time suggesting Zhilev had some vague connection to terrorism, fictitious, of course, which produced a more detailed coverage showing his military postings. Judging by the department and locations Zhilev served, we could ascertain he was in a Special Forces unit or at least attached to one. The FSB did not confirm that but it’s pretty obvious Zhilev was in this special unit from the mid-seventies. As expected, our interest sparked the FSB into doing some checking of their own and they offered to share some of their information with us. It seems Zhilev recently left his home in Riga and took a trip to England, arriving the same day Gabriel was attacked in Thetford Forest. The Russian lettering Gabriel saw prompted us to look at all of the recent viewings more closely. The big question was if this mysterious person - assuming that person was Zhilev - was indeed a serious threat and in some way linked to the tanker, and that it was him who attacked Gabriel, then what was he doing in Thetford Forest and at that precise location?’
Stratton hoped Sumners was not expecting him to come up with an answer because he did not have a clue.
‘It was Chalmers who cracked that one,’ Sumners said, indicating the nerdy assistant pecking away at a computer terminal. ‘He reads everything. MI archives mostly. File after file. Packing his mental database, so he says. Has a photographic memory.There are different types of photographic memory. Most just see an image they can recall instantly as if looking at an actual photograph in front of them. Then there are those who can compare relationships between different images - cut and paste between them, if you like. Chalmers has that ability. Ever heard of Operation Kraken?’ he asked.
Stratton had, but after so many years and so many operations, he had to think about it for a moment. ‘Norway,’ he finally said. ‘The Russians coming into Europe and the UK through Norway and Sweden.’
‘That’s right,’ Sumners said, again the ever-complimentary tutor. ‘Spetsnaz. Your chaps once chased a couple of ’em who’d been flushed from their submarine in a Norwegian fjord. Remember that?’ Sumners said, obviously aware Stratton had been on that operation.
Stratton nodded anyway.
‘Didn’t catch them though,’ Sumners said, scoffing. ‘Must’ve been fit chaps to outrun you lot, eh?’
Stratton couldn’t be bothered telling him the poor bastards had much more to lose if they were caught than the SBS had to gain by capturing them. Sumners was a desk spy and would never understand ground operatives and their complex, unwritten rules of survival.
‘Kraken,’ Sumners mused. ‘A Scandinavian sea monster. Did you know that? “Then once by man and angels to be seen, in roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.” Tennyson. Expecting the Russians to die so easily was more wishful thinking than optimism, especially in those days ...Those were the days, though, eh, Stratton? The Russian was an adversary to be sure . . . in some things. Toe-to-toe, compared to this terrorist malarkey these days . . .
‘But OP Kraken was far bigger than merely observing the Russian infiltration of Europe and the UK,’ Sumners went on. ‘It’s what they were doing when they got to the UK that was of greater interest. It turned out the buggers were busy setting up sabotage teams near military targets up and down the country. It wasn’t until after the Cold War we learned they had at least twenty-two sabotage hides placed in various locations in England and Scotland, though we don’t know where. We found one in the late seventies in Portsmouth in a public park - a children’s playground, no less. Clever bastards used an abandoned sewage system. They were ingenious at concealing these hides. We have only ever found one other . . .
‘Chalmers was the one who came up with a sabotage hide being the relationship between Zhilev and Thetford Forest, or, to put it another way, Russian Special Forces and the Mildenhall and Lakenheath air bases. The thought that Gabriel had managed to stumble upon Zhilev as he was actually looking for a hide was far too irresistible to ignore.The RAF has a piece of equipment called Gronar or ground sonar, designed to find underground pipes and communication cables, et cetera. Pretty useful at finding certain types of landmines too, so I hear. We found the hide close to the spot Gabriel was attacked. Unfortunately, when Gabriel disturbed Zhilev, he was on his way out of the hide, not going in and he had already taken what he wanted. We believe he’s carrying a nuclear device. In fact, we’re certain of it. Simple reason is there should have been three such devices in the hide but there were only two.’
Stratton could feel the words ‘nuclear device’ coming before Sumners said them. He knew about the hide in Portsmouth, or cache as the SBS called it. Stratton didn’t see it for himself but one of the older SBS lads at the time had been on the operation to secure and recover the cache and its contents. The fear was that there might have been Spetsnatz in the area so it was prudent to take a few operatives along, just in case. There was no interference from the Russians and the rumour was that three atomic weapons had been lifted from the cache along with an assortment of biological and chemical weapons.
So this Russian had a nuke, Stratton pondered. That changed everything. Suddenly the many things Gabriel had talked about over the past few weeks dropped into entirely different slots, the most troubling of all being his comment that he had seen his own death at the hands of whatever it was the man in his viewings possessed.
‘We haven’t told the Russians about the nuclear device, but we’ve created enough suspicion around Zhilev’s suspected terrorist connections that they’re doing all they can to track him down,’ Sumners said. ‘We haven’t told them about Kastellorizo either. If we can find him on our own we will.’
Stratton could guess the reasoning behind that. If they could produce a former Russian Spetsnaz with a nuke the Russians had planted in Britain, it would be an immense bartering tool.
‘Any ideas as to where he’s headed?’ Sumners asked. ‘Stratton?’
Stratton snapped out of his thoughts. ‘What?’
‘Zhilev. Any thoughts on where he could be heading?’
Stratton looked at a map in his head, the Mediterranean, Kastellorizo, Turkey to the north, Egypt to the south, Libya to the west of that, and then Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon and Israel to the east. He considered the range of a small boat, but then there were plenty of places to pick up fuel. If it was one of the fishing boats he had seen in the island’s harbour it could carry enough cans of fuel to cross the Med. In short, Zhilev could be anywhere. The big question was what did he want to blow up with a nuclear bomb?
‘Did the Russians provide a psychological profile?’ Stratton asked.
‘Yes, and I’m afraid it isn’t very encouraging. Zhilev was retired from the Spetsnaz for medical reasons. The report cites physical as well as psychological problems but it was unclear about the relationship between them. Chalmers suggested Zhilev might have been one of their medical experiments. It wasn’t uncommon for them to use their own people as guinea pigs for various experimental mind and body enhancing drugs. Then again so did we until a few years ago. But we didn’t use our best soldiers. Can’t understand that one,’ Sumners said.
Stratton didn’t believe him. The person who gave the orders was someone just like Sumners except they’d been brought up by a regime with an historical lack of regard for the lives of its own people, especially its military.
Sumners leaned towards Chalmers. ‘The picture,’ he said to him. Chalmers looked up with an innocent expression, not understanding Sumners’ request. ‘The picture,’ Sumners repeated sarcastically, outlining a small rectangle with his index fingers. ‘Zhilev.’
Chalmers opened a file, removed a couple of photographs and stretched across the table to hand them to Sumners who passed them to Stratton. One of the pictures was a group shot of Zhilev with several Spetsnaz colleagues but not a good one of him. The other Stratton recognised from the tanker, the one he had found in Vladimir’s wallet.
‘That’s him with his brother,’ Sumners said. ‘Apparently, when they forcibly retired Zhilev from the Spetsnaz, he threatened to blow up a government department. The facts regarding that side of it the Russians left deliberately vague but one thing is obvious: Zhilev appears to favour explosives as a form of revenge. The scenario we’re most in favour of is he’s avenging his brother’s murder. Zhilev headed east from England. The killers were Islamic extremists and so I think it’s safe to assume the target is therefore Islamic. Question is where? Saudi Arabia is a good bet, Mecca and the like, but obviously he is spoilt for choices in the Middle East. One option would be a landfall somewhere in the Levant in Syria or Lebanon. Perhaps Israel is also a possibility, but their coastal security is very tight both physically as well as electronically and one would expect Zhilev to suspect that given his background. But then Lebanon would be difficult too, for a foreigner anyway, and Syria is very tight since the Iraq conflict.
‘The only other realistic option east is through the Suez Canal, which leads to a thousand miles of Saudi coastline, but that would be quite a trek in a small fishing boat. If he left Kastellorizo a week ago, he would be
