposity, he was blind to what was happening as Dima’s laser gaze locked on to the exquisite young French woman at his side, sipping Soviet-bought vintage Dom Perignon.
Six weeks: that’s all they had. Neither Farrington nor the Marquis were going to stand for Camille’s affair with a young Soviet, but Camille had already told her father that she didn’t care a damn about Farrington or France. As far as she was concerned, she now belonged to Dima, and was ready and willing to elope to Moscow with him. And if he needed any convincing, she was carrying his child.
He never saw her again. All trace of her vanished overnight as if she had never existed. The tiny apartment she had rented was let to another student. Her tutors at the Sorbonne were told that she had dropped out of her course and moved abroad. Frantic, he appealed to his masters in Moscow for leave to go in search of her. But his superiors in Paris had already alerted the Kremlin, and the next thing he knew he was being dispatched on an urgent mission to French West Africa.
A year later a friend in Paris sent him a cutting from
Now, here he was, on the wisdom of that advice. He had compressed all of his feelings into a tight ball of fissile energy that sat deep inside him. Whether it had served him well he didn’t know. Perhaps it was what had made him awkward, aloof. ‘You’re so difficult, Dima: you’re your own worst enemy. So much potential, so little to show for it.’ How many times had he heard that? He looked over his shoulder at the men following behind. Vladimir, Kroll, had they fared any better? Each of us in our own way is a casualty, he reflected. The GRU’s walking wounded.
Kroll caught up with him and clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Hey.’ He peered into Dima’s eyes. ‘Uh-oh, I know that look.’
‘Kroll, your life is shit. What makes you so fucking cheerful all the time?’
Kroll shrugged. They paused to let the others catch up. Vladimir caught the change of mood and grinned his vampire grin.
‘It beats another night in Butyrka.’
Zirak nodded at the street ahead. ‘I hope Amara’s got the dinner on.’
33
Camp Firefly, Outskirts of Tehran
Black sat at the folding table, the field laptop open in front of him and Campo and Montes behind, the light from the screen giving their faces a ghostly glow. The video, shot at night, was almost indecipherable, but there was enough to be in no doubt as to what was happening. Cole stood over them as they watched.
Campo hissed through clenched teeth.
‘We got any idea who this cocksucker is?’
The man, tall, with the end of his turban wrapped round his face, stood over the hooded figure, whispering. Then with a magician’s flourish he whipped off the hood to reveal the face of the terrified tanker, Miller, before he drove a blade into his neck.
Cole reached forward and slammed down the lid, looked at Black, waiting.
‘Same guy?’
Black nodded. ‘It’s like he’s taunting us. Does he think making us this mad’s gonna help his revolution?’
‘What do intel say? They got a fix on him?’
Cole shrugged.
‘Nothing. Okay guys, listen up. We got confirmation Al Bashir’s run to the northwest of the city where the PLR forces are concentrated. They’ll be kept occupied by ongoing airstrikes.’
Cole broke open a map and spread it over the table.
‘Al Bashir and any sub-commanders must be captured alive. Assault element, call sign Misfit 2–1, will be flown in by Osprey. Black, your team will provide overwatch from these positions.’
Cole pointed to two locations on a satellite shot of a large shopping mall.
‘Extraction will be by Osprey. Okay gentlemen, get to work.’
Montes looked at Black.
‘Do you get the feeling we just missed another night’s sleep?’
Campo chipped in. ‘No way baby, you’ve just had eight hours and a nice lie in. Don’t you remember that nice nightcap the lady with the big tits brought you in your suite? And how she served it, with whipped cream and —.’
Black wasn’t listening. He opened the laptop. Played the video again.
34
‘Hey! “Is it a bird? Is it a plane?” Whooh!’
Campo, grinning, watched through a tiny window as the Osprey’s rotors tilted from take-off into flight position. He nudged Black, yelling above the roar.
‘Man, don’t you love it? The first flying machine to combine the vertical take-off capability of a chopper with the cruise speed of a turboprop plane. Is that a beautiful idea or what?’
Black wanted Campo to stop nudging him and shut up but he didn’t say so. He knew he meant well. Campo always meant well. If he hadn’t damaged an eye in training he’d have been up there in the cockpit. Flying was what he’d signed up for, but his injury had finished that dream. He had accepted it as he did all setbacks, by seeking out the next positive. Blackburn wondered what positives he would have found if he had seen Harker’s beheading.
‘And you know what’s way cool? The enemy can hear us coming but they don’t know where the fuck we gonna land. ‘Cos this thing can drop on any roof, any playground it wants. They gonna be shitting their girlfriends’ panties in that shopping mall when we come out to play!’
Campo gave him another nudge.
‘And you know who wanted to kill it off? The Lord of War himself, Dick Cheney, back when he was Secretary of Defense. But know what? He got overruled by Congress. Our elected representatives said, “Go build that bird”.’
The relative merits of the Osprey were a subject of heated debate among the Marines. Being able to fly right
