CHAPTER 7

Shabanov flexed his upper arms in a vain bid to restore their failing circulation. With both his hands clamped to the top of his head for something over two hours - although not having access to his watch it was impossible to be precise about elapsed time - he had long lost the ability to feel any sensation in his muscles, which was probably a blessing. The pain was focused in his shoulder joints instead. He began to imagine that the limbs had been wrenched from their sockets, but chastised himself as soon as he became conscious of these wild and irresponsible thoughts; it was best not to drift.

‘Move again and I’ll shoot, you Russian son of a whore,’ the woman screamed in Arabic. He understood enough to stop the movement.

Shabanov raised his eyes to hers. The .45 was pointing straight at the centre of his forehead. He held her gaze and noticed the deep brown eyes flash angrily again. She was startlingly attractive. Her long black hair had tumbled over her face, but she made no effort to sweep it aside. Beneath those soft dark strands, the silky complexion, full lips and perfect straight nose were strangely at odds with the bitch’s demeanour.

‘You haven’t got the guts to use that thing,’ he said, the edges of his mouth breaking into a smile. ‘It is just a toy in your hands.’ He spoke a dialect different from hers, but it was good Arabic none the less.

He saw the confusion sweeping her face. She brushed the hair away from her eyes, cocked the gun, and rammed the barrel up against his jawbone.

‘Keep your mouth shut,’ she screamed, ‘or I’ll blow it off.’

She adjusted her stance. Out of the corner of his eye, Shabanov could see her wiggling her hips as she settled into the new position against the bulkhead of the airliner. He was captivated by the shape of her body. He could picture every inch of it beneath the rough texture of her combat fatigues.

Rarely had Shabanov felt so alive. They had told him at training school that the feeling was not uncommon during moments of acute danger. But they had not prepared him for this. He felt he could do anything, he was better than all of them. And he would take that bitch afterwards for his pleasure.

About three seat-rows behind him one of his fellow hostages, a woman, groaned. Her husband asked the man known as Mahmoud for water again. He was greeted with the light sound of the Kalashnikov’s safety catch slipping off.

‘No water till the aircraft is refuelled,’ Mahmoud shouted in English.

Shabanov thought there were four of them, but he couldn’t be sure. There was Mahmoud, the girl Layla, a lanky gun-toting youth at the back of the aircraft and another man with a grenade on the flight deck. There was always a chance that there were others, but because he had not been able to turn round since the beginning of the ordeal, it was impossible to tell.

Layla pulled the .45 away from his face and leant back. Although the blinds were still pulled down over the windows, Shabanov could see the last rays of sunlight slipping behind the horizon beyond the cockpit windshield. It was probably three hours since the terrorists had made their move. Something had to break soon.

He heard a brief commotion on the flight deck, then saw the man with the grenade beckon Mahmoud up to the front of the airliner.

The tower on the line again.

‘Fuel, I want fuel,’ Mahmoud screamed, pressing a communications set to his head. ‘If we do not receive it within the next five minutes, another hostage will be killed.’

Shabanov had not seen the execution. He had heard the man’s screams and the sharp crack of the Kalashnikov on single shot; that had been enough. From the way Layla was looking at him, he reckoned he was up next.

Mahmoud walked down the gangway towards his position, roughly in the centre of the airliner. The manual said to avoid eye contact with these people. You had to believe you were invisible to avoid being singled out for special attention. Shabanov met Mah-moud’s gaze and held it. Fuck the book.

Mahmoud looked at Layla, then nodded to Shabanov. She grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out of his seat. Shabanov twisted and wrested her grip from him. For a moment she seemed captivated by his appearance. He was wearing the full uniform of a Guards airborne assault colonel in the Soviet Army. There were three rows of medal ribbons on his chest. He was tall, lean faced, with cropped black hair that accentuated the lines of his skull. A small scar on the bridge of his nose marked the point where an Afghan tribesman had slashed him during hand-to-hand fighting in the hills above Jalalabad. Shabanov knew that his greatest strength in a hostage situation where there were women among his captors lay in his looks. They could gain him vital seconds in any confrontation. He gave her a half smile and let her catch a fleeting glimpse into the depths of his blue eyes. She seemed to draw back a little, until a low growl from Mahmoud stopped her in her tracks.

She thrust the gun up against his temple. ‘Move,’ she hissed, ‘to the front of the plane.’

Shabanov was about to take a step forward when the lights in the roof went out. He knew what was happening. The next moment he was on the ground, his hands clamped over his ears, his eyes screwed shut. A split-second later the two doors over the wings, about four rows forward from him, blew into the airliner. Even though his eyes were shut, he saw the intensity of the flashes through his eyelids.

Shabanov looked up to see a figure clad in black, clutching a machine-gun/flashlight combination, his outline faintly illuminated by the sidelobes from the torch beam.

‘Everybody stay down, stay down,’ the figure shouted, voice muffled by the gas mask.

Layla was still standing in the aisle. Shabanov saw a look, like that of a frightened animal caught in a car’s headlights, etched on her face. The Heckler and Koch jumped twice in the hands of the assault commando and she fell to the ground, a deep red stain over her T-shirt.

Behind the lead commando, a second figure fired two shots into the prostrate body of Mahmoud, who had been knocked off his feet by one of the doors.

The first commando probed the smoke with the beam of his flashlight and fired twice again. That took care of the stick insect behind him.

There was another explosion at the front of the aircraft, the flash and blast catching Shabanov unawares. When his vision and hearing returned, the man with the grenade lay sprawled on the floor by the forward toilet. The commando who shot him kicked the grenade from his hand out into the dawn air through the still smoking doorway.

The man behind him tried to move. His wife began screaming.

‘Keep down,’ a remote voice shouted.

The black figures roamed up and down the aisle, the light from their torches stitching across the seats and the startled faces of the passengers.

‘Everybody make their way to the escape chutes,’ a muffled voice said. It was calm, but authoritative.

Shabanov got to his feet and helped the woman in the row behind to hers. He ushered her to the nearest exit, picked her up and threw her on to the chute, which had already been fully deployed from the fuselage to the ground. Then he jumped himself.

He ran across the tarmac to the minibus, which had not moved from its position at the outset of the incident, and rapped on the door. There was a brief pause, some muffled sounds from within, then it slid back on its rails.

Shabanov found himself staring into the face of a USAF officer.

‘How long?’ the Russian asked him.

Colonel Elliot Ulm, commander of the USAF’s 1725th Combat Control Detachment, better known as the Pathfinders, looked again at the stop-watch. ‘One minute thirty-five seconds from the moment the doors blew to your knock.’

‘Congratulations, Colonel,’ Shabanov said. ‘That’s quick.’

Ulm jumped down onto the tarmac. ‘Thanks.’

He looked over to the airliner, an old Boeing 727 the unit had managed to scrounge off one of the airlines for next to nothing. It was in the airlines’ interest for the Pathfinders to get it right. One day soon it would be for real. The Gulf War had shown what terrorism, or even the threat of it, could do to revenue.

The last of the eighty-two passengers was coming down the rear exit chute. This time, they had lost only one. Only wasn’t good enough. But it was doubtful if there was any way they could have avoided it. The officer from PsyOps had warned him of Mahmoud’s instability, but until they received political clearance, there was no way of going in. The go-ahead came, as was so often the case in real hijackings, only after the shooting had started.

Still, Ulm thought. They were getting better. Not as good as the Soviets in all-round terms, maybe, but they were improving.

Ulm turned to face Shabanov. ‘Did you survive your ordeal, Colonel?’

‘More than that, I enjoyed it,’ the Russian said.

‘Hardly a term I would have used.’

Ulm couldn’t make the guy out, even after several weeks of exchange visits between their two units. Shabanov was engaging, beguiling almost, but still one of the hardest bastards he had ever come across in almost twenty years of the SOF business. Maybe he’d get that officer from PsyOps to have a look inside the Russian’s head.

Ulm took the evening air deep into his lungs. A light wind had sprung up with the setting sun, scattering the tumbleweed across the New Mexico desert and over the crumbling concrete of the runway. The 727 was flanked a little way off by the disintegrating carcasses of combat aircraft. The sun found a single piece of shiny metal on an old F-106 and reflected it in Ulm’s face. The special forces colonel let the light dance in his eyes for a moment. The pinprick of warmth on his skin felt good, but it could not compensate for his malaise.

An old boneyard, a scrap metal dump - the epitome of his worth in the eyes of the Pentagon. The Red Rio Range, part of the White Sands reservation in New Mexico, was a weapons training area for A-10 ground-attack aircraft. The dilapidated combat aircraft on the disused runway gave them something to aim at. Ulm’s unit, based at nearby Kirtland Air Force Base, shared the Red Rio training ground with rusting relics of the Vietnam era.

He wondered if Shabanov had any idea to what extent the Romeo Protocol was a sham.

A black-suited figure loomed out of the gathering darkness. Master Sergeant Nolan Jones pulled the mask and Balaclava from his head. Jones was from the Everglades, scalp and gristle above the neck line, muscle from collar to feet.

‘All passengers present and accounted for, Colonel. Four terrorists dead. Aircraft safe from explosives.’ He smiled at his commander, exposing a row of chipped, stubby teeth. ‘We took the mother down, sir.’

Ulm congratulated him. ‘See you at the debrief in a half hour, Spades.’

Shabanov watched Jones amble back to the team’s minibus, which had drawn up under the wing of the 727. ‘Spades?’ he said.

Ulm had almost forgotten about his guest.

‘During his selection test, Jones listed axe-throwing as a special skill. They encourage individual talents in the special forces, so they put him to the test. During his trial they discovered he could slice a melon into halves with a trench spade at twenty yards. We look for people like that in the Pathfinders.’

‘I see,’ Shabanov said. ‘There is a master sergeant in my unit, Starshina Bitov, that I would like him to meet. They would be quite a team.’

Beyond Ulm’s shoulder, Layla appeared at the doorway of the aircraft. The wet stain on her T-shirt accentuated the shape of a perfect left breast.

Ulm caught the direction of Shabanov’s stare. ‘Normally we would put a couple of shots straight between the eyes,’ he said. ‘These training sessions are meant to sacrifice nothing for realism, only those dye-filled capsules we use can blind if they hit you in the eyes. So in training we go for the heart.’

Shabanov followed Layla’s progress across the weeds and the concrete. ‘And where do you find your terrorists?’

‘Layla’s an air force captain,’ Ulm said. ‘Second-generation American. Her grandparents were Lebanese. The others are all seconded from various branches of the armed forces. They’ll go back to their units tonight.’

As she strolled past, Layla gave Shabanov a smouldering look. Then she smiled warmly. He flexed his fingers behind his back and returned her grin. Another time, perhaps.

‘In the Soviet Union we have many ethnic minorities. I myself am descended from the tribesmen of Uzbekistan in Soviet Central Asia. With so many republics, it is hardly surprising that our recruit come from different cultures and backgrounds. But I had no idea the make-up of the American services was so... diverse.’

‘Uzbeks. They’ve been involved in all that unrest down south, haven’t they? I was reading an article in Time about -’

Shabanov cut him off. ‘There are many peoples in Central Asia. Turkmens, Khirgiz, Tadzhiks, Azeris, Uygurzt... There are bound to be tensions as my country moves towards democracy, Colonel,’ Shabanov said stiffly.

‘The march of Islam,’ Ulm said. ‘It seems unstoppable.’

‘And nationalism, Colonel. This is the price Moscow has to pay for giving us our democratic rights. It is not easy for us seeing our country torn apart.’

Ulm was surprised by Shabanov’s candour. Torn apart. It was an apt description of the state of the disunion in the USSR. There were flashpoints across the country as the Russian Empire collapsed like a dying star. The last of the rioting republics were constantly in the news. During his exchange, a few weeks before, Ulm had witnessed a very vocal demonstration by Baltic separatists in Moscow. But not once had Shabanov or any other Spetsnaz officer raised the issue during his stay and so he had let the subject be. Russians were still sensitive about the August coup.

Ulm thought he might have touched a raw nerve. ‘That was insensitive of me. As an Uzbek, you’re probably a Muslim, too, I’ll bet.’

Shabanov remained impassive. ‘I was an Uzbek. But now I am a Russian - second generation, like your Layla, Colonel. My family has been living inside the Russian Federation for almost fifty years.’

Ulm searched for a way out of the minefield. ‘Look, let’s drop the formalities,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘It’s Elliot.’

Shabanov shook it. ‘Roman Makhmadzhanovich,’ he said.

Ulm flinched.

‘Roman is enough,’ the Russian said. ‘Makhmadzhanovich was my father’s name. It means son of Mohammed. The last trace of my ancestry.’

They started back towards the airliner. ‘I wanted to extend the same courtesy when you were with us at Ryazan,’ Shabanov began. ‘But you saw how it was there. There were many people looking over my shoulder. This protocol is too adventurous for some of my countrymen.’

The Lenin Komsomol Higher Airborne Command School was still vivid in Ulm’s mind. Nor had he shed the ignominy of shooting the wrong target at the nearby training ground. Shabanov had shown no danger of shooting women or children during his stay so far at Kirtland. From the minibus, Ulm had even seen Shabanov shepherd an elderly woman to the aircraft’s escape chute.

Shabanov gazed at the 727 fuselage. ‘Our spetsialnoye naznacheniye - our Spetsnaz special purpose forces - could not have done this.’ He pointed at the blackened doors of the aircraft.

Ulm suddenly pictured the life-sized cut-out of woman and child. Was Shabanov just saying that to make him feel better? The Russian was as much a diplomat as he was a soldier.

There was a shout from the minibus, Ulm’s mobile communications wagon. The 1725th’s intelligence officer, Captain Charlie Doyle, was beckoning them from the open door. Ulm sprinted over, followed closely by Shabanov.

‘It’s USSOCOM, sir. General McDonald’s about to come on the line. Wants to talk to you personally.’

Ulm hid his surprise and took the receiver. General James L. McDonald was Commander-in-Chief of US Special Operations Command. Serious shit.

He gave Doyle a signal to distract Shabanov, get him away from the phone. He was still wondering what the general wanted with him, when the man himself came through via the satellite communications link.

Two minutes later Ulm replaced the phone on the hook.

Doyle left Shabanov to watch the sun set over the New Mexico scrub. He found his boss in a state of visible excitement.

‘From that look on your face, I’d say something pretty big must be going down.’

‘You could just be right, Charlie. I’ve got to get my ass up to Washington as if my life depended on it. A C-21’s coming into Kirtland in an hour and I’m on it.

‘A Learjet?’ Doyle could not contain his surprise. ‘The 1725th must be going up in the world. What happened to that shitbox Beech they used to send? Someone must want to talk bad. So things are getting busy around here at last.’ He jabbed a finger at Shabanov. ‘What do I do with him while you’re gone?’

‘That’s the weirdest thing,’ Ulm said. ‘The general told me he’s coming along for the ride. He gets dropped at the Soviet Embassy and I go on to-’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. I guess I’m just going to have to find out when I get there.’

The wind was up and it was raining heavily when Girling swung his Alfa Romeo into the drive of Rigden Court. The gravel scrunched under the tyres. It was a sound he associated with a world in which he had never felt particularly at ease.

His parents’ house loomed tall in the moving beams of the headlights. He could not understand why his father should want to have retired to a place of such mammoth pretension. His mother, he knew, would have been happy with a small cottage somewhere in Dorset. But his father’s decree was absolute and his mother accepted it meekly.

Girling turned off the ignition and listened to the rain drumming on the roof. He pulled up his collar and ran across the last few yards of open ground to the front door. Once inside, the flagstones in the hall rang out with the sound of his footsteps.

He rounded the corner to find his father fixing himself a gin from the large drinks cupboard beneath the stairs. He looked up and said hello as if Girling had just come in from a walk around the garden.

‘Your mother’s putting the child to bed. Help yourself, won’t you.’

His father walked back into the drawing-room, leaving Girling to hang his jacket by the other water-proofs in the hall.

His mother stopped reading to Alia when she heard Girling’s footsteps at the top of the stairs. She appeared outside the door and greeted him with a fleeting kiss. He had never been so struck by his mother’s fragility. Her skin looked almost translucent.

‘She’s sleepy,’ his mother said. ‘But insisted on staying awake. I’ll leave you to chat to her.’

It was a large room for a small child, but his mother had done her best to make it warm and cosy.

Alia’s face peeked out from the sheets. Her eyelids flickered and she smiled drowsily when she saw him.

He bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

‘When am I going home?’ she asked.

He brushed a lock of hair from her eyes. ‘Soon, sweetheart.’

‘What’s the matter, Daddy?’

‘Nothing. Everything’s fine,’ he said.

‘Then why can’t I come home now?’

‘Because...’ His fingers scurried up the blanket like a spider and tickled her under the chin. She giggled, but he could tell it was simply to please him.

‘Don’t you like it here?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she replied. ‘Except for all the walks. Grandpa loves walks. Why doesn’t he use a car like everybody else?’

They both laughed.

They talked a little about what she had been doing since she arrived. She enjoyed feeding carrots and apples to the horses at the end of the garden and she had made friends with some of the children who lived in the village. As she spoke, her eyelids would droop, then snap open in her determination to keep him there for as long as possible.

Finally she turned onto her side, her face away from him, and he watched over her until he thought she was asleep.

He turned off the light, kissed her on the top of the head and tiptoed to the door.

‘Please get better, Daddy.’

The words, barely audible, made him stop before he reached the door. He turned to answer, but the tempo of her breathing told him she had been talking in her sleep.

His parents were seated at the dinner table when he came downstairs.

As they ate, the chink of cutlery was only interrupted occasionally by conversation. It was a familiar pattern. His mother would enquire awkwardly about the women in his life; his father would make observations about the sorry state of the world. The two would be quite separate. It was at such times that he wondered how they had stayed together.

‘I’d like you to look after Alia a little longer,’ Girling announced suddenly.

‘I thought you were taking her back with you tomorrow morning,’ his father said.

‘Things have changed, Pa. It’s difficult right now. I’m heavily involved in this hijacking business.’

‘You’re back on current affairs?’ his father exclaimed. ‘Why, that’s the best news I’ve heard in years, Tom. I never could understand why you buried yourself in all that science and technology nonsense. I always said it was kids’ stuff.’

His mother took a sip of water. She looked as if she were going to faint. ‘I hope you won’t be going back out there, dear. We were horrified to see what happened to all those poor people on the television the other night.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘I’m only doing this because my editor needs some extra help right now.’ Girling turned to his father. ‘Then I’ll be going back to the kids’ stuff.’

His father put down his knife and fork and stared at him angrily from across the table. ‘You should be making your way back up the ladder. It’s time you were on a proper newspaper again.’

‘I’ve told you before, Pa. I’m quite happy doing what I’m doing. For the moment.’

‘Happy? You wrote damned well when you were on The Times. You got right under the skin of the Middle East. Everybody said so. We were so proud of you.’

His mother tried to change the subject. ‘Why can’t you take Alia home with you, Tom? You know we love having her here, but she’s been missing you terribly.’

‘I think she’s safer here with you right now.’

‘You’re not in any kind of trouble are you?’ she asked.

He smiled. ‘No, Ma.’

She wasn’t convinced. ‘It’s Mona, isn’t it?’

Girling said nothing. He looked straight ahead at one of the family portraits on the wall. ‘You have to forget, Tom,’ she whispered. There were tears in her eyes.

‘I can’t,’ he said simply.

‘Of course you can,’ his father said. ‘It’s all in the mind.’

‘I’m only too well aware of that, Pa.’

‘Then discipline yourself, laddie.’

Girling felt his skin prickle. He looked his father straight in the eye. ‘I can’t forgive them for what they did, Pa. Could you?’

His father shook his head. ‘It’s a savage part of the world. Always was, always will be. It was a risk you took when you decided to live there.’

Girling knew that this was as close as his father came to asking why his only son had not married an English rose.

‘You’ve got to forge a new life for yourself,’ his father said. ‘If only for the girl’s sake.’

He saw his mother nodding hopefully.

Girling made his excuses shortly after dinner. He pretended that he was needed in the office early the following morning. It was better that he made the journey back to London that night.

Before he left he crept up to Alia’s room. He replaced some of the blankets that had fallen off the bed, making sure that he did not wake her when he tucked them in.

It began with the watch.

The colonel stared at it intently. It showed a little after midnight. Through the silence he could hear the second hand moving across the face of the dial.

A cicada began to sing its lone hymn to Christmas week. He wondered how it was that this cicada sounded the same as the ones back home, thousands of miles away. And then he thought of his wife and kids, tucked up in their beds; dreaming, perhaps, of Peace and Goodwill Towards Men.

His ears strained beyond the noise of the tree cricket for a new sound, the aircraft sound, his signal, but he heard nothing, except for the distant song of a late-night reveller, wandering home after an early shot of the Christmas spirit. There would be no more parties in this neck of the woods that year; not if he and his countrymen had anything to do with it.

The heat was stifling. Insects stung his flesh as he lay well down in the long grass. He did not scratch because he did not want anything to interrupt the other noises of the night. Noises that had legitimate cause to be there.

Where was the aircraft? It was already two minutes late. Hell of a laid-back way to start a war.

The noise started as a distant drone. At first, he thought it was another tropical insect, lumbering through the air above him. But he recognized the pitch of the Allisons and roused himself into action.

As the colonel stood, so did the others, rising up like sleepwalkers from makeshift beds in the long grass. The black cream on their faces made them almost invisible.

The platoon stole across the edge of Torrijos Inter-national Airport, each of the sixteen men seeking out the target, he had been assigned in the briefing.

The colonel saw his aircraft loom out of the darkness. He froze, scouting the gloom with his portable thermal imager for guards. He couldn’t see any. The PDF had to be asleep, he thought, or drunk.

The officer slid under the wing of the Dassault Falcon and paused, listening intently. He heard nothing but the steadily increasing drone of the AC-130 Spectre.

The aircraft on the ground was the personal trans-port of the country’s self-styled ‘Maximum Leader’. They had seen precisely three troops of Panama’s Defense Forces since their silent vigil began.

It had been a peach so far.

The colonel spared a thought for the small task force of SEALs to the west who had been briefed to destroy the private jet kept on permanent alert at Paitilla Airport, a stone’s throw from the General’s HQ, the Commandancia. The aircraft here was Noriega’s back-up. Washington wanted to be sure that, for the General, there really was no escape.

He hoped the Navy was having it as easy.

He clipped the Selectable Strike Beacon, the SSB - a small device hardly bigger than his car stereo system - to the wing of the Falcon, switched it on and stole back through the night to the scene of their watch.

The AC-130 was close now. He imagined the crew’s excitement the moment the signal from the beacon lit up the display on the instrument panel in the flight deck. The co-ordinates would be fed into the targeting computer, the guns double-checked, before they split the peace of the night above Panama City.

He did a head-count. His sixteen men were accounted for. Time to be leaving.

His deputy nudged him and pointed. Across the airfield there was movement. He raised the imager to his face and saw the column of troops moving forward across the concrete.

‘PDF,’ his deputy whispered, and smiled, his white teeth stark against the night. They would walk right into it.

The column was almost upon the cluster of private aircraft now primed with their SSBs. Above them, the drone of the AC-130 rose to a crescendo.

The cranked edge to the helmets of the men in the lead contingent made him look again. The troops were amongst the aircraft now, prowling beneath them, weaving through undercarriages, checking for... what? They couldn’t be PDF, because they, too, appeared to be searching... for guards. He took another look at that helmet and felt his blood run cold, because he knew then that this was a US Army detachment in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He opened his mouth to shout the warning a second before the first aircraft blew up.

The 105mm shells rained down from the AC-130, patrolling unseen in a tight circle two thousand feet above them. The colonel ran across the grass and grabbed the radio operator. He pointed to the carnage, then to the sky, shouting his order above the din of explosions. The operator understood, frantically working every frequency to raise the crew of the Spectre, but without success.

The colonel ran towards the group of Rangers across the airfield. He found a soldier, stump bleeding from an amputated leg, dragging himself across the concrete to cover. Above the boy’s screaming, the detonations, and the pom-pom beat of the Spectre’s 40mm gun, he heard his name repeated over and over again, as if someone was working a loudhailer...

‘Colonel Ulm, sir... Colonel.’

Ulm’s eyes snapped open. They looked straight into the face of the pretty female co-pilot who had come back from the flight deck of the C-21. He saw, too, the shock on her face. The same look on the face of his wife whenever she woke him from the dream.

Ulm was drenched in sweat. His face was grey, drawn; and he was shaking.

The captain managed to control her voice. ‘Colonel, we’ll be touching down at National in ten minutes. You ought to prepare yourself for the landing.’

He grunted his thanks and watched her move past him to Shabanov.

Ulm looked out of the window and saw the Washington monument pierce the horizon. Los Torrijos had not been his fault and the Air Force knew it. Someone - a punk colonel in the air-tasking office at Southern Command Headquarters in Panama City, he had found out later - had fucked up. But people with influence in Washington had made it clear that it wasn’t going to be anyone from Southern Command HQ or the Rangers that paid. The Air Force defended him, but afterwards considered it best he be removed from the limelight. And so it was that he and the 1725th Combat Control Detachment, his Pathfinders, were sent into exile at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.

Were they giving him a second chance? Was his advice sought over recent developments in the Middle East? After the dream, his mind was too fuzzy around the edges to provide any answers.

The co-pilot slipped back to the flight deck, giving him a strange look as she passed his seat.

Whatever the truth of the matter, there were those who said the Pathfinders had had their chance and blown it.

Confirmation of his worth came on the day USSOCOM told him he had been selected to enter into a secret bilateral exchange programme with Spetsnaz. He was warned against showing the Russians too much. The Romeo Protocol, USSOCOM pointed out, was hatched by politicians who did not understand about the ways of the military.

As the Learjet swept into National airport, Ulm cast a glance back to Shabanov. The Russian’s eyes darted eagerly over the sights of the capital. No longer in uniform, Shabanov passed for any other US serviceman heading into DC on legitimate business.

Two bumps through the airframe signalled they were down.

Ulm almost asked the driver if there had been some mistake. After dropping Shabanov at the Soviet Embassy, he had expected the car to swing south for the Pentagon. But instead, they had kept going deeper into the tree-lined suburbs of Washington’s north-west district, eventually stopping outside a mundane office building a short distance from the National Zoo.

The driver walked round and opened Ulm’s door. Ulm was led across the sidewalk to the building. The entrance hall was cool, its floors and walls lined with dark polished stone tiles. A middle-aged woman, sitting behind a desk against the far wall, looked up as soon as his footsteps rang out across the atrium. Ulm kept walking. It was only when he reached the desk that he realized his escort had gone. He turned to see the limousine pulling into the early morning traffic beyond the double plate glass doors.

Ulm had expected a military facility, but there was not a shred of evidence that a single cent of the DOD’s budget had gone near this place. The woman looked at him expectantly. He gave his name.

She smiled again, then filled out a form and handed him a pass, which he clipped to his jacket. Then she lifted the telephone and announced his arrival as if he had been expected for a week. She pointed to the elevator and told him he would be met on the fourth floor. As he turned, Ulm glanced up at the board behind the desk listing the companies in the building. For the fourth floor, there was just one entry: Comco Software Inc.

The lift did not stop at any of the intervening levels. When the doors parted, Ulm was met by a sallow-faced, studious-looking man in his mid-forties.

‘Colonel Ulm? Welcome to TERCOM. I’m Jacobson.’ He offered a delicate hand, which Ulm shook suspiciously. ‘You probably have a thousand and one questions, but if you’ll be patient a while longer, I promise that you will get your answers. If you’d like to follow me, Colonel.’

Ulm stepped into the corridor and was struck immediately by the absence of natural light. There was an unpleasant artificial odour, and a hum of air-conditioning about the place, too, which exacerbated his growing feeling of isolation.

Jacobson led him into a dim room with a large oak table in its midst. He was offered a seat and accepted a cup of coffee. There were two windows set in the wood-panelled walls, but the blinds were down allowing no early morning light to creep into the room.

Jacobson took a seat opposite Ulm, clasping his styrofoam coffee cup between both hands.

‘It will probably help you to think of me - and this place - as your direct link to every asset this country possesses for the neutralization of the terrorist threat,’ Jacobson said. ‘By comparison, your General McDonald at USSOCOM is limited in the resources at his disposal. Believe me, Colonel, that there is absolutely nothing I cannot call upon in the pursuit of that goal. You see, we - that is, my colleagues and I - have a mandate from the highest possible authority. General McDonald has therefore temporarily assigned you to us.’

‘That’s very impressive, Mr Jacobson,’ Ulm said drily. ‘But maybe you could start by telling me what I’m doing here.’

‘Simple, Colonel. We want you to go after the people who carried out Beirut. We want you to find Ambassador Franklin and bring him and his staff home - alive. And we want the people who perpetrated this deed punished. Is that a mission you feel you are prepared, or able, to undertake, Colonel?’

Ulm battled not to let his feelings show. ‘The 1725th is ready for anything,’ he said. ‘But- ’ Ulm looked at Jacobson again and was reminded of one of the Pentagon prosecuting attorneys at his trial. A jumped-up little bureaucrat with a big opinion of himself who was real good at talking and full of ideas about the way things should be done, but pig-ignorant of the realities. Ulm thought he’d like to see Jacobson handling a PDF sniper with a star-scope on a pitch-black night or trying to defuse an Iraqi chemical mine with the fur flying around him. Jacobsons used people as stepping stones through shit to further their ambition.

‘Yes, Colonel?’

‘Why us? Why not Delta or the SEALs? From what I’ve seen of this case, it’s more their style.’

Jacobson chuckled. ‘But there is no provision under the Romeo Protocol for Delta or the SEALs to work with the Soviet Union. You see, you’ll be going in with Spetsnaz on this mission.’

Ulm felt his blood run cold. ‘You’re pulling my chain.’

‘No, I’m not, Colonel. This will be a joint US-Soviet operation.’

‘But everybody knows the Romeo Protocol is a sham,’ Ulm said. ‘God knows, I’ve been playing my part, but it was always intimated that we would not have to go into action with them. At least, that’s the way SOCOM explained it.’

‘With respect, SOCOM has no idea how deep the shit is around us,’ Jacobson said. His expression had changed. He looked like death.

‘What do you mean?’

‘In simple terms, the Soviets have access to information that is denied to us at this time. They are willing to share it, but the price of admission is a joint operation.’

‘It won’t work,’ Ulm said adamantly.

‘You said you were ready for anything.’

‘On our own, yes. But the only contact between Spetsnaz and the Pathfinders has been at commander level. As it happens, Colonel Roman Shabanov is with us at the moment.’

‘We know,’ Jacobson said, before pausing to take a sip of his coffee. ‘Have you been watching the news lately, Colonel?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you will have seen the items about the disappearance of that boat.’

‘Sure, but that’s public consumption shit, right?’

‘Wrong. That, I’m sorry to say, is how it is.’

It took a few moments for the impact of Jacobson’s statement to sink in. ‘Jesus, Jacobson, what kind of outfit are you running here?’

‘I don’t like it any better than you,’ Jacobson said. His voice never wavered from a dull, impassive monotone. ‘But for the past two decades my contemporaries at Langley relied heavily, far too heavily, on sophisticated surveillance methods in the Middle East. Sure, we have space-based radar, infra-red satellites, plus every conceivable ELINT and COMINT platform above the Eastern Med and the Gulf sucking intelligence out of the rawest data you can imagine. Between ourselves and the NSA, we can position a communications or signals intelligence ship off, say, the coast of Libya and listen to Gaddafi talking into a mobile phone from his toilet.’

Ulm sat back in his chair. He felt numb. He let Jacobson’s words wash over him.

‘I would not have known how to begin looking, however, for a bunch of two-bit terrorists roaming around the Southern Lebanon.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we’ve lost the ability to do the one thing we used to do well - Humint. Human Intelligence, Colonel. Having a guy on the ground who does nothing but good old-fashioned cloak and dagger work.

‘When peace broke out between East and West, the budget resources allocated to the CIA, DIA, and NSA were pared back to record lows. We were trying to re-establish a new network in the Middle East when the finances were pulled from under our feet. Then the Gulf crisis came along. The dollars started flowing back again, but it takes years to get people back in place and we’re not there yet.’

Ulm recalled the collapse of their network in Iran, Lebanon, and Syria following the kidnapping of the CIA’s Beirut station chief, William Buckley, in 1984. Within a few months, every single operative had been wiped out.

‘And in the mean time,’ Jacobson said, ‘the Israelis had stopped helping us because we’d been leaning on Tel Aviv too hard over nuclear proliferation.’

‘What about the Brits?’

‘MI6? You know what the Brits are like. They’re good at asking, but they sure as hell don’t like sharing it. Basically, though you won’t get anyone to admit it, we’re blind from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Asian subcontinent.’

‘Which leaves the Soviets,’ Ulm said.

The rattle of the air-conditioning system seemed to fill the room.

‘Precisely, Colonel. I should add that we are under some pressure here to make this thing with the Soviets work. Politically speaking, that is.’

Ulm got the hint. It was obvious from its elaborate front that TERCOM received its funding from the Administration’s ‘black’ accounting jar, the source from which most classified programmes obtained their money. As a result, TERCOM was at its master’s beck and call.

‘All right, suppose we can make it work,’ Ulm said. ‘When would I be briefed about the target?’

‘That is being arranged, Colonel.’ Jacobson looked at his watch. ‘We have a preliminary briefing scheduled in an hour’s time. Until then, why don’t I show you around?’

The tour took something less than an hour in the end. Ulm saw everything from the front company that had been created to protect TERCOM from prying eyes - a fully-funded and functional computer software house - to the dark workings of the organization’s communications room. Throughout the walk-round he was conscious of Jacobson’s mounting agitation. The agent punctuated his talk with frequent references to his wristwatch.

The phone buzzed in the midst of a demonstration of TERCOM’s VLF communications suite. Jacobson picked it up and listened intently for a few seconds. He left Ulm alone for less than five minutes, returning to announce that their briefer had arrived.

Ulm followed him along the corridor, conditioning his mind already to expect a whole lot of things he wasn’t going to enjoy hearing about what lay ahead.

It was this discipline that undoubtedly saved him from an exclamation of surprise when he re-entered the conference room, for on the other side of the table it was Colonel Roman Shabanov who rose to greet him.

‘You two, of course, know each other,’ Jacobson said, a smile thinning his lips. He closed the door behind him with a soft click.

As Shabanov rose from his chair, Ulm couldn’t begin to think what the Russian - a mere colonel -was doing with information of the calibre required by TERCOM for a joint operation. Had he been in possession of the salient facts all along, or had he merely collected the information from the embassy as messenger boy for the Kremlin?

Either way, the Russian had been a sleeper, waiting for orders. It was a timely reminder that Spetsnaz was indivisible from the GRU, Soviet Military Intelligence. And however Westernized Shabanov seemed, Spetsnaz always drew its recruits from hard-core communist organizations like the Komsomol and DOSAAF before the fall of the Communists.

Jacobson gestured for Shabanov to take his chair again. With Ulm seated on his left, he took his seat opposite the Russian.

‘The floor’s yours, Colonel,’ he said. ‘Make history.’

Shabanov remained unmoved. He raised his eyes from the table and stared straight at Ulm. ‘I have known about the organization which carried out the hijacking for some time. Let me tell you it has not been easy, Elliot.’

Ulm held the Russian’s stare. ‘We all have our orders.’ Privately, however, he could not shake off an irrational sense of betrayal.

‘General Aushev has empowered me to deliver the identity of the terrorists as proof that the Romeo Protocol can succeed. Our motives are not altruistic. The general wishes me to be honest with you. For us, co-operation in the counter-terror field has a very practical purpose. Terrorism inside my country is on the increase. In the past three months, thirteen internal flights have been hijacked. Yet, a few months previously, Russians did not know the meaning of the word. You and your allies have had time to formulate your counter-insurgency doctrine and practices. As I said to you yesterday, Elliot, Spetsnaz can do many things, but we are still learning. There is much you can teach us.’

‘And vice versa,’ Ulm said. He thought of mother and child, three neat holes drilling each head.

‘Doubtless, you heard about our top military adviser in the Yemen, General Churmurov, killed by a terrorist car-bomb in Sana’a, Yemen, last February. In the following month, an 11-96 on an Aeroflot internal flight blew up at altitude between Moscow and Tashkent. There were no survivors. The war had shifted gear, Elliot, and we didn’t even know who had declared it upon us. There has been so much unrest in my country over the last two years it was difficult to isolate these two acts as the work of one group. Except in one respect. In both these instances, no one claimed responsibility. That struck us as strange.’

Ulm looked at Jacobson as Shabanov continued.

‘By early summer, when our scientists were able to match the explosive used in the airliner to the bomb in the general’s car, they knew, without doubt, that they were looking for one organization. In their minds, all other pockets of unrest became of secondary importance, for they realized they were dealing with a terror outfit of unprecedented power and ambition; one with the ability to operate both inside and outside the Soviet Union, but whose focus was turned on the destruction - or at the very least, destabilization - of the Soviet apparatus. But who were they? The KGB was without any leads. And so it was that they handed over the entire investigation to the GRU.’

‘Jesus,’ Jacobson said. ‘I bet you were surprised.’

‘I was not personally involved at this point, but certainly, General Aushev was taken aback. There is little affection between the GRU and the KGB.’

Jacobson removed his glasses and began cleaning them with his tie. ‘I’ll say,’ he muttered.

‘As soon as he assumed responsibility for the investigation, the general sent word out through our embassies that this matter had become a priority. All GRU operatives were made aware of its criticality, its vital importance. Old contacts with guerrilla organizations, such as those in the Lebanon, Libya, and Syria, were renewed. We made it clear that we were looking for any information leading to this organization that was acting against Soviet interests; and that we were prepared to pay. For weeks there was only silence. Then one day last month, we achieved breakthrough.’

Ulm noticed the way Shabanov had glossed neatly over the matter of the Soviet Union’s ‘contacts’ with its old friends in the Middle East. Before the New World Order, the Kremlin had financed organizations like the PLO in the fight against the West. He cracked his knuckles under the table, the sharp pain reminding him that this was real.

‘Someone in the Lebanon had information and was prepared to part with it - at a price,’ Shabanov continued. ‘A meeting was arranged in London. It was at this point that the Comrade General put us on alert and I was briefed. Wherever this organization was based, we were to be sent in to destroy it. There was a buzz of anticipation throughout the 2nd Chief Directorate: we were almost there. And then Al-Hasakah blew up in our faces.’

‘That was them?’ Jacobson gasped. ‘We thought Al-Hasakah was an accident.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Ulm said. ‘Would you mind telling me what the hell you’re talking about.’

Jacobson turned to him. He seemed elated. No matter that their Middle East intelligence network had let them down again. The sands of the Middle East had shifted to reveal a tantalizing new truth.

‘Last month, a Soviet-built gas pumping station at Al-Hasakah in the Syrian desert blew up during an inauguration ceremony. The explosion killed the Syrian Minister of the Interior, dozens of other attendees, and, crucially, wiped out a Soviet delegation led by Mikhail Koltsov.’ He turned back to Shabanov. ‘Your minister for the petro-chemical industry, I believe.’

‘Correct in all but one detail, Mr Jacobson. Koltsov and his associates did not die. That information was released to spare our ally, Syria, any further embarrassment over its appalling lapse in security. Our delegation was captured in its entirety. And by the same organization that perpetrated this latest outrage at Beirut. We have firm proof that both Koltsov and your ambassador, Franklin, are being held at the same location. Our friends have decided to declare war on the United States as well, it appears.’

‘So who are these people?’ Ulm asked.

‘They call themselves the Angels of Judgement,’ Shabanov said. ‘They’re a staunch, ultra-fundamentalist Islamic organization led by a man who operates under the nom de guerre Al Saif. Or in English, the Sword. Their base is located in a secluded valley in southern Lebanon. And that is where he is holding our hostages.’

‘I’ve never heard of them,’ Jacobson said.

‘Believe me, Mr Jacobson, the GRU’s conclusions surprised your counterparts in Moscow also. But the information supplied by our informant puts the matter beyond doubt.’

‘In southern Lebanon?’ Ulm said. ‘But everyone saw that boat head out into the Mediterranean.’

‘Yet your Navy never found it.’ Shabanov glanced from Ulm to Jacobson and back again, waiting for a denial, but he got none. ‘That is because the terrorists transferred the hostages into small rubber craft and scuttled the fishing boat. While the US Navy was looking for a vessel with a distinctive radar signature - remember they had seen it on TV - our friends had put ashore further down the coast. As we speak, they are established within the boundaries of the Sword’s camp.’

‘How come you’re so certain about all this?’ Ulm asked.

‘Once you know where to look, the rest is relatively easy,’ Shabanov said. ‘Comrade General Aushev has the important facts at his disposal. I was able to receive a full run-down on the situation while I was inside our embassy.’

‘Then you must know who is behind these... Angels of Judgement,’ Jacobson said. ‘From their modus operandi, from the advanced state of their technical know-how, it seems obvious to me that the sponsor nation must be- ’

Shabanov cut him off. ‘Nobody, Mr Jacobson. The Angels of Judgement would appear to be a new dimension in terror. They are entirely self-sufficient. Of course, it is no secret that we used to finance such organizations - just as you, Mr Jacobson, supplied the Mujahideen with the Stingers - but that is all behind us now. Without super-power support, many of these terrorist organizations have simply ceased to exist. But not the Angels of Judgement. They have established themselves in a secluded location that is difficult to spot from the air, that is heavily fortified against attack, and which caters for all their needs... housing, agriculture, schooling, training. The Sword has thought of everything. What worries the GRU - and will doubtless be of concern to you, Mr Jacobson, being an Arabist yourself - is that there is a fascinating precedent for the Sword and his Angels of Judgement.’

Jacobson nodded slowly as his mind chewed over the clues. ‘But to find it you would have to go back many centuries, Colonel.’

‘To the end of the eleventh century, to be exact,’

Shabanov said. ‘When Hassan Sabbah established himself in an impregnable fortress called the Eagle’s Nest in the mountains of Persia. Having built his self-sufficient community, Hassan trained his fedayeen in the art of political assassination, indulging them with excess as incentive and reward. Wine, women, and especially drugs - hashish - were given to his warriors.’

‘The hashisheen,’ Jacobson said. ‘The Assassins. Scourge of the ruling Seljuks and later the Crusaders who invaded from Europe. Hassan was the world’s first Islamic terrorist. And he, too, declared war on the East and the West. The parallels are, as you say, fascinating.’

But Ulm’s thoughts had drifted beyond the history lesson to an aspect of Shabanov’s briefing that he found almost as disturbing.

‘Roman, I notice you have not mentioned the precise location of this camp,’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘When would we obtain that information?’

‘In good time,’ Shabanov said.

‘The price of membership?’

‘I don’t follow, Elliot.’

‘We don’t get to know the location until... the day of the mission itself, maybe?’

Shabanov’s blue eyes blinked innocently. ‘Let me put it this way, Elliot. General Aushev thought that your premature possession of such knowledge might endanger the spirit of co-operation between us.’

‘You mean he’s worried we’d go off and do this thing on our own.’

‘Is that true?’ Jacobson asked the Russian. ‘The Romeo Protocol is meant to be an expression of trust between our two countries. The very highest expression, in fact.’

‘Really, Mr Jacobson?’ Shabanov enquired. ‘Imagine our surprise, then, when we found that Spetsnaz, the Soviet Union’s elite, was to work with a unit that had disgraced itself in Panama. A unit that is now exiled in the wastes of the New Mexico desert. Is that your highest expression of trust, Mr Jacobson?’

‘Now wait a minute - ’

Ulm raised his hand. ‘Forget it, Jacobson. Why pretend?’ He turned to Shabanov. ‘What are you saying, exactly?’

The Russian smiled. ‘Whatever your worth in the eyes of the Pentagon, Elliot, I have complete faith in you and your Pathfinders. I want you to know that.’

The declaration made Ulm feel no less uneasy. He felt disoriented, unsure as to which of these two men was his best ally.

‘All right, Roman. Let’s talk tactics. You and me. Alone.’ Ulm turned to Jacobson. ‘Give me a day and I’ll let you know if this thing’s workable or not. After that, it’s in your hands.’

The waitress with the Texan drawl and endless legs came over to the table to take their order. Ulm asked for another beer, while Shabanov stuck to bourbon. Ulm noticed the girl’s lingering looks over Shabanov’s athletic body. Even out of uniform, the Russian was a striking man.

Ulm, at something under five feet and nine inches, with a twice-broken nose, short, thinning hair, and the body of a prize-fighter past his prime, couldn’t exactly say the same about himself, but he never begrudged his somewhat brutish looks. His womanizing days had been over for a long time. He admired the waitress’s ass, delicately hidden as it was by the tassels of her miniskirt, as she disappeared off to the bar. Marriage had been good to Elliot Ulm, but it hadn’t stopped him looking.

The low-lit bar of the small, seedy hotel across the street from TERCOM was in stark contrast to the helicopter gunships, assault rifles, stun grenades, and other hallmarks of low-intensity conflict that the two of them had discussed all afternoon in the cold isolation of the briefing-room.

By the end of the day, both he and Shabanov had a good idea of the sort of resources they would need.

The piped muzak delivered its rendition of a song Ulm recalled from his college days. It was the third time it had come round that evening. The only other drinkers in the room got up to leave as if in protest. Apart from the waitress, he and Shabanov were the last occupants of the room. It was fast approaching one in the morning.

During the afternoon, Shabanov had drawn sketches of the terrorist camp, marking its location at the end of a steep-sided valley, the dimensions of the compound and the layout of the buildings, and its defences. The Russian had announced his intention to build a facsimile of the terrorist encampment close to their training base, so that Spetsnaz and the Pathfinders could practise their assault until perfect. It seemed a good idea. Ulm wished he could say the same for TERCOM’s overall strategy. There was something inherently wrong about doing business with the Bear.

‘The war’s over, Elliot.’

Ulm wondered if mind-reading figured amongst the Russian’s many talents. ‘For some people.’

The Russian waved his glass theatrically. ‘Where do you stand?’

‘I’m paid to obey orders. Some are good, others suck. But they’re there to be carried out. It’ll take time for us to adjust.’

Shabanov leant forward conspiratorially. ‘That’s why our task is so important. A joint mission in a field as sensitive as special operations is truly historic. And a rescue operation, more so. Everyone talks about the new world order, but there will be no law, no order in that world without policemen. Don’t you see, Elliot? This mission, once it is announced, will show the world that Russia and the United States will have earned the right to be the guardians of the new law.’

‘As long as people like your General Vorobyov exist, you can stick that in a book of dreams.’ Just a few days before, Major-General Vorobyov had given an interview more or less advocating a return to the Cold War. It had fed the fears of alarmists in most US newspapers who feared another coup.

‘Ah, but Vorobyov is a reactionary.’

‘Who believes your President’s policy of ‘reasonable sufficiency’ in defence is a joke. That’s a dangerous kind of reaction.’

‘Vorobyov and men like him have retired. We are the new generation.’ Shabanov shrugged. ‘Of course, when I was a younger man I shared some of their sentiments. But you have to see things in perspective. We believed NATO was our bitter enemy. We were conditioned to think that way. As a soldier I have always obeyed my orders without question, as you would expect. When I was recruited into our special forces it was a different time, like a dark age for us. What you saw at Ryazan bears little resemblance to the school I entered almost twenty years ago.’

Shabanov took another sip of bourbon, rolling the alcohol on his tongue. ‘I remember the day the commandant accused me of stealing another recruit’s food. In front of the whole school he told me to stick my fingers down my throat and empty my stomach onto the frozen earth of the parade ground. We were treated worse than dogs, our hearts filled with malice, ready to discharge it against the enemies of Communism. A lot has changed...’

‘What made you change?’

‘Afghanistan.’

Ulm noticed a slight slurring of the word. ‘Why?’

‘Nine years of… special reconnaissance, that’s why.’ He took another pull from the glass. ‘At least, that’s what we called it. Hill fighting, close-quarter work, scouting, forward air control, designating guerrilla targets for our jet bombers... all in a day’s work.’

Shabanov stared into his glass. ‘Some of the men went insane and there were suicides.’ He snorted. ‘Not during the war, you understand. When we got back. Those fucking peaceniks. To them, special reconnaissance was rape, murder, burning, looting...’ He emphasized each one by thumping his fist on the table. ‘For a while, the radical papers were full of it. I think we Afghantsi deserved better, but glasnost consigned us to the rubbish heap. Only Bitov, my senior sergeant, and I remain from my platoon of 79.’ He drained his glass. ‘Glasnost has a lot to answer for.’

‘Maybe General Vorobyov hasn’t retired after all,’ Ulm whispered.

‘Huh?’

‘Nothing.’ Ulm felt like someone had just walked over his grave.

The waitress approached with the check. Shabanov made no move to pick up the tab, but that didn’t bother the American. It had been made clear to him by USSOCOM that the Russian was their guest in all matters. Judging from the figure at the bottom of the check, Shabanov wasn’t looking the gift horse in the mouth. Ulm’s head told him he hadn’t exactly held back on the beers either.

He looked up to find Shabanov standing over the waitress, a good head taller than her, in spite of her legs. She held his gaze, as if he had her in a kind of spell. Ulm blamed the surrealism of the scene on the number of beers he had drunk, but something in her eyes made him look again, lower this time. Shabanov had pulled her skirt around her midriff and was moving his hand up the inside of her thighs towards her paper-thin panties. It was at that moment that Ulm realized that what he thought he had read as complicity in her eyes was in fact a look of horror and revulsion. Then, like an animal breaking the lock of a car headlight beam, she brought her hand up and slapped him hard round the face.

The waitress ran crying from the room and Shabanov tilted his head at Ulm, laughter rocking his body. Ulm pulled the Russian from the hotel into the rain. He hailed a taxi, ordering the driver first to the Soviet Embassy, where he deposited Shabanov, then to TERCOM, where he would spend the night.