Battlefield 3: The Russian

‘I think we’re well past that point. Twenty-five next Thanksgiving.’

Twenty-five years since Paris, Dima thought. The young man in the photograph — they would be the same age.

‘You mind how you go, Sergeant Blackburn.’

Blackburn saluted him then shook hands with the others. The three of them watched the young Marine until he was not much more than a speck on the mountainside.

Eventually Kroll broke the silence.

‘Are you going to tell us just what the fuck that was all about?’

55

Tehran — Tabriz Highway, Northern Iran

Kroll drove, Vladimir drank, Dima slept: the three of them side-by-side on the bench seat up front. Amara, still fast asleep, had the whole of the back seat to herself. After what she had been through in the last twenty-four hours, no one was going to move her. It was hot and sticky inside the Land Cruiser. They kept the air conditioning off to save fuel but even with the windows open the humid night air that gushed in seemed to have retained the previous day’s heat.

Dima slept fitfully. Too frequently he was jolted back to consciousness by a pothole, or Kroll swerving to avoid stray cattle or lumps of rubble from the quake. And when he did sleep his dreams were disturbing, weirdly edited versions of scenes replayed from the last twenty-four hours. He knew it was inevitable that his brain had to process it all, but that didn’t make it any less unpleasant. Yin and Yang, Kaffarov and Cole, each made an appearance, re-enacting their roles, each time with different outcomes. He felt Yin’s grip as he held him underwater, unrelenting and strong as iron, until he felt the life ebbing from him. That woke him up. Then Blackburn was there again, not reacting this time, and Cole’s gun exploded in Dima’s face, blinding him with a fatal white flash.

Then more distant memories floated back into view. Solomon, when Dima first met him — still a teenager, but with that look he recognised from boy soldiers in Africa, of having seen too much, too soon. His brooding, heavy brow, high cheekbones, olive skin: the calculating eyes that were never still. The brilliant fearless teenager with no past and no name he could call his own. Dima wondered if he had ever found out who he really was. He knew it troubled him not knowing.

‘How can I choose whose side to be on?’ he had said, when the boy inside him was still alive, before it had been extinguished by hate.

‘You’re on your own side,’ Dima had replied, struggling to find him some consolation. ‘Fight for yourself: you are your own cause.’

More than any other, this was the one piece of Dima’s advice Solomon had taken to heart — if he had such a thing as a heart. As Solomon’s trainer and then his handler, Dima had made an effort to befriend him, to establish trust, but Solomon was having none of it. Friendship, he said, was a weakness and a distraction: the first real sign that he was shedding his humanity, like a creature remaking itself. He took himself so seriously that some of his peers teased him. They soon regretted it. He seldom lost his temper but could extract the energy from his own anger, like a solar panel absorbs the sun, storing it for later use. And that could come at any time in the future — three days, three weeks, even years later. Nothing gave Solomon more pleasure than watching the dismay build on a victim’s face as it gradually dawned on them why they were being punished. He was brilliant at deception. His mastery of languages, his gift of mimicry, bettered even Dima’s, and the terrorist cells he was sent to infiltrate were invariably won over by his willingness to undertake whatever initiation rite was demanded to prove his loyalty, no matter how brutal. He was a chilling adversary. And one Dima had not expected to face — until now.

They kept to the mountains until they were well clear of the Americans, then dropped down to the Tehran — Tabriz road they had taken two days before. Apart from several vehicles abandoned during the exodus from Tehran, it was deserted. They came across a bus that had come off the road and slid down a bank. But there was no sign of the passengers, or the rest of the multitude who had left their homes and livelihoods behind in the shattered capital.

At Miyaneh, southeast of Tabriz, Kroll said,

‘We’re almost out of juice.’

It was three a.m.

‘I guess the fun had to end sometime,’ said Dima. ‘They’ve got gas coming out of their ears in these bloody places, but can you find any when you need it?’

The entire town was shuttered, but a vast impromptu camp had sprung up in the parking lot of a shopping mall, with hundreds sleeping in their cars. They woke a few of them up and offered cash for whatever was left in their tanks, but all swore they were as good as empty. They sputtered on a little further, then the tank ran dry. They found a plastic can in the trunk, and leaving Kroll with Amara, Vladimir and Dima walked on until they came to a gas station.

‘Nice and quiet,’ said Vladimir.

But they were not alone. A gang of raw-looking PLR recruits appeared out of the shadows and raised their AKs. One look at them and you could see the lack of experience, the volatile combination of fear and the lack of impulse control.

‘You’d think just one thing could be straightforward, wouldn’t you,’ said Dima as he identified the leader, a jittery youth in cheap Adidas knock-offs and a red and white scarf round his face. He must have copied his look from an Al Qaeda training video.

‘No gas!’ they shouted, firing their weapons in the air.

Then why guard it, if there was nothing to guard?

‘Hi lads,’ said Vladimir. ‘Just going to fill up, then be on our way.’ He held up the can and waggled it.

‘Come on, grandad, if you want some!’ shouted one.

‘Let’s cut his prick off: he won’t be needing it,’ said another.

‘The youth of today really are growing up too fast,’ said Dima.

‘Bollocks to this,’ said Vladimir.

Somewhat the worse for the dodgy Azerbaijani vodka he’d found in the Land Cruiser, he lifted his Makarov and fired upwards, hitting the leader in the arm.

‘Was that your idea of a warning shot?’ said Dima.

‘You know I shoot better when I’m drunk.’

The youths fled and they pushed the Land Cruiser the last few metres, Amara still snoring peacefully as they filled up.

As they pulled back on to the Tabriz road, Dima called Darwish. At least he had good news for someone: his daughter was okay and was coming home, and her evil husband was no more. Which was about the sum total of their achievements over the last forty-eight hours.

Darwish took a long time to answer. When he did he sounded bleary. It was five a.m, after all.

‘Your little girl is on her way back to you.’

That woke him up. For a few seconds he didn’t speak. Then he said,

‘I am forever in your debt.’

‘Story of your life. Where are you?’

‘I must make arrangements. I shall call you right back.’

Five minutes passed. Dima’s phone rang.

‘Okay. I am taking Anara away for a few days. I need to give her a break after her ordeal.’ Darwish gave him details of an airstrip outside Tabriz. ‘How long till you are there?’

Dima glanced at the map.

‘About an hour.’

‘And is my Anara truly okay?’

‘Truly,’ said Dima. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, yes: just tired.’

56