Traitor Page 2

  The CO turned back to David. ‘Did he describe the precise conditions in which they tested the equipment?’

  ‘Apparently one of them wore the harness in its intended role while a Royal Navy frigate passed overhead,’ the ops officer replied. ‘With the same clearances as may be expected in Sevastopol.’

  ‘They actually trialled it using one of their own?’ the CO asked, impressed.

  ‘So he said, sir.’

  ‘Why don’t we just get them to do it?’ Mike quipped, with a smirk. No one laughed, though Jervis smiled thinly.

  ‘The Spetsnaz are as much of a concern to me as the turbulence, ’ the CO said. ‘This is a job for a soldier, not a scientist.’

  ‘We have some useful underwater toys,’ Mike offered.

  ‘And so have the Russians,’ the CO countered. ‘This chap from Sixteen. Did he bring the kit with him?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s waiting upstairs,’ the ops officer said.

  ‘How long have we got before we mount this operation?’ the CO asked Jervis. ‘I’d like Stratton to have a practice run if possible.’

  ‘You won’t have time for any of that,’ Jervis said. ‘We believe the Inessa leaves harbour tomorrow night or very soon after. Your man would have to be on target by then and every night until it does depart.’

  The information only added to the general discomfort among the specialist soldiers.

  Stratton had a question. ‘Do we know if the Spetsnaz conduct recces of the shallows before the Inessa passes the mole?’

  ‘They’re part of the Inessa’s crew,’ Jervis replied. ‘They satellite it whenever the disrupter’s in standby mode and go aboard once it’s operational. I’ve heard nothing about them recceing ahead but I’ll see if I can confirm that and get back to you.’

  ‘What about a team, sir?’ Mike suggested. ‘Give Stratton some back-up.’

  ‘Too risky,’ Jervis replied. ‘I can’t afford to have a crowd operating in that area. The Russians are highly sensitive at the moment. There’s talk of conflict with the Ukrainians over the port lease. The Russians are due to leave in a few years but they don’t want to. I want just one man. The kit’s already on its way out there, anyway . . . one man’s kit.’

  The CO glanced at Jervis, once again thinking what a cold-hearted bastard he was. He looked at Stratton. ‘I’m going to leave it up to you, Stratton. We really don’t have anyone else up to the task at the moment,’ he added, suddenly feeling as manipulative as Jervis.

  Stratton nodded thoughtfully. ‘Let’s take a look at the kit.’

  ‘Okay,’ the CO said, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Get back to me asap.’

  Jervis stood and buttoned up his jacket. ‘I’m going back to London. I’ll need to know within the hour if it’s a go or not.’

  ‘An hour?’ the CO echoed, surprised. ‘And if we can’t?’

  ‘I’ll find someone who can,’ Jervis said. ‘You’re not the only specialists in town, you know.’

  ‘Hereford couldn’t do this task,’ the ops officer jumped in.

  ‘I know,’ Jervis said. ‘Watch your backs, fellers. There are some areas where you’ve got competition. That goes for Hereford, too. Good to see you again, Stratton.’ Jervis pushed aside the black curtains and left the room.

  ‘Who could he be talking about?’ David asked.

  No one had an immediate answer.

  ‘There’s a lot of specialist units cropping up,’ Mike said. ‘Twentyodd years ago the SAS took the Iranian embassy because no one else could. Today the London Met could handle it just as well. I don’t know who else does water, though - not to our level.’

  The others couldn’t think of anyone either.

  ‘Take a look at the kit,’ the CO said to Stratton. ‘Let me know your thoughts soon as you can . . . within the hour.’ The CO left the room.

  ‘Be a feather in your cap,’ David said to Stratton as he followed the CO.

  ‘What do you think?’ Mike asked his friend.

  ‘What does that actually mean?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Feather in your cap?’

  Mike shrugged. ‘I’ll look it up . . . Let’s go meet this boffin from Sixteen.’

  The two men walked across the SBS HQ lobby to an office on the ground floor. Inside there was the usual paraphernalia and no admin staff had arrived yet. A smart though casually dressed man stood on the far side of the room, looking out of a window to the frozen rugby field beyond. He turned and smiled politely as Stratton and Mike came in. He appeared to be the same age as Stratton and was slightly taller, clean-cut and athletic. He looked the highly intelligent type.

  ‘Phillip Binning, is it?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Yes. Phil, please,’ Binning replied in a refined English accent. The two shook hands.

  ‘This is John Stratton. He’s going to be using your harness and recording device,’ Mike said, adding under his breath, ‘or not.’

  Binning smiled again as he looked at Stratton, studying him with interest. When he shook Stratton’s hand he did so firmly. ‘I’ve heard of you,’ Binning said. ‘You have an impressive reputation.’

  Stratton wasn’t sure how to reply to the comment.

  Mike spared him the trouble. ‘Can you talk us through the kit? We don’t have a lot of time.’

  ‘Sure,’ Binning said, going to a large black canvas bag on a table. He unbuckled a pair of straps, unzipped it along its length and pulled out a black lightweight metal frame wrapped in heavy-duty nylon strips that he unwound before deftly unfolding the frame and locking its joints into position. ‘This is the harness that will hold you to the sea floor. Its operation is quite simple. You use a bolt gun to drive bolts through these holes here, here and here,’ he said, indicating five small flat tongues welded to the corners and centre of the frame.

  ‘Looks basic enough,’ Mike said.

  ‘The best things are, aren’t they?’ Binning replied, with a condescending look. ‘I understand the seabed in the target area is sedimentary with large igneous-boulder deposits. Some of the boulders are granite, some are obsidian. You must bolt the frame to the granite boulders. Obsidian will not hold the bolt configuration. Can you tell the difference?’

  Stratton shook his head.

  ‘Well, you’d better learn before you go,’ Binning warned.‘Otherwise you could find yourself going through the props.’ He removed a gunlike device from the bag and offered it to Stratton. ‘The bolt gun. Light, isn’t it? It’s off the shelf with a few modifications. Very clean reload features.’

  Stratton looked over the commercially manufactured gun. It seemed straightforward enough. He put it to one side. There would be time to familiarise himself with it later.

  ‘The harness is a quick-release system . . . legs, hips, chest and head.’ Binning picked up the frame and turned it over. ‘It leaves your arms free to operate the recorder.’ He dug out a sturdy plastic-moulded waterproof box, unfastened the lid and took from it a complex-looking device that looked like a set of adapted night-vision goggles. ‘This is the recorder . . . it obviously fits over one’s face,’ he said. ‘You simply turn it on, look at the hull through the optics and the device will do the rest.’ He took a file of printed paper out of the box. ‘Here are the operating details. You’ll need to read them thoroughly before you play with it. One word of warning, though. This button here arms the device . . . yes, I did say arm. Once it’s activated, when you remove the memory card here - which is all you need to bring back with you once you’ve completed the task - the recorder will self-destruct. It’s not a big bang or anything like that. It releases a chemical inside that destroys all the hardware. Very important. We don’t think the Russians have anything close to its sophistication and we don’t want them getting their hands on it.’

  Stratton held the device and scanned the first page of the instructions. He put them both down, more interested in the harness. That was the part his life would depend on.

  ‘Any burning question
s?’ Binning asked.

  Stratton picked up a bolt and placed it through one of the holes on the frame.

  ‘You’ll need all five in place to ensure stability,’ Binning advised him.

  ‘How do you release the frame afterwards?’ Stratton asked.

  ‘Good question,’ the young scientist said. ‘The eyelets detach from the frame itself,’ he said, demonstrating how.

  ‘You’re still left with the bolts in the rock,’ Stratton pointed out.

  ‘It’s the best we could do in the time we had. All I can suggest is that you cover the bolts with stones. I understand the value of the information gained on this operation will not be comprom - ised by the other side knowing we have it. Only complete deniability was on the wish list.’

  Stratton wasn’t overjoyed. Masking an operative’s presence on target reduced the risk of pursuit. But he didn’t expect a scientist to think like an operative so he kept his criticisms to himself.

  ‘It’s all pretty straightforward,’ Binning added.

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ Stratton muttered.

  Mike scrutinised the scientist. ‘Who did the live trials on this?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Five runs in all. On the last two the propeller was barely a metre above me.’

  Stratton looked quizzically at the scientist who was wearing a cocky grin.

  Binning picked his coat up from the back of a chair. ‘Why don’t I leave you to look it all over?’ he said. ‘I’ll be outside getting some fresh air if you need me.’ He paused at the door to look back at them. ‘If you don’t feel up to it, I’ll do it.’ Then he went out.

  Stratton and Mike looked at each other, both wondering the same thing: was Binning Jervis’s alternative underwater specialist?

  ‘Couldn’t be,’ Mike said.

  Stratton shrugged. ‘Jervis is a civvy as well, remember. That means he thinks like one.’ He went back to the equipment.

  ‘What do you think?’ Mike asked, holding up the frame and testing its strength.

  ‘It’s not a great plan,’ Stratton mused. ‘I hope the infil and exfil are tighter.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ll do it?’

  Stratton was well aware of his own natural inability to refuse practically any operation, especially an unusual one. And as always he justified the decision by telling himself that he could pull out if things did not go to plan. But then, he wasn’t very good at doing that either. Other factors came into play in this case, though. The high-intensity work he had been busy with of late had become mundane. It was relatively simple. The weather and terrain of Afghanistan made the tasks challenging and their nature, either hits or observation posts, made them highly dangerous, yet they had become repetitive. The diving task sounded different. And it had something else that Stratton prized: he would be doing it alone. That gave the job a high score as far as he was concerned. If he passed on this he could be back in Afghanistan within the week. ‘We’ll give it a go,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll let the team know,’ Mike said, heading for the door. ‘The detailed briefing will be in about an hour. You’ll have to be on the road by midday.’

  Stratton nodded, despite a distant concern tugging at him.

  ‘You’re a total tart, aren’t you? You can never say no,’ Mike said as he went out.

  Stratton picked up the recorder’s operating instructions and began to read them.

  2

  The operative walked along an empty beach in near-darkness, his breath misting with each exhalation. White and gold lights from distant boats and a far-off shoreline glinted on the water. A light wind toyed with the harsh hinterland grass, the sound it made giving way to the lapping waves and the noise of his boots crunching the sand beneath, breaking the grains bonded by frozen moisture.

  Stratton pulled up the collar of his jacket against the biting cold. The temperature must have been in the double minus digits now that the sun had dropped out of sight. He kept away from the water’s edge, walking close to the scrubland to reduce his silhouette.

  The end of the northern mole that formed one side of the entrance to Sevastopol harbour lay less than a mile up ahead. The harbour’s illuminations had been quite visible when Stratton started out, in particular the bright red intermittent beacon at the far end of the northern mole and the green one on the tip of the southern one. A gentle bend in the coastline had put them out of sight for the moment. He did not expect to see either one again until he was in the water.

  He checked the glowing face of the small GPS in his hand. The directional arrow had been pointing directly ahead when he’d first stepped onto the beach after leaving the rental car outside a quiet bar. Over the last dozen or so metres it had begun to turn towards the dense vegetation.

  When the arrow pointed at a right angle to the shore Stratton stopped and took a moment to look around. He could not see another living soul. The sounds of the wind and the surf seemed to grow louder.

  He sat down at the edge of the sand and looked out over the water, as if taking in the stark scenery. The bell of a distant buoy clanged somewhere across the black, shimmering water. Stratton felt conscious of the possibility that someone was watching him. Whoever it was would not be obvious. But he had reason to feel confident that he was not being monitored - not by the Russians, at least. Someone had followed him from the airport that afternoon to the small villa where he was staying. When he went out an hour or so later he identified his watcher, an old man who looked like a schoolteacher. The tail appeared to be quite good, not looking at Stratton even once. The watcher worked for MI6 and was not so much keeping tabs on the operative as looking for others who might be. Stratton had been warned to expect a friendly shadow. If the man had followed him along the beach there was no sign.

  Stratton leaned back and eased himself into the scrub. He was most vulnerable now. He couldn’t play the tourist card if security forces interrupted him. Once he’d made contact with the equipment he would be screwed if they found him. Stratton didn’t hesitate.

  Once he was completely hidden he turned onto his front and crawled through the tall grass. A check of the GPS indicated a waypoint five metres away. Stratton slithered into a tiny clearing and towards a patch of freshly disturbed earth. He dug at it with his hands. It did not take long to reveal a black canvas bag similar to the one Binning had brought to the SBS HQ.

  Stratton unbuckled the straps and unzipped the bag. Clouds shielded most of the starlight but he could identify the familiar contents by touch: a dry diving bag, a complete set of diving accessories, a Lar 5 bubble-less rebreather primed and ready for use, lightweight body armour, a bolt gun and the now familiar frame and harness system. He took two final items from the bag: the electronic recorder inside its protective plastic casing and a P11 underwater pistol in a plastic holster. The sole weapon he had been permitted fired just as well on land. With only six rounds and no reload, its main advantage other than being able to fire underwater was a good one: because it had no moving parts and fired the slender tungsten darts electronically it was a truly silent weapon.

  Stratton checked his watch. He had ample time to get ready. He took off his boots and coat and rolled out the rubber diving bag, a one-piece outfit with a long waterproof zip that ran across the back from elbow to elbow. He eased his feet all the way inside to the thin rubber booties on the ends of the leggings and pushed his hands through the wrist seals. The roomy bag could accommodate his clothes, including a thick woolly fleece to protect him against the cold temperature of the water. Before pulling his head through the neck seal that had been dutifully powdered by whoever had packed the equipment bag, he tucked his boots into the diving bag, placing one either side of his thighs, and wrapped his coat around his abdomen.

  After ensuring that the zipper across his back was pulled firmly home he began ferrying the equipment out of the scrub. Whoever had packed the kit had had the good sense to include a nylon belt with numerous lines attached to it
in order to tie the various pieces of equipment to his body.

  Stratton secured each item to its line before sitting down to slide on the fins. He pulled on the body-armour waistcoat, buckled it tight, slipped the breathing apparatus over his head and fastened the sides. He felt like a tortoise. He strapped the bulky P11 pistol to his thigh and, after attaching the strap of the face mask to the back of his neoprene hood, he pulled on a thick pair of gloves.

  He was good to go.

  Getting to his feet, he picked up the frame, bolt gun and recorder and walked backwards into the water. He did not pause and waded into the gentle waves. As the water reached his waist he dropped onto his back and finned away from the shoreline, the equipment dangling beneath him on the lines. The icy water took the weight of the bulk. It seeped into the neoprene hood and gloves but his body heat soon warmed it. The water tasted salty, with a hint of fuel.

  A hundred metres from the shore, invisible to all except the most sophisticatedly equipped, Stratton turned to head parallel with the beach. He finned at a pace that he could sustain for hours, looking up at the clouds. A star or two was visible through the occasional gaps.

  It took half an hour to come level with the beginning of the mole. The slight current had worked against him. With the drag effect of the load, had he finned with less vigour he might have simply maintained his position. He still had plenty of time. The Inessa was not expected to leave her jetty for another hour or so and he would receive a warning when she did.

  He studied the top of the brightly lit concrete mole as he finned along. It appeared to be deserted. A vessel went past a few hundred metres out to sea. It reached the main channel between the moles and went into the harbour. There appeared to be a steady stream of traffic moving in both directions between the ends of the two structures, with a good half-mile between each vessel. Stratton altered direction and gradually closed on the base of the northern breakwater.

  The lights on top of it shone right into his face as he approached the massive concrete mouldings. He moved into the shadows of the parapet that ran around the top some thirty feet above him and manoeuvred himself inside a niche that had been formed by the breakers. Stratton carefully secured the equipment and settled in the lapping water.