CHAPTER 20

Girling awoke with a start. He sat up, trying to focus his eyes beyond the sunlight streaming through the window. The floor of the cell was of loosely raked earth, so cold he was shivering convulsively.

He tried to move towards the window, but his legs gave way. He lay with the chilled earth against his cheek and as the light started to fade drifted back into unconsciousness.

He dreamt he had fallen into a deep well shaft and that there was someone there, framed in the circle of light far above him. He began climbing. The sides of the well were smooth, but somehow he forced his way upwards. And then he was at the top, clawing his way out. As his tired muscles began to fail and the weight of his body dragged him back, he looked up to see Mona and Stansell watching him, their faces impassive. He reached out to them, trying to find the strength to cry, but neither moved. It was as he slid inexorably down into the pit that he woke again.

This time he managed to stand.

As dusk fell, he groped for clues to his surroundings. The smell of the earth confused him. He was sure he remembered the rise and fall of a ship at sea, the smell of tar and salt spray.

Then he was running once more through the graveyard, Al-Qadi’s gun in his hand, trying to keep up with the Sheikh’s messenger.

Girling brought his hand up to his face and felt the bruise above his eye. He remembered rolling towards the sarcophagus, Al-Qadi’s gun skating across the floor. Figures, too. Dressed in black. A smell of ether in the air and a voice from behind a mask.

‘We are the Angels of Judgement...’

Girling swayed. He felt pain and swelling in his upper arm. Whatever it was, it had been a powerful anaesthetic. The hollowness in his stomach told him that he had been unconscious for a day, maybe two.

Before he made it to the window, a crude hole in the door criss-crossed by bars, a cool wind brushed his face, and brought with it the smell of cooking.

He grasped the bars and looked outside.

His prison lay now in the shadow of a high-sided rock face, at the end of a wadi. As his eyes adjusted to the light he made out a white crenellated building shimmering in the distance like a mirage.

‘A caravanserai... a sacred place,’ Abdullah had said, before the helicopters swept over the wadi to destroy it.

Girling let go of the bars and teetered backwards. He tried to regain balance, but fell against the far wall of the cell, cracking his head against the stones.

There was a scuffle outside the door and he looked up to see a man’s face at the bars. Girling could not speak. He watched as a slice of unleavened bread was thrown to the floor. By the time he reached it, the face was gone and he was alone again.

They came for him several hours after nightfall.

Too faint from drugs and hunger to be afraid, Girling stumbled into the night. His hands were roped together in front of him; two soldiers held his arms and a third marched behind, holding a rifle to his back.

Girling felt as if he were caught in a strong current against which resistance was useless. He twisted in his escort’s grip to take in his surroundings. The new moon did not cast much light, but picked out the caravanserai none the less. He reached the top of a rise. Dotted before the walls of the ancient building were a dozen camp fires, each surrounded by fifteen or twenty men. It looked like a medieval battlefield.

In the glow of the fires, Girling could make out weapon emplacements. He saw anti-aircraft guns mounted on station wagons and, amongst the portable weaponry, rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles by the dozen.

The night air was sharp against his face. He was maybe five or six thousand feet above sea level. Mountains, he was in the mountains.

They reached the caravanserai’s double gates. The soldier in charge of his escort shouted a series of harsh commands in the night and the doors swung slowly open, hinges groaning under the strain.

Inside, women cooked over open stoves while the men sat talking and smoking. The air was thick with conversation and the smell of bean stew and spiced meats.

The caravanserai was lavishly detailed. It reminded Girling of the Al-Mu’ayyad mosque, where he had seen the Guide. A wooden balcony ran around the inside of the courtyard, supported by ornate carved columns. The balcony was covered by a simple tiled roof, but the rest was open to the night. In the corner was a small mosque.

They reached a door set into the far wall and Girling was pushed inside with such force that he tripped and fell headlong.

He lifted his face off the smooth, paved floor. He was in a low-lit room and there was a crowd around him. The silence was palpable. As he climbed to his feet, Girling’s gaze passed quickly across the sea of faces. Some were in traditional robes, others dressed in jeans and combat jackets. Several carried automatic rifles and pistols.

His guards grabbed him again and waded through the crowd, pushing it back with their rifles. He was forced onto a wooden chair.

Smoke hung in layers, from floor to ceiling. Facing him were three tables arranged in a semicircle. The crowd behind him was quieter now, but Girling could sense its every movement.

A door opened and two men entered. They sat down directly in front of him, on the opposite side of the middle table. One of them was Ahmed Jibril, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. He was older than his few published photographs gave him credit. His hair was grey, his stubble patchy. He wore a chequered Palestinian gutra around his neck.

The second man unbuckled his canvas combat belt and dropped it onto the table. Removing an old Colt .45 from its holster, he proceeded to clean it with a corner of his shirt. His dark hair, thinning at the temples, was swept back over his crown. His eyes were immensely dark and devoid of expression. Like Jibril, he wore military fatigues.

Jibril produced several pieces of paper from the top pocket of his tunic. He unfolded them slowly and placed them on the table. He put on a pair of reading glasses and studied them for a full two minutes without saying a word.

Girling could hear nothing except the sound of his own breathing. The entire room waited for Jibril to speak, but the other man held Girling’s attention. As he watched the rhythmic movements of the second man’s hands on the gun, a succession of images appeared before his eyes. The massacre at Beirut, bodies falling from the aircraft, explosions ripping it apart, flaming jet fuel incinerating the dead and the wounded. He saw Al-Qadi spitting into Stansell’s sarcophagus, felt the crowd close in on him outside the Al-Mu’ayyad Mosque.

As he looked into this man’s eyes he saw the face of Abu Tarek. His men had held him while the rocks rained down on Mona. He who had turned and laughed as he stood over her body on that dirt road in Asyut...

Girling gripped the edge of his chair. He now knew the secret of Wadi Qena. Ulm and the Pathfinders were coming to kill this bastard. And he wanted to watch them do it.

Jibril looked up. ‘Thomas Girling.’ He pronounced it badly, running together the ‘t’ and ‘h’ and softening the first ‘g’.

Girling turned slowly towards him.

‘Who do you work for?’ Jibril asked. Behind him a studious-looking man translated into Arabic for the audience.

‘The British publication, Dispatches.’

Jibril clucked. ‘The whole truth...’

‘I told you -’

‘I heard first time,’ Jibril interrupted. It was a gravelly voice, heavily accented. ‘Perhaps I should be more clear.’ He waited for the translator to finish. ‘Who is paying you to write this material?’ He waved the pieces of paper in his hand. ‘The Americans? The Israelis? Your own secret service?’

‘I am a journalist,’ Girling said. ‘I don’t work for any government.’

‘You expect us to believe that?’ Jibril gestured around the room.

‘It’s the truth.’

‘One day you are writing about guns and aeroplanes from the safety of a desk in your own country. The next, you are here, sticking your nose into business that is not your concern.’

‘Murder is my concern.’

‘You do not answer the question.’

Girling took a deep breath. ‘I was in Cairo a long time ago. Murder took me away, and murder brought me back.’

The translator held his tongue.

‘Then you have learned nothing,’ Jibril said. ‘Why did you write these lies about the Angels of Judgement?’ He waved the paper again.

Girling looked back at the second man, who was no longer polishing his gun. ‘Because I wanted to see the face of the murderer,’ he said.

‘Who are you working for?’ Jibril repeated. The other man held up the Colt, examining it carefully under the light.

‘You bastards aren’t interested in the truth. It doesn’t matter if you blow the leg off another kid, or waste one more pregnant woman. There’s always the cause, isn’t there? The fucking cause justifies everything -’

The second man snapped a bullet into the chamber of the automatic. Girling looked straight into his eyes. Suddenly he didn’t care about the hostages, the rescue, even about revenge. Past and future were the same. ‘You can’t kill me again,’ he said, rising. ‘You fuckers did that three years ago.’

Jibril clicked his fingers and three bodyguards appeared from the shadows behind him.

The crowd took it as a signal and came for him from three sides of the room.

One of the bodyguards brought the butt of his Kalashnikov across Girling’s face.

The pain temporarily drowned the cries of the crowd.

The first man to get to him had already drawn his pistol. At least six others held him down, pinioning him to the table.

Girling opened his eyes. He was staring straight into the snub barrel of an automatic. The man who held it was pleading with Jibril, shouting over and over. The crowd joined with him, a tuneless chant, an exhortation for him to pull the trigger and blow the ‘agnabi to hell.

Girling closed his eyes and the barrel was rammed against the bridge of his nose.

Then a voice rang out, silencing the crowd. It was deep and authoritative, but ice cold, not angry. ‘Put your gun away, Adel.’

‘Aiwa, ya Saif.’ Yes, Sword.

Girling tried to turn towards the voice, but it was impossible to see past the wall of men who surrounded him.

‘Girling must live long enough to tell us what he knows. I will deal with him personally.’

Girling lay close to the door, his ears straining for sound. In the night, alone with his thoughts, a yearning to survive had returned. The thought that help was at hand sustained him.

On his way back to his cell he had spotted another, nearly identical: the same window bars, same thick wooden door with two armed guards either side. Was it large enough for an ambassador and a nine-strong team of negotiators?

He walked over to the door and looked outside. The moon had slipped behind the clouds. There was not a sound, not a single voice, not a laugh to be heard in the wadi. He clutched his sides for warmth. He could not see the other cell, but was tempted to call out. Then he felt the dried blood on his face from the Kalashnikov and remained silent.

When was Ulm coming?

Jibril and the Sword would put him through a further round of interrogation sometime after daybreak. They would want to know what he knew about the Shura, but with boots and gun butts in his face, his groin, and his kidneys, what else might he tell them?

He heard something.

An engine. An aero engine.

Girling pressed his head to the bars. It was very faint, very distant.

An airliner, crossing the night sky at altitude on its way to Europe, or the Gulf. Passengers inside, warm, relaxed, eating, sleeping...

Girling moved away from the bars to the corner furthest from the door and sat there waiting for the dawn.

He opened his eyes when it was not yet light. He lifted his head from the crook of his arm and heard a sound, very close. He stiffened, then got slowly to his feet. By the door he could see the outline of a man.

A match flared and he found himself staring into the eyes of a man he took at first to be a priest. He was dressed in a long robe and turban. His beard was white and full, the face strong.

The mullah watched him as he brought the flame to the wick. He replaced the glass and hung the lamp on a hook by the door. To Girling’s surprise, the eyes that held his were bright blue.

‘Why so angry, Mr Girling?’ The mullah lifted the hem of his robe and sat opposite him, eyes level.

‘Who are you?’ Girling asked.

‘One who comes in peace.’ His English was accented, but smooth, unlike Jibril’s.

‘Does peace come from the barrel of a gun?’

The mullah raised his eyes. A muezzin had begun to call from the caravanserai.

Girling pointed to the door. ‘There are enough weapons out there to start another world war.’

‘The weapons belong to Jibril and Hizbollah. They are here for the Shura.’

‘The Shura...?’ Lazan’s last piece of intelligence came back to him.

‘A meeting, a council. At the caravanserai. You know what a caravanserai is? It is a holy place-’

‘Where even rival tribes forget their differences,’ Girling whispered.

‘For one who knows our culture it is strange that you should hate it so. What have the Angels of Judgement done to you?’

Girling felt a surge of anger. ‘What have you done...?’

The mullah held up his hand. ‘I know about your wife. I know about your friend. I know about the hostages. But these things are not our work.’

His voice held such quiet conviction that Girling was still. Then he saw himself once more overlooking the valley outside Wadi Qena, Abdullah beside him. The helicopters were circling, pouring fire into the mock caravanserai. ‘Then why call this Shura?’

‘So that many can hear the message.’ He paused. ‘The Sword will tell them that there is to be no Jihad, no Holy War.’

‘It’s a bit late, isn’t it? Wherever he goes, the Sword’s message is pain.’

‘You have written much about his message, and now you are here, his prisoner. But you know so little about him...’ He studied Girling’s bruised face. ‘Was it worth it?’

‘I think I came here to kill him,’ Girling said.

The blue eyes regarded him. ‘Does peace come from the barrel of a gun?’

The question was asked softly, and Girling thought he detected a hint of a smile on the mullah’s face. When he finally answered, Girling’s tone, too, was soft.

‘Why didn’t you tell me who you are?’

‘Your heart was too full of anger to see the truth.’ The Sword paused. ‘The things you wrote... Beirut Airport, murder in Cairo, hostages... none of it true.’

‘But they happened.’

‘Not on my orders.’

‘Then perhaps your Angels of Judgement are operating beyond your control.’

‘I may be an old man, Mr Girling, but you should know that none of my men moves without a word from me first.’

‘If it wasn’t you... then who?’

‘I was hoping you would tell me. Why do you think I brought you here? I need answers, too. I thought you knew...’

The muezzin’s song rose. For a long time the two men watched each other in silence. Girling felt his tiredness leave him. The puzzle was almost complete. It had been since his journey to Qena. He just hadn’t been watching it closely enough.

‘Stamen’s article said you were in Afghanistan, that you were a Mujahideen group, that you had seen action...’

‘A long time ago. Things were different...’

‘In what way?’

‘We were less sold on the ways of peace.’

‘Why such a long way from home? I thought the struggle was here.’

The Sword looked up. ‘The struggle is everywhere, Mr Girling. But I am an Uzbek, born and raised in a village south of Samarkand.’

Girling nodded. ‘Samarkand, Uzbekistan?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Soviet Union.’

‘Islam knows no borders.’

But Girling was far, far away. ‘The Russians... There’s no rescue... it’s a trap.’

‘A trap?’

‘Three days ago I watched a Soviet-American task force destroy a valley identical to this one. I thought it was a dress-rehearsal for a rescue. But if the hostages aren’t here, those helicopters were on a mission to search and destroy.’

The Sword nodded slowly. ‘It’s me they want, Mr Girling.’

‘How could I be so blind? It was the Russians all along. How many Muslims

are there in the Soviet Union and Russia? Sixty million, more even? Sixty million Uzbeks, Kirghiz, Tadzhiks, Tatars, Kazakhs, and Azeris all united by a common faith. Sixty million.’ Girling paused as the picture became complete. ‘You’re their worst nightmare. They think you’re going to take the Holy War to the heart of Russia.’

‘But like you, Mr Girling, they were wrong. I called the Shura to tell Jibril and his kind there will be no Jihad. The next Soviet revolution, when it comes, must be a peaceful one.’

‘I’m afraid it’s too late. For you, for me, for the Americans...’

‘The Americans?’

Girling thought back to his meeting with McBain and Ulm. They thought he knew. They had been in the dark then, just like everyone else. Hostages. The Russians took the hostages. Stansell knew, so the Russians killed him. They’d told Al-Qadi to kill Girling too; after the Reuters story he’d be just one more victim of the Angels of Judgement. Jesus, the fucking Soviets had known which buttons to press all along.

He turned to the Sword. ‘When the helicopters leave, this valley will be littered with the dead bodies of Arabs and Americans, unless we do something first.’

As they stepped outside into the air there was an ear-splitting roar and a helicopter the size of a trawler rose up from behind the outhouse. Girling grabbed the Sword’s hand and ran for an irrigation ditch in the lee of the cliffs.

Three more helicopters shot into the valley, one of them so low it had to climb sharply to avoid the roof of his cell.

A movement at the edge of his vision made him turn. A helicopter was heading straight for them, its guns firing.

Girling jumped into the ditch, pulling the Sword with him. The Pave Low’s downwash clawed at their heels and bullets spattered around them. Sand stung his skin as the Sikorsky thundered overhead.

A nearby flak gun opened up, but the shots went wild. The Sikorskys twisted and weaved through the air, buzzing the defenders from all directions.

Girling looked for cover. There were some boulders, sixty yards away. They began to run, but a Pave Low prowling in the valley spotted them and did a hundred-and-eighty degree turn.

Girling threw the Sword behind the rocks. The helicopter roared past, its momentum so great that it overshot. Girling saw the pilot wrestling with the controls as he fought to bring the helicopter back.

Thirty yards away was a path leading upwards.

Girling heard the whoosh of an SA-9 launch. He turned to see the missile streaking across the valley towards the nearest Sikorsky, but the machine was too low for the seeker to engage and the missile buried itself into the ground, exploding harmlessly.

Like a stuck bull, the helicopter wheeled.

Girling saw their chance. ‘Come on.’

The Sword hesitated. ‘My people...’

‘They need you alive, Sword.’ He pulled the old man after him.

They were almost at the top of the path when Girling snatched a glance into the valley. Jibril’s missileman was in the open, defenceless, his empty launch-tube discarded. The MH-53J was hovering left and right, intercepting his every attempt to reach the safety of the caravanserai. Suddenly, the machine rotated, giving the ramp gunner unrestricted aim. There was a belch of flame and the Sikorsky moved on to some new hunting ground.

The Sword’s breathing became more laboured. Girling pushed on to scout the ground up ahead.

The clifftop was a plateau littered with outcrops and boulders - the first sign of a place to hide.

He turned to encourage the Sword, but the old man had collapsed face down on the path. He was clutching his right side. When Girling rolled him over, he saw a face gouged with pain. Girling’s hand moved down to the bullet wound. Blood seeped between his fingers as he lifted the Sword’s arm from the sticky red stain spreading across his robe.

A helicopter passed close by, just below the level of the path. Girling had to bend lower to hear what the Sword was trying to tell him.

‘You must go...’

A burst of machine-gun fire swallowed his words.

‘Save yourself.’

Girling slipped his hands under the Sword’s body. He managed to carry him as far as a group of rocks just beyond the top of the path. He laid him down in the shade of an overhang.

‘You are free now,’ the Sword said. ‘Start your life again. Leave me.’

Girling shook his head.

‘I will die with my Angels of Judgement.’

‘You’re the only person who can tell the truth. Die and your people will declare a Jihad against the Americans. There will be more hijackings, more Beiruts...’

Using the smoke and the dust for cover, Girling made his way back down to the outer walls of the caravanserai. One of the gates had a hole blown in it, just large enough for him to squeeze through. He stepped between the bodies and the guns littering the courtyard. He knew what he had to do; he just didn’t know where to begin.

They came in low towards the patch of scrub designated as the landing area, Shabanov’s Pave Low in front, Ulm’s just feet behind. Ulm could have been in a combat simulator back at Kirtland, watching images on a screen, his headphones filled with computer-generated sounds of weapons and war.

The bullet that snapped through the windscreen and buried itself in the door above his head was a sudden reminder that this was no high-tech exercise.

Bookerman threw the helicopter around the narrow sky between the valley walls, responding to reports of incoming fire. Ulm gave few orders. Every man knew what to do. The scene was almost identical to the dummy camp outside Wadi Qena.

Everywhere people were running for cover. He could see old men and women cowering under the eaves of the caravanserai. A gunner was slumped over the breech of a flak gun on a truck in the middle of the courtyard.

The Pave Low jinked and weaved as Bookerman responded to the calls of his gunners. At last Ulm spotted the outhouses that held the hostages.

Suddenly they were down. Ulm threw off his straps and headed for the ramp. Someone chucked him his Heckler and Koch and a moment later he was out of the helicopter, feet pounding the earth. The swirling downwash from the rotors screened them from enemy fire. Ulm made it across the open ground just as the two-man explosives team were putting the finishing touches to the plastic around the hinges of the outhouse door. He pressed against the wall and waited for the synchronized detonation.

When it blew, Shabanov was first through the smoking doorway, followed by Bitov and Jones. Ulm took a deep breath and rolled in behind them.

A pall of smoke hung in the room. It was impossible to see more than a few feet. He could make out the three soldiers in front of him, but beyond that only shades of dark and light. Ulm’s every nerve-ending tingled. A stray shot from any of them would mean the difference between success and failure, life and death for hostage and captor. He waited for the first bullet, the first scream.

A gust blew in through the door, parting the smoke. The cell was empty. Ambassador Franklin and Minister Koltsov were gone.

Ulm pulled the Balaclava off his face. He sucked in the musty air, trying the suppress the stirrings of a feeling that before meeting Shabanov he had not had in almost four years.

‘They must have been moved to the caravanserai,’ the Russian said. His voice bore no trace of surprise.

Ulm stared at him. ‘Do you realize what our chances are?’

‘We have to try, Elliot.’ Shabanov pulled a walkie-talkie from his uniform and barked orders for a helicopter to deploy further down the valley.

An explosion outside rocked the foundations of the outhouse. Through the doorway, Ulm saw a crater burst close to the helicopters. Someone had managed to rig up a mortar.

Ulm ordered the machines to get airborne and patrol the sky above the caravanserai. Their miniguns would give them covering fire as they raced towards the ruins of the Sword’s hideaway.

With the assault team divided into two-man search parties, Ulm and Jones reached the first door leading off the courtyard.

They flanked the entrance way. Ulm had pulled his Balaclava down around his neck. Jones, still wearing his, lifted his eyes and nodded.

Ulm kicked down the door and threw the flash-bang into the room. The second it hit the floor and detonated, Jones was moving, Ulm right behind him. Inside, light streamed through a window close to the ceiling. It was a store-room, a silo; bags of grain and rice stacked to the roof.

The next room was exactly the same; dark and cool, like a church. The thick stone walls drowned the noise of battle, allowing the two men to stop and listen. Inside there was no sound, no movement.

They turned and moved outside, stealing beneath the eaves of the balcony towards the third silo. Jones stopped before they even reached the door. Without saying a word, he signalled Ulm. It was ajar, swinging gently on its hinges. Jones threw the stun grenade and Ulm careered inside. He rolled, coming to his feet in a crouch on the far side of the room.

Another larder. One of the rice bags had split, scattering grains across the floor. In the echoing silence, it was like walking across broken glass.

Ulm looked at Jones, covering him from the door. He heard a high-pitched note, like an ultrasonic alarm in his head. There was someone else in the room, someone besides Jones. He could feel something, a presence...

He began to turn when the gun barrel hit him in the base of the spine.

Ulm froze.

Jones took a step into the room. He squinted against the light. ‘Sir...?’

Girling came up from behind the sacks of grain. He moved the pistol up Ulm’s spine and held it between his shoulder blades. ‘Drop your weapon, Sergeant.’

Jones looked at Ulm.

‘Do it now!’ Girling shouted. ‘You, too, Colonel.’

Ulm flinched. ‘Girling!’

‘Drop the gun, Colonel.’

There was a clatter as Ulm let his MP5 fall to the floor.

Seconds passed, then Jones did the same.

‘Don’t say anything, Colonel. Don’t say a fucking word. Just listen and listen good.’

Girling stepped out from behind his cover. He kept Ulm’s body between himself and Jones. ‘You’ve been set up. There are no hostages. No Franklin. There’s only one reason Spetsnaz are here. The Sword’s an Uzbek, a Muslim from Soviet Central Asia. They need him dead, and they need you to take the fall.’

Ulm gritted his teeth. ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Girling?’

Girling’s voice rose to a shout. ‘Don’t you ever learn, Ulm? The Sword wants out, but the Russians don’t know that.’

‘This is bullshit,’ Jones said. ‘There are terrorists with fucking surface-to-air missiles out there.’

‘They’re Palestinians, Hizbollah,’ Girling said. ‘The Sword got them here to say the deal’s off.’

‘The Russians have hostages, too, Girling.’

‘Colonel, they’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make this work. And unless you want another Panama here, we’ve got to stop that happening.’

Jones was about to speak again but Ulm silenced him. ‘You’d better talk fast, Girling.’

‘The Sword’s been shot, Colonel, and there’s a good chance he’ll bleed to death unless - ‘ He hesitated. ‘If he dies, Washington carries the can for this whole operation. Those are American helicopters up there.’

‘With Russian soldiers on board!’

‘Are they wearing red stars on their uniforms?’

Ulm faltered. Opnaz were the goddamned crack troops of the Interior Ministry. It began to hit him. Uzbekistan... Jesus.

Ulm tried to turn, but Girling told him to keep his eyes front. ‘Girling, this can’t be happening...’ Then he thought of TERCOM’s discreet offices, the blacked out windows and Joel Jacobson. He suddenly felt tired. ‘There won’t be any further need for the gun.’

Girling held the gun steady.

‘For fuck’s sake, man, if you’re right, I’ve got to warn the men.’

‘OK,’ Girling said. ‘Then let’s go.’

They ran across the courtyard, Ulm trying to raise Bookerman and the other pilots on the walkie-talkie. He couldn’t see anything for the smoke and dust drifting across the valley.

Once through the gates, Ulm ran ahead of Girling, while Jones brought up the rear. Girling was thankful for the escort. The pistol in his hand felt unwieldy.

They reached an abandoned pick-up truck and ducked down by the driver’s door. Sharp cracks from the cliffs signalled the presence of snipers. Ulm continued to work the radio, but his voice was met by a wall of static. Girling edged round the side of the truck, hand raised against the smoke. He wanted to pick out the path again. He had to get back to the Sword.

It was then that he saw the Pave Lows.

The two helicopters had crashed between the caravanserai and the outhouses, each carving its own trench across the valley. There were bodies strewn around them. Broken, burning bodies.

Ulm took a step forward, but Jones held him back. ‘No, Colonel. It’s too late.’

An explosion shook one of the wrecks, sending smoke and flames billowing into the sky.

‘Christ, Spades. A mid-air?’

‘One too many accidents, boss. We’ve got to find the others.’

As Jones turned, he almost walked straight into Bitov. Ulm was mesmerized still by the burning wreckage. Girling saw the confrontation between the two sergeants, but from the broad smile on Bitov’s face he thought the big son of a bitch was American.

Jones hesitated. ‘Bitov...’

The Russian raised his arm and shot the American once, straight through the forehead.

Girling tried to move, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t tear himself away from the sight of Jones, still falling, his brains spilling through the jagged hole in the back of his Balaclava. It was only when the body hit the ground that the spell was shattered. And by then, it was too late.

Bitov shifted his aim and Girling stared straight into the barrel of the pistol. Behind him, he heard Ulm’s shout of rage, but it was a faint echo amongst the screams and gunfire.

Bitov squeezed the trigger. Once, twice... Strange, Girling thought, that there should be no sound.

The gun had jammed.

Ulm brought up his MP5, pulling Girling out of the way, and fired.

Bitov was already diving for the truck. He rolled, but the bullet caught him in the back, close to the spine. His body kept rolling, out of Ulm’s line of fire. And then it lay perfectly still.

Ulm was doing what he could for the Sword, staunching the flow of blood with a field dressing and killing the pain with morphine when Girling called to him from the other side of the rocks.

Girling pointed into the sun. ‘Your missing helicopters,’ he announced.

The sun was coming up behind the two Pave Lows, casting long shadows across the rocks. The helicopters were a little over three hundred metres apart, separated from each other by a cluster of large boulders. Their main blades drooped, motionless. It was as if the machines had been drained of energy.

For a second, Girling thought the helicopters had been left unprotected, but then he saw movement on the ramp of the nearest machine. As his eyes became more used to the light, he could make out the figure behind the minigun. He was training it left and right, back and forth, with the restlessness of an insect.

With the Sword’s dead weight to carry, they would not get more than a few yards across the open stretch of land before being cut down by a hail of 7.62 bullets.

‘What are we going to do?’

Ulm slapped in a new magazine and snapped back the bolt of his MP5. ‘Those two helicopters can’t see each other. Now if we go for the nearest one...’

He leaned against the rocks, unslung his weapon and reached into a thigh pocket. He screwed the silencer onto the barrel of the MP5, never taking his eyes off the nearer helicopter. Then he attached the laser sighting system.

‘I could take out that guy from here, but I don’t know how many others are inside. This way, I might stay alive long enough to find out and fly us out of here both.’ He looked at Girling. ‘When I signal, bring the old man over to the back of the helicopter. Meanwhile, keep watching that trail. Still got your weapon?’

Girling held up the pistol.

Ulm disappeared behind the rocks. Girling tried to follow his progress amongst the shadows, but lost him. The American was working his way around to the other side of the helicopter so as to approach it with the sun at his back.

Ulm stepped out into the open and began walking towards the nearest MH-53J when it was no more than thirty metres away. He could see the minigunner’s forearms; the rest of his body was hidden behind the wall of the Sikorsky’s cargo hold. If there were other gunners inside, he hoped they were looking the other way. For all the concentrated firepower in the helicopter before him, it was the second machine, away to his left, that worried him most. If any of its crew caught wind of what was happening, they could destroy their only means of escape with a few well-aimed bursts of automatic fire.

Just before the second helicopter slipped from view, Ulm raised his arm and waved in case any of its crew members were watching him. He hoped he would pass for a Russian. He brought the Heckler and Koch up routinely, flicked the catch to semiautomatic and switched on the laser sighting system. The red spot beam danced over the rocks by his feet.

He reached the sponson mid-way between nose and tail and stopped. Beneath the helicopter he saw the bodies of its American crew. All three of them had been shot in the base of the neck. He did not let it divert him. The cockpit appeared to be empty, as did the left-hand minigun station just aft of the forward bulkhead.

Ulm stole along the fuselage, pausing for one last check of his MP5 before reaching the ramp. He pulled his mask down and stepped round the wall of the cargo hold.

He had perhaps a second to assess the situation. There were two gunners inside. The one on the ramp, the other well forward, manning the right-hand defensive position by the flight-deck bulkhead. Both were training their weapons in the direction of the cliff where Girling and the Sword were hidden. Ulm smiled and nodded to put the far gunner at his ease, then put the barrel of his MP5 against the ribs of the Russian on the ramp, pulled him in towards the gun and shot him twice through the heart. The body jumped and pitched forward, the folds of the jacket catching on the silencer of the American’s gun.

The second Russian lunged for his MP5 as Ulm struggled to pull the ramp gunner’s dead weight off him. Hearing the machine pistol being cocked in the confines of the aircraft gave him a new burst of energy and he hurled the body off the ramp. Suddenly free of the obstruction, the red laser sight-spot danced on the bulkhead. The gunner saw it, too, and raised his weapon. Ulm knew that a bullet through a fuel line or a critical piece of avionics would dash any hope they had of getting away.

His hands wet with sweat, he waited till the spot beam held on the Russian’s forehead before firing. The gunner’s body slammed back against the opening for the minigun, catching on the pintle mounting. It hung, twitching, half in, half out of the helicopter.

Ulm ran outside the hold and snatched a glance towards the rocks that obscured the second Pave Low. There was no sign of any movement. Then he waved Girling over.

There was a flurry of movement as Girling eased the Sword’s body over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Then the journalist made his way across the clearing. When they reached the ramp, Ulm helped Girling ease the Sword into the back of the hold. He pointed to some parachute packs hanging on the walls and told Girling to use them to make the old man as comfortable as possible for the flight.

‘You know how to work a minigun?’ Ulm asked.

‘I think so.’

‘Chances are you’re going to have to.’ Ulm slipped out of the back of the helicopter and jogged up the right side of the fuselage, stopping only to pull the dead gunner from his window.

Ulm turned the handle on the door to the flight deck and tugged it open to find himself staring into the barrel of the gun. He twisted instinctively, like a fish on the end of a line, in a bid to get away. He curved off the foot rest into space at the precise moment the Russian pilot fired his pistol. The slug caught Ulm in the upper chest, spinning him in the air. He landed face down in the dirt, fully conscious. He could see the wheels of the Sikorsky a little way off, but could not raise his head any higher. He heard the crack of gunfire in the valley below. He heard, too, the cabin door swing as the Russian prepared to finish him.

Girling had made the Sword’s body secure, when he heard the shots from the flight deck. Drawing his pistol, he ran through the hold towards the bulkhead. He wrenched the connecting door open just as the Russian was stepping out. Girling had no time to think. Still only half-way through the access hatch, he fired off two rounds. The first went high, but it made the Russian turn. The second bullet took him in the face.

Girling wriggled through the hatch and was out of the commander’s door. He rolled Ulm over, convinced that he was already dead. The American’s blood was trickling down the gentle gradient that led to the cliff drop-off.

As Girling moved him, Ulm coughed violently. Girling pulled the mask off his face and Ulm spat a mixture of dirt, blood and spit into the dust. He tried to speak, but Girling couldn’t make out the words. From the look on his face, though, he took it as some sort of apology.

‘Don’t talk,’ Girling said.

Ulm’s half-choked laugh made Girling realize that talking was all they had left, because the Russians had them now. Their helplessness stirred anger in him and his anger gave him strength. He pulled Ulm onto his feet, ignoring his groans. Half-carrying, half-dragging the American, Girling moved around the front of the helicopter and opened the co-pilot’s door.

It took him a full two minutes to get Ulm strapped in, by which time he had regained consciousness. Girling took off his own jacket and pressed it between Ulm’s wound and his inertia-reel harness.

‘Forget it, Girling, we’re fucked.’

Girling stared at the bank of switches and dials in front of him. ‘Not if I can help it. Not while there’s still a chance.’

‘A chance for you maybe if you run for the hills. But the old man and me are all out of luck.’

Girling snatched a glance over his shoulder towards the trail that led up from the cliff.

‘I’m going to fly us out of here,’ he said.

‘You never said you were a helo pilot.’

‘I’ve flown simulators.’

‘Simulators?’ The blood made his throat rattle. ‘This isn’t a penny fucking arcade game.’

‘Tell me what I have to do.’

Ulm twisted painfully in his seat until he saw Girling’s face and knew he wasn’t kidding.

Bitov was alive, but only just, when Shabanov found him. The fingers of the sergeant’s mutilated hand beckoned and the colonel got down on his knees to put his ear to the starshina’s lips. He listened patiently, then got slowly to his feet.

They stared at each other for several seconds, Bitov’s eyes showing they comprehended.

‘It is time, my friend,’ Shabanov said, raising his MP5.

He shot Bitov twice. Once through the chest and once in the head, just to be sure. Bitov, who had fought with him since the very formation of Opnaz, was now one more dead American in the Sword’s valley.

Shabanov turned to the platoon leader, a corporal. He noticed the man had acquired an RPG-7 rocket launcher and an SA-9 SAM system from the field of battle and was carrying them over his shoulders.

‘The signal, yefreytor. Fire it.’

The soldier pointed his Very pistol in the air, pulled the trigger, and a green flare shot into the sky.

‘The Sword, Ulm, and the civilian are on the cliff,’ Shabanov announced to his men. ‘Kill them and we can all go home.’

Girling found the battery switch and flicked it to ‘on’. ‘Now what?’

There was a hum of electrical power as the lights came up on the instrument panel. Girling found two headsets. He put one on Ulm and plugged the lead into the comms panel between them. Then he donned his own.

Girling turned to the American and waited.

‘There are two levers above you on the overhead,’ Ulm said.

Girling raised his eyes. The roof was a maze of switches, dials and levers.

‘Right in the centre.’

‘Got them.’ Girling grasped them with his left hand.

‘Push them forward to ground idle. You should feel a slight click as they hit the detent.’

Girling brought the twin levers slowly forward until he felt it.

Ulm pointed. ‘Flick the left-hand ignition switch on.’

Girling’s finger hovered momentarily over the switch.

‘For Christ’s sake, Girling, you wanted action! Throw the switch.’

Girling pushed it forward.

‘Now the starter.’

There was a whirring sound from the roof as the left engine began to turn over.

‘Watch the RPM gauge.’

Back to the instrument panel. ‘Where is it?’

‘A little ways down and to the left of your finger.’

Girling found it.

‘Wait till that dial reads twelve per cent, then turn the fuel switch on. See it? It’s a toggle switch to the right of the others.’

The engine whine intensified. Lights all over the instrument panel were flashing.

For a second, Girling was dazzled. ‘Jesus.’

‘Don’t worry about the lights. I’ll take care of them.’ Ulm flinched as a wave of pain washed through him.

Girling’s gaze weaved a path through the lights back to the RPM gauge. ‘Eight... ten per cent,’ he called. His thumb felt the fuel toggle. ‘Twelve per cent.’

‘Give her fuel now and repeat the whole process again for the right-hand engine.’

Under Ulm’s orders, Girling threw switches and punched buttons. As he called the shots, Ulm inched his right hand down to the comms console and flicked through the frequencies, but the set was dead. Shabanov must have given orders for his men to pull all the circuit breakers in case the Pathfinders realized what was happening and began trying to warn each other.

‘Engine temperature’s coming up,’ Ulm said wearily. His head fell as drowsiness began to replace pain.

Girling roused him with a shake of the arm. Ulm winced as the pain returned.

‘Colonel, you’ve got to stay with me.’ It was then that Girling Fsaw the green flare through the window above his head. Someone was signalling them.

The American forced his eyes to focus on the instruments. ‘OK, we have ground-idle. Bring your left hand up to the overhead and prepare to release the rotor brake.’

Girling waited for Ulm’s command, then pushed the lever forward. There was a groan from the bowels of the helicopter. Girling watched one of the six main blades inch impossibly slowly past the cockpit window.

‘Advance the throttles to flight idle.’

Girling pushed the levers towards the next notch.

‘Slowly, Girling, slowly.’

The blades turned faster, making the cabin rock. Girling kept advancing the levers until they clicked into the second notch.

Ulm watched the revs, calling them out all the way. Within a minute, the rocking stopped. There was a resonant hum from the engine joined by the whoosh of the blades as they rotated above the cabin at one hundred per cent rpm.

‘On the centre console, between the seats, there’s a parking brake. Release it.’

Girling groped with his left hand. ‘Brake off.’

‘From now on, don’t think about what you’re doing, or you’ll bury us in that valley down there.’ He paused. ‘Here goes. Push the cyclic forward a fraction and keep your foot down on the right pedal. We need to be pointed away from those rocks.’

Girling inched the control column away from him and the helicopter trundled along the ground for no more than a few feet before coming to an abrupt halt.

‘Shit,’ Ulm said.

Girling could feel the helicopter’s wheels straining against the obstruction.

‘Pull up on the collective.’

Girling reached for the lever beside the seat with his left hand and lifted it towards him. It came up far too quickly. The helicopter tipped forward on its nose wheel, tail rising in the air. Girling froze as the horizon whipped away past the top of the windscreen and it seemed the Sikorsky would flip over onto its back.

Ulm fell forwards on the collective and the helicopter crashed back to the ground.

It took Girling vital seconds to heave the American off the pitch lever and back into his seat.

Ulm gritted his teeth. ‘Let’s try that again, only this time, go easy on the power.’

Girling pulled the collective towards him again and the helicopter lurched forward. He kept the cyclic column pushed fractionally away from the seat and the right rudder pedal full down until the nose of the MH-53J heaved round and away from the rocky outcrop. He held the position with a touch of brakes.

Dust and stones flew around the cockpit. It would have been impossible to make out the posse of soldiers advancing up the cliff path but for the flash of sunlight on an assault rifle. Girling saw it out of the corner of his eye just as there was a crack from the Perspex in front of him and a bullet slammed into the bulkhead behind his head.

‘No time for a dress-rehearsal,’ Ulm said. ‘Pull on the collective until she lifts off.’

Girling eased up the lever. He felt the helicopter getting light on its wheels.

‘Higher,’ Ulm said. ‘Pull it higher. And bring back the cyclic. Just a fraction.’

The Pave Low rose and teetered uncertainly six feet above the ground. Girling heard another bullet glance off some armour-plate somewhere below him.

‘Pull the cyclic into your fucking armpit, Girling, or we die. Here, now.’

Girling heaved the lever up, but the helicopter rose only another few feet and stayed there, floating from side to side like a leaf in the wind. Girling fought to hold the Sikorsky steady, but it seemed that every corrective touch on the cyclic made the helicopter veer more wildly.

Ulm checked the temperature and torque gauges. ‘No wonder. We’re at five thousand eight hundred feet. Power margins are way too low.’ He shouted over the vibration. ‘Only one thing for it, Girling. Fly it over the edge of the cliff. Let her drop and pick up air speed. Then haul back and pray.’

Girling felt the blood drain from his face.

‘Do it now, before they shoot us down,’ Ulm yelled.

Girling pressed the cyclic forward and the helicopter advanced at little more than walking pace towards the edge of the cliff. For a brief few seconds, the Perspex windscreen was filled with a view of the wadi below. It was like being poised at the highest point of a funfair switchback, in that instant before the carriage plunges to the bottom of the track. He could see the cell where he had been held, bodies littered across the open ground, wrecked gun emplacements and, finally, through the Perspex by his feet, the blazing roof and courtyard of the caravanserai.

‘Now!’ Ulm shouted. ‘Push the stick right forward.’

Girling advanced the cyclic as far as it would go and forty-five thousand pounds of helicopter tipped on its nose and plunged over the side of the cliff. Girling fell against his straps and the ground filled the windscreen.

The Pave Low dropped like a stone.

‘Don’t freeze up on me, you bastard!’ Ulm roared. ‘Pull back on the stick!’

Girling pulled for their lives.

Inside the cockpit, everything happened so slowly. Ulm jockeying the power levers, his own efforts on the cyclic, the altimeter winding down.

Outside, the ground zoomed towards them. Had it not been for his harness he would have fallen straight through the Perspex and on to the roof of the caravanserai. Fighting gravity, Girling raised his foot and pushed against the instrument coaming, while pulling on the cyclic with both hands.

The Sikorsky’s nose moved fractionally, then some more. Impossibly slowly, it began to come out of the dive.

Before he knew it, the helicopter was scudding a few feet over the battlefield. Too late, he heard Ulm’s warning and the outhouse leaped out of the smoke. Girling pulled and felt a sickening crash as the tail boom clipped the roof.

The sight of the Sikorsky advancing precariously towards the cliff top, teetering there and then diving almost vertically for the caravanserai, made Shabanov and the rest of his men freeze. Initially, the Russian thought the helicopter had taken a hit in the tail rotor. Then, when it tipped onto its nose he had a clear view into the flight deck and saw Ulm’s body, slumped and bloody in the left-hand seat.

The civilian was at the controls.

There was a roar from the Pave Low as the rotors bit through the thin air and the helicopter disappeared beneath the level of the cliff top. Shabanov rushed forward and watched as it arced towards the ground and disappeared behind a pall of smoke billowing up from the caravanserai. He waited for the explosion, but it never came. The vortex wake of the Sikorsky’s rotors parted the smoke in time for Shabanov to see it heading straight for one of the outhouses further down the wadi. The helicopter’s tail boom glanced the roof of the building but the machine kept going. With a sickening feeling that it was too late to make any difference, Shabanov yelled at his missileman.

The sharp tone of the SA-9’s infra-red seeker head locking onto the hot exhausts of the Sikorsky was audible even over the din of exploding ammunition in the valley below. The operator steadied the missile launch tube on his shoulder and adjusted his aim.

‘Fire it!’ Shabanov roared.

There was a deafening crack as the missile left the tube and shot into the valley.

A screech filled the cockpit and a whole section of the instrument panel lit up as the inbound SA-9 tripped the automatic alarm system rigged to the missile-approach warner on the helicopter’s boom.

‘Holy Jesus,’ Ulm said.

Girling, still wrestling to steady the Pave Low after the glancing blow to the roof, thought they were about to crash.

‘We’ve got a launch.’ Ulm saw the white dot winking on the approach warner panel. ‘It’s probably an SA-9, a heat-homer, and it’s coming in fast on our six.’

‘What do I do?’ Girling shouted.

‘Pray.’

‘Can’t we fire flares?’

‘The counter-measures aren’t armed,’ Ulm said. In the rush to get airborne, he’d forgotten to prime them. And it was certainly too late now.

The screech warbled with each course deviation of the missile. Its seeker head was struggling to maintain a lock on the Sikorsky’s engine exhausts through the smoke of the battlefield. But still it came at them.

Girling’s whole body was braced for the SAM’s imminent detonation. When an explosion blossomed in the window in front of them, he was convinced they had been hit.

Instead, the screech from the approach warner intensified. The missile was still there.

The billowing flame ahead was a truck’s fuel tank blowing up, the flames rising like a geyser fifty feet into the air.

Even before the colonel yelled the command, Girling banked the helicopter straight for the fountain of fire.

The dot converged with the helicopter at the centre of the panel. Ulm looked up just as the cockpit windows were engulfed.

For a moment neither man could breathe as the fire sucked the oxygen from the air around them. The sky and the ground disappeared as the helicopter was lost in the conflagration.

Girling heard the explosion behind him. When he opened his eyes, the Pave Low was streaking through clear sunshine between the cliffs.

The screech stopped.

Girling snatched a glance over his shoulder. Through the open ramp he could see a crater where the burning truck had been. The SA-9 had homed straight in on it, the force of its exploding warhead snuffing out the flames.

With the tips of the blades and the belly of the helicopter no more than a split-second’s flying time from the rocks, there was no time for self-congratulation. Girling flew on, knowing that he was just as capable of killing them as any SAM.

Shabanov was pounding up the cliff path again, his men behind, when the air above him reverberated with a new sound. The second Sikorsky rose up from behind the outcrop that had shielded it from view, pirouetted before them and dropped down onto the clear patch of scrub where the first machine had been stationed. Shabanov made it on the ramp before the Pave Low had even settled onto the ground and rushed forward to the cabin. He turned to check all his men were on board, then opened the door in the bulkhead and shouted to the pilot to head the other helicopter off before it reached the coast and the enemy ships that lay somewhere beyond.

The wadi walls rushed at Girling faster than reason. His instinct was to lift the Sikorsky out of the valley, but a voice at the back of his head reminded him about triple-A and SAMs. The Russians might be a way behind him, but Girling knew that if he flew high, away from the ground, there was still enough hardware in Southern Lebanon to knock him out of the sky.

Girling gripped the cyclic so hard his fingers bled. For the moment, his entire world consisted of the control column and the narrow tunnel of airspace through which he coaxed the MH-53J. When the valley became too narrow, he eased the helicopter a little higher, but still he hugged the contours of the earth. Like a robot, he pulled back when the land rose and pushed down when it fell. By the time he first considered the matter of navigation, he had been in the air for almost five minutes. And in all that time, he realized, he’d been heading God knows where.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the terrain ahead, he yelled at Ulm to give him a bearing for the coast.

From out of the early morning mist a shadow metamorphosed as a minaret and Girling slammed the cyclic to port. There was a flash of white masonry and the obstruction whistled past a few feet beyond the end of the rotor tips. Girling steadied the helicopter and flew on towards the indistinct horizon. His arms had turned to jelly.

Some ingrained instinct had kept him flying away from the sun, heading him west, towards the coast. But he had no idea of his position. Somewhere in the maze of instrumentation ahead of him there was an indicator that fed constantly updated co-ordinates of his position via satellite, but he did not know where it was, much less how to plot a course from here to safety.

He snatched a glance to his left. Ulm had slumped against the cabin door. Girling reached out and pulled the American towards him.

Ulm groaned.

‘Don’t black out on me, Colonel.’

The American opened his eyes. There seemed to be very little comprehension behind them.

‘You’ve got to guide me to the ships,’ Girling said, his voice desperate.

Girling thought Ulm was going to pass out on him again. Instead, the American leaned forward, primed the counter-measures and turned on the radar warning receiver, the RWR. ‘This thing starts yel-ling at you... get lower. Start punching chaff.’

‘How?’

‘There’s a switch on the cyclic. Controls both the chaff and the flares.’

Girling prised his fingers off the control column. He found the rocker switch with its worn writing just beneath his thumb. Forward for chaff, the tinsellike substance for spoofing radar-guided SAMS; back for flares, used against heat-seeking missiles.

Both of the decoys were contained in a panel, half the length of a man, in either side of the rear fuselage. There were some forty flares and twenty chaff bundles in each dispenser. All Girling had to do was select which decoy he needed, toggle the switch and fire them out the side of the helo.

‘If we’re really in the shit, hold the switch down and you ripple fire all the decoys at once. But we’re talking last resort, OK?’

‘The fleet, Ulm. How do I find the fleet?’

‘Hit coast and turn north. Keep the beach on your right. Five miles north of Sidon... only large coastal town around here... turn east. You’ll reach fleet in-’

Ulm passed out.

Shabanov sat on the jump seat behind his pilot and co-pilot, eyes straining for a glimpse of their quarry. While the pilot pulled up for a snap visual sweep of the skies around them, his co-pilot monitored the RWR, looking and listening for any trace of a search radar, or worse still, a missile fire-control system.

Shabanov barked orders for every man to scan the skies for the fleeing MH-53J. They all knew that finding and destroying the Sikorsky was their only chance of returning home. General Aushev had left no provision in his scheme for failure.

The pilot turned and shook his head. There was nothing else in the sky.

Shabanov thought fast. Ulm had a choice. Either fly south to Israel and risk negotiating one of the best air-defence systems in the world, or stick to plan, fly east and find the US Sixth Fleet.

‘Make for the coast,’ Shabanov said.

‘He may already be there, Comrade Colonel,’ the pilot said. ‘The coast is less than fifteen minutes away.’

‘Are you telling me you can’t outfly a civilian?’

The pilot responded by locking the helicopter onto the most direct course for the coast. He adjusted the power to full boost and pushed the Sikorsky down, away from the SAMs and triple-A. The scrub terrain whipped past the belly of the helicopter at three hun-dred and twenty kilometres per hour.

A near miss with a rock outcrop prompted the co-pilot to switch the terrain-following radar from ‘stand-by’ to ‘search’. He also turned on the FLIR, flicking it alternately from infra-red to low-light TV in an effort to determine which mode best cut through the early morning mist.

The pilot switched the range scale on the radar picture and saw the hills give way to a short stretch of coastal plain. Beyond that, the sea disappeared off the edge of the screen.

They were less than five minutes’ flight time from the coast when the co-pilot gave a warning shout and pointed to the FLIR screen. Shabanov craned over his shoulder. The co-pilot had the monitor in infra-red mode. In the centre was the unmistakable outline of a helicopter, its engines showing up as shimmering black heatspots. The co-pilot brought up the magnification and the shape grew into the other MH-53J.

‘He’s coming in on an almost perpendicular course,’ the co-pilot said. ‘From the north-east.’

‘Cut him off,’ Shabanov said.

‘Then what, Comrade Colonel?’

‘We pull alongside and shoot him out of the sky.’

The smell of the sea was strong on the warm wind blowing through the open window in the cockpit.

‘Two minutes to intercept,’ the co-pilot called.

Girling could see waves breaking on a beach a few miles beyond the nose of the Sikorsky. He pushed the helicopter lower, preparing to adjust his course onto a parallel heading with the coastline. Suddenly, the cockpit filled with a sharp audible warning and the RWR panel in front of him lit up like Broadway. He held his breath, convinced that, at any moment, the helicopter would be hit by a SAM, or rocked by the blast of radar-guided triple-A. In the midst of his fear, he remembered what Ulm had said about counter-measures. He hit the button beneath his thumb and knew that somewhere behind the helicopter little bundles of radar-spoofing chaff would be billowing into the slipstream.

The audible warning kept on coming, cutting through his concentration. He spotted a switch on the RWR panel labelled ‘audio’ and turned it off. The noise stopped immediately, but he could see the threat still winking at him on the panel - a flashing box with the alpha-numerics ‘E-2C’ beside it. It took him a few seconds to realize that the helicopter was being swept by an airborne early-warning Hawkeye from the Sixth Fleet. Girling knew that Ulm’s mission was so secret that the Sikorsky’s IFF transponders would have been switched off for the duration of the flight. He hoped somebody on the Hawkeye had been briefed to look out for them.

Unaware that the radio was dead, he was preparing to raise the Hawkeye on VHF when he spotted a second box winking on the flat-panel display. He peered at the screen, anxious to identify the threat to his left. Unlike the Hawkeye, there was no recognition code beside the box. All he could tell was that something was painting his RWR with radar signals and it was closing fast.

He adjusted course until the E-2C was dead ahead, though impossible to tell how far. He began to pray that the crew was vectoring a couple of Navy fighters towards him. For Girling knew now why the radar emitter on his nine o’clock bore no identification. It was an MH-53J, just like his. The Russians were right on his tail.

The sound, shrill and piercing, exploded in the cockpit. Wide-eyed, Girling swept the instrument panel, hoping it was only the ground-proximity warner, but he was too high and, in any case, this was a sound he knew already.

He spotted the warning light. It was pulsing ‘missile alert’, over and over. The clock-face of the missile-approach warner indicated it was heading for his left-hand rear quadrant.

Girling banged the stick hard to the right and pushed the helicopter down. He was so close to the waves that salt spray showered the Perspex. A snaking trail of gunfire lashed the water in front. There was no missile. The RWR had picked up the storm of bullets from the Russians’ miniguns.

A last look at the threat warner told him there were no F-14s to rescue him. He was on his own.

The Soviet-crewed helicopter had had only one chance for a snap-shot before the other Sikorsky banked away beyond the deflection of its guns.

Shabanov roared his disgust with his crew, then ordered the pilot to slip into Girling’s wake.

Using the low-light television on super-magnification, Shabanov was able to gain a perfect close-up view of the helicopter.

The ramp was down, but no one was manning the minigun station. He could see right through the hold and into the flight deck. Ulm’s body slumped listlessly, his hanging head silhouetted in the frame of the doorway. The pilot he could not see, but that did not matter. Shabanov already knew that the man was inexperienced. It was a miracle he had kept the Pave Low in the air this long.

The slipstream rushed through the open unmanned windows in the helicopter’s hold; loose straps and canvas seats flapped like streamers in the wind. Clearly discernible on the floor was the trussed form of the Sword, his head supported by parachute packs.

He was either unconscious or dead. Shabanov wanted to remove the element of doubt.

The Sikorsky was utterly defenceless. It remained for them to manoeuvre alongside and blast it out of the sky with a prolonged broadside from the mini-guns.

The co-pilot turned to him and announced that they were being painted by a US E-2C Hawkeye. From the strength of the signal he judged it to be about fifty miles ahead.

Shabanov was unconcerned by the American radar plane. He told the pilot to pull all available power from the engines, haul parallel with the other helicopter, and hold a close course while he and the ramp gunner poured thousands of rounds into the flight deck and hold.

The colonel moved back and briefed the rear gunner before assuming position in the window immediately aft of the flight deck.

He stuck his head into the slipstream and watched as the other Sikorsky drew closer. He checked the minigun, rotating its six barrels slowly just to make sure there was no malfunction.

Everything was in perfect working order.

Girling threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the Soviet-crewed Pave Low creeping up on his tail, as predatory as a deep-water shark. It was so close that its nose filled the frame of the ramp opening, so close he could see not just the flight crew, but the darkened forms of soldiers on the cargo deck beyond. Fifty feet below, the sea boiled under the vortex of the machine’s six-bladed main rotor.

He had pushed the Sikorsky as low as he dared. He had used up all the available sky. Still the second helicopter was outrunning him and there was nothing he could do about it.

He knew that Shabanov was preparing to manoeuvre alongside to bring his guns to bear. He could try twisting and turning, but it would only delay the agony. If he manoeuvred, he would lose his bearing on the E-2C; and the Hawkeye was his one guiding light.

Girling faced front and scanned the horizon for a ship, a US Navy frigate acting as picket for the fleet, but the early morning mist allowed only a few miles’ visibility. There was not so much as a fishing boat in sight.

Girling turned to Ulm. He shouted once, but the colonel’s head continued to hang on his chest. Girling felt a rush of loneliness. He wanted to hear another voice before he died. He wanted Ulm to talk. Girling felt a mad compulsion to laugh. He wanted Ulm to make him laugh. There was no need now for fighting talk, no time any more for his advice...

Advice, Ulm’s advice.

Dear God.

He looked over his shoulder, but the second Pave Low had gone. He glanced to his left and saw its shadow on the sea. Two shadows almost parallel. His aircraft and Shabanov’s. Together. Side by side.

He lifted his eyes and there it was. The second helicopter level-pegging with his own. He could see the Soviet pilot toggling the throttle levers, squeezing that last bit of power from the engines. He could see the concentration and the sweat on his face. The helicopter inched forward and there was Shabanov in the forward gunner’s window, his minigun levelled right at the cockpit, right at him. There was a moment in which their eyes met.

Girling pushed the throttles to the gates and his helicopter edged forward twenty feet. His thumb found the toggle switch on the cyclic. There was no time to look. Forward or back? Chaff or flares?

Back. That was what Ulm had said. Girling pulled the switch towards him and held it there.

Barely a few feet separated the blades of the two helicopters when fifty flares, each possessing the peak intensity of a mini-sun, ripple-fired out of the flare rack and punched into Shabanov’s Sikorsky. They exploded through the Perspex windshield of the flight deck and into the open windows of the cargo hold. Once inside, they burned holes through flesh and bone, through metal deck plates, through control rods and fuel lines.

Shabanov took the full force of the salvo. The flares that hit him were so hot his clothes ignited instantaneously. His flaming body fell onto the ammunition box.

Girling pulled up into the sky just before the other Sikorsky exploded like a giant Catherine wheel. The force of the blast lifted his helicopter another two hundred feet and for several seconds he thought he had lost it. Behind him, the dawn was momentarily eclipsed by a billowing fireball.

He kept climbing until he reached two thousand feet and throttled back. He felt the onset of the reaction then. His hands began to shake uncontrollably and the instrumentation swam before his eyes. Had it not been for Ulm’s voice, weak but calm beside him, he might have panicked.

‘Are we going to make it, Girling?’

‘We might just, Colonel.’ He paused. ‘As long as you stick around long enough to teach me how to land this thing.’

There was a glint in the sky as something caught the sun up ahead. Before Girling had time to tense, two F-14 Tomcats appeared out of the mist. They roared past so close that the sound of their engines reverberated over the noise and vibration of the Sikorsky’s rotor.

Ulm reached for the Very pistol in the door compartment and fired their recognition signal out of the window. The F-14s reappeared, wings swept fully forward, engines throttled right back, hanging on the edge of the stall to maintain speed with the Sikorsky. The pilot of the one off their right side rocked his wings and pointed a little way south of their present heading. Girling responded by putting the Sikorsky into a gradual turn towards the fleet.