Ghosts

They had to get away.

“Go, go, go,” he shouted.

The Tiger lurched forwards, the tyres slipping until they found purchase and then slinging them ahead. Beatrix aimed down the hill that led away from the dacha, hitting the brakes at the bottom and swinging them around to the left and the road that would lead to Privolzhsk.

The police car came around the corner and followed after them. It was faster and, provided the road stayed clear up ahead, it would very quickly overhaul them. Milton held onto the side as he glanced back through the windows: it was a hundred feet behind them and closing fast.

“Milton!” Beatrix yelled. “You need to do something about that car.”

Milton unlocked the rear doors and kicked them open. The blue and white painted car was fifty yards behind them now, close enough for Milton to see the driver and his passenger. He waited until they had passed onto a smooth section of road and, fixing his left hand around a stanchion, aimed his Sig with his right. The first shot struck the ground three feet in front of the car, throwing up a small cloud of grit and ice. Milton had not intended to hit the car, just warn the driver, but it did not have the desired effect: the passenger leant out and fired three shots with his own semi-automatic. The third caught the nearside mirror, shattering it.

Thirty feet.

Fair enough.

Milton extended his arm and aimed again, absorbing the recoil in his shoulder for a smoother shot. The bullet found its mark, slicing into the front-right tyre and shredding it so that it flapped off the wheel. The car swerved out of control, the driver braking hard and bleeding off most of the speed before the car spun across a sheet of ice and thumped into a deep drift that had been ploughed to the side of the road.

“Put your foot down.”

Milton grabbed hold of Pope’s jacket to hold him in place as the Tiger bumped and bounced over the uneven road, ploughing through the fresh drifts that had not yet been cleared.

“How far is it?” Beatrix called back.

“Sixteen clicks,” Milton reported.

“So say thirty minutes.”

“Come on, Beatrix, we’ve got no time. Pope needs medivac now. We need to be faster.”

Beatrix clunked the Tiger into fifth gear. She stamped on the accelerator and they lurched forwards.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s say twenty.”

Milton switched radio frequencies and brought the mic up so that it was pressed against his throat again. “Any station, any station. This is Blackjack Actual in the clear. Radio check in the blind, over.”

There was a moment of silence, adorned by static, and then an accented Russian voice replied: “This is Overlord. We have you five-by-five. Phase line Echo secure. State your position, over.”

Milton looked out of the window and did his best to guess. “Two clicks south of Plyos. Heading for exfil point. ETA twenty minutes, over.”

Milton could hear the sound of a big engine in the background. The speaker had to raise his voice to be heard. “Acknowledged, Blackjack. What is the sit-rep in Plyos?”

“Success.”

“The target?”

“Affirmative, Overlord.”

“Acknowledged, Blackjack. Make your way to exfil. We’ll be there. Over and out.”

Pope coughed, a tearing sound that came from deep inside his lungs. He reached up for Milton’s elbow. “John,” he said, his voice a ragged whisper.

Milton leant down nearer to his face. “Don’t talk. We’re getting you out.”

Chapter Forty-Five

The Kamov Ka-60 had been airborne for some time already and it had been forced to circle the exfil point for twenty minutes. Beatrix slalomed the Tiger through the deep snow at the side of the road, the Tiger decelerating sharply, and cut across the wide field to the clear space that Milton had indicated. He opened the door and dropped down, taking four chemlights from his Bergen, cracking them alight and tossing them out to form the corners of a wide rectangle. The chopper’s engines roared as it descended, the pilot flaring the nose and the vicious wash kicking up thick eddies of snow, blowing away the fresh fall to reveal the icy permafrost beneath.

Milton and Beatrix went around to the back of the Tiger and helped Pope down. They draped his arms across their shoulders and stumbled towards the Kamov, the toes of their boots catching against the ridges of snow and his carving long troughs behind him. There were two crew onboard, and the second man went back into the cabin and opened the door for them. Beatrix reached the chopper and vaulted up. Milton helped Pope inside, boosted him forwards and Beatrix hauled him the rest of the way. Milton vaulted up himself.

“Where are rest of your team?” the crewman called out.

“Didn’t make it,” Milton said.

Milton was no pilot, but even he could tell from the anxiety in the open cockpit that the crew were concerned that they would have enough juice to make it back to Kubinka.

Nothing he could do about that. He spun his finger in the air, the signal to take off. “Let’s get out of here.”

He sat with his back against the fuselage. He took off his helmet and scrubbed his fingers through his sweaty, bedraggled hair, then swiped the sweat from his eyes. Pope was shivering and Beatrix found a blanket and draped it over him. The crewman shouted back that there was hot coffee in the vacuum flask in the pack fastened to one of the chairs. She took it, poured out a cup and held it to Pope’s lips. He sipped at it. Beatrix looked over at Milton with concern. He was very sick and very weak.

He turned to the pilot. “How long to Kubinka?”

“Forty-five minutes,” the man shouted back.

“Is that at top speed?”

“Top speed, maybe thirty-five, but fuel…”

“Do it,” Milton said. “He needs a doctor.”

* * *

The lights of Kubinka airfield blinked brightly in the snowy night. The runway was delineated by converging horizontal lines and then, beyond, red and green vertical stripes that marked the runway edges and the centreline. They could see the Moscow suburbs away to starboard, the urban glow shining through the darkness like a golden mantle. The pilot radioed that they were on final approach, swung the Kamov into a sharp turn and then bled the height away. They were coming down on the runway itself, aiming for the darkened outline of the Hercules, its white landing lights refracting brightly against the wetness of the cleared asphalt beneath it. The rotors eddied the stubborn flakes as their ride touched down and Milton was the first to disembark, bent low to manage the wash as he crossed to the RAF Flight Lieutenant who had flown the Hercules that had brought them in. He was standing with three Russian airmen. The Hercules was twenty feet away, the four big engines already rumbling and the propellors turning slowly.

“Welcome back, sir. Everything alright?”

“Everything is fine, Lieutenant.”

“Where are the others?”

“They’re not coming back.”

“What happened?”

“They were ready for us,” he lied. “Heavy resistance. They others didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“We need a stretcher. Captain Pope is very weak.”

“Already sorted that out, sir. We’ll bring it across.”

“And the doctor?”

“Over there, sir.” The Flight Lieutenant pointed to the medic who was ru

“Are you ready to go?”

“We’ll be on our way in five minutes. Don’t see much point in hanging around, do you?

“No, Lieutenant, I do not.”

“Get aboard then, sir. I’ll make sure our man gets on in one piece.”

Milton paused. “Got a smoke?”

He didn’t but one of the Russians nodded that he understood and offered Milton a packet of Java Zolotaya. Milton thanked him, took one and tried to hand the packet back; the Russian held up his hand and shook his head. Milton thanked him again. He put the cigarette to his lips and lit it.