stepped from the trees onto a narrow road.
A small car was parked on a verge a little way along the road, exactly where the contact was supposed to be waiting. The two men walked towards it. As they closed on the vehicle a stocky man with a greying beard climbed out and both parties stopped and studied each other.
Stratton thought he looked identical to the photograph. But that was not good enough. ‘The wind is colder when it comes from the north,’ he said.
‘Only if you’re from Smolensk,’ the man replied.
Stratton smiled by way of a hello.
‘Stratton. And Mansfield,’ the Russian said, referring to each man accurately.
‘It’s good to meet you, Vasily.’ Stratton immediately liked the man, who looked harmless, albeit bearlike. He was a surveillance specialist, an MI6 recruit from the Cold War era, according to the brief. It was arguably safer being a spy in Russia these days, mainly because of the vastly improved communications systems and greater freedom of travel. But agents still disappeared. Getting caught was still a very bad idea. People spied against their own for many different reasons, of course. The battle against communism had been won, or so it appeared. But to many nothing had really changed. The old spies remained loyal to the West in order to finish what the ignorant believed they had achieved when the Wall came down. And some just did it for the money. Stratton had been told little about Vasily’s background other than that he was to be trusted.
The Russian got back into the car. Stratton climbed into the front passenger seat, an automatic reaction on his part. He hated relinquishing any control over his operations, particularly when strangers such as Vasily were involved. And although Jason seemed to think he was the procedural adviser on the task, when it came to a real threat Stratton would take over. In this case, he would have more influence over the driver by sitting in the front seat than he would have in the rear. Despite Jason’s attitude, Stratton was the operational commander, an appointment the scientist had gracefully accepted, although there had been scant evidence of that thus far.
The car was a garbage bin on wheels, littered with empty food containers, sweet wrappers and a dozen empty unlabelled bottles. It was also as cold as a refrigerator.
‘Excuse my heater,’ Vasily said, firing up the engine which only started after several turns of the electric motor. ‘It always stops working when the winter begins. We have a two-hour drive to town. There is a train station but I did not think it safe for you to get off there. It has been watched more closely since the increased activity at the mine laboratory. There’s food in that bag. There’s water and vodka. The water’s frozen. Foreigners think Russians always drink vodka because we are alcoholics. That’s a misconception. We’re alcoholics because the water always freezes and the vodka does not.’
Vasily crunched the car into gear and eased it off the verge and onto the narrow road. He took his time getting up to speed and going through the gears. Eventually they were trundling along at a good pace, considering the quality of the vehicle and the road conditions, and the inside of the car began to warm up a little.
‘I have not seen your man Binning in two days,’ Vasily said. ‘He left his house for the mine and has not been back. I think he’s getting to like it down there.’
‘Have you thought of a place where we can pick him up?’ Stratton asked.
‘I have an idea. You must see for yourself. Binning is always escorted by couple of guards to and from the mine. But he does not like the guards hanging around. They stay down in the lobby of his house. In the evenings he sneaks out of the back for a walk. He seems adventurous. I think he sees guards as unnecessary . . . I have the drugs I was asked to get for when you capture him. That wasn’t easy. I had to get them from Moscow. They only arrived today.’ He pointed at the glove compartment.
Stratton opened it to reveal a brown paper bag among several scruffy pieces of documentation. In the bag were a brown bottle and a couple of hypodermic needles. The anaesthetic should knock Binning unconscious a few minutes after he was injected with it. Stratton could see them having to hold the man down and keep him quiet and under control until the drug took effect. That was going to be the most risky point of the op as far as he was concerned. They’d need an element of luck for it to go without a hitch. He put the paper bag back and closed the glove compartment.
Stratton sat back and forced it all out of his head. This was one of those jobs where time would be on their side, within reason. They drove along endless country roads, passing only two vehicles moving in the opposite direction. They joined a highway for a few miles before leaving it to continue along yet another lonely ice road. The countryside varied little; either dense woodland or rocky wasteland coated in snow.
Vasily was a careful driver and kept to a sensible speed, mindful of the vehicle’s limitations and the conditions. He played such a high-risk game yet was so cautious with everything else. Stratton dozed off a couple of times. He had not slept properly since leaving England and the rhythm of the car and the relatively safe atmosphere lulled him into the occasional slumber.
The first time Vasily thought he could see a helicopter in the distance was an hour into the journey. He hadn’t been sure enough to say anything to the others. Stratton sensed a change in him after emerging from a short snooze. The man was sitting further forward than before and was gripping the wheel tightly. When he repeatedly glanced up through the top of his windscreen, trying to see between the leafless branches of the trees lining the road, Stratton became curious. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘There’s a helicopter up there. I’ve seen it a couple of times now. It seems to be moving with us.’
Stratton looked up through the crooked branches into the bright sky beyond. He could see nothing but blankness. White sky. But as he scanned further ahead he saw something. He continued to look in the same place until a gap in the trees revealed the small black object that Vasily was referring to. It was indeed a helicopter, several miles away and travelling on a parallel track.
‘Helicopters are not common around here,’ Vasily said. ‘We’re a long way from any military installation.’
The trees grew thicker but Stratton kept his gaze fixed in the general direction of the aircraft. When the trees thinned again the helicopter was still there but a little closer than before. Stratton judged it to be a sizeable craft. ‘How far are we from the town?’
‘Another sixty kilometres,’ Vasily replied, his tone regretful.
‘Any cover between here and there?’ Stratton was already planning ahead.
‘A tunnel would be nice,’ Jason piped up from the back.
‘Nothing. We are in barren lands. There’s nothing but mines between here and Plesetsky.’
‘We don’t want to go anywhere near the laboratory mine,’ Stratton said.
‘We won’t. I’m taking minor roads well away from it. We will pass the mine by twenty kilometres.’
‘It’s turning more towards us,’ Jason said, craning to see the helicopter through his passenger window.
Another gap in the trees revealed that he was right. The helicopter was on a track that would eventually put it across their path.
‘What shall we do?’ Vasily asked, glancing nervously at Stratton.
‘Why don’t we just stop and see what it does?’ Jason suggested.
Stratton considered it for a few seconds. ‘It makes no difference, ’ he decided. ‘If it’s following this car we can’t stop it.’ The chopper’s presence was still possibly a coincidence. If it wasn’t then they had been rumbled. But then, if that was the case, why hadn’t they been intercepted at the airport or on the train? He could think of another explanation. Perhaps it was Vasily who had been rumbled.
As the helicopter converged on the vehicle’s path it began to take on more of a distinctive shape.
‘It’s a Haze,’ Stratton muttered.
‘Military?’ Jason asked.
‘Troop carrier.’
The craft began to lose height. The windows along its fuselage became clear as well as its markings. Vasily instinctively took some weight off the accelerator and the car slowed a little.
As the helicopter reached a point a few hundred metres directly in front of them it too slowed.
‘They’re stopping above the road.’ Vasily was maintaining his composure but only just. ‘It’s us they’re after.’
‘Easy,’ Stratton said, putting a hand on the dashboard close to the wheel in order to grab it should the Russian do something erratic.
Vasily couldn’t bear the tension any longer and brought the car to a stop, keeping its engine running. Stratton didn’t react. There was little point.
They watched the behemoth as it turned slowly on its axis to face them. After a pause it glided forward. The
