Overkill

checking above and below, before he started up the stairs again.

Halfway up, a shape moved above him, and Richter span round, landed on his back on the stairway and jammed his feet out sideways to stop sliding down. He saw the movement again, and opened up with the Hockler on automatic at the same instant as one of the snipers on the Mole fired his sniper rifle. The figure above Richter slumped down, his Kalashnikov tumbling from his grasp and falling past Richter to the deck below.

He got to his feet again and continued up. The Spetsnaz soldier was lying facedown on the second platform, the back of his seaman’s jersey soaked with blood. It looked as if he had taken five or six bullets through the chest. Richter felt briefly for a pulse in his neck, found none, and started up the third flight.

The last set of stairs ended on the bridge wing, where another figure was slumped. As Richter stepped on to the wing he thought he saw the figure move. He dropped, just as he had been taught at Hereford, and fired a double-tap – two rounds – with the Heckler & Koch. Richter got to his feet, walked over to him, checked for a pulse and moved on. The bridge door was unlocked. Richter opened it and slid inside. There were no lights on, but he had a good idea where he was going. At the centre rear of the bridge was a sliding door, closed.

Richter checked that the Hockler was selected to single shot and that he had about half a magazine left, and slowly slid the door open, admitting the light from the passageway. Richter saw him before he saw Richter, but it didn’t matter because the Russian fired first. The Kalashnikov round ripped through the wooden door and took Richter full in the chest. It felt like a kick from a bull, and he tumbled backwards into the darkness of the bridge, the sub-machinegun spinning from his hands.

The Walnut Room, the Kremlin, Krasnaya ploshchad, Moscow

There was a brief knock at the door and then Yuri Baratov walked in. ‘We haven’t found Trushenko,’ Baratov said as the Russian President looked at him enquiringly, ‘but we think we know where he is. When we went to his apartment, his manservant said he was in St Petersburg, and when we finally found his secretary at the Ministry he confirmed it. He’s spending a few days with friends in St Petersburg. We got the address from the Ministry, and I’ve alerted the local SVR headquarters. They’re on their way to pick him up now.’

Anatoli Lomonosov snorted. ‘They can only arrest him if they can find him,’ he said sardonically. ‘It is, I suppose, just a coincidence that the Finnish border is only a hundred miles from St Petersburg. Your SVR men may find that the bird has already flown.’

‘Why should he?’ the President asked. ‘He doesn’t know yet that Podstava has been discovered. Or does he?’

‘What have you decided to do, Comrade President?’ Baratov asked.

‘Nothing,’ the President replied. ‘We are going to do nothing at all for the moment. I have used the hot-line telex to tell the American President that I have no knowledge of this alleged assault, which is very nearly true. We are not going to take any military measures to respond to the American sabre-rattling.’

‘Is that not dangerous?’ Baratov asked. ‘If we don’t respond, we are defenceless.’

‘Defenceless against what?’ Yevgeni Ryzhkov asked. ‘The one thing we do know about the Americans is that they would never dare initiate a first-strike. Let them fly their bombers in small circles over the Atlantic and Pacific, let them sneak their nuclear submarines around. There are two very good reasons not to respond. If we initiate any military actions, the Americans might use that as an excuse to launch a pre-emptive strike against us.’

‘And the second reason, Comrade President?’

‘According to General Sokolov, ultimate control of Podstava lies in the hands of one man – Minister Dmitri Trushenko. If we can’t find him, he will presumably activate it when his own timetable so dictates. So, if we can’t find a way of stopping it, we are going to have to let Podstava run its course.’

Anton Kirov

Richter lay crushed up against the front of the bridge, his left shoulder against the base of the binnacle, trying to get his arms working. He had no idea where the Hockler had fallen, but he still had the Smith and Wesson and he was expecting the Spetsnaz trooper to push through the bridge door any second to inspect his handiwork. Richter’s right arm seemed heavy, almost too heavy to move, and it took all his strength to seize the butt of the revolver and pull it out. He dragged the pistol on to his chest, panting from the effort.

The bridge door flew open, and Richter struggled to lift the Smith into a firing position. But he was too late – aeons too late. Back-lit by the passageway lighting, the Russian looked down at him over the barrel of his Kalashnikov. ‘Das vidaniya – goodbye,’ the Russian said, walked over to Richter and tucked the assault rifle more tightly into his shoulder.

Richter tried to lift the Smith, but the pistol was just too heavy. He tensed, then heard the crash of a shot, but from his right. The Russian suddenly had no head, just shoulders and a spray of blood. He toppled to Richter’s left and fell sprawling on the bridge floor. A small, black-suited figure ran from the bridge wing and knelt beside Richter. ‘You OK?’

‘Don’t know. Chest.’ It was all Richter could do to speak. His chest didn’t hurt – it was just numb, and he couldn’t seem to draw breath. The SAS trooper felt cautiously under the vest, which Richter hoped had worked as advertised, then pulled out his hand and waved it in front of Richter’s face. ‘No blood,’ he said.

‘Good. What gun?’ Richter gestured feebly at the body lying beside him.

‘Arwen,’ the SAS trooper replied. ‘Buckshot, more or less. You should see what it does with a chest shot.’

‘No thanks.’ Richter’s breath was coming more easily, and he still had work to do. ‘Help me up,’ he said.

The SAS trooper checked round the bridge and down the passageway before lowering the Arwen to the floor. With his help and the support of the binnacle, Richter got back on his feet. He felt as if he’d been through a combine harvester. The trooper picked up his Arwen, moved across the bridge and then returned with Richter’s Hockler. ‘You OK now?’

‘Yes,’ Richter said. ‘I owe you. Just give me a minute to get my breath.’

‘All part of the service. You’re Beatty right?’ Richter nodded. ‘Did you get to the Radio Room?’

Richter shook his head. ‘I didn’t get that far.’

‘Right. Follow me.’

Richter followed him off the bridge and down the passageway. There were three doors off the passageway all open. They checked each room, but found them all empty. None of them was the Radio Room. A steel staircase led to the deck below. The trooper crouched flat on the floor, peering down the staircase and looking for any opposition. Satisfied, he stood up and made his way slowly down. On the next deck down there were only two doors on opposite sides of the passageway, one of which bore lightning-flash symbols indicative of high voltages and the Cyrillic legend ‘Радио Офис’ – Radio Office.

Richter pointed at it. The two men moved to the door and took up positions on either side of it. Richter stretched out his arm, turned the door handle gently, and then pulled. The door didn’t budge, but suddenly the clamour of an automatic weapon erupted and a pattern of holes appeared, ripped through the wooden door at chest height.

They flattened themselves against the steel bulkhead. Richter caught sight of a movement opposite, and saw the other door start to open. He was still slow and hurting, but he brought up the Heckler & Koch and selected auto. As the muzzle of the Kalashnikov turned towards them, Richter opened up. The machine pistol took just under a second to fire the eight 9mm rounds he had left in the magazine. A tight pattern appeared in the wooden door, and the AK47 dropped. As Richter dropped the magazine out of the Hockler and inserted another one from his belt pouch, the SAS trooper took out his Browning, ran over and kicked open the door. He slid inside, and Richter heard a single shot.

‘No problem,’ he said, as he emerged and took up his position again on the other side of the Radio Office door. ‘Nice shooting.’

The trooper opened the magazine on the Arwen and inserted two shells from his belt pouch. ‘Stand back,’ he said. He stepped back into the passageway, took aim at the bottom steel hinge on the door and fired. Richter had time to see that the hinge remained more or less intact, but the wood on the door beside it had simply